Rosalia Rambles

Tag: Anti-AI

  • Redundancy Review: Day 79, “Inevitable Is Anything But”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)

    Good morning programmers and developers, welcome to Day 79 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    It has been a while since I have talked about my feelings on Generative AI, and considering the last couple days have been dominated by my own personal stress, I have a feeling that getting some ranting out of my system will do me some good.

    To reiterate, I am anti-Generative AI in a lot of different ways. I take a dim view of chatbots, an even dimmer view of using them for creative writing, and an extremely dim view of using AI for image generation.

    But there is something I have always found fascinating when it comes to Generative AI discussions, and that is the topic of AI integration with everyday life being “inevitable” to some degree. From the soulless automaton Zuckerberg saying that anyone who does not wear AI-enabled glasses will be at a “cognitive disadvantage” to the universally unlovable Musk saying AI “superintelligence” is going to be here in 2030.

    And whenever I see comments like that, or hear anecdotally from people saying AI is here to stay so you may as well embrace it, I always think of one thing specifically relating to my personal situation.

    You want to preach inevitability to a fucking transgender woman?

    I want to highlight Zuckerberg’s comment in particular, as it continues to stand out in my mind as a particularly out-of-touch remark. What the hell do you mean by “cognitive disadvantage” you worm? All the GenAI in the glasses is going to be able to do is look things up for you that you can do on your phone right now, or are you so disconnected from humanity you need the machine in your glasses to translate emotions for you?

    This outlook does not even go in to the numerous studies coming out right now that are studying the effects of ChatGPT on cognitive function, or the utterly disturbing news around those who view AI chatbots as their friends and close confidants leading to heartbreaking suicides – all of these techbros are so devoid of ethics and so full of wanting to “change the world” that their contempt for the mass populace is showing even more than usual.

    To bring… a semblance of balance to this rant, do I think mass uptake of GenAI in everyday life is inevitable? No.

    But do I think it is here to stay regardless of how bad the bubble bursts? Unfortunately, yes.

    As someone who works in the Extended Reality (XR) industry currently, a technology that had its own bubble period, I can see GenAI sticking around for the foreseeable future even after the massive funding bubble that sustains it bursts and the development of all these new models slows down immensely.

    My hope is that it becomes like crypto and XR, where there is still enough of an ecosystem and demand for it that smaller companies can sustain themselves reasonably okay, but all of these giants like OpenAI, xAI, and most all of Meta collapse in on themselves… 

    …okay that last one is a little biased because I am asking for Meta as a whole to collapse rather than its AI division, but as someone who regrettably works very closely with Meta technologies on a daily basis there is a certain level of resentment I have for the company and Zuckerberg on a deeply personal level.

    I use the term “Human-focused creative” for myself on LinkedIn as part of my banner, partially because I know advertising myself as a Luddite on that AI-infested website would attract all the wrong kinds of characters, and partially because that is my stake in this great war between people and machines.

    It matters to me that humans create things.

    It matters to me that I can read the stories and experiences of other humans.

    I do not want to see machines telling stories, or machines trying to market products.

    If you care about the quality of your overall image, hire a human. No amount of savings that AI can bring will outweigh the work a human can produce.

    Does this put me at odds with like… 90% of the professional space who preach the gospel of using AI to streamline the job search in an effort to counter a broken market? Yes it does.

    But I am going to stand by these principles, in this space AI does not stand for “artificial intelligence”; it stands for “artistic integrity” – yes I know that sounds cheesy as fuck, embrace being a little cringey, all the best art is!

    Time for the review segment, and we are back to my favourite type of thing to review: food. That is right, we are back for:

    Rosa Eats Her Way Around Shrewsbury!

    And in this instance specifically, we are most definitely back as I am revisiting a place I talked about all the way back for Day 3 of the Redundancy Review, the lovely little sandwich shop known as Brambles.

    Specifically on my lunch walk today I was very divided on what I wanted to eat, whether to indulge in something greasy to help absorb the emotions I have been experiencing over the last week, or go for something simple to save my money for a takeaway tomorrow. Eventually I decided on the latter, and wandered over to Brambles to get a nice & basic sandwich.

    That is, until I noticed the specials board, and saw that for the hot special today they had Chicken, Chorizo, and Mozzarella available as either a toasted wrap or a panini.

    So obviously I had to get myself set up with a panini because all three of those sandwich fillings are among my favourite ingredients in the world, and for the price point of £4.80 it serves as a very economical lunch to boot.

    Brambles’ panini press is also one that comes with ridges which I especially appreciate, as sometimes when it comes to getting paninis from other places they tend to just be the panini loaf pressed down flat which gives it a crunchy exterior with the texture feeling just a little flat. 

    Outside of that, there is not much to say about it, which I think is its strength. When you use a simple selection of ingredients, the resulting sandwich turns out as greater than the sum of its parts, and there are very few sandwich ingredients that cannot be improved by the addition of fresh mozzarella.

    But that was not all I picked up this time, as a lovely baked creation on the shelf above all the sandwich ingredients caught my eye and, being a lover of the sweets adorned atop it, I just had to try it.

    This, is a chocolate brownie/cake (I honestly can not tell which, it sort of dances the line between both) topped with a chocolate icing and Rolos. For those reading who might not know what they are, Rolos are small chocolate swirls that are filled with caramel that are off the charts delicious.

    And £2.50 to get a cake with a wonderfully soft texture that combines two amazing sweet treats made it a no-brainer, serving as the perfect dessert for a lunch that helped ease the pain of the last couple days.

    That will do it for today, considering my period is about to start the writing may get a little more intense slash unstable in the coming days, but I am still keeping to my commitment to write something every day before my convention trip. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review, wherever you are I hope you are able to take it easy today.

    For more information on Brambles, visit their Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/Bramblesshrewsbury/ 

  • Redundancy Review: Day 51, “Obsessing Over Numbers”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)

    Good morning statisticians and actuaries, welcome to Day 51 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Being a writer can suck sometimes, especially when you have self-esteem issues.

    I am someone who obsesses over the view count on my articles however small they currently are. I still want to write every day, as both practice and to keep this living record of how I feel post-redundancy, but, seeing low view counts definitely do hamper my enthusiasm sometimes.

    Especially when WordPress fucks up and I have an article that is currently displaying zero views on my dashboard, despite having testimony from a friend that they have read it.

    A thicker skin is something I definitely need to develop if I want to keep at this, or just, internalising that it is okay that my journey being written down is enough, and whether it is one person or one-hundred people who read it, I still wrote my story – even if it is glory-free.

    It is not even notoriety I am after when it comes to pursuing writing. I am a homebody who likes nothing more than quiet nights of video games, pizza, and cuddling my partner, fame is not something I aspire to. Do not even really want to say fortune is something I aspire to either.

    But, I would love to be able to make my way in this world with writing as my profession, even more so in the GenAI age where companies are implementing this useless technology into anything they can think of all the while promoting an anti-human sentiment. GenAI does not democratise art, only allowing those with a resentment for the creative process to “make” something of themselves.

    I still strive to make my personal brand of writing based on vulnerability and openness. Utilising emotions that a machine could never hope to understand to write a continuous tale of navigating a world dominated by slop.

    Unrelated, one of the working titles I had for this series was “Jobless Journal” which better fits what I am using it for, but also would fit worse considering I am employed as a contractor right now – plus Redundancy Review matches alliteratively with the website title which is so good considering alliteration is my favourite literary device.

    Anyway, I am getting distracted, and I need to do the review which was sort of requested by my friend Aaron again but not really, so I am not adding it to his tab with me.

    After I compared the M&S British Sparkling Apple to Apple Tango in yesterday’s review, he asked if M&S had their own equivalent to Orange Tango, a drink I have a much more positive opinion of due to it being a bit more natural as far as processed soft drinks go in it having real sugar.

    So, I went back to M&S today to see what they had on offer, and saw cans of “Brazilian Sparkling Orange” in the same spot I had found the other cans, so decided to give them a go.

    Same price as the apple cans at £1.25, and whilst the intensity of the orange flavour is lesser compared to how intense the apple flavour was, it is still cool, refreshing, and way more natural tasting than other orange-flavoured soft drinks on the market.

    What is definitely the positive common theme amongst the two M&S cans so far is how clean the flavour is compared to how reasonable the price is for a quick soft drink hit. £1.25 can get you a 500ml bottle of any leading fizzy drink at a corner or convenience shop in the UK which will hit the spot, but would nowhere near the satisfaction that the 330ml M&S gives for the same price.

    If you are somehow passing by an M&S foodhall on a hot day, I definitely recommend any of the cans I have reviewed thus far. There is also a Sicilian lemon can to try but I think I will hold off on drink reviews for a day or two.

    Thank you for reading this rambly, ranty, and refreshment themed edition of the Redundancy Review. Take the time to relax and walk away from the screen if you need it, nothing good comes from staying glued to a monitor if you are frustrated.

  • Redundancy ‘Review’: Day 38, “Working For The Weekend”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)

    Good morning bunnies and hares, welcome to Day 38 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Happy Friday everyone! The weekend is but hours away and for me it is going to be a well-deserved break after a somewhat chaotic week of getting into the flow as a contractor, and for me it is going to start with going out for a meal for my dad’s birthday this evening.

    Where we are going is an entirely new restaurant on the Shrewsbury scene, having only opened a few weeks ago so look forward to the review on that tomorrow… provided I remember to take pictures.

    I keep meaning to do a handful of takeaway reviews, especially with three good places for pizza within a stone’s throw away from me – but I always forget to get good pictures of whatever I have ordered and just focus on eating the greasy delight in front of me. Soon enough, I promise.

    Outside of that, it is looking to be a relaxing weekend, ideally with Asda pizza, anime, and gaming in addition to the Redundancy Review.

    Feeling sort of better after having a tough start to the week, I am still going to need time to get used to everything but part of me feels like I am finding a rhythm in between the panic. I am capable of what I am doing, but discipline and motivation are still coming back to me.

    My goal is still the same, to be a human-focused writer in the age of AI. With an almost unstoppable tide of new products on the market now really does feel like the best time to have a personal brand based on honesty, vulnerability, and messiness. 

    The Redundancy Review is an unfiltered look at a person navigating their way through a tough situation, and it will continue to go out every day, regardless of what needs to be said.

    So… I only just had a moment to be back writing something, and the day has gone by… so, I am going to save my energy for a longer full restaurant review tomorrow and just post this up to keep the streak.

    Thank you for reading this late if you have, I am posting this around 8:30pm UK time so it is very late compared to my usual upload slot. Have a great weekend wherever you are, and I hope you can relax as well as you need to.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 24, “Crybaby”

    Redundancy Review: Day 24, “Crybaby”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: https://rosaliarambles.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/redundancy-review-day-1-a-new-beginning/)

    Good morning snoozers and sleepers, welcome to Day 24 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Being rejected by Poncle yesterday hurt.

    A lot.

    So much so it threw me off my mojo for basically the entire day once I had got the review out of the way in the morning. I know it is okay to have days like that, especially when I am still dealing with the emotional fallout of the whole catalyst for why I am writing today.

    But it does not stop me feeling the hurt, and I am someone who feels emotions very intensely because of my estrogen treatments. I always got told by doctors in the leadup to starting that my “emotion range would open up” and “you might find it easier to cry”.

    I was not anticipating how much both of those would happen – even three years past the start I still get caught by surprise on how much I can feel and how much I can cry.

    Even before estrogen though, I have always been a bit of a crybaby, being able to cry very easily. Nowadays though it does not take much to set me off, sometimes I have even just looked at a picture of an axolotl and that is enough to make me want to cry a bit.

    That said, I do not consider my emotions or my ease of crying a weakness by any stretch of the imagination. They might be vulnerabilities for me, but I can utilise them as a strength as well, usually within my writing work. In general I hope that is the vibe that comes across with the Redundancy Review thus far, weaponising my vulnerability in the wake of disaster to try make something positive come out of it.

    And as much as I do feel doubt creeping in some days, I will always be here. Rain or shine, happy or sad, awake or asleep – I have my rhythm, and I have a job to do. 

    Promoted this website on my LinkedIn yesterday, as part of a general headline update which included a very professional way of advertising my anti-AI sentiment. On a platform dominated by AI content from GPT-speak copy to obviously incorrect images, promoting myself as a “human-focused creative” definitely makes me stand out a bit more in the opposite direction.

    If you would like a healthy dose of human-focused creativity, I would love to work on your writing projects! Do not settle for the myth of AI-generated copy being “good enough”, whilst it can convey a message it does not convey any emotion, especially when you are trying to market something. Find a human who can get excited about your product and pay them to write about it! (bonus points if I am that human)

    Speaking of getting excited about things, today’s review topic is one that has been considered long overdue by my partner, and a game I followed the development of for a long time before taking the plunge myself.

    Plus, with the big announcement yesterday that Helldivers 2 is coming to Xbox Series platforms in August, now seems like a good time to talk about it – it will be admittedly hard to cover the heights this game has reached over the last year and a half, but I will try my best.

    Helldivers 2 is a third-person shooter online cooperative shooter developed by Arrowhead Games released in 2024. The main objective of the game is to fight back against the three factions vying to destroy Super Earth:

    • The Terminid Swarm (standard sci-fi bugs)
    • The Socialist Automatons (standard sci-fi robots)
    • The Illusive Illuminate (standard sci-fi aliens)

    The main way this fight is driven forward is through the regular deployment of “Major Orders” (MO), community-wide objectives that need to be completed or fulfilled within the time given, sometimes within a couple of days or over the span of a week. Players are free to engage with the MO or they can fight whichever faction they prefer.

    I personally love the Major Order system as an example of live service done right, especially when Arrowhead have let players decide what new content they want by offering it as an incentive for doing the MO a certain way… even if it did result in it taking four MOs to unlock Anti-Tank Mines.

    The gameplay loop is fairly straightforward, dive onto a planet.

    With the coolest loading screen ever.

    After which you are presented with your objective, which can range from collecting geological samples, destroying enemy supply lines, to the most important task of them all: raising the flag of Super Earth to bring democracy to all.

    One of the most potent tools in the Helldiver arsenal are stratagems, powerful pieces of equipment that are activated by inputting the correct arrow code. These include but are not limited to:

    • Orbital barrages
    • Vehicles and mech suits
    • Jet fighters carrying ordnance 
    • Defensive turrets and sentries

    After completing your objective, it is time to go to the extraction point, with it taking some time for the shuttle to reach you – this is where shit will really hit the fan, especially on harder difficulties.

    Enemies will lay siege to your extraction with relentless fury, calling in more reinforcements as time goes on, making you rely on all the stratagems at your disposal to get you out of there alive. These moments are where a lot of Helldivers get their most intense stories, and it is no surprise to see why.

    Upon returning to your ship, you get your experience points and any currency collected which can be used to unlock new stratagems, upgrade your ship to access potent passive buffs, or spend on the “Warbond” system, a set of premium, non-expiring, battlepass-style collections of equipment and customisation options.

    That said, Helldivers 2 does not mandate the spending of additional money on top of the price of access. The premium currency of Super Credits is able to be earned entirely in game through missions, so whilst it will be a bit grindy premium content is accessible without spending more money.

    Additionally, upon reaching Level 10, you gain access to weapon customisation. A recently added feature as part of the game’s massive “Heart of Democracy” update that allows players to change how their favourite weapon handles via changing the scope, muzzle, or even the magazine size.

    Whilst this is a very cool feature, there is one major issue currently in-game at time of writing: when going to customise your weapon’s pattern, it is entirely possible for the game to crash to desktop, which leads into one of my main criticisms of Helldivers 2 – it is a technical debt nightmare sometimes.

    For context, the game is built on Autodesk Stingray, an engine that had support discontinued for it in 2018. This means that Helldivers 2 is working on very outdated tech, which can lead to a lot of bugs, crashes, and performance issues depending on your hardware. Quite often bugs that have been quashed in previous updates will reappear at random, sometimes with disastrous consequences.

    It can be a reason not to buy the game, but personally coming from a QA background I recognise how hard it must be to keep a game of this scale working on a regular basis, so whilst I criticise, I can not in good conscious condemn the team knowing full well the patches I have suffered through.

    And with everything the game has accomplished with real, permanent changes to its world as part of the ongoing storyline, I am more than happy to accept some game-breaking bugs along the way.

    I said I wanted to talk about something that excites me, and nearly two whole pages of content before adding in images is definitely that. Thank you for reading today. I hope you can have a relaxing weekend wherever you are. Take it easy, it has been a long week for some and you deserve some time to unplug.

    Helldivers 2 is currently available on PS5 and Steam, with it coming to Xbox Series platforms August 26th.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 20, “Road Trip!”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: https://rosaliarambles.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/redundancy-review-day-1-a-new-beginning/)

    Good morning drivers and racers, welcome to Day 20 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    The main thing on my agenda for today is taking a journey with a very close friend of mine. She needs to go pick up some pottery directly from the factory and asked if I wanted to come along, which I gave an enthusiastic yes to. I find myself oddly excited at this prospect, partly for the chance to hang out with someone I resonate a lot with but also the chance to talk in person about how I am feeling.

    It has been mentioned a lot throughout this series but the support my friends have given me has really helped see me through some of the darker days. They help remind me why I am here and to keep on keeping on through the pain, uncertainty, and anxiety that has come with being made redundant.

    On the subject of purpose though, I feel the purpose of the Redundancy Review has changed somewhat since I started. Initially these mental check-ins were only supposed to be one segment of the review followed by an update on my job search, finalising with the review. 

    Talking about the job search has fallen by the wayside, if just because having to write constant reminders of what I am applying for makes rejection feel all the worse due to having a detailed record written down. Applications still go out each day, and I am working on a “living CV” page for the site right now, so there is that.

    But it is time to make an adjustment to the Redundancy Review’s mission statement, and iterate what my main goals are with this daily series.

    1. Primarily, this is to get me out of bed and working on something each morning. Even if I do not feel like it, or even if my brain is foggy, something goes out to keep the habit
    2. This is a story of my lived experience. The homepage emphasises that no Generative AI content will be hosted here, and I will stick to that always. A machine cannot replicate the emotion behind my words, and I will strive to champion human creativity above all else
    3. Whilst the title includes the word “review”, I am not a critic – there are far better people than me to do that job. I am here to spread joy about the things I love and to try make the world a better place through my words

    I am also going to divert my call to action today. Normally I would be asking people to hire me for writing work, but this time I want to give a spotlight to a colleague of mine.

    https://www.behance.net/jordancollins16

    Jordan was the Art Director and 3D Generalist at Immerse, responsible for the look & feel of many projects along with creating some of the most insanely detailed and complicated assets you could come across. His expertise always shined in planning calls, where production would present the idea and his creativity would run wild of what he could accomplish.

    He is an incredibly easy going guy, able to act as a steady presence whenever projects hit that inevitable rocky stage, persevering through the hard times with the goal of laughing about it once it was all over. With how long he had been at the company, he was part of the foundation, and it showed through his dedication to the craft.

    If anyone reading this is in need of a 3D artist, get in touch with him. You will not regret having him involved.

    Time for today’s review, and we are staying in the usual territory of food & drink, but a newcomer into the category.

    Yup. I am talking about a brand of boxed stuffing mix. 

    It came into my mind as I was initially supposed to make a roast dinner yesterday but ended up getting too overheated, changing the plan to a more homely sausage, egg, chips, and beans instead. The stuffing is usually the star of the show when it comes to my roast dinners, and I have Paxo Sage & Onion Stuffing Mix to thank for that.

    I have tried supermarket’s “luxury” range of stuffings, I have tried people’s homemade stuffing mixes, and I have even tried Paxo’s other offerings – but it always comes back to the default to me, possibly out of nostalgia.

    That said, I do not just mix it with hot water, put it in a dish and call it a day. “Rosa Stuffing” as my partner calls it has two main defining features. The first being an addition to make Julia Child proud: copious amounts of butter, added at two different stages – first a healthy amount after the hot water has been added, and then a few small knobs on top once placed into the dish.

    The other is less conventional, an addition that comes from my experience with stuffing growing up. My granny and my mother would always add mushrooms into the mixture to add some extra body and difference in texture, with this small addition now becoming a staple of my own stuffing too.

    Mushrooms are a divisive foodstuff, but it is one I can not get enough of in any dish, with the inclusion of sauteed button mushrooms mixed with a rich sage and onion stuffing giving me comfort beyond compare, even in the context of a comforting roast dinner.

    With that new esoteric addition to the list of things I have reviewed, I will call it there. Thank you for reading today, please keep yourself cool today, at least in the UK it is supposed to hit between 29-31 degrees in some places. Stay hydrated everyone.

    For more information on Paxo products, visit their website here: https://www.paxo.co.uk/