- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
Summary
Fable, a social media app focused on books, faced backlash for its AI-generated 2024 reading summaries containing offensive and biased commentary, like labeling a user a “diversity devotee” or urging another to “surface for the occasional white author.”
The feature, powered by OpenAI’s API, was intended to be playful and fun. However, some of the summaries took on an oddly combative tone, making inappropriate comments on users’ diversity and sexual orientation.
Fable apologized, disabled the feature, and removed other AI tools.
Critics argue the response was insufficient, highlighting broader issues of bias in generative AI and the need for better safeguards.
Sure, as long as it roasted people for not reading diverse authors, or not reading lgbt books. If one of its jokes was “Hey captain white stuff, you ever hear of Maya Angelou?” then you may have a point.
Somehow i doubt it.
Why couldn’t you joke about the reverse? If you’re looking for roasts you’d be silly to expect to be all aligning to your world view but just to be funny
Part of it is the idea of punching down. Making fun of the majority/norm for sticking with typical behavior is safe, making fun of targeted groups isn’t okay.
This was supposed to be about reading habits. In that context talking about “hey throw in a (different colour) author too” doesn’t seem much like punching down
So, if I read 80% female authors, from Indian, Chinese, African, African American, Japanese, Korean, Australian Aboriginal, Polynesian, and indigenous from North, Central, and South America, the suggestion I’m not diverse enough is okay? Not to mention that, if you’re speaking English, if not the majority then a disproportionate minority is going to be white men. And there’s the point. Your very statement implies there are only two groups, white authors and not white authors, which would be a lot more obvious if you hadn’t replaced “white” with “(different colour)”. So what was your reason for doing that, particularly in the context of punching up/down?
If you read mostly women then it could “roast” you by saying something along the line if a fella couldn’t catch a break. If it was mostly men, same joke but other way around. Simple, really. Find a habit, make a joke about it.
Uhmm I was including white authors in that. If you are reading mostly white authors, you could suggest throwing in an author of some other colour. If you were reading just black authors, could joke about some other colour, including white.
Ah, okay, so you don’t understand the concept of punching up/down. Also, if you’re roast includes primarily low-hanging fruit, it isn’t going to be well-received, either.
It’s a lighthearted joke about someone’s reading habits. It’s a pretty funny to get a roast and be upset that it’s about stuff you do. What else would it be lol
Yes, we’ve already established you don’t understand the concept of punching up/down. We don’t need to belabour the point.
If they had, it would be at least consistent, yeah. Im not seeing any reference to that “reverse” joke though, only attacks on people who like diverse authors.
Once someone posts an example of it making lightly racist jokes for liking white authors, then sure, it’s still dumb and shitty, but at least consistent. If the only “jokes” that happened are attacking diversity, that’s not “just jokes, bro.”
You absolutely can have one-sided joking though. Not sure what you think jokes are tbqh
I think if someone just makes jokes about “the gays” and “the blacks” its pretty clear they aren’t “just joking.”
You can read more of them here. They all appear to be pretty slanted in one direction:
The company is chagrined about it, but it’s also clear their tooling is attacking any diverse taste, not everyones tastes.
I mean this was pretty funny lol
And they can still be jokes if slanted in one direction. Humor doesn’t require both siding.
“Lol, it’s just AI being racist guys. Laugh along.”
Good counterpoint.
Something being a joke or funny to me doesn’t mean you have to laugh or find it funny, you know. You are your own person
I was just saying joking doesn’t require both siding it. If you’re making fun or racists it’d be silly for someone to come along and demand you make jokes about SJWs too or something. Some do it, but it’s not a requirement for something to count as a joke.
You’re all over the place man. We are talking about an app that yes, is supposed to make jokes about everyone. The app is supposed to be “both siding” it.
Your initial point was that if the app was supposed to be “roasting people” then it would mock anyone’s tastes. It’s pretty clear that no, it only makes racist, homophobic or disabled jokes. Thats not a “it roasts everyone equally” app.
The company who makes the app agrees that it fucked up, as the article I linked showed;