Comment by einpoklum
18 hours ago
> Human Rights Foundation ... “AI for Individual Rights” program
That sounds quite dodgy. Ladybird doesn't have AI, why would such a program support its development?
But even before that: "Human Rights Foundation" sounds like "The Human League" which George makes up in Seinfeld as a fake charity. And promoting AI as a "human right" is quite suspicious. If I had to, I might be that this is something backed by one of the corporations burning through Billions of dollars and Gigawatt-hours on LLMs.
Looking at their annual report summaries and their huge staff, my guess slants a bit towards either bodies like the CIA or some ideologically-motivated billionaires (e.g. talk about the "dictator Maduro", focus on Iran etc.)
> "The Human League" which George makes up in Seinfeld as a fake charity
It was actually The Human Fund. The Human League is an English pop band, most successful in the 1980s with their hit single "Don't You Want Me".
If you're interested in the program, you can find more details here: https://hrf.org/program/ai-for-individual-rights/ai-for-indi...
They offer grants for "Using AI tools and platforms to more efficiently build movements and resist oppression" in addition to many other things.
>But even before that: "Human Rights Foundation" sounds like
a household name (the HRF), to me
Here’s the CIA billionaire running it (I kid!) but ya HRF’s president: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Halvorssen_(human_rights_...
Unlikely to be USA govt if they’ve defocused soft power activities eh?
Ladybird has a close relationship with FUTO which is a pretty oddly behaved private for-profit company ran by a bored multi-millionaire.
https://drewdevault.com/blog/Whats-up-with-FUTO/
Didn't realize FUTO was connected to Eron Wolf, which connects to Curtis Yarvin, which connects to Palantir.
Great...
What, do you sincerely believe Palantir is pulling the strings behind Ladybird? What is the accusation here? Everybody can be "connected" in some way or another, but it's meaningless.
1 reply →
They even did a video with Curtis Yarvin on their official channel...
By “close relationship”, I assume you mean that FUTO is a financial sponsor.
Ladybird has been pretty clear that they will accept money from pretty much anybody but that funding will not provide influence.
I mean, they mostly make sure sponsors websites look good in Ladybird but even that seems like a low priority if you watch them.
I thought it was more related to Louis Rossmann that's where I learnend from
I don’t treat Drew Devault as credible anymore. Not since this duplicity https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41838124
After the truth came out during his cancel campaign, he ran away from HN. Hasn’t posted since. This is on top of his history with “lolicon”, i.e. pedophilia.
[dead]
There's quite a big difference between "AI for individual rights" and "AI as a human right".
From the FAQ in the ladybird front page.
>All sponsorships are in the form of unrestricted donations. Board seats and other forms of influence are not for sale.
i.e. donations explicitly do not buy any say in the project.
Ha I immediately thought of the Human Fund from Seinfeld. Their fake slogan “money for humans”
It is. Ex-FIRE guy's idea. Avoiding Ladybird like the plague, personally.