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Liam Hogan

@liamjhogan.bsky.social

1.3K followers 1.7K following 1.6K posts

Award winning #Shortstory #Writer #SciFi 📚: A Short History of the Future, Northodox Press #Fantasy 📚: Happy Ending Not Guaranteed, Arachne Press Oxford Physics, Codexian. Everything, Ever ✍️: http://happyendingnotguaranteed.blogspot.co.uk

happyendingnotguaranteed.blogspot.co.uk

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · Mar 17

A Short History of the Future: 42 modern twists on retro themes from time travel to multiverses, via aliens, pocket spaceships, teleportation mishaps, dinosaurs, and space pirates! #ScienceFiction #ShortStories

www.northodox.co.uk/product-page...
@northodoxpress.bsky.social

Read it? Review it!

Book cover, A Short History of the Future. Two passengers wait in a spaceport on seats with Tel-A TV screens, one a woman in bubble helmet, the other a robot in a coat.

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Reposted by Liam Hogan

🦈 Liz, shark queen 👑 @thesharkqueen.com · 11h

The Kickstarter:

S.E. Ransdell's Curiouser & Curiouser: Tales from Beyond

Volume 2 of S.E. Ransdell's illustrated erotic horror and dark tales from the other side- of the veil, of sanity, and of revenge.

www.kickstarter.com

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 12h

Over a span of 3000 years, the ceasefire in Gaza is the tiniest step back from the brink, and things are still far more precarious, and many more lives have been lost in the interim, than before Oct 7th two years ago. But sure, Mr Trump. You celebrate and demand that Nobel peace prize.

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 1d

By the way! Love the artwork - whether it is or isn't it looks like the Shrewsbury pedestrian bridge over the railway, which makes it VERY appropriate, especially if the hatted figure is you/MR James! :)

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 1d

'Twas great! Always so engaging, with such a simple arrangement.

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 2d

Paper Lanterns Journal #16 - online launch for authors and audience who couldn't make it IRL...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=azvm...

Get the issue here:
paperlanternslit.com/product/pape...

Includes my flash, "Sentinel" - a remote research spacestation is caretaken by a robot - until humans arrive!

Paper Lanterns Issue 16 Launch

YouTube video by Paper Lanterns

www.youtube.com

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 2d

Though perhaps "points" is being overly generous. Gesticulates randomly and then forgets what it was he was looking for. Or has that sudden belated thought - did I just say something inappropriate in front of a politican funder?

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 2d

That potato harvest looks like it should have armed police standing over it, with a "street value" news story... :)

Spectacular work!

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 2d

This inane and rambling summary is at least as informative and useful as the techbros' version (AI is unavoidable, can solve all problems (including the ones it causes), etc). And the idiot president points to the obvious flaw: how DOES a 65 billion dollar data centre (one of many) recoup its costs?

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 3d

Trump: "AI is based on information. I hope they're right about information. I don't know. You've gotta make a lot of money to-- there's gotta be a lot of information out there, but that seems to be pretty hot. We're leading the world on information on AI."

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 2d

"For Remembrance": In the aftermath of a war, a squad of soldiers investigates reports of a psychic. It takes one to know one.
Pre-order @bulletpoints.bsky.social #11 now, to get it on release day! 16 military #Sci-Fi stories!

www.amazon.co.uk/Bullet-Point...

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 2d

Okay, you'll probably wander back out with books you didn't expect to buy... but is that REALLY a problem?

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 2d

It is not too late, on this, #BookshopDay, to wander into your local bookshop (be it chain or otherwise) and order a copy of A Short History of the Future: 42 retro themed #sci-fi short stories, including some award winnners. From @northodoxpress.bsky.social, promoting Northern writers.

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 2d

"OpenAI wants to secure $500bn to build a 10-gigawatt complex, under construction in Texas, by the end of this year."

Some idiot is going to claim that OpenAI are going to solve climate change. When they ARE climate change. Half a trillion to microwave the Earth. All to ram AI down our throats.

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 2d

"AI" isn't a bubble, because "AI" isn't a business, it's a technique, but ChatGPT etc very much are businesses, except they steal work as an inherent part of their "creative" process, and then set about destroying the actual creatives they rely upon. Very shaky grounds...

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 2d

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Of course its a bubble. One that's built on such shaky grounds (half trillion company never turned a profit) that LLM AI's are being driven down our throats. As usual, the article conflates AI and LLMs/gen art (the ones that need data centers).

A tangled web of deals stokes AI bubble fears in Silicon Valley

Some are worried that the rapid rise in the value of AI tech companies may be a bubble waiting to burst.

www.bbc.co.uk

Reposted by Liam Hogan

Nathan W. Toronto @bulletpoints.bsky.social · 4d

Bullet Points 11, from @jamesaaron.net @slashnburnett.bsky.social @gioclair.bsky.social @henryherz.bsky.social @liamjhogan.bsky.social @gerrileen.bsky.social @grigorylukin.bsky.social @kurtnewton.bsky.social ‪@natashabennett.bsky.social @jeremyszal.bsky.social 30% off: zurl.co/f6tnk

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 5d

Dear UK government: Please define "offshore marine protected area"?

Mongabay @mongabay.com · 5d

The U.K. government has rejected calls to fully ban bottom trawling in its offshore marine protected areas, despite evidence that the fishing practice tears up seabed habitats and releases large amounts of carbon.

UK rejects total ban on bottom trawling in offshore marine protected areas

The U.K. government has rejected calls to fully ban bottom trawling in its offshore marine protected areas, despite evidence that the fishing practice tears up seabed habitats and releases large…

news.mongabay.com

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 5d

As to using it for art - oh, you poor, wounded soul. Who told you that you COULDN'T do art? Who told you that the best bit of doing art was where you try to pass it off as your own? Or where you create something "in the style of" (the artists it stole from)?

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 5d

AI that works doesn't need to claim it is unstoppable. It will be used BECAUSE it works. It will be used because it saves time, money, is more accurate, or conjures up novel possibilities. Because it solves difficult to solve problems. None of this applies to writing an email.

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 5d

AI- the sort they are pushing as "inevitable" - (LLMs) is not at all inevitable. Heck, it doesn't work, doesn't replace skills and sucks the joy out of artistic creation.
AI, the sort no-one claims is inevitable, (i.e. NOT LLMs) will revolutionise a lot of industries. IF (& only if) done ethically.

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 5d

"The first public library was opened in Manchester on 6 September 1852 at Campfield."

Have you connected to your local library recently?
( @librariesconnected.bsky.social )

#Libraries175

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 5d

In a world of aggressive LLM AI, can you EVER trust a review site again? These must be the absolute easiest things to fake. AI completely destroys the trust that shoppers have. Online buying - the lifeblood of e-commerce - becomes fraught. Social media platforms unusable. This is progress?

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 5d

LLM's, if they are good at anything, its fooling (some) people. That was what they were trained on, afterall. That's the entry level for a releasable AI app. That's why they are sometimes called "plausibility engines". That's why they back up their hallucinations with faked references.

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 5d

Case in point: AI steals. Then it's used to steal from you:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
This isn't luddites scared of being eclipsed by "better" technology. This is artists pointing out what is being "created" is slop, & the only way to make money out of slop is fool people into thinking it's not.

Scammers are using AI to lure shoppers to fake businesses

Foreign firms use AI-generated images and false back stories to pose as family-run UK businesses.

www.bbc.co.uk

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 5d

That's because science has ethics. AI based on your browsing habits? No fucking ethics at all. That's why Google dropped its "Do no harm" motto.

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 5d

Any politician who tries to sell you the lie that AI needs to steal, is undoubtedly profiting from that lie. Because - again - the useful sort of AI doesn't need to steal. Because the input isn't YOU. It's scientific, or environmental data. Or medical - with names removed and permissions sought.