Geek Stuff category archive
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
Bearing false witness? You can swear to it.
AI on the Disinformation Superhighway? 0
David makes a case that AI may have been used to clone his voice in creating fake videos and discusses the disturbing implications thereof.
Big Brother Tech Is Watching You
0
I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Big Tech often doesn’t think things through. AI may be the most extreme example so far, but the recklessness (fecklessness?) is hardly unprecedented. From the Portland Oregonian:
The woman’s former boyfriend, the suit says, used the tracker to monitor her daily movements without her knowledge. Medford police have charged him with stalking using a GPS device, according to the suit. He is also not named in the suit.
(snip)
According to the Medford woman’s lawsuit, Apple’s internal data showed the company received more than 40,000 stalking reports from 2021 to 2024 involving its tracking device but failed to adopt adequate safeguards to protect victims.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
A competent medical advisor? At the Psychology Today website, Nick Tiller says it’s heading for a quack up.
Here’s a snippet from his article:
The Surveillance Industry 0
One more time, there’s a reason that they are called “pervert glasses.”
Imagine. Persons used to fret about the possiblity of a “surveillance state.”
How quaint.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
A competent therapist? At the Psychology Today website, Marty Klein explains why, as a machine, it isn’t and can’t be. Here’s a bit of his article (emphasis added):
On the other hand, a more complex position is “AI is a consumer product designed by private businesses to make money. It isn’t objective (not to mention that it makes mistakes). It doesn’t know or care about me personally, although it “talks” to me as if it does (that’s the product).” As AI gets increasingly sophisticated, it becomes harder to remember this, which means it becomes increasingly influential in the user’s life.
Shills 0
Last night, an app on my phone prompted me to install Polymarket.
As I have no desire to find myself somewhere down the road attending GA meetings, I declined.
I find it saddening that this app, which I’ve used for years, is now shilling for sharks.
And this growth in online gambling does not cast a positive light on the perspicacity of the populace.
Barnum was wrong.
There’s more than one born every minute.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
Compassionate? El Reg reports
Researchers affiliated with Compassion Aligned Machine Learning (CaML) and the University of Warwick in the UK set out to measure the extent to which AI models demonstrate compassion. They describe their work in a preprint paper titled “HarvestBench: Measuring Whether LLM Agents Will Pay to Avoid Killing Animals.”
Follow the link for more about their experiments.
Immunity Impunity
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At El Reg, Thomas Claburn looks at AI and posits that
Methinks he has a point. Follow the link for his reasoning.
Geeking Out 0
Mageia v. 9 with the IceWM window manager. The wallpaper is from my collection. (And, no, I don’t know what city that is. I wish I did.)
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
A mountain guide? Pack plenty of extra food and water, because you may find yourself spending the night om the open.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
A serial infringer? Axios reports that “(s)ome of the world’s largest music publishers filed a blockbuster lawsuit against Anthropic late Friday night, alleging ‘one of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history.'”
Details at the link.
Nor Any Drop To Drink 0
Even as the Colorado shrinks, Big Tech drinks. From El Reg:
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
Your BFF? At the Psychology Today website, F. Diane Barth reminds us that “(t)here is no capacity in AI bots for conflict or self-awareness.”
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
Going rogue? Security maven Bruce Schneier argues that the genie may have escaped from the bottle.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
Mind-numbing? At the Psychology Today website, Patrick L. Plaisance argues that “. . . the design and use of AI assistants are arguably destroying our digital opportunities to cultivate curiosity.”