@dangillmor

CNN: mealy-mouthed weasel words!

#USPol #corruption #USBusiness #conflictOfInterest #weaselWords #legacyMedia #reconnectingConsequencesToCauses

I've long had an issue with the English 'why'. Dan Dennett had similar misgivings.

https://philosophics.blog/2026/01/18/the-metaphysics-of-why-a-scavengers-guide-to-the-accident/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social

The term in English carries a lot of metaphysical baggage – more than necessary.

#language #semantics #metaphysics #philosophy #perception #weaselwords #intent #causation #truth #meaning #notebooklm #claude #chatgpt #genai

@janhoglund

There's a funny example in their arxiv paper too (where "IDK" = "I don't know")

" However, a non-hallucinating model could be easily created, using a question-answer database and a calculator, which answers a fixed set of questions such as “What is the chemical symbol for gold?” and well-formed mathematical calculations such as “3 + 8”, and otherwise outputs IDK. "

So a non-hallucinating AI model is just a non-AI model. I think that has some significance to the problem.

#AI #emperorsclothes #weaselwords

@janhoglund

I suppose we should be suitably skeptical of anything written on that website, but this statement alone is a weasel word statement:

"Hallucinations are plausible but false statements generated by language models."

So here's the thing:

"Hallucinations" is a word designed to capture an unacceptable situation and make it seem okay. Like engineering faults that are given a "within acceptable failure" description. But to whom?

The word plausible is also doing a lot of work. In some areas, like legal claims, it could be replaced by "misrepresentation" or "incomplete" or "misleading and deceptive".

The laughable thing about that page is how it starts referring to probabilistic certainties and so on. We are now in the domain of something like Bayesian analysis to guide business and consumer use. This is business trying to pass off risks (inherent) to the consumer. No thanks.

#ai #weaselwords

@No1 There is a blind spot. Anything Israhell does, is tacitly allowed, though it may be verbally condemned. #WeaselWords #MouthNoises @Davriellelouna

So, three (3) months ago, I got an unexpected letter from my credit card company. They notified me that my account "may" [1] have been compromised, and that "out of an abundance of caution", they were preemptively cancelling my credit card, and issued me a new one (with a different account/card number).

I'd had that card for 20 years. Changing the info held on file at all kinds of online stores and other financial services and various other things took a fair bit of time, spread over a couple of months as I ran into places I'd set up with the old one. But more critically, remembering the *new* number, and getting it into muscle memory, also took quite a while - I had to keep double-checking every time I needed the number, up until about 2 weeks ago, when I started feeling confident I had memorized it correctly.

So today, I get essentially the same letter, and *another* new card/number... 😢 [2]

So I get to do the whole dance again! Here's an idea, but maybe make your systems more secure?

[1] weasel words
[2] in case you're curious, the new one starts with a digit

#CreditCard #fraud #AbundanceOfCaution #WeaselWords #weasel #may #compromised #security #clueless #YourPrivacyIsImportantToUs #privacy #financial

@jd

Weasel words alert!

"attendance perception" = the perception of willing (non-conscripted) attendance.

This #USA admin has deceptive practice and #propaganda built into its DNA. So do the fake ads.

#weaselwords

Ah yes, another thrilling tale of Cold War weasel words 🦆 that was presumably inspired by the riveting topic of "possibly possible possibilities." 🥱 Spoiler alert: No one invaded #Yugoslavia in 1951, but the author is here to make *seriously* sure you understand the unseen nuances of CIA paranoia. 😂
https://kucharski.substack.com/p/possibly-a-serious-possibility #ColdWar #WeaselWords #CIAparanoia #History #Humor #PossiblePossibilities #HackerNews #ngated

Headline from @guardian "IDF carries out airstrikes in southern Lebanon ahead of funeral of Hezbollah leader Nasrallah". Why not just "Israel bombs southern Lebanon…"? #WeaselWords

I don’t know why I am surprised that even an #ancient #rabbi could argue semantics over how far you have to go before you are truly liable for offering your offspring to #Molech. The line was crossed quite a long ways back, actually. Long before you uttered any #weaselwords.

Not unrelatedly, out-of-court #settlements with no admission of #wrongdoing are utter #CorporateBullshit and our modern #Sanhedrin should dish out some real #punishment that actually fucking hurts for a change.

"Transition" is a bloody strange way to spell "community eviscerating job cuts which both governments have willfully done nothing to mitigate." #TataSteel #PortTalbot #WeaselWords

"78 killed in various strikes"

#Lebanon

#BBC #BBCNews #BBCRadio4Today
#WeaselWords #PassiveVoiceCops

https://thepolitics.com.au/drongo-lingo-shrouds-energy-security-spiels/
#auspol #WeaselWords #DrillBabyDrillTrumpettes #DudDutton #NuclearNonce

I'm sure I'm not the only one who reads 'HR speak' and feels that an organisation that uses any words like 'contemporary', 'agile', 'collaborative', 'inclusive', 'diverse', or 'mature', is in truth none of those. #buzzwords #managerialism #weaselwords

https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/rare-recruitment-guide-reveals-what-it-takes-to-be-a-spy-sort-of-20240819-p5k3ja

London Drugs, B.C. officials lean on irksome wordplay amid cyberattacks #weaselwords

https://www.theorca.ca/commentary/rob-shaw-london-drugs-bc-officials-lean-on-irksome-wordplay-amid-cyberattacks-8816470

@blobster @patpro

Me suis connecté à mon compte free pour dl ma dernière facture, on m'a donné des factures d'abonnés random à plusieurs reprises…
La brèche vient de Free, on dirait.

#Freetelecom
#Iliad
#piratage
#databreach
#PII
#donneespersonnelles
#weaselwords

@newsmast @whencyclopedia @womensvoices you know, the more I think on this ... the more I think the word "respect" has been co-opted to mean different things in different, coded, situations:

▪ respect is due all white men, regardless of skills, accomplishments, morality, etc.

▪ respect is granted to some others (ex: when it is earned.)

I will be much more careful in how I use that word, in future 🤔😕 #eww

#weaselWords #whiteSupremacy
#racism #misogyny

Let’s start with this little snippet right here.

'Reviewing … the effectiveness of universal 20mph roads to alleviate traffic congestion.'

Sounds pretty banal. Except… Is she for 20mph limits or against them?

#WeaselWords #SiamaQadar #Tories #Lewisham #DailyHate #ukpolitics #lbl #localelections

@patpro Bon, bon, les données personnelles des abonnés n'ont été que « consultées ». Ce n'est pas comme si elles avaient été volées, hein. 💩​

#Freetelecom #Iliad #piratage #databreach #PII #donneespersonnelles #weaselwords

@Shenanigans New #WeaselWords Skinnymorphs & Musclimorphs