From Pine View Farm

Geek Stuff category archive

Geeking Out 0

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

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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.

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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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Sliding into the Singularity 0

A man and a computer are sitting at a desk in book store next to a sign reading

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

Truthful? Pigs. Wings.

At Psychology Today Blogs, Timothy Cook (no relation to Tim Apple) offers a four-step process for tricking AI into revealing its biases and fabrications.

Given the hype and hyperbole about these robotic search engines and given how many browsers and websites are trying to hornswoggle us into letting AI bots do our thinking for us, it is a worthwhile read.

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

A learning aid? Impediment, actually.

Timothy Cook (no relation to Tim Apple) argues that, rather than helping students learn, AI, with its built-in bias towards certainty (often based on stuff AI makes up out of thin air, I will add), will stunt their education. Specifically, it will inhibit their development of critical thinking skills.

He identifies four specific dangers.

      Students lose the ability to sit with “I don’t know.” . . .
      They learn intellectual dishonesty as a strategy. . . .
      They develop intolerance for complexity. . . .

      Most dangerously, they lose their authentic voice. . . .

Follow the link for a detailed discussion of this issue.

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Republican Thought Police 0

El Reg reports that the Republican thought police are now trying to ban “woke” AI*. Here are a couple of snippets (emphasis added); follow the link to put them in context.

In an email, Joshua McKenty, former chief cloud architect at NASA and the co-founder and CEO of Polyguard, an identity verification firm, told The Register, “No LLM knows what truth is – at best, they can be trained to favor consistency, where claims that match the existing model are accepted, and claims that differ from the existing model are rejected. This is not unlike how people determine truthiness anyway – ‘if it matches what I already believe, then it must be true.'”

(snip)

“In the LLM world, attempts to ‘un-wokeify’ LLMs have literally produced an AI that named itself MechaHitler,” he said. “This isn’t just a problem in how LLMs are constructed – it’s actually a problem in how humans have constructed ‘truth’ and ideology, and it’s not one that AI is going to fix.”

_________________________

*That is, AI that doesn’t reflect and perpetuate their racism, bigotry, and prejudices.

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

Citing precedent? Nah. Just making stuff up.

So egregiously that it provoked a judge into kicking some lawyers off a case. Here’s a bit from the story at Above the Law:

When the dust settled, three attorneys — two partners and an of counsel — earned a public reprimand, got disqualified from the case, and referred to the state bar. The court also went out of its way to release without sanction the associates on the case and the firm itself. In a profession where accolades accumulate at the top and responsibility gets pushed downhill, it’s refreshing that the associates who declared that they had nothing to do with the fake citations inserted by a partner avoided punishment for being dragged along for the ride.

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The Roll-Back 0

Methinks Bruce Schneier makes a valid point.

However much he wants to, Trump is not going to be able to roll back the clock, but he’s going to do a heck of a lot damage along the way.

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The Outers of the Outed 0

At El Reg, Brandon Vigliarolo, using the recent incident at a Coldplay concert as a springboard, argues that we are living a a surveillance state of our own creation. A snippet:

We have cameras everywhere, our personal data has become one of the most valuable commodities in the world, and we’re all perpetually ready to use that tech to make those we feel have violated the social contract pay publicly for their transgressions.

One more time, “social” media isn’t.

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It’s All about the Algorithm 0

In a longer article looking at how hate metastasizes, Steven Stosny includes this fascinating and not at all surprising tidbit:

About nine years ago, I opened two accounts on YouTube. In one, I clicked only on progressive-leaning videos, and only on conservative-leaning videos in the other. The two separate algorithms that brought me videos without searching for them described vastly different worlds. Many videos in the two camps used the same news clips, but gave them starkly different interpretations. These videos were an indication that we don’t disagree about facts so much as interpretations of facts.

The common thread in most of the cultural and political posts sent to me by algorithms has been, you guessed it, hate.

Follow the link for context.

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Executive Ethics 0

Caption:  Phil's struggle to stay on the oliggarch diet continues.   Image:  Two executives stand in front of a food truck labeled

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

At Psychology Today Blogs, John Nosta wonders whether we should stick with “not so much,” or should we (these are my words, not his) continue to invite the singularity over for dinner.

Where is Neo when you need him?

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