From Pine View Farm

Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

A reliable source of news? Grocery stores wouldn’t even display it in the check-out aisle.

The only thing artificial about “artificial intelligence” is the claim that it’s in any way intelligent.

Remember, it does not create. It merely regurgitates.

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“History Does Not Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes”* 0

Sometimes, the rhyme is deafening.

Nixon in 1973 holding an

Click for the original image.

___________________

*Mark Twain.

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Stray Thought 0

Today’s Republican Party does not want to govern.

It wants to dictate.

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A Legend in His Own Mind, Reprise 0

In the midst of a longer article considering how we might resist the Trump maladministration’s march towards dictatorship, Timothy Snyder makes what I find a most appropriate observation:

In Trump’s paradigm, this is all a reality show and we are merely inconsequential extras without lines forever in the background.

Follow the link for context.

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QOTD 0

Jeffrey Toobin:

. . . a big part of the American Revolution was there would be no Church of England the way there was in England. There was a specific attempt not to have an established church.

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News You Can Lose 0

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Vaccine Nation 0

At Psychology Today Blogs, Cynthia Chen-Joea argues that the fear that some have of vaccines may be an ironic result of vaccines’ success in preventing diseases. A snippet (emphasis added):

When something works as well as vaccines have, it becomes invisible. Today, parents rarely see a child on a ventilator from diphtheria. Most physicians have never cared for a patient with polio. Aside from the recent resurgence of measles, most new doctors have never seen a live case of this once-devastating disease. Because these illnesses are no longer part of our daily reality, they feel distant and abstract. Meanwhile, the risks of vaccines, however rare, loom larger in people’s minds.

I think she may be onto something. Go see what you think.

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The Chaos Agent at Work 0

From the Youtube page:

Seth takes a closer look at the president posting an AI video of himself and threatening to send troops to yet another American city.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Yet another oxymoronic “responsible gun owner” fails to secure a portable phallus.

Investigators believe a three-year-old child fired the shot that killed their father early Monday morning.

(snip)

(Lincoln, AL, police chief Scott–ed.) Bonner said, “Everything points to being accidental. We are not sure if the child was playing with the firearm, or if the child picked the firearm and dropped it.” He added that due to the child’s age, no charges will be filed.

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The Rule of Lawless, Droning On Dept. 0

Title:  Hey Kids!  It's Droney--the friendly MAGA drone.  Frame One:  Little boy:  Droney, we read that you've been seen attacking Venezuelan boats in international waters, killing at least 17 people.  Droney:  Well, sure.  The president says they were drug smugglers.  ALso, the videos are really cool.  Boats go splodey!  It's fantastic content.  Little boy:  But--they could have been interdicted and arrested.  And they you'd have evidence.  Little girl:  They may have been migrants or just fishermen.  Droney:  Eh, drug smugglers, migrants, whatever.  It's a new day of American power, which means the president gets to summarily execute anyone he wants.  The Supreme Court says so.  Little boy:  Are you sure about that?  Droney:  You kids aren't questioning MAGA drones, are you.  Because that's exactly the sort of thing the president does not like.  Little boy:  No, we certainly are not.  Little girl:  Perish the thought.  Droney:  Okay, good.  Well, gotta run.  I've got to track down a late night comedian.  Er, I mean to say, a radical antifa terrorist who also tells jokes.  (Droney flies off.)  Little girl:  He's . . . kidding, right?  Droney (over his shoulder):  Ha ha.  I'll never tell.

Click to view the original image.

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The Algorithm Abyss 0

At Psychology Today Blogs, Tara Well explores how “VR and social media create blurred realities that negatively affect well-being.”

I commend her article to your attention and remind you that Big Tech’s algorithms are not for our benefit; they’re for theirs.

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The Chaos Agent 0

In a letter to the editor of the Las Vegas Sun, Dr. Richard A. French expresses some concerns about the effect that the Trump maladministration is having on the nation and the polity.

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QOTD 0

Missy Gold, in the voice of Katherine ‘Katie’ Olivia Gatling, and Robert Guillaume, in the voice of Benson DuBois:

Katie: You know, it’s not easy being a concerned citizen.

Benson: That’s why there are so few of them.

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A Tune for the Times 0

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

An unwitting and willing tool for bad actors? You can bet your sweet bippy, per security maven Bruce Schneier, who argues that, in the rush to deploy AI, far too little attention is being given to security.

At the link, he details one such vulnerability in Notion v. 3, pointing out that

(t)he fundamental problem is that the LLM can’t differentiate between authorized commands and untrusted data. So when it encounters that malicious pdf (containing the commands–ed.), it just executes the embedded commands.

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Republican Family Values 0

Title:  Rage at the Ragged.  Frame One, captioned

Via Job’s Anger.

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Twits on Twitter X Offenders 0

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Republican Thought Police 0

In the course of a longer article about recent events at Texas A&M University, Mary Ellen Klas summarizes the tactics of the Republican thought police (emphasis added):

Texas, like Florida before it, has steadily adopted an authoritarian approach to higher education. The goal is to target a marginalized group or racial minority whose ideas the Republicans in power find undesirable and use them as a cudgel to justify bringing state universities more firmly under governmental control. In the last year, the Lone Star State began enforcing a patchwork of policies aimed at purging diversity, equity and inclusion programs at state universities. It abolished independent faculty senates with faculty councils controlled by the governor’s appointees. And it banned a vague array of “expressive activity” and demonstrations on campuses.

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A Legend in His Own Mind 0

Brahma Chellaney takes a look at Donald Trump’s claim that he has ended seven wars and reminds us that

Trump’s claim to have ended seven “unendable” wars is best understood as a case study in self-delusion. Branding is not leadership. Real peace depends on leaders who know the difference. But in Trump’s world, peace is not the absence of war, but the presence of applause.

I commend the entire article to your attention.

And, while we’re on the subject of leadership . . . .

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Yet another oxymoronic “responsible gun owner” performs a random act of politeness.

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