

In the last week, I've seen a couple comments/reviews/etc that have noted the use of AI on PB, which feels so weird to me because PB advertises itself as an anti-AI site very specifically, so it just seems to clash against the very basic tenants of this app to begin with - especially when most people come here because we don't want AI driven recommendations or reviews.
So just as a very general reminder, the use of AI is destroying the environment at an unprecedented rate because of the electrical and water demands needed to manage the data centers (🔗article from MIT), and that impact is felt unevenly and in many countries that are not actually making up the lion's share of the usage (🔗article from UN). Additionally, AI has been found to lead to lower cognitive ability like critical thinking skill and brain development (🔗article from The Times) and psychosis in individuals who haven't displayed similar symptoms before (🔗NLM research article). Given that some of the benefits of reading are to develop cognitive ability and critical thinking, and since we all sort of need to live on this Earth to survive, all of this really seems maybe a little bit important and alarming to me!
To be honest, I know that posting this isn't going to stop people who are still using AI for basic everyday tasks or change their minds, but I just wanted to get it off my chest after seeing it several times recently. I know that a lot of companies are forcing people to use AI in their work, but when it comes to our hobbies, we have a choice to say no to AI, and PB especially has been a haven from the ubiquitous use of AI everywhere else.
EDIT: if you’re going through and downvoting all the anti-AI comments, how about you look at the links above and educate yourself on AI usage instead? Would be a better use of your time!!
EDIT 2: @vulpix also pointed out several very important points about AI use. This is my paraphrasing, but these are all @vulpix's research btw! First, research has shown how AI has encouraged violence against women and girls (🔗research here) by allowing for roleplaying of these scenarios, literally advising people to commit these acts, and agreeing with misogynistic stereotypes. Second, AI is actively racist in that it's built into the algorithms behind AI (🔗UN article), so when using it to make decisions, it's all based on human stereotypes, biases, and yes, racism, which obviously has real life implications. (This makes me think of that thing that happened when the Fable AI made a very racist comment that essentially blew up Fable...last year? The year before? I forget now.)


meganisnotokay commented...
3d
It was so random and like, just there. No substantial commentary or anything imo 🥲 I think I’m still going to give the second book a try but I don’t have high hopes. The badges are so cute but idk if I can do it just for the badges 💀


This book in a gif:

edit: if you would like more context I recommend @LaurasLibraryCard’s forum post at 100%


This book in a gif:

edit: if you would like more context I recommend @LaurasLibraryCard’s forum post at 100%


meganisnotokay commented...
3d
No because as soon as we were introduced to Sun Li, the racism started like immediately and my genuine reaction was:
“NOT THE WOODLAND ANIMALS BEING RACIST😭”
But seriously what was the point of that? Like no commentary was made or anythiNG. It was just THERE.
Ok now why did the panda named Sun Li have to experience panda racism


Shady Hollow (Shady Hollow, #1)
Juneau Black


meganisnotokay finished a book
3d

Shady Hollow
Juneau Black
The first book in the Shady Hollow series, in which we are introduced to the village of Shady Hollow, a place where woodland creatures live together in harmony--until a curmudgeonly toad turns up dead and the local reporter has to solve the case. Reporter Vera Vixen is a relative newcomer to Shady Hollow. The fox has a nose for news, so when she catches wind that the death might be a murder, she resolves to get to the bottom of the case, no matter where it leads. As she stirs up still waters, the fox exposes more than one mystery, and discovers that additional lives are in jeopardy. Vera finds more to this town than she ever suspected. It seems someone in the Hollow will do anything to keep her from solving the murder, and soon it will take all of Vera's cunning and quickness to crack the case.


meganisnotokay is interested in reading...
3d

All the Queens’ Curses
Alyssa Hollingsworth
Kit may be a princess, but her life is no fairy tale. Chronically ill and abused by her new stepfather, Princess Kit finds solace in her kind stepsister Catharine. Yet the sisters may not be together for long― Catharine is intended to be wed to a prince of the Northern Isles. Kit’s mother, the queen, strikes a bargain with the fae to free her daughter from the king’s abuse and give Kit a happier ending; the fae swaps Kit’s ailing body for Catharine’s before Catharine can depart. Horrified, Kit and Catharine abandon their home and travel north to find the fae who cursed them. Kit and Catharine soon discover the prince is under his own fae curse. He offers to help the princesses. But Kit finds herself unsure she wants to switch back if it means she can’t be with the prince―and worse, must return to her own suffering body . . .


meganisnotokay is interested in reading...
4d

Overgrowth
Mira Grant
Annihilation meets Day of the Triffids in this full-on body horror/alien invasion apocalypse. This is just a story. It can't hurt you anymore. Since she was three years old, Anastasia Miller has been telling anyone who would listen that she's an alien disguised as a human being, and that the armada that left her on Earth is coming for her. Since she was three years old, no one has been willing to listen. Now, with an alien signal from the stars being broadcast around the world, humanity is finally starting to realize that it's already been warned, and it may be too late. The invasion is coming, Stasia's biological family is on the way to bring her home, and very few family reunions are willing to cross the gulf of space for just one misplaced child. What happens when you know what’s coming, and just refuse to listen?


meganisnotokay is interested in reading...
4d

Middlesex
Jeffrey Eugenides
Middlesex tells the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides, and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family, who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City and the race riots of 1967 before moving out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret, and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.


meganisnotokay is interested in reading...
1w

You Feel It Just Below the Ribs
Jeffrey Cranor
A fictional autobiography in an alternate twentieth century that chronicles one woman’s unusual life, including the price she pays to survive and the cost her choices hold for the society she is trying to save. Born at the end of the old world, Miriam grows up during The Great Reckoning, a sprawling, decades-long war that nearly decimates humanity and strips her of friends and family. Devastated by grief and loneliness, she emotionally exiles herself, avoiding relationships or allegiances, and throws herself into her work—disengagement that serves her when the war finally ends, and The New Society arises. To ensure a lasting peace, The New Society forbids anything that may cause tribal loyalties, including traditional families. Suddenly, everyone must live as Miriam has chosen to—disconnected and unattached. A researcher at heart, Miriam becomes involved in implementing this detachment process. She does not know it is the beginning of a darkly sinister program that will transform this new world and the lives of everyone in it. Eventually, the harmful effects of her research become too much for Miriam, and she devises a secret plan to destroy the system from within, endangering her own life. But is her “confession” honest—or is it a fabrication riddled with lies meant to conceal the truth?
Shady Hollow (Shady Hollow, #1)
Juneau Black
What a perfect opening to this cozy mystery. It's giving grown up Richard Scary with a side of murder.