AI Annoyances, Crocheted Creatures, and Recthething Recs

[donutsweeper]

As a head's up there's a new round of bots hitting AO3 and posting comments claiming works failed some kind of AI test. The one I got read "Claude showed 69% on analysis. Already posted it to the Discord blacklist. There’s a massive difference between using AI for brainstorming and straight-up uploading what the bot spits out. Readers deserve better." They're usually left by guests so if you get one just hit the 'report spam' button and ignore/delete it. (Hilariously, the comment was left on a work written for an children's lit exchange in 2013 so very very much not able to have been made by AI and it's the only work in its fandom so I've no idea how they even found it to bother with their spam).

In more *ugh* news last year Duolingo fired a lot of its translators to pivot to AI and now Duolingo's CEO has announced Duolingo will be replacing ALL contract workers with AI and elsewhere announced a whole slew of new languages the app will be offering that have all been created (solely or mostly) via AI. None are English->other language so I haven't checked any out but there's been numerous posts/comments/reports of how... not great they are to put it politely. Ever since Duo got rid of the tree I've been collecting tumblr and reddit posts with suggestions for other apps/sites, I'm really busy right now but hope to throw together a post compiling the info within a few weeks.

There was recently a flash exchange focused on lemmings and other small rodents and I went a little nuts crocheting for it. I wound up making 4 creatures- 2 generic animals (mouse and capybara), Shanklin the Stab Possum from Gravity Falls (along with a crocheted knife for it), and The Death of Rats from Discworld (the scythe was so annoying to try to do OMG) and posting 9 works (reusing the mouse and capybara and a previously made guinea pig along with some little items I freehand crocheted for the prompts like a tiny mug of coffee, a shrink ray, a pair of wings, two flower crowns, etc. (Many, many other things were tried but failed. So many.) Everything's on donutsweeper (rather than my EAD birthday bash sock that most of the crochet is on) but here's a few of them:

(I really need to get better at taking pictures of my crochet. So much detail gets lost and sometimes the angle is just weird no matter what I try. SIGH)

And, last but not least, recthething recs! (One MDZS/Untamed Pacific Rim fusion fic and tumblr art for that plus Dracula, Looney Tunes, Merlin, Sherlock Holmes and SPN)

by the grace of the fire and the flames by ShippersList (56k, locked to archive)
Summary: Three years after the Sunshot Campaign (and two years after Wei Ying shut himself and the Wen remnants into the Burial Mounds), something rips open in the bottom of the sea and unimaginable horrors crawl out. The cultivation world unites once more in the face of a common enemy. Lan Wangji knows from the start that without Wei Ying, there is no hope of survival. (neat Pacific Rim AU)

Dracula
- I miss Dracula so heres a silly drawing of it as a muppet movie XD (absolutely delightful)

Looney Tunes
- If the Bugs Bunny show ever gets another revival, I advocate for Yosemite Sam to heckle at the hosts periodically (hilarious comic)

MDZS/The Untamed
- Lan Wangji, do you want revenge? (amazing Yiling Laozu LWJ)
- Ahh... the Burial Mounds (hilarious multi-panel comic)

Merlin
- First date ideas (these are so sweet)

Sherlock Holmes
- Lesson (love the way the pipe smoke blends into the background in this Granada!Holmes sketch)

Supernatural
- Carry On (gorgeous Dean fanart)</details)

Comments

[adafrog]

OMG, those little crocheted rodents!

[donutsweeper]

:) Glad you like them!!

[profiterole_reads]

I was already not a big fan of Duolingo (good as a complement, but not as a basis). Fortunately, I'm way past their level in Korean.

Thanks for the art recs!

[donutsweeper]

Yeah I don't think it was ever the best place to learn a language, especially once one got past beginning-intermediate level of knowledge, but still... sad to see how much it's slid from the old days. :(

[trobadora]

Awww, all the crocheted little creatures are so cute, but I'm especially fond of the Death of Rats! :D

I hope lots of people abandon Duolingo over their bullshit.

[donutsweeper]

Thanks!

The Duolingo subreddit is just filled with people announcing they're quitting (to the point the mods there created a pinned "I'm quiting" thread although there's still lots of individual posts being made anyway) and apparently Duolingo's social media places have been getting lots of downvotes too. The CEO made a new statement about it and how they 'have to do it' or some such nonsense but apparently that hasn't gone over well either.

[trobadora]

Glad to hear it! This stuff is so frustrating, and it keeps getting worse.

[donutsweeper]

And trusting AI to teach anything, but especially language, is dangerous. The subreddit has also has screencaps from some of the new courses and even to someone who knows neither of the languages it's obviously they're buggy as hell (sometimes it's things like claiming the tiles chosen to translate a sentence are wrong but the answer it gives wasn't possible with the tiles provided, other times it only provides a single tile to pick from, etc etc). SIGH

[trobadora]

So predictable! And yet, people keep being surprised! And then not learning from it! *tears hair*