> Amnesty International finds that standalone generative AI systems, based on unlawful web scraping, depend on mass invasions of privacy by design, and are fundamentally incompatible with IHRL
This briefing examines how standalone generative AI systems, based on unlawful web scraping, are in conflict with international human rights law (IHRL) and standards through their design, development and deployment.
> In our analysis, we find that both the scale of this data gathering for training purposes and the representational issues in the training data span multiple international human rights laws and standards, from privacy violations and non-consensual data collection, to discrimination, harassment, and threats to the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of thought.
This briefing examines how standalone generative AI systems, based on unlawful web scraping, are in conflict with international human rights law (IHRL) and standards through their design, development and deployment.
> Many of the fundamental design features of the generative AI products discussed within this briefing, in particular those pertaining to OpenAI, Google, DeepSeek, Meta, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion appear incompatible with aspects of international human rights law and standards. The design principles of these products involve massive data collection without consent, biased training processes and the potential for manipulative outputs.
This briefing examines how standalone generative AI systems, based on unlawful web scraping, are in conflict with international human rights law (IHRL) and standards through their design, development and deployment.
@datarama AFAICT that's just the list of AI products that was the focus of their investigation. Their call for a prohibition of all these systems is for all systems of these kinds and makes no exception for Anthropic or anybody else.
Not that this isn't valuable work on the part of Amnesty International, but there's a 0.0001% chance that their call will be heeded. Governments are rather worried that their countries aren't developing AI fast enough
@abucci @datarama Amnesty's call for prohibiting all standalone generative AI systems does not make an exception for Anthropic or anybody else. Their observations and conclusions apply to all systems of the type. I think it's completely unreasonable to assume foul play.
@datarama@hachyderm.io By my count Anthropic's name appears in the report 7 times, and only in connection with its dealings with the US DoW. A charitable read of the one paragraph and its references is that the report lets Anthropic off the hook, laying most blame with the DoW. Indeed several of the mentions of Anthropic were about how the DoW labelled it a supply chain risk because of its public statements against using Claude for domestic surveillance, painting Anthropic is a positive light. By contrast, OpenAI appears 30 times, Google appears 26 times, Meta 38. Even DeepSeek appears 16 times. Given that Anthropic has just overtaken OpenAI in Monopoly money valuation, the discrepancy is noteworthy.
There is every reason to believe that the conspicuous absence of Anthropic's name from this quoted list isn't an accident. Anthropic has been extremely deliberate (and in my view cynical ) in their attempts to paint the company as the "ethical" AI vendor, which goes rig
... Show more...
@datarama@hachyderm.io By my count Anthropic's name appears in the report 7 times, and only in connection with its dealings with the US DoW. A charitable read of the one paragraph and its references is that the report lets Anthropic off the hook, laying most blame with the DoW. Indeed several of the mentions of Anthropic were about how the DoW labelled it a supply chain risk because of its public statements against using Claude for domestic surveillance, painting Anthropic is a positive light. By contrast, OpenAI appears 30 times, Google appears 26 times, Meta 38. Even DeepSeek appears 16 times. Given that Anthropic has just overtaken OpenAI in Monopoly money valuation, the discrepancy is noteworthy.
There is every reason to believe that the conspicuous absence of Anthropic's name from this quoted list isn't an accident. Anthropic has been extremely deliberate (and in my view cynical ) in their attempts to paint the company as the "ethical" AI vendor, which goes right up to having Chris Oleh able to say a few words in the room when the Pope announced his encyclical. There too the Pope seemed to be implicating Anthropic in his critique of AI, yet Anthropic was present and able to shape and craft how that critique landed and to suggest they were poised to rise above it. This is not an accident---they are quite adept at PR, and controlling the narrative is rule #1.
Fake green fairytale claims humanity can maintain current levels of consumption (a lie) with renewables (a lie) which are already displacing fossil fuels (a lie) and therefore reach net zero (a lie) to bring temperatures down to safe levels (a lie) and that the critics of the energy transition are all funded or influenced by the fossil fuel industry (a lie) so proponents of green globalist aims are ethical in doing whatever it takes to achieve their aims (a lie).
Self-deception is rife within the environmental profession and movement. Some denial is not surprising, due to how upsetting it is to focus on an unfolding tragedy. But our vulnerability to self-de…
"Over 80% of current primary energy generation is from fossil fuels. Even if we tried to switch everything to electric and generate the power from nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, geothermal, tidal and wave, then we wouldn’t have enough metals for either the wire or the batteries. For instance we would need 250 years of annual production of copper for the wire and 4000 times the annual production of lithium. Mining is an ecologically damaging activity."
Self-deception is rife within the environmental profession and movement. Some denial is not surprising, due to how upsetting it is to focus on an unfolding tragedy. But our vulnerability to self-de…
@PeterGray Thanks. And we must raise our voices constantly even though those on the Left and Right laugh at us as being naive and unrealistic, and not able to face reality.
@liiwi Far more important is to bring consumption down. 10% of the global population do 50% of the damage. The 50% poorest have 10% of the negtive impact.
It is the European and North American middle class that must degrow.
(Population decline is already happening in many societies.)
Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.
@liiwi I know of his work. He's more realistic than most. But it's all delusional, the idea that we just face a CO2 problem and if we fix that, everything is ok. We face so many other crises driven by our vast over-consumption and horrendous toxic waste.
"The claim that renewables are already displacing fossil fuels is not true. Instead, globally, renewables are providing additional energy, with fossil fuel usage also increasing. There is no sign of global energy demand declining or any policies aimed at that. We all know that having a side salad with our pie and chips doesn’t make the belly disappear."
Self-deception is rife within the environmental profession and movement. Some denial is not surprising, due to how upsetting it is to focus on an unfolding tragedy. But our vulnerability to self-de…
that is not true. Electricity replaces fossil fuels in heating and transport. We will need way more electricity than we used to, because everything will be electrified. And this growth is performed by renewables.
This entry was edited (Friday, May 1, 2026, 10:00 AM)
Don't know if your statement is accurate globally, it's definitely not accurate at the national level in Australia where renewables have been eating into fossil fuel profits in a big way in our electricity/stationary energy grids for over a decade (probably soon in transport too). Not disagreeing about capitalism, growth etc in general though.
@bencourtice "In 2024, fossil fuels supplied 85% of direct primary energy consumption; wind turbine and solar panel (W&S) electricity gave us only ~3%." William Rees pelicanweb.org/solisustv22n05p…
And wind and solar are not renewable. They have massive mining impacts and require huge quantities of fossil fuels to mine and manufacture. Solar is cheap now because of massive overcapacity in China, and because solar is made there by the Uighur enslaved.
@bencourtice The only possible way forward for humanity is a massive (80% plus reduction in energy and materials). That will (sadly) probably result in the end of global systems such as Mastodon. If we are to survive, we will all be living locally, with local resources.
that is usually a conclusion people start from, and work their way back to "therefore renewables must not work" by cherry-picking the evidence. Which would explain your false assertions about the sustainability of wind farms and solar panels, which are very clearly reducing greenhouse emissions in many electricity grids.
The fossil fuel (and nuclear) industry love arguments like yours because they know the primitivist implications of it will turn people towards apathy instead of challenging the big energy monopolies. But I'm sure you've heard this before and will keep cherry picking data to suit your foregone conclusions.
What is this angry rant trying to achieve? It doesn't offer alternatives, hope or a way out. We already have plenty of people warning us of coming doom and gloom but those are a call to action. And then this: "Fifth, the claim that achieving net zero emissions would bring temperatures down to safe levels within just a few years is not true. " What? Who's claiming that? And claiming methane is the long term problem is just false. It's the effects of CO2 that linger 😠
@goerp I don't think it's an angry rant, as you say. We are trying to solve the wrong problem so that we don't have to face up to the real problem, which is massive over-consumption. The tech optimists have done so much damage with their false promises of salvation through technology. Only massively less technology and massively less consumption and waste has any hope of saving our species. CO2 and methane are just two problems: soil collapse, plastics, chemical overload, drought ...
The Chinese refused to set emission targets claiming ”we need to invest in our economy, catch up with the west and then we'll reduce our emissions". Which they are doing now. India is making a LOT of progress. Its mostly the west that is regressing. The essay ignores positives and distorts facts to fit it's own narrative.
Saying that "it's just this one thing that is the cause and anyone saying different is lying or stupid" is the symptom of a closed (and angry) mind.
"The claim that the world can reach net zero carbon emissions is a lie. Not only is that due to the previous two lies about energy production and demand. Not only is that due to the limitations of any carbon removal technologies and approaches, for getting CO2 out of the atmosphere. It is also because of the fundamental role of fossilised or natural gas in current industrial agriculture."
Self-deception is rife within the environmental profession and movement. Some denial is not surprising, due to how upsetting it is to focus on an unfolding tragedy. But our vulnerability to self-de…
"In 2025, fossil fuel growth ceased entirely. Clean sources met all the growth in electricity demand, with solar alone providing three-quarters (75%) of the rise, a complete reversal of the fossil-dominated growth pattern that defined the global power sector from its inception until the mid-2010s." ember-energy.org/latest-insigh…
"Natural gas demand rose globally by 78 billion cubic meters (1.9%) in 2024, reaching 4,122 billion cubic meters (bcm), and is expected to continue growing in 2025 by 71 bcm" igu.org/igu-reports/global-gas…
Energy · Oil market · Production Updated: February 2026 (using the latest full-year estimates and end-2025 revisions from EIA and IEA). Oil supply growth in 2025 ended up stronger than most early-year expectations, even as demand growth slowed.
It's time to intentionally slow down the technology in our lives so our brains (and often our emotions) have time to react, think, and respond appropriately. We do not always have to maximize efficiency and minimize friction.
> any sufficiently well-trained answer is indistinguishable from profound thought.
on the useful-idiots commentary, did you follow how user age verification got into linux? A legal compliance enthusiast commited some self-professed unworkable garbage along the lines that it was intended to be like the new californian operating-system-user-age-collection law, which some microsoft employees immediately merged. Then, its reversion was blocked by an IBM employee.
“In Finland, the number of homeless people has fallen sharply. Those affected receive a small apartment & counselling with no preconditions. 4 out of 5 people affected make their way back to a stable life. And all this is CHEAPER than accepting homelessness.” IT SAVES PUBLIC MONEY to house people.
After our current Finnish MAGA administration here started working three years ago we’re now crunching new big numbers of homelessness. The homeless used to be people with addiction problems, now they include 80-year-olds as well as babies. The neoliberal racists in charge now whine on Facebook every day that people don’t like them, even after how well they’ve governed the country (created mass unemployment, record stats of it, all in order to make labour cheaper and to get housing removed from homeowners to landlords.)
#TheOnion going hard at #SamAltman. It's hard to pick, but I think this is my favorite line: "Why did you decide to devote your life to AI? I just saw so much suffering in the world that needed to be automated." #OpenAI #funny #humor theonion.com/the-onions-exclus…
While leading OpenAI, Sam Altman has weathered leaked internal memos, an attempt to oust him as CEO, and widespread skepticism about artificial intelligence’s role in society.
The automation of suffering has always been a primary matter of social engineering. You can steer it with better commercial results than with happiness. Could be that torture has definitely evolved.
While leading OpenAI, Sam Altman has weathered leaked internal memos, an attempt to oust him as CEO, and widespread skepticism about artificial intelligence’s role in society.
I also want to add that Iranians who have been living in the English-speaking countries are not immune to this kind of brain-rot she is talking about in her article. Many of us are so extremely isolated from reality that we exhibit this kind of near-psychopathic behavior. It is shameful.
If you do oppose war and don’t want to be triggered, of if you have experienced it first hand and have PTSD as a result, I wouldn’t include you in that shameful group of people.
But if you just don’t want to think about it because it is upsetting and you feel you have the right to be happy and mind your own business, or if you are making excuses, blaming the victims for supporting their own evil government and therefore that justifies whatever ill fate besets them, you have a responsibility to see the effects of your decision, for example, the bloody, dead children lying in rubble.
I also want to add that Iranians who have been living in the English-speaking countries are not immune to this kind of brain-rot she is talking about in her article. Many of us are so extremely isolated from reality that we exhibit this kind of near-psychopathic behavior. It is shameful.
If you do oppose war and don’t want to be triggered, of if you have experienced it first hand and have PTSD as a result, I wouldn’t include you in that shameful group of people.
But if you just don’t want to think about it because it is upsetting and you feel you have the right to be happy and mind your own business, or if you are making excuses, blaming the victims for supporting their own evil government and therefore that justifies whatever ill fate besets them, you have a responsibility to see the effects of your decision, for example, the bloody, dead children lying in rubble. Pasting part of the article here (begin quote):
War is the worst thing in the world. Westerners talk about it like it’s a fucking video game, like “hurr durr, we just go in there and achieve our objectives and win,” when really war means shredding human bodies to bits.
Children burning to death in front of their parents.
People holding their own guts in their hands as their life slowly slips away.
People getting trapped under rubble and dying excruciatingly slow deaths of suffocation or dehydration.
People picking up pieces of their beloved family members.
Westerners are able to hold this compartmentalized video game mentality about war because war isn’t something that happens to us. We’ve never had bombs dropped on our neighborhoods. We’ve never had the experience of seeing a severed hand on the ground after an explosion and trying to figure out who it belonged to. We’ve never had the experience of seeing our child’s shredded body after a blast and thinking about how we’d carefully helped them dress that precious body for school just hours before.
We just see the movies. The propagandistic war documentaries. The sanitized news reports.
It’s not real to us. It’s not personal. It’s just this cutesy Hollywood image of sexy Good Guys doing flips and spin-kicking evil Bad Guys off cliffs.
You know this is true, because if it wasn’t then nobody would support US wars. If westerners had an actual, visceral understanding of what war really is and what it actually means, and if they could truly, deeply grasp that the people on the receiving end of those airstrikes are human beings just like them, there’s no way they’d support inflicting such nightmares upon their fellow man.
Which is why everything in our civilization is aimed at hiding that reality from us. War is made to look heroic and glamorous. Middle easterners are framed as deranged subhuman savages. The flesh-and-bone consequences of western warmongering are hidden from public view as much as possible.
>> Two years ago today [29 Feb. 2024], as hundreds of starving Palestinians waited in line for humanitarian aid, including flour for bread, the Israeli military opened fire, killing over 100 Palestinians and wounding over 700.
>> They massacred people seeking bread for their families.
>> Two years later, we have seen the Israeli military continue to use famine as a weapon of war …
>> These are the same tools of intentional starvation and mass slaughter used in past genocides, and which we, as Jews, recognize as used by Nazi Germany in the Holocaust…
>> We will not look away, and we will not be silent. We will not rest until Palestinians in Gaza have access to all human rights including to food, water, shelter, and self-determination.
7,919 likes, 46 comments - jewishvoiceforpeace on March 1, 2026: "Two years ago today, as hundreds of starving Palestinians waited in line for humanitarian aid, including flour for bread, the Israeli military opened fire, killing over 100 Palestinian…
Several Vic regions are code-red catastrophic fire danger for Friday. It’s time to start preparing NOW if you’re in an affected area. byteseu.com/1696467/ #Australia #Melbourne
World renowned medical journal, The Lancet, has published data concluding that US imposed sanctions cause the deaths of more than 564,000 people each year.
More than half of the dead are children under the age of 5.
Christo. London, England.
in reply to Ethan Timothy 🇺🇬 • • •Ethan Timothy 🇺🇬
in reply to Christo. London, England. • • •