random stuff

[The Feral Slasher]

Let me first say that I think, and I think people in general think, that there is a significant potential risk to humans from artificially intelligent entities. But in my quick reading of this article I see nothing presented that supports its claim that AI development will inevitably lead to the quick destruction of all human life. The only reason I saw presented in this article as to why this will happen is the assertion that AI doesnt care about us and can use our atoms to make "something else". It doesnt say what this "something else" is or AI would want to create or why or why it would be more advantageous to use us for building this stuff as opposed to much more plentiful and convenient atoms in earth, water and air (we're made of the same atoms, you know). The statement doesnt make any sense at all. And it goes on to say that because of this imminent threat, which it cites no specific evidence in support of, nations would be justified in risking a nuclear exchange to destroy the data centers where this AI is being created!?!?!? This is one of the most outlandish and criminally irresponsible statements I've heard in a long time. Such a statement certainly calls into question the credibility of everything else in the article. Maybe I missed something, I thought this was a very poor and very irresponsible article.

Re: the call for a 6-month moratorium on AI development, I dont have any strong opinions either way, simply because I dont know enough about it. I can say that over the last few weeks I've watched a few videos of people asking ChatGPT various questions, including scientific and technical ones, and my general impression is that I have significantly overestimated what it can do currently. ChatGPT 4 seems better than previous versions but it not only gets a lot things wrong, including seemingly relatively simple questions, it is often very authoritative in its wrong answers. If you challenge its accuracy, it will try to formulate a better answer, but often still gives incomplete and sometimes completely wrong answers.

Also, re: moratoriums or restrictions on AI development, or anything else for that matter, if there is a way to make money off of it someone someplace will do it no matter what restrictions or disincentives you use. And it will be very useful so people will make money off of it. So it's going to happen. We'll have to come up w some way to effectively manage it. Exactly how, I dont know.

I have no idea if this is complete BS or not, it is a bit alarming that some experts apparently think it is a concern at this point. I'm certainly not going to worry about it because even if it is a real issue it is one that won't be addressed and there is nothing you or I can do about it. it will either happen or it won't. As you noted in your last paragraph if people think they can make money off it they are going to move forward and I have no confidence that we will have any regulations. Just thought it was somewhat interesting.

[The Feral Slasher]

I have no idea if this is complete BS or not, it is a bit alarming that some experts apparently think it is a concern at this point. I'm certainly not going to worry about it because even if it is a real issue it is one that won't be addressed and there is nothing you or I can do about it. it will either happen or it won't. As you noted in your last paragraph if people think they can make money off it they are going to move forward and I have no confidence that we will have any regulations. Just thought it was somewhat interesting.

I looked up some of the people who signed the letter asking for a pause in AI development. Some notable people and a bunch more i don't recognize.

Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter - Future of Life Institute

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, Tesla & Twitter

Steve Wozniak, Co-founder, Apple

Andrew Yang, Forward Party, Co-Chair, Presidential Candidate 2020, NYT Bestselling Author, Presidential Ambassador of Global Entrepreneurship

[rhd]

I think this is absolutely hilarious. It's further confirmation for me that AI has a very long way to go to replace humans. If you want to skip to the part where the robot AI bowls an actual game, go to 8:01:

The robot actually managed to get a higher score than many humans would get at an actual bowling alley. They appeared to say that they gave the robot rounded feet instead of flat ones because it cut down on the AI's training time. A real robot could not stand upright on them. It's interesting that the robot starts off holding the ball w the conventional technique before always delivering the ball from a standing position w no momentum, bowling off the wrong foot, launching the ball instead of rolling it and doing the faceplant, sometimes w convulsions. It's also interesting that they have the robot stand far enough in back of the foul line that when it does its faceplant it doesnt commit a foul.

I would love to go bowling w this robot, but I'm sure that alley management would kick him out after a few frames.

[Sour Masher]

Yeah, I have seen this, it is funny, but I can't help but see the uncertain near future this represents as well. AI may have a long way to go, but I think it is going to get there incredibly fast. The amount of evolution and learning being done right now is frightening. Right now, it is a flawed tool, but within our lifetimes, I think it will surpass human production in many impactful ways (it already has in some ways), and we will live to see massive labor restructuring, and more profoundly, a restructuring of how we communicate, how we create, how we learn and think. In a single generation, much of what we have trained to do will become obsolete, and the dream of that freeing us to do more critical and creative thought may never come to fruition, as the technology we are creating will serve the aims we have set for society better than people can as well. It is a Brave New World coming, or continuing to come since the industrial revolution. We developed a game for us all to play a part in, but we are also developing tools that allow the game to play without us. It leaves me wondering what our role in the future will be.

[Kevin Seitzer]

Yeah, I have seen this, it is funny, but I can't help but see the uncertain near future this represents as well. AI may have a long way to go, but I think it is going to get there incredibly fast. The amount of evolution and learning being done right now is frightening. Right now, it is a flawed tool, but within our lifetimes, I think it will surpass human production in many impactful ways (it already has in some ways), and we will live to see massive labor restructuring, and more profoundly, a restructuring of how we communicate, how we create, how we learn and think. In a single generation, much of what we have trained to do will become obsolete, and the dream of that freeing us to do more critical and creative thought may never come to fruition, as the technology we are creating will serve the aims we have set for society better than people can as well. It is a Brave New World coming, or continuing to come since the industrial revolution. We developed a game for us all to play a part in, but we are also developing tools that allow the game to play without us. It leaves me wondering what our role in the future will be.

I both agree and disagree with this. I do think a big change is coming. Some careers and fields will be impacted dramatically and quickly and others will see a more marginal or gradual impact. I think it's similar to the introduction of computers and the Internet. Has that dramatically changed the world of work? Yes, for many people. Has it put humanity out of work or made them obsolete? No. And I don't see how this will, either.

The same way that the human + computer synthesis proved more powerful than either alone in a lot of applications, and created a whole new field of software engineering, the human + AI synthesis will be more powerful than AI alone and will create new fields that require human expertise, input, and guidance.

[Sour Masher]

I both agree and disagree with this. I do think a big change is coming. Some careers and fields will be impacted dramatically and quickly and others will see a more marginal or gradual impact. I think it's similar to the introduction of computers and the Internet. Has that dramatically changed the world of work? Yes, for many people. Has it put humanity out of work or made them obsolete? No. And I don't see how this will, either.

The same way that the human + computer synthesis proved more powerful than either alone in a lot of applications, and created a whole new field of software engineering, the human + AI synthesis will be more powerful than AI alone and will create new fields that require human expertise, input, and guidance.

It is not practical for masses of people to have no role in society, so we will figure something out for most people to do, as we have done with other recent massively disruptive technologies, and we are already seeing smart, creative people use AI in creative and interesting ways, which will continue. But AI has and will continue to encroach into areas we thought previously immune to obsolescence. In some ways, this shift is different from previous ones, because those mechanized a lot of rote labor, freeing people for more creative production, but I think it is possible the sort of synthesis you refer to won't really be necessary in the future. Will we still insist on it, because we want to be a part of the process? I'm sure, or at least I hope so, but even while that happens, I fear even more existential crises for workers with anxiety about their place in the world and the meaning of their work.

The flip side is that in the short term, it is a boon to less skilled workers, as it is already allowing less skilled and knowledgeable workers do work that used to require skilled writers and coders. It is still flawed, in some cases very flawed, with clear errors and made up facts, but even at this stage, is it really all that much worse than people's production, which is also flawed and riddled with inaccuracies? There is still a clear advantage to skilled and careful human production, but the gap will continue to shrink quickly, and a lot of skills prized now in the work force will quickly become less prized in the future. A lot of the copy written now, for instance, will be written by AI in the near future, I think.

The tech is not quite there, but it didn't stop scores of students at the university I teach at to rely on AI to write their essays in part or whole. Most of my colleagues have not fully appreciated how big a change this is going to require for higher ed, but some have already started the work of reimagining our roles as educators who believe in the value of a liberal arts education, and need to figure out a path that helps students see the value of that labor and learning we are asking of them, when readily available AI can do a lot of that work for them now. We can't put our heads in the sand and deny that this tech now exists. We need to figure out how to teach students how to use it in the ways you suggest--as a more productive synthesis of humans and computers, but again, as this tech continues to develop, I fear that such synthesis will not be strictly required. It will have to be a choice we will have to try to convince people to make, despite the fact that choosing to let computers do most or nearly all of the work will produce work just as good or better with far less labor than work done with a more even synthesis like you describe.

[madducks]

Star Wars / Dukes of Hazzard mashup:

[rhd]

That this actually happened I think is hilarious but it must have been incredibly frustrating to the person this happened to:

In the longer video that this is taken from, at the beginning she shows a world map and asks the viewer to find the missing country. I studied the map for a couple minutes and couldnt figure it out and I felt very ashamed when she gave the answer because I'm a maps and geography nut and also because I've actually vacationed in New Zealand (I highly recommend it as a travel destination).

[The Feral Slasher]

I learned something today that shook my world. I can't believe it is true. Lindsey Buckingham wrote and recorded "Holiday Road" from national lampoon's Vacation. I honestly can't believe it is true, and I also can't believe I have not known it for the last 40 years. Mind blown

[rhd]

This looks really freaky:

I dont see how this illusion is done. Supposedly the camera angles are an important part of it. But you can actually see inside his waist, which appears black. I dont see how a camera angle could create that view. Supposedly it was borrowed from/inspired by David Copperfield. I've never heard of this particular illusionist.

[rhd]

I think this is pretty impressive:

I couldnt tell what the AI-generated sound was supposed to be if I hadnt heard the original clip but having heard both I can hear the similarity. The fact that this can be done at all is impressive. Elsewhere it is stated that only about a dozen electrodes are needed to produce this level of quality of reproduction but that adding more electrodes doesnt provide much extra benefit.

[madducks]

Jack Nicholson accepting his BAFTA (British Academy of Film & Television Arts) award in 1975 for "Chinatown" and "The Last Detail" while filming on the set of "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest."

[rhd]

The rag-doll AI bots are back! This time, there are 2 of them and they learn to play table tennis. The hilarity begins at 3:27:

They may be the most spastic creatures you've ever seen, but they never give up. They continue playing even after collapsing on the ground!

How long before we have professional AI robot competitions featuring competing AI programmer teams?

[revo]

I learned something today that shook my world. I can't believe it is true. Lindsey Buckingham wrote and recorded "Holiday Road" from national lampoon's Vacation. I honestly can't believe it is true, and I also can't believe I have not known it for the last 40 years. Mind blown

Wow, really? I like that song. My oldest son also sang it in a school play awhile back.


Here's two bits of trivia I recently stumbled upon and found to be mind-blowing:

1 - Victor Conte of BALCO infamy, perhaps the architect of the biggest doping scandal in sports history, is neither a doctor nor a pharmacist. But what he is, in fact, is a world-class bass guitarist who played in the 1970s and 1980s with Herbie Hancock's backup band and with the Tower of Power.

2 - In the mid-1960s Chevy Chase attended Bard College and was an avid drummer. He joined a band called "The Leather Canary" alongside two classmates, but deemed it a "bad jazz band" that "wasn't going anywhere" and left soon thereafter. Those two classmates, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, went on to found Steely Dan a few years later and the rest is history.

[The Feral Slasher]

Wow, really? I like that song. My oldest son also sang it in a school play awhile back.


Here's two bits of trivia I recently stumbled upon and found to be mind-blowing:

1 - Victor Conte of BALCO infamy, perhaps the architect of the biggest doping scandal in sports history, is neither a doctor nor a pharmacist. But what he is, in fact, is a world-class bass guitarist who played in the 1970s and 1980s with Herbie Hancock's backup band and with the Tower of Power.

2 - In the mid-1960s Chevy Chase attended Bard College and was an avid drummer. He joined a band called "The Leather Canary" alongside two classmates, but deemed it a "bad jazz band" that "wasn't going anywhere" and left soon thereafter. Those two classmates, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, went on to found Steely Dan a few years later and the rest is history.

Yeah, I was shocked to learn it was Lindsey Buckingham, not sure how I missed that love the Chevy chase trivia!

I also saw the Gary Wright post, l listened to "Love is Alive" about 5 times, such a good tune