“History Does Not Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes”* 0
Charles Ferguson, a pioneer in website development, looks at the hype surrounding AI and hears a rhyme from his early career. Here’s a tiny bit from his article (emphasis added):
But sincerity often accompanies naivete, as I know all too well. Thirty years ago, I founded the startup that developed the first software tool enabling anyone to build a website — and I totally drank the Kool-Aid. We told ourselves that our product would allow truth-tellers and innovators to bypass gatekeepers, liberating and enlightening everyone. Social networks would, of course, do the same and together we would create a decentralized, egalitarian paradise of unfiltered truth. How wrong we were.
When I look at the AI landscape, heavily populated by extremely young founders, I see the same naivete.
I commend his article to your attention as a timely read.
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*Mark Twain.
Stray Thought 0
For some reason, last night I happened to remember that John F. Kennedy wrote a book entitled Profiles in Courage.
If he were to come back to write a book about today’s Republican Party, I wonder what title he would choose.
American Exceptionalism
0
Richard French, in a letter to the editor of the Las Vegas Sun, makes a convincing case that, if such a thing ever were, it ain’t no more. He argues that, under the Trump maladministration,
. . . .the U.S. is retreating from the values it once claimed as its moral core.
I fear that he is correct. Follow the link for his reasoning.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
Competent legal counsel? Don’t rest your case on it.
A Phishing Expedition 0
Farron discusses a report that members of the Trump maladministration fell for a phishing scam and the implications thereof.
Why do I not find this at all surprising?
We are governed by toddlers.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Yet another “responsible gun owner” feels constrained to discharge his portable phallus whilst traversing the nation’s highways.
Republican Thought Police 0
Now they’re coming for media fact-checkers.
Signs of the Devolution 0
When I started this in the early days of the blogosphere, comment spam was a thing. Then, as “social” media began to attract everybody’s eyeballs, as the saying goes, the amount of comment spam died out. It never went away, but it became relatively rare.
There’s been a sharp uptick in comment spam the past few weeks (indeed, I deleted over two dozen spam comments yesterday). Fortunately, thanks to Akismet, almost none of it makes to your screens.
It’s almost all for on-line gambling sites and apps.
This is not a good thing.
The Gaslighting 0
Farron debunks de bunk.
War and Mongers of War 0
Via the Las Vegas Sun, Lydia Polgreen makes a convincing–and chilling–case that Donald Trump does not realize that actions can have (sometimes unintended and unexpected) consequences.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
One more time, “responsible gun owner” is an oxymoron.