Shame there aren’t any manly patriots in government now - just those candy-ass crybaby MAGA clowns. Back in the day, we used to call that bribery and people went to prison for it, but those weak-kneed MAGA pansies don’t have the guts to even say anything about it. All they’re good for is bowing and scraping and kissing flabby ass.
I propose that STEMbros be required to complete at least a Philosphy 101 course before they’re allowed to comment on “AI.”
I’m so fucking tired of utter nonsense from people who self-evidently don’t know even the first thing about consciousness or agency.
this research shows that AI agents struggle to perform simple tasks
They can’t “struggle” because “struggle” indicates intention and “AIs” don’t possess intentionality.
and often unintentionally sabotage users in the process.
Again, “AIs” are incapable of intentionality. They can neither “intentionally” nor “unintentionally” do anything - the entire concept is incoherent in this context.
In the study, Nvidia and Microsoft outlined three distinct kinds of blind goal-directed (BGD) activity it often saw in AI agents.
Just like intention, “blind” is incoherent in this context, since “AIs” don’t perceive anything, so they can be neither “blind” nor “sighted.”
They showed a lack of contextual reasoning
They are entirely incapable of reasoning of any form.
tend to make assumptions
They are entirely incapable of making assumptions
and incorrect decisions
They are entirely incapable of making decisions
Each of those three things are conscious acts, and AIs" are not in any way, shape or form conscious.
And note that this was written by a purported critic rather than a cheerleader, and those examples are from only one paragraph.
Even the critics can’t manage to comment on “AI” without demonstrating that they don’t have the foggiest fucking idea what they’re talking about.
This is a perfect moment to note:
Unlike socialism or capitalism, fascism does not stipulate a specific economic system. However, there are some qualities that are consistently found under fascist systems, chief among which are a sort of “revolving door” between government and business, such that leaders in one field exert influence or even hold positions in the other as well, the (not coincidental) broad concept that what’s good for business is automatically good for the country, and the socialization of investment, risk and loss, while keeping profits entirely private.
Or in other words, exactly what’s happening here.
With Trump taking the spoiled child lead.
Though that’s a role he plays every day.
Another day, another tantrum from the Toddler-in-Chief.
He really should actually be a great big baby in a saggy diaper, sitting in a high chair with a big sippy cup of Diet Coke and a bunch of blocks to make ballrooms and arches out of, alternately stuffing hamburgers in his face, wailing and crying and saying things like, “But I want Greenland!” and “Stephen Colbert is a big fat meanie!” pooping in his already stinky diaper and randomly falling asleep.
So pretty much exactly like he is now, just without the suit.
Think they’ll find anything wrong with Trump suing Trump’s IRS and then Trump’s Justice Department stepping in to negotiate a $1.8 billion “settlement” for Trump?
Yeah… me neither.
And certainly you can trust the word of a grossly unqualified sycophant.
Thanks I guess for providing an example of one of the ways in which humanity needs to grow the fuck up - reach a point at which we generally actually think about things that people actually say rather than just being bitter slaves to our preconceptions and prejudices.
Hopefully your kids will do a better job of it. Or maybe their kids.
This neatly illustrates why I’m an anarchist - because institutionalized authority has made it such that the United States - a nation of 340 million people - is engaged in overtly destructive and internationally criminal violence and brutality not because the people have demanded it or even desired it, but because a handful of fucking psychopathic pieces of shit have managed to fight and claw and wheedle and lie their ways into positions from which they have the authority to make it so.
And that is, by any reasonable measure, insane.
Any system that allows for such a thing rather obviously should not exist. And that the United States, with its intricate system of checks and balances and its guaranteed freedoms and its strictly mandated adherence to the rule of law could reach this point clearly demonstrates that the problem is not how authority is institutionalized but merely if it is. If it is, then it can be, and sooner or later will be, abused for the questionable benefit of a few and to the detriment of all the rest of the world.
So it quite simply cannot be institutionalized. That’s the only sane approach.
So all that’s left is to wait for humanity to grow the fuck up - to evolve psychologically, sociologically and philosophically to the point that they no longer have or feel a need to have some institutional mommy and daddy to tell them how to and how not to behave.
Maybe in another few centuries…
Can’t help but wonder if Tessier-Lavigne is related to the Tessier-Ashpools…
My favorite capsule description of (The Adventures of) Buckaroo Banzai (Across the Eighth Dimension) is “A stupid movie for smart people.”
It was actually my number 1 for a long, but somehow, over the years, Repo Man just crept up the list until it took its place.
Repo Man (1984)
Honorable mentions:
The thing with the data centers is that the goal is entirely different from anything we’ve been told.
The key is that Google is implementing a system that allows people to get the information they’re after directly from them rather than clicking theough to a website. That’s undermining ad revenue, which not only threatens the existence of the websites but threatens Google’s existing ad-based business model.
So it can only be the case that they’re pivoting to a new business model.
And the key to that is the data centers.
Their goal, I grow more certain nearly every day, is to effectively privatize the internet by driving independent sites out of business, so that they (and their handful of more or less equally wealthy and powerful competitors) become the only source for all of that data they’ve already stolen.
Yeah - there’s a fairly significant game of The Emperor’s New Clothes going on, as the new set of impossibly wealthy assholes insist on pretending they’re not impossibly wealthy assholes and instead try to force society into accommodating them, apparently entirely unaware of the simple fact that all they’re doing is hastening the demise of the civilization that birthed them and on which they’re little more than grossly destructive parasites.
And that’s not an opinion - either mine or anyone else’s. It’s a simple fact that’s been borne out by history over and over throughout the ages, and will be again, no matter how many comforting lies people tell themselves and each other.
What’s a “Carrington” or a “Robinson” in the first place?
I wouldn’t presume to speak for anyone else, but I’m a human, and I thought the rest of us were too.
I don’t think whether or not they’re “good” people and the clients they end up representing have anything to do with each other.
It’s just a part of their job that they end up sometimes representing people who are charged with, and potentially even obviously guilty of, heinous crimes.
And their code of ethics specifically demands that they do their best to represent their client’s interests regardless of any and all other considerations.
So even just there, it could be the case that one defense attorney is a vile scumbag who gets off on the idea of freeing obvious criminals and it could just as easily be the case that another defense attorney is a veritable saint who sincerely believes that all people are fundamentally good and that it’s their purpose in life to help anyone who needs it, no matter who or what they’re deemed to be.
Both of those things undoubtedly exist, and pretty much any position one might imagine between the two, so I don’t think there’s any way to correlate who they represent and their own qualities.
Now all that said, I certainly couldn’t do what they do, and specifically because I couldn’t effectively represent someone who was certainly guilty. But that’s just me.
The US is truly a kakistocracy.
I’ve never even quite understood what it is that people are thinking about when they refer to “the meaning of life.” I mean - I know the definition - I know what the phrase is intended to communicate. I just don’t get what it is that people actually expect.
I don’t think I ever even considered the idea of life having some sort of intrinsic meaning until I was old enough to start getting into philosophy and discovered that not only do people believe that life has some intrinsic meaning, but that it’s such a common belief that there’s a sort of reflexive negative view of anyone who doesn’t share that belief.
In spite of that, I saw and still see no reason to believe that life has intrinsic meaning (either empirically, logically or even psychologically) and more than enough reason to believe that it does not.
Now none of that’s to say that my life is meaningless. It’s stuffed full of meaning. It’s just that all of that meaning is things I’ve found and adopted - none of it’s intrinsic, nor does it need to be.
And I still don’t really understand why anyone believes that it does need to be intrinsic. How is all of the meaning they’re free to find and adopt not enough?
For whatever any of that’s worth…
Funny how the Republicans, after four years of posing as the conscience of government, have gone completely silent on the subject of corruption.
Think it might be because their Republican president is already far and away the most corrupt president in US history, and likely at least in the running for the most corrupt national leader in human history?
This is fucking creepy no matter what.
If it’s true, it’s creepy.
I don’t think it’s true though, which in a way is even creepier.
The basic problem here is that this whole western fascist, white-supremacist technofascist thing is entirely divorced from reality. There’s no logic, no morality, no philosophy - nothing but emotive gibberish slaved to the shallow self-interest of lunatics. So they just spew whatever lunatic garbage they spew, because their brains are broken and they can’t do anything else, and their followers just sop it up, because their brains are also broken and they can’t do anything else either.
There’s much to criticize about past ideologies and religions (which IMO are just two variations on the same basic theme). They did a lot of harm and included a lot of stupidity and lunacy, but at least they made an effort to have some sort of moral and/or logical underpinnings - to have something solid around which they were built.
This one though? There’s nothing at all there. There’s no central philosophy - no underlying morality - nothing. There’s just gibberish and poison and junk and sludge. And the broken-brained assholes spewing it and the broken-brained assholes sopping it up.
And the rest of us, unable to even wrap our heads around the sheer scale of the lunacy, scrolling day after day in a constant state of “What the fucking fuck?!”