These are one of those things that are hard to get statistics of due to the nature of the subject, but going to any website that features AI generated content like CivitAI will show you a lot more naked AI generated women than men, and that the images of women are greatly better in quality than the men. None of the people actually exist, of course, but some things stem from this:
1. There are probably AI portals that are OK with uploading nonconsensual sexual images of people. I am not about to go looking for those, but the ratio of women to men on those sites is likely similar.
2. The fact that the quality of women is better than the quality of men speaks to vastly more training being done on women
3. Because there's so much training on women it's just easier to use AI for nefarious purposes on women than men (have to find custom trained LORAs to get male anatomy right, for example).
I did try to look for statistics out of curiosity, but most just cite a number without evidence.
Obviously there is more interest in generating images of naked women, since naked women look better than naked men. It’s not some kind of patriarchal conspiracy.
It is obvious, but again that's subjective (I'm a straight male so of course I find it to be true but I'm not sure straight women would agree). The person I was responding to was asking if evidence existed, so I was curious to see if evidence did indeed exist.
In addition to AI-specific data, the existing volume and consumption patterns for non-AI pornography can be extrapolated to AI, I think, with high confidence.
These were probably written against the old-school Win32. It's pretty easy to fix.
Right-click on the `.exe`
Properties
Compatibility tab
Change settings for all users
Change high DPI settings
Under 'High DPI scaling override' section, tick box for 'Override high DPI scaling behaviour. Scaling performed by'
In the drop-down box below, select 'Application'
Done.
For MMC snap-ins like `diskmgmt.msc`, `services.msc`, or `devmgr.msc`, there's a Registry key you can set. See this ServerFault question: https://serverfault.com/q/570785/535358
The 'doing it right' part is from how it should be done, but it still needs application support.
The thing is X11/Xorg can also theoretically do the same thing (and most likely Wayland too) but it needs, you guessed it, application (and window manager / compositor) support.
This seems insightful. I was going to comment elsewhere that some people seem to find structured systems really bothersome, whereas I personally just do not. But I am an INTJ, if anything. The idea of not taking a systems approach feels incredibly foreign, to the extent I can’t even really imagine where one would start.
How do you approach improving your personal outcomes related to ADHD without developing a system?
The short answer is that I try to maximize the strengths and minimize the struggles of ADHD.
Some practical examples:
- I have a job without any long-term projects (only long-term goals), so I never get bored from my tasks.
- I keep my evening schedules clear so I have room to be spontaneous in my hobbies after work. This is prabably made easier by being an introvert as I don't have the need to socialize often.
- I nurture an attitude toward my hobbies which is that the process in itself is always the goal. That it is okay to not finish a project as long as I keep learning new things.
- I depricate any stressfull commitment which is neither important or meaningfull long-term.
Also medication helps to overcome the menial hurdels.
As an ADHD person, this app looks like a repackaging (with nice design) of all the stuff I’ve built up over years - habit tracking, daily/weekly/yearly reflection, detailed task management, etc.
This isn’t for me (because I’ve already built a system that works), but this looks like something that would be very useful. For the target user who does feel stuck and hasn’t successfully built their system, this looks like a phenomenal product.
I appreciate the emphasis on self-reflection and perhaps the implied focus on continuous improvement.
Over the last few years I implemented a weekly self-review + planning practice (think solo agile retrospective), and my life has been on a steady trajectory of improvement since.
Edit: commenting on the product concept, not the company, pricing, or concerning tracking practices.
Glad to hear you've built a system that works for you! We've also heard from a lot of our beta users that they've tried to cobble together something similar, and a lot of their feedback and ideas is what we used to build this initial version (in collaboration with our Research Lab to integrate the latest methods too). Many of them weren't able to push their self-built systems over the finish line or maintain it, due to ADHD challenges though. Our goal is to build a flexible enough system that it can be adapted for various learning styles (in practice we're still far off from where we want to be) and continue building agents on top of it that make science-backed exercises and methods more accessible. A lot of the best practices are currently gated behind long textbooks and scattered PDF worksheets so I'm really excited about making this more accessible. For example, this week we're working on an "energy accounting" agent that's widely used (in varying formats) across ADHD practitioners that many ADHDers know they want to do theoretically but haven't found the way to follow through on it.
I love the weekly self review and planning practice you mention; I do a similar one with myself and my co-founder each week and have started moving that process into Indy recently!
Here is my template from obsidian that I use for my weekly reflection - customize reflection based on your values and priorities. I have goals to improve work-life balance, social connections (social isolation was a factor driving poor outcomes, and through deliberate consistent effort I have solved this problem).
Hyper scheduling: https://dev.to/maxpatiiuk/series/32301 (I stumbled upon this and implemented a form of it, although mostly I just like the colors in my calendar)
- [ ] Review year compass
- [ ] Review journal entries from the week
- [ ] Review last week's reflection
## Quick summary
> *Headline for the week*:
## Basic planning
- [ ] Set up outline of the week in Outlook
- [ ] Plan a fun weekend activity:
- [ ] Plan to visit one new restaurant:
- [ ] Plan one meet up or social activity:
- meditation (I combine with a fancy LED face mask to help reinforce the habit via my desire to combat wrinkles and acne - the cryoglow is better at acne than wrinkles so far)
- exercise (you can add notes)
- evening leisure time (if I don’t have dedicated leisure time, I end up revenge bedtime procrastinating/doomscrolling)
- stretching (there are two simple band stretching exercises that solved what I thought would be life-long neck and shoulder pain)
When I really struggle with productivity, I find the pomodoro system is a good bootstrap, and TickTick makes it easy to start. I like seeing the pomos on the built-in calendar.
I have a ton of respect for your approach. That said, as someone without ADHD, it seems somewhat odd that an inability to kick off executive function would be well addressed by adding an additional activity that requires executive function. Like, if I had to plan my day out with this document before doing things, I think I'd grow to dread the process, and be even more stymied - i.e. if it was hard to go clean the kitchen, why wouldn't it be hard to go write my dayplan?
Yet, I do hear this sort of thing works for people. I'd love to know more about what you experience and why this helps.
TickTick gives me reminders to do some of these things - daily reflection is a “habit” and weekly reflection is a recurring task. That helps me not forget. There’s still value in doing the daily plan regardless of whether I do it right after I wake up (things are going well) or if I do it many hours later when I realize my day has not gone well and I want to get back on track.
The calendars and checklists really help with not forgetting things, and getting back on task once distracted. I can have 100 adhd moments; the system can’t prevent that, but it can help me find my way back to shore when I’m lost at sea.
I don’t really struggle with kitchen cleaning, but sometimes I do set out to clean the kitchen and end up folding laundry or scrolling instead. I can do that but if I haven’t checked off “clean the kitchen”, I know to come back to it.
The weekly reflection is a chore but I set aside time for it, and I keep doing it because it works. I can spend an hour doing deep reflection, or I can rush through it, there is value either way. It is really just a check list, and check lists are very ADHD friendly.
Separately, I find that physical and mental health improve performance regardless - so a system that improves these factors _is_ a system that helps with ADHD. Getting to bed on time, and building the system that produces that outcome, is an ADHD-friendly system. I struggle with this, but I try to get better over time by experimenting and adjusting.
The reality is that the system will not solve ADHD problems, the system is just a tool - you still have to do the work. Same for the app that is being shared.
I have ADHD & use a very similar kind of daily notes template. I think the reason that it works for me at least is that it shortcuts some of the "not knowing where to start" executive function issues at the start of the day. I only need to remember one thing: open a new daily notes template. The checklist itself chains other good habits off the back of that, reminding me to e.g. make sure I've taken my meds, make coffee, put music on, think about what I've done recently & if there's anything to pick up again or dive back into & what I'm going to do for the day etc.
Yes, it can feel like a chore at times (especially forcing myself to do more in-depth periodic reflections) but without a system like this, I quickly find myself completely rudderless & my mental health & productivity both collapse pretty quickly.
You'll actually hear quite frequently that people diagnosed relatively late in life went under the radar for so long exactly because we developed our own massively over compensating systems like this & can appear (externally at least) to almost have the exact opposite of "executive function issues"!
> Look at my drafts that were started within the last three months and then check that I didn’t publish them on simonwillison.net using a search against content on that site and then suggest the ones that are most close to being ready
This is a very detailed, particular prompt. The type of prompt a programmer would think of as they were trying to break down a task into something that can be implemented. It is so programmer-brained that I come away not convinced that a typical user would be able to write it.
This isn’t an AI skepticism post - the fact that it handles the prompt well is very impressive. But I’m skeptical that the target user is thinking clearly enough to prompt this well.
Since LLMs were introduced, I've been of the belief that this technology actually makes writing a *more* important skill to develop than less. So far that belief has held. No matter how advanced the model gets, you'll get better results if you can clarify your thoughts well in written language.
There may be a future AI-based system that can retain so much context it can kind of just "get what you mean" when you say off-the-cuff things, but I believe that a user that can think, speak, and write clearly will still have a skill advantage over one that does not.
FWIW, I've heard many people say that with voice dictation they ramble to LLMs and by speaking more words can convey their meaning well, even if their writing quality is low. I don't do this regularly, but when I have tried it, it seemed to work just as well as my purposefully-written prompts. I can imagine a non-technical person rambling enough that the AI gets what they mean.
Thats a fair counterpoint, and it has helped translate my random thoughts into more coherent text. I also haven't taken advantage of dictation much at all either, so maybe I'll give it a try. I still think the baseline skill that writing gives you translates to an LLM-use skill, which is thinking clearly and knowing how to structure your thoughts. Maybe folks can get that skill in other ways (oration, art, etc.). I don't need to give it essays, but I do need to give it clear instructions. Every time it spins off and does something I don't want, its because I didn't clarify my thoughts correctly.
Setting up SpeechNote with Kokoro is one of the the best things I've ever done.
I can speak faster than I type, and the flow state is much smoother when you can just dump a stream of consciousness into the context window in a matter of seconds. And the quality of the model is insane for something that runs locally, on reasonable hardware no less.
Swearing at an LLM is also much more fun when done verbally.
The prompt the user enters is actually not the prompt. Most agents will have an additional background step to use the user's prompt to generate the actual, detailed instructions, which is then used as the actual prompt for code generation. That's how the ability to build a website from "create a website that looks like twitter" is achieved.
My 85 year-old father could probably resolve 90% of his personal technology problems using an LLM. But for the same reason every phone call on these subjects ends with me saying "can it wait until I come over for lunch next week to take a look?", an LLM isn't a viable solution when he can't adequately describe the problem and its context.
Yeah, we've already seen that over the past few decades. It's both a limitation and a benefit, but until recently it was the only thing we had (well that, and just hiring another person to act as an LLM for us). LLMs are an upgrade.
> No matter how advanced the model gets, you'll get better results if you can clarify your thoughts well in written language.
This definitely agrees with my experience. But a corollary is that written human language is very cumbersome to encode some complex concepts. More and more I give up on LLM-assisted programming because it is easier to express my desires in code than using English to describe what forms I want to see in the produced code. Perhaps once LLMs get something akin to judgement and wisdom I can express my desires in the terms I can use with other experienced humans and take for granted certain obvious quality aspects I want in the results.
> So far that belief has held. No matter how advanced the model gets, you'll get better results if you can clarify your thoughts well in written language.
I've heard it well described as a k-type curve. Individuals that already know things will use this tool to learn and do many more things. Individuals that don't know a whole lot aren't going to learn or do a whole lot with this tool.
I agree 100% - it's a very programmer-coded prompt. It was pretty much the first thing I thought to try.
I expect we'll see an enormous quantity of "cool prompts to try in Cowork" content show up over the next few months, which makes sense - regular non-programmers will benefit enormously from cookbooks and prompting guides and other tools to help them figure out what they can ask this thing.
It takes a certain amount of expertise to use LLMs effectively. And I know that some people claim otherwise but they simply aren't worth listening to.
Just because Claude Cowork is for "other" kinds of work, not just software engineering, doesn't in any way change that. It's not like other kinds of knowledge work aren't being done by intelligent professionals who invest time into learning how to use complicated software and systems
That is to say, I don't know who the "target user" of this is, but it is a $100/month subscription, so it's presumably someone who is a pretty serious AI user.
This is why I think (at least given the current state of AI code generators) that senior engineers will benefit more from AI than less experienced engineers. I don't know exactly what the chart of experience (on the x-axis) and amount of productivity gain from AI (on the y-axis) will look like, but I'm pretty sure it will be roughly (given suitable error bars around the input) a monotonically increasing function.
The notion that people who aren't developers couldn't figure out how to use this tool well, or be trained to, is a little too negative. Programmers aren't special snowflakes. Everyone with a brain is capable of describing a problem and breaking the solution into steps.
The popularity of LLMs proves this. That's how most people use them - building up a detailed prompt in steps, and learning how to put more detail in to get the result you want.
One part I like about LLMs is that they can smooth over the rough edges in programming. Lots of people can build pretty complicated spreadsheets, can break down a problem into clear discrete tasks, or can at least look at a set of steps and validate that solves the issue they have & more easily updated it. Those people don’t necessarily know json isn’t a person, how to install python or how to iterate over these things. I cant give directions in Spanish but its not because I don’t know how to get to the library its just I can’t translate precisely.
Also you may only need someone to write the meta prompt that then spits out this kind of thing given some problem “I want to find the easiest blog posts to finish in my drafts but some are already published” then a more detailed prompt out of it, read it and set things going.
Of all the lessons society failed to learn from 2020, the importance of clean air is perhaps the most disappointing.
I wear N95 masks on local trains, long distance trains, planes, buses (most of the time), and movie theaters when busy. The few times I haven’t, in particular local train (unfortunately, lots of unhealthy people) and Amtrak, I have gotten sick - strep and covid. Being sick is in some ways not a big deal, but is serious enough I will keep wearing the masks forever. I get sick far less often than my non mask wearing peers.
The tragedy is that the people operating these services - and schools and hospitals - should have installed filters and UV lamps to make this less unnecessary. At least planes have air circulation, the Amtrak trains are an absolute disaster.
Flu is spreading like wildfire right now. With the advent of these and other technologies, that is essentially an opt-in choice society is making. Totally unnecessary. You don’t have to stop many flu cases before a lamp pays for itself.
> I wear N95 masks on local trains, long distance trains, planes, buses (most of the time), and movie theaters when busy. The few times I haven’t, in particular local train (unfortunately, lots of unhealthy people) and Amtrak, I have gotten sick - strep and covid. Being sick is in some ways not a big deal, but is serious enough I will keep wearing the masks forever. I get sick far less often than my non mask wearing peers.
I used to get sick when I went into the city. Once I started commuting, it happened a lot less as I built up immunity. I'm not saying everyone should lick doorknobs for maximum health.
Anyways, I got to a lot of shows as well, and wearing masks is joyless. I wear them when I'm feeling sick, to reduce the range of transmission (although I just try and stay home)
That said, for institutions where there are sick and weak people, it's almost criminal that they aren't investing even more heavily in testing these sort of technologies.
> Once I started commuting, it happened a lot less as I built up immunity.
To give another anecdotal evidence: before COVID I used to catch 3 to 4 colds per year. Winter was basically a nightmare season where I was always living in fear of when I would get sick next. After COVID I started wearing an N95 in populated places. As a result, I went to 0 cold per years instead of getting sick even more often because of the additional virus in town. Now I feel I can live normally in winter without always worrying of getting sick and I always feel healthy.
I tried switching to a regular surgical mask (and in general being less careful) to try to find a good middle ground between cost, appearance and protection; while I did not catch colds I did get COVID at the same time as unmasked people around me, so I'm back to N95s (this was likely following something like hours and hours of continuous exposure so makes sense a leaky surgical mask did not prevent it). (my bout of covid was quite mild fortunately; but first time being mild does not mean future ones will be or won't lead to long-term symptoms).
Some people told me that wearing masks will "weaken" my immune system, I still need to see that; after two/three years I just feel healthy and this is refreshing after decades of getting sick all the time.
Plus, instead of the advice of "cook your own food to eat well, sleep well, do sports" that probably requires something like 28 hours per day with a standard-issue job while likely not being as effective as respiratory protection, putting a mask on takes only 30 seconds per day. That's probably good general advice anyway, but not the shortest path to solving the "getting sick often" problem.
I got similar results when i changed 3 things: making sure d levels were around 60, adding glycine and nac supplements and adding a high quality fish oil supplement. My 3 young children have been their usual trainwreck of sickness this winter and inatead of getting sick with them 80 % of the time i have had zero sickness.
i am not here to advertise any of this stuff so i am not going to link or even get the units or amounts right unless i remembered them off the top of my head, just here to point out there are two ways to not get sick: eliminate exposure or increase resistance. For some of us limiting exposure is a painful experience (i cant comfortably wear masks i feel like i am dieing slowly from oxygen deprivation the whole time and the extra moisture gives me a rash eventually)and there does appear to be options on the other path to limit our own sickness.
> I wear them when I'm feeling sick, to reduce the range of transmission (although I just try and stay home)
I really, really wish more people would do this. If you are feeling sick and need to go out into public, put on a mask. This is doubly true especially if you need to take a plane flight. I understand that you probably can't reschedule your plane flight for a lot of reasons, but, for the love of God, if you're hacking up a lung on an airplane put on a damn mask.
Does everyone know how often their peers fall sick? I’ve had maybe two illnesses in the last five years and I don’t do all this. In fact, I was masks off as soon as we were allowed to, traveled often via plane and train. I also was at many EDM shows as soon as they opened up.
I used to wear masks whenever I fell sick but it’s been a while. After the pandemic, though, everyone started using these as political symbols and I want to opt out of that personally. A thing I’d been doing for decades is suddenly some kind of statement. I’ve no problem looking out for others but if there’s enough schoolmarming over this, I might just not.
I think people are neurotic about this stuff but probably the reality is that others fall sick often and need to take these precautions and I don’t and therefore see no need to.
At the population level, if it’s worth it, then that’s fine but I think it’s not a given that these things are worth it.
I used to get sick a lot more often, pretty consistently 3-4 times per year. Since I’ve started masking on trains (specifically because others who are sick and coughing aren’t wearing a mask) and other things (elderberry, zinc, NAC at signs of cold) I’ve gone down to 1-2 times per year. And that is mostly from hooking up with people who had COVID and didn’t realize it.
It’s hard to say exactly what led to the reduction in illnesses, but the N95 masks have the strongest evidence base of the interventions I’ve tried.
That paper is about mandatory masking and social distancing at the population level. It does not speak to the question of whether it's "worth it" to wear a mask on the train if you're the only one who is doing it.
We also have found out that Covid decays less quickly in air with high CO2. So highly polluted areas and poorly ventilated ones compound the problem by trapping CO2 in and allowing the virus to survive longer in the air. That is very likely the case for other viruses as well as it impacts the aerosols.
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