From Pine View Farm

Geek Stuff category archive

Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

A competent source of medical advice? At Psychology Today Blogs, David Weitzner suggests that you’d best duck the quack.

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Facebook Frolics 0

The Zuckerborg’s AI is involuntarily assimilating celebrities without their permission.

Words fail me.

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

An illusion created by an algorithm? At Psychology Today Blogs, John Nosta notes that “AI’s fluency creates the illusion of thought, but no cognition lies behind it.”

He goes on to point out

At its core (dare I say heart), AI is a machine of probability. Word by word, it predicts what is most likely to come next. This continuation is dressed up as conversation, but it isn’t cognition. It is a statistical trick . . . .

His whole piece is worth a read.

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

Able to take responsibility for its actions? Per Joe Patrice at Above the Law, we may soon find out.

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The Off-Line Scam 0

Writing at Psychology Today Blogs of a scam from two centuries ago, Matthew Facciani sees similarities with today’s online scams.

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

Secure? That bridge in Brooklyn is still on the market.

Security maven Bruce Schneier points out (emphasis added):

Any AI that is working in an adversarial environment—and by this I mean that it may encounter untrusted training data or input—is vulnerable to prompt injection. It’s an existential problem that, near as I can tell, most people developing these technologies are just pretending isn’t there.

Details at the link.

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

As a matter of fact, let’s make that bleeping stupid.

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much? 0

Hazardous? Per Timothy Cook (no relation to Tim Apple), “New research shows how prolonged AI interactions distort some users’ sense of reality.”

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

Fostering fantasy? Per Joe Pierre, “When psychosis-proneness meets AI sycophancy, delusional thinking can result.”

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The Crypto Con 0

The guilty plea.

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Geeking Out 0

Mageia v. 9 with the Plasma desktop. The wallpaper is from my collection.

Screenshot

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

Impartial and objective? Per Cornelia C. Walther, “, , , a new study has exposed an unsettling paradox at the core of our assumptions. Involving analysis of nine different LLMs and nearly a half-million prompts, the research shows that these supposedly impartial systems change their fundamental ethical decisions based on a single demographic detail.”

Details at the link.

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Devolution, Reprise 0

At Psychology Today Blogs, Matthew Facciani writes about an AI TikTok account that fooled millions into thinking it was real life human being and suggests some steps we can take–not as individuals, but as polity–to protect against such fakery.

He makes three main points:

  1. The viral “MAGA Megan” TikTok showed clear AI traits yet still fooled large audiences.
  2. AI fakes spread by aligning with identity, leveraging networks, and gaming algorithms.
  3. Combating AI misinformation requires media literacy, awareness or our biases, and platform action.

Methinks this a valuable and timely read, especially as Big Tech seems determined to stuff AI down our throats, as illustrated by yesterday’s post about the Zuckerborg.

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Devolution 0

Nurse:  Darrn Stevens is helping us with social media buzz about our mobile blood drive.  Dana:  Darrn Stevens?  Really.  That juvenile delinquent that Joe is mentoring?  Nurse:  He's a teenage influence, Dana.  That kid has thousands of followers!  Dana (thinking to herself): Finally, the rapid decline of our society, explained.

Click for the original image.

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Facebook Frolics 0

At SFGate, Stephen Council reports on the Zuckerborg’s turn to AI in its quest for assimilation. Council is not sanguine.

Here’s a tiny bit from his piece.

But it’s important first to understand Zuckerberg’s approach. He mused on a podcast in April that most people have far fewer friends than they want, so we’ll probably move past the “stigma” around having AI friends and find them “valuable,” especially as they become more humanlike. “You’ll be able to basically have like an always-on video chat” with an AI, he said.

His point that people need more friends gels with recent research into the ill-health effects of isolation. But Zuckerberg’s idea of patching over loneliness with algorithmic avatars is an ugly vision of the world: a purposeful unraveling of the social fabric that gives us community, culture, accountability and love. We need to refuse this vision. The solution to not having enough friends is — needs to be — making more friends. More care and responsibility for our neighbors, not bubbles of solitude.

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

Woke/ Not if the Republican thought police get their way.

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It’s All about the Algorithm, Reprise 0

At Psychology Today Blogs, Daniel Marston suggests that something much simpler than the “content” offered by the algorithm keeps us glued to our screens. It’s the mere fact that the “content” keeps changing. He cites a study that seems to bear this out:

In a study by Ando and colleagues (2025), researchers put a tablet in each marmoset’s cage with nine small, silent videos of other primates. When a marmoset tapped one of the videos, that video zoomed in and chattering sounds played. That was all it took. Within a few weeks, most of the marmosets were tapping regularly. Even when the reward was taken away, some of them kept tapping anyway.

Now, if you can tear yourself away from watching online videos of persons cleaning their houses, go read the rest of his article . . . .

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It’s All about the Algorithm 0

Susanna Newsonen takes a look at how “(S)ocial media hijacks your brain’s reward system, making it hard to log off” and how that erodes persons’ attention spans. A snippet:

Social media is engineered to keep us engaged for as long as possible. Every ping, like, and swipe taps into our brain’s reward system, the same one activated by addictive substances like sugar or gambling. These small dopamine hits keep us coming back, often without even realizing how much time or mental energy we’re spending. Psychologists call this intermittent reinforcement, and it’s one of the most powerful tools for habit formation. So it’s not your fault you can’t look away; it’s by design.

Now, go read a book and, remember, “social” media isn’t.

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

Unbiased and objective? That bridge in Brooklyn is still on the market.

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Speaking of Today’s QOTD . . . . 0

Now even your baggage can have baggage.

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