December, 2023 archive
None Dare Call It Reason 0
False equivalence and weasel words.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
Eric Smalley, science and technology editor of The Conversation, debunks four myths about “AI.” Here’s a bit of one debunking (first emphasis in the original, second added); follow the link for the rest.
1. They’re bodiless know-nothings
Large language model-based chatbots seem to know a lot. You can ask them questions and they more often than not answer correctly. Despite the occasional comically incorrect answer, the chatbots can interact with you in a similar manner as people – who share your experiences of being a living, breathing human being – do.
But these chatbots are sophisticated statistical machines that are extremely good at predicting the best sequence of words to respond with. Their “knowledge” of the world is actually human knowledge as reflected through the massive amount of human-generated text the chatbots’ underlying models are trained on.
Designs of the Times 0
As I was running errands today, it occurred to me that improvements in automobile technology have led a competition among automakers:
Who can design the stupidest looking turn signals?
Meta: Migration 0
My most excellent hosting provider informs me that the migration of this site to a new VPS is complete.
But I’m still taking the rest of today off.
Gazing at Gaza 0
Der Spiegel takes a deep dive into the backstory of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
It is a long read and one well-worth your while if you want to try to make some sense of the senseless.
“Moms for Liberty Libertines”
0
Michael in Norfolk reviews the implosion of the con artists culture war cult, “Moms For Liberty” (which Grung_e_Gene aptly tagged, “Moms for Lebensraum“).
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Yet another “responsible gun owner” demonstrates that said phrase is an oxymoron.
Guns and stupid, guns and stupid.
They go together like love and Cupid.
Let me tell you brother,
You can’t have one without the other.
The Rule of Lawless 0
In a letter to the editor of the South Jersey Times, Evan F. Grollman argues for enforcing the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. He writes:
QOTD 0
James Fallows:
Aside:
Ironically, we now have an entire political party dedicated to the proposition that there is no such thing as the collective good.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Farron comments on the irrationality of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s most recent call for secession. (Of course, he’s wasting his breath; irrational persons can’t deal with rationality.)
Precedented 0
As Mark Twain observed, history does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
“AI’ Is the New Spellcheck 0
Last night, I saw a commercial for “Shutterstock AI” which, when stripped of the hockypuck, rebranded computer-assisted image editing as “AI.”
(As an aside, everything they showed in the ad is stuff I can do in the GIMP, because I bought, read, and practiced the techniques in the book. It would just take me a little longer.)
If that’s the standard, spellcheck is “AI” and “AI” is as old as spellcheck.
“Artificial Intelligence” is assuredly artificial and it is certainly fast and dressed in Sunday go-to-meeting clothes, but fast and well-dressed does not equal intelligent.
Don’t fall for the con Be skeptical of the hype.
Furrfu.
Afterthought:
It occurs to me that I may be maligning spellcheck. According to news reports, “AI” gets stiff wrong a lot more often than spellcheck.
