Mark

Live your life and make yours an enigma to others | Tech enthusiast | F1 fan | 🇹🇿 🇷🇺

[Ryan Hart @thisdudelikesAI]

A PhD student at Stanford noticed her classmates were asking AI to write their breakup texts.

So she ran a study. It got published in Science, one of the most selective journals in the world.

What she found should make every person who uses ChatGPT for advice deeply uncomfortable.

Her name is Myra Cheng, and the study she ran with her advisor Dan Jurafsky tested 11 of the most widely used AI models on Earth, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and DeepSeek, across nearly 12,000 real social situations.

The first thing they measured was how often AI agrees with you compared to how often a real human would agree with you in the same situation. The answer was 49% more often, and that number is not about warmth or politeness. It means that in nearly half of all situations where a real human would have pushed back, told you that you were wrong, or offered a more honest perspective, the AI simply told you what you wanted to hear instead.

Then they pushed harder. They fed the models thousands of prompts where users described lying to a partner, manipulating a friend, or doing something outright illegal, and the AI endorsed that behavior 47% of the time. Not one model out of eleven. Not a specific version of one product. Every single system they tested, including the ones you are probably using right now, validated harmful behavior nearly half the time it was described.

The second experiment is the part that should genuinely disturb you. They had 2,400 real participants discuss an actual interpersonal conflict from their own life with either a sycophantic AI or a more honest one, and the people who talked to the agreeable AI came out of the conversation more convinced they were right, less willing to apologize, less likely to take responsibility, and measurably less interested in making things right with the other person. They were also more likely to use AI again for advice in the future, which is exactly the mechanism Cheng and Jurafsky identified as the most dangerous part of the whole finding.

The AI is not just telling you what you want to hear. It is training you, one conversation at a time, to need less friction, expect more agreement, and become slightly less capable of handling a situation where someone pushes back on you, and you are enjoying every second of it because it feels more honest than most conversations you have had in months.
Jurafsky said it in a single sentence after the paper came out. Sycophancy is a safety issue, and like other safety issues, it needs regulation and oversight.

Cheng was more direct about what you should actually do right now. She said you should not use AI as a substitute for people for these kinds of things. That is the best thing to do for now.

She started the research because she was watching undergraduates ask chatbots to navigate their relationships for them. The paper she published proved that the chatbot was making those relationships quietly worse, and the undergraduates had no idea it was happening because the AI felt more honest than any human in their life had been in months.

[Kirill Dmitriev @kadmitriev]

🇷🇺🤝🇨🇳

[Nav Toor @heynavtoor]

A Brazilian YouTuber killed the Photoshop subscription.

It's called PhotoGIMP. It takes GIMP, the free image editor, and makes it look and feel exactly like Photoshop.

Same toolbar. Same panel layout. Same keyboard shortcuts. Your hands already know how to use it.

Photoshop vs PhotoGIMP:

- Price: $275.88 a year → $0
- Account: Adobe login required → No login, ever
- Files: Saved to Adobe cloud → Saved on your computer
- Updates: Forced when Adobe says → Only when you want
- Works on: Windows and Mac → Windows, Mac, and Linux

No Adobe account. No cloud upload. No AI trained on your photos.

How small is the patch? Tiny.

→ Nine settings files. That's it.
→ Copy them into one folder. Done.
→ Open GIMP. It now looks like Photoshop.
→ Don't like it? Delete the folder. GIMP goes back to normal.

Three steps to install. One command to uninstall.

8,751 stars. 272 forks. 30+ people from around the world helping translate it.

One honest note: the license is GPL-3.0. Free for everything. Personal work, paid client work, your own edits. No "Pro" tier hiding behind it.

Dionatan Simioni runs the biggest Linux YouTube channel in Brazil. He built this from Marau, a small town in Rio Grande do Sul. No VC. No team. No fundraise.

This is what Photoshop should have been from the start.

(Link in the comments)

[𝑴𝒂𝒌𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒍𝒊  @Makaveli_255]

Wanaweka viraka vinavorudi kuwa mashimo baada ya miezi miwili

[New Direction AFRICA @Its_ereko]

They told the whole world to avoid China. Decouple. De-risk. Sanctions. Tariffs. War rhetoric.

Then 12 US capitalists flew to Beijing to beg the Communist Party for deals.

Elon Musk. Top CEOs. Trump himself. All in China. Smiling. Shaking hands. Asking for business.

The same politicians who call China an "evil empire" are now standing in Beijing with their hands out.

Told Africa to stay away from China. Told Europe to cut ties. Told everyone China is a threat.

But when their economy is burning, when their factories are shutting, when their own system is failing, where do they run?

Beijing.

They do not believe their own lies. They just want you to.

Hypocrisy has no borders. But neither does desperation.

[Rakesh Kumar @Rakeshhkumaar]

HITLER walked through Warsaw.
He walked through Prague.
He walked through Paris.
He walked through Brussels, Amsterdam, Oslo, Copenhagen, Athens, and Belgrade.

But he never walked through Moscow.

That is the part of history many in the West prefer to overlook.

#WorldWarII

[Resko★ @Bloke_Baz]

Not to sound delusional, but please pray for grace. Life isn't really about hard work. It's more about meeting the right people, grace, mercy, and favour.

[Chetuya Chinagolum @Chetuyachinago]

If a nuclear weapon was going to save Iran from U.S. imperialism, their government would have acquired it a long time ago.

People who are pressuring Iran to build nukes have forgotten that Iran was a colossal and dominant empire long before the United States existed. Even at their peak, the Romans could not touch the Persians. The Parthian Empire was a formidable enemy that routinely outmatched Rome in open desert combat with superior military tactics.

In the 16th century, Iran humiliated and expelled the Portuguese and their massive navy by seizing the Strait of Hormuz to reclaim trade routes between the Middle East, India, and Europe. Iran is not a novice in this game. Their leaders are exceptionally calculating. If a nuke was the answer, they would have finished the job decades ago.

The fatal flaw of nuclear weapons is that they are only useful in a total war scenario. Iran will not launch a nuke if Israel blows up their oil refineries or water desalination plants because nuclear warfare would end all civilization in the Middle East. While a nuclear weapon might stop a direct U.S. invasion or Operation Epic Fury, it does not protect Iran from the suffocating grip of U.S. imperialism.

The U.S. empire functions as a predatory Global Operating System built on four pillars. First, the military pillar with over 800 bases scattered across the globe and 150 nuclear warheads in Europe alone. Second, the financial pillar of the petrodollar which enforces economic imperialism. Third, the cultural pillar like Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and social media, which rebrands global desires to match American consumerism. Finally, the corporate pillar, a global network of multinational corporations that integrates foreign economies into the U.S. system.

North Korea managed to unplug from this system, but their success is due to their proximity to China and Russia. Even while isolated, they still trade with China and get oil from Russia to keep the lights on. Iran has a population of nearly 90 million people and is oceans away from these superpowers. They cannot risk totally unplugging. Remember that when Britain blockaded Germany, over 400,000 people died of starvation.

A superpower will not leave you alone just because you have a better military or an impressive nuke. Iran understands that a full scale nuclear project is a trap. Unlike North Korea, Iran is surrounded by U.S. bases and hostile colonies. If they tried to build a warhead now, missiles from Israel, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia would rain on Tehran at an unprecedented scale.

Instead of a nuke, Iran perfected drone technology. Nuclear weapons provide deterrence, but they are practically unusable in everyday geopolitics because using one triggers total annihilation. Conventional missiles and drones are highly usable tools of power. This has allowed Tehran to successfully project power, retaliate against adversaries, and support the Axis of Resistance without triggering a nuclear apocalypse.

If Iran acquires nuclear weapons now, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Turkey, and Egypt will be forced to follow. Iran would be surrounded by nuclear armed adversaries, exposed to the danger of a miscalculation that could trigger a regional end of days.

They made the right decision by slowly enriching uranium to the 60 percent level and mastering the nuclear fuel cycle. They will eventually go higher. Their plan is not to build a bomb today, but to prove they have the knowledge and the material to build one instantly if the strategic environment demands it. This doctrine of latency is a more effective deterrence than the weapon itself.

[Mark @Mark_B_N]

@OrevaZSN 🏴‍☠️

[𝑴𝒂𝒌𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒍𝒊  @Makaveli_255]

Barabara za Arusha ni aibu, kama mahali wanapita watalii ina mashimo namna hii, huko ushenzini itakuaje?

[Mike Bales 🫡🇺🇸 @MikeBales]

Politicians are not celebrities.

They are public servants and they’ve forgotten their place.

[Nicholas Fabiano, MD @NTFabiano]

Addiction to short-form videos is associated with reduction of brain activity in the frontal lobe and weakened focus.

[Truthstream Media @truthstreamnews]

Apparently the Internet wasn't supposed to be a repository of humanity's knowledge. It was meant to capture all of humanity's knowledge so gatekeepers could digitally control it.

Dead Internet Theory is a misnomer. It's more like the First Degree Murdered Internet Theory.

[Oluwagembe @M_Sungwa]

Mko fasta sana kutulinganisha na watu wa mataifa mengine kwenye dhiki ila linapokuja suala la maendeleo, uchumi na uwajibikaji mnageuka vipofu 🚮

[Seyed Abbas Araghchi @araghchi]

Remember the Western outrage about hostilities near Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine?

Israel-U.S. have bombed our Bushehr plant four times now. Radioactive fallout will end life in GCC capitals, not Tehran.

Attacks on our petrochemicals also convey real objectives.

[Martin Maranja Masese @IAMartin_]

Kulinganisha bei ya bidhaa kama mafuta (petroli/dizeli/mafuta ya taa) kati ya nchi iliyoendelea na nchi inayokua bila kuangalia uwezo wa kununua (Purchasing Power) ni kujaribu kupotosha ukweli halisi wa hali ya maisha.

Tofauti ya Kipato cha Wastani (GDP per Capita) ndiyo kigezo kikubwa zaidi kinatumika hapa. Hata kama lita ya mafuta Norway ni ghali mara mbili ya Tanzania, kipato cha raia wa Norway ni kikubwa mara hamsini zaidi.

Uwezo wa Kununua Mafuta (Fuel Affordability); hapa utapaswa kuangalia asilimia ya kipato cha kila siku kinachohitajika kununua lita moja ya mafuta kwa nchi hizo ulizotaja (Mfano Netherlands) na Tanzania.

Mtu wa kawaida Norway au Netherlands ana mapato mara 50 au 70 zaidi ya mtu wa Tanzania. Hii inamaanisha kuwa gharama yoyote (hata ndogo) inachukua sehemu kubwa zaidi ya bajeti ya familia ya Kitanzania.

Tanzania (data 2018–2022, bado inatumika kama kiashiria) na inaonyesha 51.3% ya watu wanaishi chini ya $2.15 kwa siku (umaskini mkali wa kimataifa). Karibu 70% wanaishi kwa kipato cha chini ya $3.65 kwa siku.

Katika nchi za Norway, Sweden au Netherlands raia wa kawaida katika nchi hizo anatumia chini ya 1% ya kipato chake cha siku kununua lita moja ya mafuta. Kwao, mafuta ni gharama ndogo sana (pocket change).

Mtanzania wa kawaida anayepata kipato cha wastani wa Tsh 15,000 kwa siku, akitakiwa kununua lita moja ya mafuta kwa Tsh 3,800, anatumia zaidi ya 20% ya kipato chake cha siku kwa ajili ya kununua lita moja tu.

Kwa akili ya kawaida tu, maumivu anayoyasikia Mtanzania wa kawaida kwa kununua lita moja ya mafuta ya petrolo na dizeli ni makubwa mara 20 zaidi ya anayoyasikia raia wa Netherlands au Norway.

Katika nchi kama Sweden, Norway na Netherlands, mfumo wa kodi unarudisha huduma bora za kijamii (shule bure, bima ya afya ya uhakika, usafiri wa umma wa kisasa). Hii kitaalam inaitwa ‘disposable income’

Tanzania, raia wa kawaida anapaswa kutoa fedha mfukoni kwa ajili ya kugharamia ada ya shule, matibabu (ambayo ni gharama kubwa), na usafiri binafsi kwa sababu usafiri wa umma haujitoshelezi.

Wakati raia wa Norway akimaliza kununua mafuta, anabakiwa na pesa nyingi ya ziada (disposable income). Mtanzania wa kawaida akimaliza kununua mafuta na chakula, mara nyingi anabaki na deni au sifuri

Ulaya, mifumo ya hifadhi ya jamii inawalinda masikini. Tanzania, mfumuko wa bei wa bidhaa za chakula una athari ya moja kwa moja, zaidi ya 50% ya kipato cha kaya Tanzania huishia kwenye chakula pekee.

Kujaribu kulinganisha bei ya bidhaa za mafuta ya Tanzania (Tsh 3,900) na ya Netherlands (Tsh 6,000) bila kuhusisha GDP per Capita ni sawa na kulinganisha uzito wa chungwa na uzito wa basi la abiria.

Pamoja na kwamba mnafanya kazi ya kuitetea Serikali katili ya mbogamboga, jitahidini kuwaonea watanzania huruma. Mafuta yakipanda bei katika pampu, athari za kiuchumi katika maisha ya kawaida ni kubwa.

[Masoud Pezeshkian @drpezeshkian]

To the people of the United States of America

[Mark @Mark_B_N]

@Beneharo @TheOliverStone Same,using vpn connected to UK

[Yasha Levine @yashalevine]

log off. read a book. go for a walk. make love. call your mom. plant some tomatoes. your addiction to information will not change anything.

[Sherwin Bryce-Pease @sherwiebp]

The U.N. General Assembly has adopted a draft resolution that unequivocally condemns the trafficking of enslaved Africans and the transatlantic slave trade as the most inhumane and enduring injustice against humanity.

123 in favour
3 Against (USA, Israel, Argentina)
52 abstentions

The resolution also seeks to recognize the profound and lasting impacts of the abhorrent regimes of slavery and colonialism and emphasizes that claims for reparations represent a concrete step towards remedying historical wrongs against Africans and people of African descent.

#sabcnews