Definitely going to be interesting
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My interpretation is that Hawkeii and Abrams are off the negotiating table.
There is a lengthy FL article in La Liberation, which initially has a laugh at the Anglophone media for getting it wrong, but then accepts the explanation of misuse of the word ‘simulation’, when it was purely hypothetical.
The Liberation article refers to a detailed explanatory EL article in Business Insider
Take it to the climate change thread where this line of (non) thought will be absolutely eviscerated by Humble Minion & co.
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Had a quick look. Curiously I landed at point where ChatGPT provided examples of higher level of discussion for both fighting climate denialism and for fighting “the extreme left climate alarmism religion”
Followed by a convincing demonstration that it can even fake sincerity
I don’t want to get into the climate debate, or the AI debate, both of which are still generally at similar levels.
My prejudice was and partly still is that ChatGPT will have a positive impact in helping people understand the complete uselessness of a large numbers of “professional” occupations such as mainstream “journalism”, “management” and “politics”:
“It is worth repeating at this point the theories that Ford had come up with, on his first encounter with human beings, to account for their peculiar habit of continually stating and restating the very very obvious, as in “It’s a nice day,” or “You’re very tall,” or “So this is it, we’re going to die.”
His first theory was that if human beings didn’t keep exercising their lips, their mouths probably shriveled up.
After a few months of observation he had come up with a second theory, which was this–"If human beings don’t keep exercising their lips, their brains start working.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
I am quite confident that escalating rhetoric about “extinction” has been counter productive to serious measures that would actually contribute solutions.
Likewise confident that claims that the “The Science” is authoritatively determined indicate an anti-scientific attitude.
I do not regard above as prejudices.
But they do strongly incline me to a prejudiced reaction against a short statement issued by very large numbers of “scientists” and other “notables” that begins with::
Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority …
It reminds me of Einstein’s alleged response to a statement denouncing the theory of relativity issued by 100 scientists:
One Hundred Authors Against Einstein was published in 1931. When asked to comment on this denunciation of relativity by so many scientists, Einstein replied that to defeat relativity one did not need the word of 100 scientists, just one fact.
But I think there is a certain subtlety in the full sentence, with its careful choice of two global problems that are well known to have not been adequately resolved, and equally careful avoidance of a third that has been paralysed by excessive hype about “extinction”.
… alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.
I do believe that the first signatory knows what he is talking about, and how to communicate it effectively and with subtlety, from doing his MOOC on neural networks. So I intend to pay careful attention to the whatever factual arguments they have produced despite the above prejudice against the opening phrase.
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Just a quick, general response and maybe drawing a parallel with war. My view is that (inevitable) collapse of our civilisations and extinction of our species are completely realistic/most expected outcomes. So I see those discussions, when informed by best available data, to be an exercise in honesty and realism.
Of course within that discourse there will be lack of understanding, exaggeration and misinformation but that doesn’t in any way reduce the necessity of the discourse.
Although Russia is getting smashed, and a united west might defeat their aggression, I’m not sure how I can view the current and resulting arms race as anything but further evidence that we are designing our own destruction.
This might seem to be a depressing view of humankind. I don’t feel that way, rather I just think we will get what we deserve and it shouldn’t be any other way.
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I prefer Dr Who’s views about humanity:
“■■■■ sapiens. What an inventive, invincible species. It’s only a few million years since they crawled up out of the mud and learned to walk. Puny, defenceless bipeds. They’ve survived flood, famine and plague. They’ve survived cosmic wars and holocausts. And now, here they are, out among the stars, waiting to begin a new life. Ready to outsit eternity. They’re indomitable. Indomitable.”
— The Doctor
And then there’s Douglas Adams’:
“So long, and thanks for all the fish”.
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To combine the last two posts I could probably quote all of City of Death, but will narrow it down a single scene:
Ummm…
I have to admit I don’t get it.
- Relation of contrasting world views with “Thanks for all the fish”
- Combination with that scene (which I enjoyed but do not recall having ever seen the episode)
Kadyrov & His Army | Another Systemic Bubble Pierced By War (English subtitles)
One of this week’s top stories is a public feud involving Yevgeni Prigozhin and Ramzan Kadyrov. Today, let’s discuss the protagonist whose public image boils down to a load of purified hot air, Ramzan Kadyrov, and his role in the Russian governance.
Celebrates feud as indication of systematic breakdown.
It’s a Doctor Who story co-written by Douglas Adams (under a pseudonym as at the time you were not allowed to write for the show you were script-editing).
I knew Douglas Adams wrote some Dr Who scripts and that I liked that scene in a way that is somewhat similar to the way I like the Hitchhiker’s Guide.
But I assumed I was missing some more relevant connection between the contrast between the view indicated by @stir_fried_ewok and my quote from The Doctor and:
- @Albert_Thurgood reference to Douglas Adams
- Your reference to both.
Now I am assuming there isn’t.
At the risk of somebody finding a relevant episode from Buffy or Monty Python I’ll offer another counterpoint to stir fried depression, similar to that from The Doctor but more explicitly based on:
- The known facts about “Life, The Universe and Everything” which refuted modern pessimism long before modernity.
- The original version of the poem by John Bunyan who was inspired by a character whose name was used somewhat later by Douglas Adams that also rejects pessimism.
The history of mankind is one of continuous development from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. This process is never-ending. In any society in which classes exist class struggle will never end. In classless society the struggle between the new and the old and between truth and falsehood will never end. In the fields of the struggle for production and scientific experiment, mankind makes constant progress and nature undergoes constant change, they never remain at the same level. Therefore, man has constantly to sum up experience and go on discovering, inventing, creating and advancing. Ideas of stagnation, pessimism, inertia and complacency are all wrong. They are wrong because they agree neither with the historical facts of social development over the past million years, nor with the historical facts of nature so far known to us (i.e., nature as revealed in the history of celestial bodies, the earth, life, and other natural phenomena).
Quotations from Mao Tse Tung Chapter 22
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From the sounds of things this looks to me like the feints as a precursor to the counteroffensive have begun.
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1664911896879722497?s=20
Reported as Perm, Russia. They decided to pull out these oldies as well.
T-80B it appears to be, with ancient night vision and no ERA
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Camorust?
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I’ve now read the first paper recommended from safe.ai and watched 38’ video of Geoff Hinton speaking on 3 May at MIT Technology Review’s Emtech Digital.
I recommend both and will have to study it more. Glad to see Geoff Hinton clearly explaining towards the end of video that solutions require cooperation restraining selfishness and the problem is that the capitalist system will develop competitively for profit without regard to common interest. That is also my reaction to the paper’s explanations but Geoff Hinton was quite explicit about it.
I don’t expect much direct impact on Ukraine war. But Ukraine will certainly be central to drone development after victory and autonomous swarms could be developed in competition between USA and China quite rapidly. Nailing down comprehensive logging of “commander’s intent” style orders and their implementation for accountability right now could be significant both for present war and later.
Looking forward to Responsible AI frameworks from @barry_day
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