I have good news: We live in a time of great opportunity. I also have terrible news: we live in a time of great danger. The two inevitably run together, and the two will inevitably come to fulfillment in whatever measure. At most in our small way we can control the measure of it in our little portion of the world. We cannot and will never entirely banish risk. Because to banish risk is to banish opportunity.
Okay, first I probably should explain why I think we live in a time of great opportunity: Some of it is obvious. Take AI for instance. Yes, I know there is over and mal-investment, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. As soon as “managers” stop trying to push it into all sorts of things it can’t and will never do and let people who understand it use it, it will be a great boon to productivity and yes creativity, because it can do the donkey work and leave the actually creative humans to do the creative bits. Yes, it will UNDOUBTEDLY benefit the most accomplished and creative over the raw beginners (and ruin a lot of raw beginners too lazy to learn the donkey work so they can check it.) Tell me some new technology that didn’t in fact do that. For is it not written, to them who have more shall be given? Same as it ever was. And while laziness is not a capital crime (that’s stupidity) it always enacts a penalty.
But the thing is that as far as I can tell almost every field, not just AI is on the verge of just such a kind of breakthrough, marred only by the fact that for reasons known only to the psychiatrists we don’t have (no, really) our country (and countries around the world) decided it was a great idea to outsource science and research to the government, which as we all know destroys everything it touches. Only it seems to be losing its capacity to destroy and abolish and can — at best — delay things. And even that not indefinitely.
Then there’s politics. Look, yes, I go through times of fear and terror because we are on a knife edge, but listen you, we’ve been on a knife edge since our great republic was instituted. The sense we weren’t at some point is a great lie propagated by old people who remember the past fondly. What we have going for us right now is that Trump and Musk (and others, mind you) are aware what’s at stake is no less than their lives. If the left gets any power again, not only them but their entire families and loved ones will be dead one way or another. These powerful men don’t intend to be killed. So, possess your souls in patience and let them figure it out.
Of course the left is at a big disadvantage because they can ONLY keep their dominance when they control the entire flow of information, which is, at this point, impossible.
I’m not saying it’s all plain sailing. The enemy — and in this case they ARE enemies — gets a vote. BUT we have the advantage.
All of this combined are really great news and also terrible.
Why terrible? Because none of these things from information technology to AI to new automated manufacturing processes that render China’s slave labor obsolete say confined where they’re intended to stay.
What I mean is everything has third, fourth, fifth order effects. Remember the internet was supposed to facilitate military communication. Looks at blog. You can bet the left didn’t intend to lose their control on news and written media. And yet, here we are.
The loosening of new tech upon the world at a fast pace disrupts everything. The term is Catastrophic Innovation. Humans aren’t equipped to change their lives that fast.
On top of that, well, the attempts at retaining control like the entire idiocy of Covid and the theft of the elections (which was the reason for the covidiocy) rip the mask some more.
At this point very few people believe in our institutions and “the way to do things.” Which to be fair is deserved as all of that was the flimsy order imposed by FDR. Again, the only reason it took hold and stayed on was because control of the flow of information was part of the deal.
Now?
Now we’re in one of those rare times in history when anything is possible.
What do I mean? 1776 was one such, when we departed from the way things had always been done. And with great opportunity came great peril, too: Glares at the French Revolution.
The fun part is that our constitution, designed for a small government, is still the best for the new ways. While the modernizations (supposed) of the 20th century are old and busted, because they sought to impose the massive top-down control of mass manufacturing to people. Which doesn’t work.
So, will we get through this okay? Yeah, I think and hope so. At least in the US, because we do have the blueprint and the knack of spontaneous organization.
The rest of the world? Who knows? And even here we will go through some pretty terrible times/places, I guarantee it.
Thing is, you can’t break an order once it’s established. You need some great tech or location upheaval to even return to an earlier, better organization.
The communists weren’t wrong about that. The old order needs to shake apart and people need to reject it. It’s just that what they want to impose never worked and will never work. It leads to the tyranny of the darkest, most absolute monarchies. (North Korea, Cuba, too many examples to list them all.)
But the old order is shaking lose of itself, because it was never sustainable.
And we have a chance.
It is our very great privilege to be alive at this time. We must fight through the peril to the hope. In our hearts and minds, more than anything.
Be not afraid. This is no time to go wobbly.
According To Hoyt 
I read a comment that we should really max use of “AI” before big tech turns it all to advertising. Chat is too late but Grok continues to impress.
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The Reader recently used Grok for the first time to get a summary of the pros and cons of a minimally invasive vs traditional open chest approach for the mitral valve repair surgery he needs later this year. The summary had some different statistics than the surgeon the Reader saw did, although after the Reader slogged through the references, it is clear that the ‘studies’ and ‘meta studies’ are pushing the minimally invasive approach for its shorter hospital stays and that the outcome differences are close to statistical noise. The most relevant detail, not mentioned by the surgeon I saw who only does the traditional open chest version, and at the bottom of the Grok summary, was time on the heart lung machine – it is notably longer with the minimally invasive approach. The Reader is now better informed when he goes for a 2nd opinion. Thank you Grok.
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I’ve been using it as a fact checker and debate interlocutor. I find that Grok is very good at identifying the conventional wisdom but will also bring heterodox opinions to bear. However, I think the lawyers have been getting at it too since health questions seem to be more hair on fire than they had been. Anyway, and unless Elon is captured by different aliens, I’m using grok and not that Gatesian psychopath chat thing.
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Thank you for this!
Wishing you luck when you have the procedure.
I too, get to undergo this later this year, or sooner, TBD. New news here. I learned about the valve problem when it cropped up 6-months ago with all the Afib diagnosis. Three years ago the valve problem was not detectable, rather the PC doctor thought he heard something, but the cardiogram showed nothing. When I was in for the Afib last June, PC heard something (wasn’t in Afib at the time) so cardiogram, again. This time the mitral valve problem found. So with the two, off to the heart doctor I go. Medication increased from 3 (glaucoma, rosea, arthritis), two prescriptions and one OTC. After heart doctor, 9 medications, added for cholesterol and Afib. Now 7 prescriptions and 2 OTC. Nothing for the “minor, replacement in 5 to 10 years” mitral valve.
Locally, second opinions, I’ll have to see what happens. Haven’t gotten as far as to meet with a heart surgeon. Just the team.
Six months follow-up with heart doctor. Cardiogram and carotid scan (because of father’s medical history, but nothing there). Also, 6 months, eye doctor (regular, but every 6 months because glaucoma). Here is my sequence of events:
Eye doctor:
“Glaucoma good. Same pressure as for last 10+ years. Cataracts OTOH are impeding on lens …” Went home, talked to hubby, son, mom (who has had the procedure). Called in, “let’s do this”. Went in for more extensive follow-up with eye doctor/surgeon. Confirmation of better now than wait. Scheduled the two procedures (first one is this Wednesday, Feb. 11) and follow-up. This was a week ago, last Friday, Jan 30.
Heart Clinic:
Last Monday, heart clinic calls. Mitral valve is significantly worse, need a stress cardiogram to determine how bad, and start meeting with the team. Wait! What? And, UM, see cataract surgery schedule (stress cardiogram is probably not advised until end of March). Phone tag ensues. March 23, is soon enough for the stress cardiogram. The cataract surgery must be signed off by the heart team (it is; not full anesthesia, just “twilight” sedation).
The first meeting, to go over what mitral valve is and replacement options, was last Thursday, Feb 5. Learn afib vs valve and why not related (one is plumbing, the other is electrical. Although one of the “possible” consequences for valve replacement is a small percentage for afib, eventually with either option. “Eventually?” Already have afib.) Also learn, “significant difference in scans from 6 months ago to current.” Just need to know if current status is critical or not (thus the stress cardiogram). Also scheduled Mar 24 for coronary angiogram. Former will determine if process needs to continue and can cancel Mar 24 (hopefully?), or not.
Now did covid (since had it twice in two years), or the covid vaccine (we went to Canada) cause the problem? Not that I’d ever prove, despite the suddenness of it all. Why? History. Childhood illnesses are known causes (I’ve had measles, both kinds, rubella, and suspected rheumatic fever as I was prone to bad strep throat). Family genetics. Dad’s and his brothers’ problems were their arteries (heart bypasses), not valve. His sisters’ heart problems OTOH are heart valve related (plus, dad’s cousins and their children).
I have had no, none, zero, other signs the heart clinic lists related to heart valve problems. Beyond which I’ve dealt with for no reason since childhood, migraines and dizziness.
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This is what I’ve found too. Even the afib complication. Given I have afib before any procedure, my response is “And …?”
I haven’t been pushed either way, yet. There are two tests that will allow or eliminate the less invasive option. I know I have deeper and smaller veins, from blood draws (tests and donations). What isn’t known, is their state and odds of triggering stroke.
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Interesting.
The hospital stay and follow-up recovery are notably shorter with the minimally invasive approach.
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The Reader is surprised that your cardiologist didn’t jump to a Transesophageal Echocardiogram (TEE). His did immediately after he saw the results of this year’s standard echo. They will certainly do it before proposing any surgery approach. Mine told the surgeon exactly what had to be fixed. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diagnostics/4992-echocardiogram-transesophageal-tee
The Reader isn’t going to have surgery till around mid May. His better half is scheduled for a knee replacement in mid March that she has waited for for about 4 months. Since it’s her right knee, she has to recover enough to drive.
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A TEE isn’t on the list. Does sound like something that should be.
I mistyped earlier. It is a valve. But not the mitral valve. It is “Aortic Stenosis, Transcatheter Aortic Valve (TAVR)” replacement.
Still, there are two approaches: Open heart, or through veins.
Evaluations:
Prayers that your wives knee replacement goes well. I know knee replacements are harder recovery than hips.
My husband has had both hips replaced, one 13 years ago, the other 10 years. He was driving 10 days after the first one, 7 days after the second one. Criteria? Had to be off the “good drugs”. The only reason he took the prescription the first hip was because the bad hip hurt. Second time, the prescription wasn’t filled.
BIL, OTOH, has had 5 knee replacements. The first two went great. Third, because one of the replacement knee parts broke, did not go as well. When the surgery team says the surgery is off because of even a slight infection of any kind, believe them. The last, 5th, surgery left him with a temporary knee. It is supposed to be replaced, again, within 2 years. He will not allow that to happen.
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Here is link to the results of the Reader’s Grok query. https://x.com/i/grok/share/50eec0860fe248f9ac1d9066809c7013
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One other note. The Reader’s surgery will be for repair of his mitral valve, not replacement, unless surgeon finds something unexpected when he opens me up. The TEE showed that the chords that hold one side of the valve are torn. He has known about the ‘leaky valve’ for a decade. In the last year it has gotten significantly worse (fatigue and fluid buildup in the legs). The only good news is that they also did a catherization along with the TEE, and it showed the Reader’s arteries are pretty clean for 72.
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Guess I’ll learn that too, March 24.
Choroid scan showed some “closing” (very minor buildup) on the right side, but good-blood-flow/no-blood-flow-restrictions. Clear on the left side. I’m 69.
Which is concerning. That is what caused dad’s stroke at age 50. 100% closed right side (nothing could be done), and 95% on the left. Choices were, emergency surgery to open the left side, or let him die. Without his input. Twelve years later, it had to be done, again. But before that he was treated for prostate cancer, and the four way heart bypass. He died at 73.
Dad was lucky the surgeries worked, and he didn’t come out worse (although for him, it couldn’t get worse), no additional strokes. When co-workers and family members learned about choroid occlusion was, they had scans done. There were those who were warned they were walking a medical tight rope. Four chose surgery. Three had strokes while undergoing the procedure; one of the three died.
Major contributing factors for dad and these individuals were work related social drinking (I had no clue dad was an alcoholic, after I left home), and smoking (which I did know, although heavier at work VS home around us).
Me? I drink alcohol, but not by any definition a heavy drinker. Didn’t start until in my 40s. More than once a year, but less than once a month (if that makes sense). I don’t smoke. I am the worst possible “Karen” about second hand smoke, or even residual smoke smell after supposedly it has been “aired” and “cleaned” (not possible). I leave. No comment, unless forced, but I leave.
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My hearts a mild mess, but so far, nothing needs to be done (barring the warfarin for impressive but noncorrectable AFIB). Maybe in 10-20 years I’ll need a pacemaker for sloooooooooow heartrate, but the valve murmur isn’t that bad. Yet (nods to Murphy).
My cataracts were done in 2012, if I’m remembering correctly, about 2 weeks separation. The second one was when AFIB entered the picture. I followed the eyedrop schedule closely (didn’t have much of anything else to do…), and recovery was quick.
I’m looking into the knee replacement. Looks like for the left knee, maybe 2-4 weeks as passenger, but more like 6-8 for the right knee. Left is nominally worse, but neither knee is fond of winter this year. Sigh.
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It is the “all of a suddenness” of everything.
Yes. Cataracts. But it has been being watched for 10+ years. Now it’s a problem? (A little sarcasm.) And, yes, I’ve been compensating for the glare more and more.
Heart. On again. Off again. Forever. Three years ago, PC finally said, let’s get this checked. Still not consistent, but let’s rule it out. Nothing found.
Meanwhile, I’ve been complaining, repeatably, about having periods of being tired. Not exhaustion. Tired. (Not like I can just take a nap, without taking precautions. Stupid sleep apnea. If I nap, it disrupts nighttime sleep.)
The afib started. More tests. It took 7 months to get a scan and see a specialist. The valve problem discovered, but very minor. January’s follow up was supposed to be just to be sure the afib was under control (seems to be, no noticed *instances since July, but hey, the valve was “minor” too). I was not expecting the call and result of “significant change” with the heart scan.
Overwhelming is an understatement. Worse, I cannot get answers Right Now. At least I seem to be getting appointments faster than most of the medical team expect. Which is good. Because what they expect for availability is not good. I’m hoping this is panic for nothing. But hope doesn’t count.
(*) The last instance occurred while on a 24/7 home heart monitor. With a physical trigger if I noticed something wrong. I did trigger on the afib incident (verified with Kardia); 4 hours after it started. OTOH Fitbit, which reports afib (well after stopped, FWIW) has not reported any after occurrences since then either.
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I suspect the start of my supervillain arc is going to be people continuing to refuse acknowledging that you can run AI at home.
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Same as it ever was….
Brooks, Mythical Man-Month, 1961
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Re donkey work: So I learned various and sundry programming languages way back when dinosaurs ruled, but most of my compensated work life was managing. I did manage programming groups and run code dives, satisfying myself I could still look at code and see more than gibberish, but I are not “a coder”.
That said, way back then one of things I learned to do when putting together a bit of functionality in code was build the test suite right at the beginning. For some reason not all of my code was perfect first try (I know, hard to believe, but suspend your disbelief and forge on here), and thus throwing my code against the tests let me see what was somehow inexplicably, surprise!, still an “area for improvement.”
When I was managing my programming team I had them do this too – test early and often, and check in their test suite into the same repository as their code so, once it was done and tested and working, when some future coder had to go in and modify something in it, they’d have a test suite to run their new and improved against to make sure they didn’t break anything else.
This type of thing is where I’d look for the adept AI-generated code users to differentiate themselves – the novices will randomly prompt, eventually get something that appears to do the thing, and try and use that with a test strategy based on hope. The experienced coders will save time using the AI tools to actually generate code, but apply their experience to assemble robust test suites to make sure the clanker code is really doing the thing.
Exactly as Sarah says, the experienced will leverage the new tool to become more productive, but having done the donkey work, will know how to ensure the tool is doing it correctly.
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In today’s buzzword bingo, it’s called “Test Driven Development”…. and it’s amazing how many still won’t do it.
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I follow a cruise video blogger because someday I will vacation, pinky swear. And his topic last night was what on earth was this web page saying?! And the answer was someone (probably a non native speaker) fed keywords into an AI essay writer and took the raw results and posted it. It was like Engrish with a hangover. Good times.
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Oh yeah. But I would be illiterate university student, not non-native speaker.
SIGH.
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Or my favorites:
Non-native speaker of either English or the language being translated into English, unpaid student intern.
Or (no reason this cannot be “and”) worse:
Marketing staff.
Personal experience with the latter. The individual spoke and wrote English. For some reason, I as the developer/programmer, was always telling end users where to find the information in the “documentation”, then later translating it. Worked a lot better (as I got no calls from our internal first level support) when the individual’s replacement required (allowed) my input on organization, and review of content, and markup of pictures (I’d originally sent). Then the original individual came back and learned how much had been gutted (marketing), and rearranged. Said individual might have had a tantrum (by any other name). But that is another story.
I have seen what I suspect is the former in software I’ve used (or tried to use).
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Some here have even admitted they’ve used the software I mentioned.
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Of my 6 livings kids, 2 are linguists, who have spent a large portion of their careers as editors of various language translations tell me that non-native speakers of English often have better grammar skills than current native English speakers do. Mostly because they actually had to learn English grammar and grammar is no longer taught in our schools.
As a retired middle school librarian who now substitute teaches….I concur.
Diagraming sentences is no longer part of the ” State Standards” . And apparently neither is subject verb agreement, parts of speech, root words or etymology of words.
Sad.
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Yes.
In the sad-but-true dept., I learned much of English grammar, including such “details” as the right names of most of our common verb tenses… in French class. And this was, shall we say, some time ago. Decades before ‘woke’ was ever heard in its current meaning.
Long before the Internet, I was going all Rikki-Tikki-Tavi — go and find out. Much, much, so wildly and so spectacularly easier, with the WWW and so forth, now; but ‘habits of scholarship’ remain.
The genuine beginning of learning is not waiting for someone to feed it to you with a spoon.
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I think the worst I’ve ever seen was a Filipino in an e-mail group that I was a part of. iirc, his written English was great… except that he *never* used punctuation, capitalization, or line breaks, and regularly posted very long e-mails. Given his hatred of the US (which occasionally popped up in his posts), I wouldn’t have been surprised if he did it just to annoy the Americans in the e-mail group (which was most of the members).
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So this Filipino wrote English as if were Koine Greek or Latin… The lack of punctuation (other than like a larger space, double space in the modern printed texts made parsing out Latin a pain. Folks reading the New Testament in Koine Greek have similar issues.
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I suspect that his(?) native written language didn’t use it (whatever it was; iirc, Tagalog isn’t the only language native to those islands), and the habits he picked up while learning to write that language carried over to his written English.
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Koine Greek on scrolls (and in codices) had punctuation, but you pretty much have to take Important Classes to learn about it.
The amusing thing is that a lot of the punctuation is exactly the same, because we stole it/inherited it from the Greeks. Lemme find a list.
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The spacing system of punctuation mentioned above:
https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2011/03/23/a-system-of-invisible-punctuation-in-papyri-and-medieval-greek-codices/
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The paragraphos mark:
https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2010/11/10/more-on-the-paragraphos-mark/
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The coronis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronis_(textual_symbol)
And there’s also the point between sentences (in the middle of the space between sentences), the dagger sign, colons, and so on. Very old punctuation.
Wikipedia also has an article called “obelism” about other ancient textual symbols, like the obelos.
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Have a friend who is normally quite sensible but almost irrationally anti-AI (stolen artwork, water use) and it’s starting to worry me, since, as I say, they’re normally quite rational. Is there anything I could direct them to to help calm their fears?
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Yes. water is not consumed. It’s recycled. if you can show him he’s been lied to, this might help.
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The “trained on stolen artwork” part might be the real stumbling block, as they are artistically inclined.
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A lot of that will depend on him having a view of theft that doesn’t change depending on if a thing is done by a human directly, or by a human directing a computer.
Because the “stolen art work” was publicly displayed, and no interpretation of “fair use” is so strict that you are not allowed to analyze how something put out for viewing is made.
The way the AI art works is based off of trying to figure out how humans learn.
… unfortunately, as I said, it requires examining standards, and heaven knows I’m familiar enough with folks who thought that being the first in a market with an item should give them monopoly over anyone else being allowed to do something they found too similar. (Art fairs. Nearly typed fart airs. Not wrong for some of the entitled screamers who decided they have a right to door harps because they feel they had the idea first.)
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People who do art learn from duplicating other art. Been that way from before Monet, Da Vinci, and any artist that creates something (leaving out some so-called modern art). Where did forgeries come from before AI and computers?
First to market, means just that. Nothing less, nothing more. This point is repeatably noted on Shark Tank.
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My husband and I have been yelling
TOTALLY ORIGINAL CHARACTER DO NOT COPY!!!
at each other for… some time.
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There are days when I want to introduce my profile pic on other sites a “This is my original character, Donut Steele”, but nobody has asked, and probably won’t until I draw the profile pic myself.
XD
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Someone once pointed out that many copyright notices in books technically prohibit you from *remembering* what you read. I laughed at the time, but I’ve seen the “…and any other form of storage” thing many times since, usually in British books, but there’s one American publisher who usually puts that in.
“Well if I’m not allowed to remember it, why would I want to read it?”
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Sarah,
This is the best article I could find on the subject, and water use is a mixed bag.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-water-usage
Fair warning: the authors like renewables, but the definitions seem to be right. You will have to create a “free account” to read the whole thing.
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Water is recycled when consumed/used. It isn’t however, always recycled back into the same form, or rarely into the same location it was pulled from. This isn’t good for the areas that are water poor when water is pulled from aquifers and reservoirs.
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Closed-loop cooling isn’t *that* hard. Nuclear reactors have done it since the 1940s, and ordinary steam power and heating plants for a century before that.
The only reason open-loop data centers exist is because they can buy water cheaper than they can buy and maintain a closed-loop cooling system. That assumption might bite a bunch of data center designers in the glutei in the not-so-distant future.
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I thought about the closed loop water cooling. But since data centers aren’t using that method, did not mention it.
Agree. Not using closed loop water cooling is going to bite data center design in the glutei assets.
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When the NSA center was built in Utah they told everyone the water would be recycled. Then tge thing is finished, and oh, darn, 20 million gallons per month. In a desert. And they weren’t going to be charged for it because Contract. So water rates went up.
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Problem is there is “recycled” and recycled.
Water used so it turns to steam, or broken in to H and O2, both of which eventually do or can return to water. But not back into water into the system it came out of. Then there is using water without returning the water back where it was pulled from.
Then there is the “recycled” which implies continuous reuse.
PTB lied about which recycled.
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As someone who is watching this play out locally, that argument might not be entirely persuasive, depending on where the friend is located. The initial water draw of the first data center in this region will take an enormous slug of municipal water, from a system that has annual water-draw limits. Other parts of the country, it might not be such a concern as out here.
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Even here in the relatively water rich Northeast/New England zones water usage may be an issue. Many of our rivers (Sudbury. Charles, Ipswich etc) are VERY slow flowing by nature. With heavy draws from the local aquifers for our suburbs the springs/lakes that feed some of their flow slow down. These rivers are FAR improved over their state 30 years ago, but when the flow slows it really starts to pick up the 100 years of accumulated heavy metal/tannery/etc garbage lying in the riverbeds as well as making runoff from far upstream that has assorted farm output less dilute. Add to that we’ve had bunch of low snowfall winters. Note some blame “global warming” for this. That is nonsense, the patterns have been there all of my life and my parents and grandparents going back to the turn of the 20th century.
Given the sheer quantity of cooling needed for data centers I’m kind of surprised they don’t use a closed loop with cooling towers to reuse the water. Many of DEC’s newer facilities from the late 70’s (e. g. Spitbrook Road, Nashua and King Street, Littleton) had heat exchangers that actually heated much of the workspace from the heat generated by the large central machine rooms. Modern 1U stacks of AI cpus are more heat dense, but at least in some climes it might be worth doing. Anyone for Alaskan CPU farms?
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Which is why Elon wants to put them in orbit. Practical solar power and orbit as a heat sink.
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Orbit isn’t a heat sink; space is a thermal insulator. There’s nothing to sink the heat into. Hence radiators.
Mind, most of that radiated heat is going to miss the planet, so I might just be being overly literal.
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I already knew how a Thermos flask worked when I first read “Have Spacesuit, Will Travel”, so the part about building up heat in space wasn’t a big surprise. Having to vent breathable air to keep from cooking from your own body heat was, though.
[hits web] it looks like cooling was part of the reason for the ‘umbilical’ connecting early astronauts to their vehicle. Modern suits apparently use sublimation of water as a form of evaporative cooling. Probably a lot more compact than venting your air supply.
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Here in the Northeast, I don’t think we’ll see many data centers built. Electricity is too expensive in New England, for multiple reasons, including politicians.
Data centers can significantly increase the cost of electricity for rate payers: https://hls.harvard.edu/today/how-data-centers-may-lead-to-higher-electricity-bills/
AI ads were front and center in the Super Bowl. They weren’t convincing as a proof of concept that AI will improve creative efforts. As a group, the ads struck me as loud, dull, and rather flat. A relative who is very into horses had a visceral negative reaction to the Budweiser commercial. I saw the ad later, and I can see why. Horses don’t act like that. It’s uncanny valley time when horses are acting like little boys (foal) adopting wild wolf cubs (eagle.) Whatever Budweiser was trying to show, it wasn’t a horse. They would have knocked it out of the park with a nostalgic ad with their real Budweiser horses.
Narrative depends upon reality. A few “fantasy” elements, carefully chosen, can work well. However, note “carefully chosen.”
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They could rent some tankers and stock up gradually, or even truck water in from somewhere else, but that would probably never occur to a lot of people.
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‘A.I.’ is nothing more than a new way to organize and process data. Just like ‘5G’ uses the exact same signals as ‘4G’ with more efficient encoding. Neither one can cause cancer or take over your brain.
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Sometimes rigidly irrational is rational.
Rephrasing, sometimes an optimal strategy is a rote dogmatism picked by instinct.
So, hypothetically, if we were mid peace breakdown, and if the ‘winning side’ picked its tribal markers a certain way, then the choice of verbal markers might be pretty important.
I think that neither of the two elements of that hypothetical will be true.
But, false positives might come with enough stress to turn the thinking off. If so, people will not recover until the stress comes off, and they feel safe.
Anyway, 2016 was down stream of early indicators for academic tribe screwing the public. 2020, was an explicit statemetn that academia would screw the public.
People would have concerns even if there were no indicators wrt to AI tribes.
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A bit off-topic.
“Beware of the Anti-Fascist because what he really wants is Fascism with him in control.”
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Forgot to click the box. [Embarrassed]
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Big Auntie
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An antimissile is just a missile with a different target.
“The anti-anti-anti-missile missile” … from the original Get Smart.
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Two questions I always want to ask those Leftroids on the news and Yoo-Toob:
What do you believe, and why do you believe it?
Do you even know the difference between truth and lies?
Any time I’ve seen an interviewer get close to the first question, the Leftroid starts screeching ‘White Supremacy! RRRAAACISSST!!!’ because they do not know what they believe, or why.
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The only real solution is to TURN OFF THE MONEY SPIGOT. Any entity that collects over a trillion dollars/year, and dispenses even more draws evil and corruption like a giant dungheap draws flies. We had a good start with DOGE, but the outright money-laundering of taxpayer money to Democrat politicians and riot and revolution fomenting groups like the teachers’ unions and so-called NGOs gives Trump an excellent opportunity to turn off the money and dry up the swamp. End federal medicaid. End tax deductions for so-called charitable foundations.
As to science funding, that will have to come along for the ride, but I’ve seen what government funded science and government funded universities do. I don’t envy Trump and his labors of Hercules to end the system, but I wish him luck, and I’ll cheer him on.
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I’ve got a better idea. Rather than ending special tax exemptions for certain parties, just stop taxing everybody! What could be more fair than that?
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You dream bigger than I do. Good luck with that.
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In “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” the Prof suggested that anything the government felt should be funded, the pols could pay for it out of their own pockets.
Yeah, a probability indistinguishable from zero, but it still brings a warm feeling to consider it.
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The problem becomes “Caesar is insufficient”. Gaius Julius Caesar didn’t radically change much at all. His main demands were the items that traditionally went to a “successful” Roman of the Army sort. His rivals in the Senate sought to geld him by denying him the traditional due. In hindsight, this was a bad idea. But Gaius Julius Caesar did not change much at all of Rome, but did change who was directing the mob holding the Senate. And, at the end, the Senate changed him more that he changed Rome.
The guy who mostly re-wrote the Roman book was that fellow Octavian, or as he came to be known Augustus Caesar. He kept up appearances and traditions, but he rebuilt the Roman Republic state almost entirely as his personal empire, and in a shockingly short time. Augustus -made- it an Empire, in every meaningful way. The possibly apocryphal boast was finding a city of brick and leaving one of marble. Thus to even foes “Augustus”.
Trump is unlikely to induce a major change in how things of USA work, although he may seriously impact the -balance- of forces for a time. He may even leave an organization in place that continues the cleanup work, be it MAGA or the Republican party or his kids. I think Trump, Like Gaius before him, too much loves the country that -is- to rewrite it as an empire. (Despite fools shrieking otherwise.)
The sonofabeech we need to watch is the follow on one that seems to have bigger ambitions. “Pave the Swamp”, versus draining it. or the one who wants to “put it back”. Either way, the -next- SOB is the one to keep tightly leashed.
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The “what comes next” question is the one that really scares me. Worst-case scenario, none of what Trump tries to fix gets codified into law by Congress, and the Democrats get back into power in 2028 with a massive grudge, a precedent for the broad exercise of presidential power, and a bureaucracy and judiciary that don’t *want* to resist whatever the psychos in charge tell them to do. We desperately need to keep the Demoncrats out of power for another 4 to 8 years, and I doubt it’s going to be possible. And that doesn’t even get into treachery and power games from people who are ostensibly on our side. ANYWAY… enough of the black pill. As Tom Petty once sang, waiting is the hardest part.
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The Democrats have already been abusing the heck out of presidential power. But because “it’s okay when we do it”, the chattering classes were largely silent. For example, while the left howls about Trump blowing up drug boats in international waters, Obama famously launched drone strikes on American citizens (suspected to be working with terrorists) in foreign countries. The powers that Trump is exercising are a combination of powers that were previously used by Democratic presidents (in support of leftist goals), and court precedents that often were more focused on the results than the legal rationale.
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See also “J6 folks and prosecutions thereof”.
Given the current spittle-spraying rage, I suspect that should the Donks get back in, they will very quickly proceed to some outrage that finally flips that “on” switch. Some of that rage is. of course, performance. “The Base” however, is becoming as fanatic as any Taliban/AQ ever.
An alternate would be the Article V off-ramp. Donk overreach probably would result, fairly quickly, in a “Convention of States” / “Article V” event. The fighting over exactly how it works will be epic. When Congress says it is the gatekeeper, that will be bad enough, because A5 is explicitly a bypass. When any number of “judges” start issuing directives, it may get … very interesting.
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That’s what I’m worried about. It’s like an abusive relationship. The past abuse is (unfortunately) normal; we’ve survived it and worked around it for a long time now. But having made an escape attempt and dared to make overtures to another partner…that’s when the victims frequently get killed. Politics/low-level abuse as usual is no longer on the table. We either win or a LOT of people die, and then probably everybody loses.
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The history of the TEA Party is a good example of that. That’s one of the few times the Republican Party wasn’t just sitting on their collective thumb. TEA was a major existential threat, particularly considering TEA’s platform was almost the same as the GOP’s, except the TEA crazies actually intended to implement it. Can’t have *that* sort of thing upsetting the system, you know.
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These days even trying to stay out of the politics is a cancelable offense. News lately is that a streamer on Twitch (a popular streaming site) who goes by the name Emiru is getting piled on because she refused on air to say anything about ICE. She didn’t say anything in favor of it. She didn’t say anything against it. She just stated she wasn’t going to issue an opinion because she didn’t feel it was appropriate, and she hadn’t read up enough on the topic.
I don’t know whether she’s going to end up like streamer Asmongold (who’s rapidly becoming more “based”), or fellow Twitch streamer Hasan (who’s aggressively left-wing, and gets frequent slaps on the wrist by the site for actions that should have gotten him permanently banned such as advocating violence), or continue to try and chart her apolitical on-air course. But it’s becoming clear that many on the left don’t see any difference between the based approach, and the apolitical approach.
Emiru is the streamer that was assaulted (someone tried to kiss her while she was on-stage making an official appearance) last year at Twitchcon (Twitch’s annual convention). She was there as part of her contract as a high profile streamer on Twitch, but the convention refused to allow her to bring her own bodyguard. And then the security provided by the convention did nothing during the incident.
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Again we’re not Rome, if anyone it’s Russia, but on these attempts to shoehorn I always wobble back to “Then who is Sulla?” He’s the fellow that went after his enemies full blast and temporarily tromped all over “The Norms”, but in truth stayed just within the lines of the Republic. And when he left off being The One Guy In Charge, he switched all the things he’d switched off back on.
If you read the contemporary writings, the shadow that fell most strongly over everyone’s mind in that city and Republic during the span from Gaius Iulius through the Triumvirate and eventually Octavian was Sulla’s.
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Of 45/47’s cabinet, I think only Veep, SecState, and maybe DNI are capable of achieving the presidency. The latter two strike me as shrewd opportunists with a certain amount of hustle, basically more telegenic Nixons, with what implies about what they do in the white house. The Veep is kind of an enigma: apparently a very smart, driven guy who’s either evolved along a particular vector in his beliefs and priorities or is simply extraordinarily good at picking an audience and telling them what they want to hear. Of the First Children, most are known quantities who don’t have what it takes to rise to their father’s place in the world. The son by the current First Lady is the only question mark. The current crop of (R) state governors strike me as a pretty anodyne bunch, unlikely to raise up an Augustus. (Whom I always rooted for in preference to Marc Antony, sorry. The civil wars killed the Republic. Augustus just built something new out of the rubble, in a world that was already sufficiently far removed from our values that there’s not really much point in pearl-clutching about the rise of Empire.)
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Just observing how the things tend to go. And how very , very quickly things can change.
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We agree there. Sorry, I was more going off on the common tendency in the English-speaking world to treat Octavian as some kind of big ol’ meanie triumphing over more deserving characters, instead of, well, a man who played the Game of Thrones and won, in a pre-Christian world full of characters more or less as brutal as himself.
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If you haven’t read it, Vance’s autobiography (“Hillbilly Elegy”) is worth a read to get a feel for his background. It appears to have been the success of the book that raised his public profile enough to allow for a political career, instead of the other way around. Or in other words, it probably wasn’t written to be a table piece for a future president, even if it eventually ends up that way.
That doesn’t mean that he’s MAGA to his core. But it gives an idea of some of the things that might be of importance to him if he ever moves into the White House.
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That’s exactly what I did with The Art of the Deal in 2016 when I only knew Trump from headlines and cameo appearances in movies. It was very helpful in understanding Trump’s background and way of thinking and working.
I haven’t read Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy yet, but probably will if the 2028 race comes down to Vance, Rubio, and DeSantis.
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Uncle Don has continued to surprise me in his second term. It’s starting to look like DOGE’s “government efficiency” mission was a cover for “let’s receal a bunch of fraud.” And that’s (probably) independent of the investigations in Minnesota, New York, and the People’s Democratic Republic of California.
It’s looking like someone has done some serious planning; Don hit the deck running and hasn’t let up. I don’t expect it’s all him; he probably had multiple teams charting the path for his second term. That’s what minions are *for*. And there have been no real leaks of… anything, basically. That’s some impressive security and loyalty.
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Best way to turn off the money spigot is to delete the 16th Amendment.
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As I keep telling people, there is no need to monkey with the Constitution. The 16th Amendment authorizes the government to collect taxes; it neither requires taxes nor specifies how they are to be collected. Congress and the President have all the authority they need to shitcan all tax laws and bureaucratic regulations, abolish the IRS and set 140 million Americans free from Tax Hell.
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And as long as that abomination Article 16 exists, there -will- be an -unlimited- income tax and a thus obscenely fat leviathan.
How many more decades suffice to prove my thesis? Did we get rid of Tarrifs when we added the Income Tax? No. (as Big Orange is aptly demonstrating).
Any effort to add a “consumption” tax, or a tariff regime, will be an -addition- to the current mess, unless the others are constitutionally repealed as part of the process.
Unless and until we put a hard ceiling on Federal taxation, it will be upwards forever until some future Congress finally crosses the “burn it all down” line. Occasional temporary cuts are exactly that – temporary.
Mr. Trump’s tax cuts will end in the next Donk Legislature.
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Oh, sure, repealing the 16th Amendment is a worthy goal, but I fear not an attainable one, at least not any time soon. Shitcanning the tax laws and the bureaucratic empire built on them could be done any time there is a majority with the will.
I attended a small investment seminar at my brokerage last year. 95% of the investment strategies presented were about reducing the burden of taxes. So taxes are far more destructive than just the money they rob from us.
Actually, what I’d want to see is a 28th Amendment:
“The power to tax, once granted, will be expanded without limit until taxes devour the economy, the nation, and the people. Therefore, the government is permanently forbidden to levy taxes. For those too stupid to understand, that means all taxes, and forever.”
That’s going into the main body of the Constitution of Galt’s World in one of my stories.
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L Neil Smith said something to the effect of:
1st Amendment should have been “Congress shall make no law PERIOD.”
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The far-and-away best reason for changing the Constitution is to put it back the way it was. It shouldn’t have been monkeyed with in the first place. Repeal 16 and 17.
(Franklin is said to have declared, “You have a republic, ma’am — if you can keep it.” 130-something years later, Americans declared that they didn’t want it. Well, I want it back. Why shouldn’t we get together and take it?)
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Repeal all Amendments proposed in the 20th century. (grin)
And no Mr Biden, you did not ratify a 28th. It had a deadline that passed, decades ago. 35 < 38. So no. (pthbbbthtb)
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That’s a funny way to spell “autopen.”
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I mostly use A.I. for writing fanfiction. Even as a painter creating new art with it doesn’t impress me too much. It’s just a tool like any other. You really only get back what you put into it.
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So, like any other tool.
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Sledge-O-Matic! (SQUISH)
Gallagher – Sledge-O-Matic (The Maddest)
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I’ve been thinking about the possible future of AI, and I suspect, in the generations that grow up with it, everyone will have their own personal wingman / assistant and they will be outgrowths of imaginary friends, favorite characters from when they were kids, or sports of a family patron. And that will probably vary from cultural group to cultural group.
While I suspect their will be a wave of ‘adult companions’ I expect that will mostly be in the population who came upon them in adulthood, not the ones who grow up with them.
I also sort of suspect they will function at least partly as the mental lubricant to deal with high rates of change and disruption. They’re good at offering suggestions, maybe not great ones, but things you can actually do that may or may not work. Which can be enough to get someone moving and thinking again.
I also expect as the field develops, the models will condense and localize, to the point we will be running them locally. We’ve already seen some of that, but I expect once they taper out in intelligence, that’s where the focus will immediately turn to.
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It would make a great book, life with AI’s guiding the young into adulthood. Then the AI’s died, or were taken over…
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Danger will Robinson, anyone?
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I’m not sure it would work like that. It would be like all the dogs dying all at once.
Except, it would have to either destroy their data or destroy their models, because they aren’t really intertwined. Just destroying the model would leave all their history intact. Just destroying their data would leave the model intact.
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Personal AI assistants are characters that have turned up from time to time in science fiction. They can be a stand-in companion, like the one in Blade Runner 2049, or they can be a glorified secretary that lives in your wrist watch. Siri, Alexa, and Google Chat are a step in that direction. But the lack of privacy involved with them keeps the public from fully embracing them.
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In fiction, often the smart ship’s AI, that can communicate with orbital or ground AI’s but have security to prevent other AI’s from connecting and copying the ship AI information. Part of the plot is often a rare/unknown self-aware AI or computer genius prodigy that can use the ship AI/computer to hack the resident less intelligent computer. Point is the systems, be they traveling/ship, or stagnant/orbital-station/planet, the systems are not public systems. If to systems are supposed to exchange any unknown information, the plot has one of them have a “public” and another isolated “private” sections.
Right now, Siri, Alex, and Chat, do not have the (published) ability to have isolated public VS private only.
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Don’t give up. When the worst comes, you’ll know what to do. And sometimes there’s not shite to do.
My younger brother by 3 years collapsed Saturday at work and died. 63, and healthy. Until he wasn’t.
Keep going, even when it’s hard. Good things come in time.
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My condolences. That sort of thing is shocking to the core.
Personally, dropping dead doing something professional I like is a -good- ending for me. I have seen much, much worse ways to go to one’s maker. But the lightswitch option is rather hard on the living, as there is no transition, just -BAM-.
I had an opportunity to make sure I said needed things to my sister. Then she went into surgery and never came out of anesthesia, dying officially a month after the reality.
Be up front and up to date with the folks you love (like, tolerate, etc), and then there are no regrets of “if only I had said…”
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Yes, thanks for “getting it,” as others here also do. It helps to be heard.
Check this out: my younger brother and I hadn’t talked in probably five years. My dad dying and mom issues till she died blew the family up, hard. The two brothers acted as if they wanted to destroy my sister and I. It was awful. But just last December, he and I (and my other brother) broke the ice, spoke, cleared the air, and were planning to get together… soon.
Since Saturday, it’s as though everyone decided “we’re having all the conversations.” Cousins flying up to help with the house; texts of support where there had been none. Crazy and good.
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The Reader sends condolences and prayers.
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Thank you. :)
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*Long distance hug* Prayer flag raised for you and yours, Kathy.
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Waves in gratitude! His two adult daughters have a ton of work to do. Two story house with all the stuff, mechanic who was fixing up a Chevelle to sell. And they just lost their Papa. Ugh.
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My condolences.
Sudden unexpected death is hard. Even expected, it is hard, but harder out of left field.
Dad’s death was expected. He was in home hospice. He fell the morning he died. Mom had to call for paramedics to help him up. Hospice delivered a hospital bed that afternoon. We got the call late that night. We’re a mile away. No clue we made it time. We think we did.
FIL, we’d been expecting the call for weeks, months. He wasn’t supposed to make it home after his last heart-attack, let alone until Thanksgiving, then Christmas, then Easter. When the call came, we were shocked. We were sure, by then, that sheer stubbornness would let him hear that the grandchild was born. FIL died 6 weeks before last grandson’s birth.
Paternal grandmother died overnight. She didn’t wake up. She was at her oldest daughter’s house for Christmas the day before (where most of the “babies”, great-grands, were for holidays). Surprise? Even though she was weeks from being 80? Yes.
Great-uncle was found collapsed between their house and the barn. Heart attack. Age, 60-something. Unexpected.
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Thanks for the kindness. It helps. :)
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I am so sorry. :hugs and prayers sent:
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Thanks, Caroline. I’m praying for his two daughters. In their 20s, I think. What a load of work they have ahead of them.
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My deepest condolences.
Mom went after four years of relentless neurological decline. Expected, but still hurt.
Dad went suddenly — heart just gave up the ghost. Not unexpected — he’d been in the hospital a few months earlier — but very much a shock.
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Thank you. When my sister called, it took me a minute. “John? *OUR* JOHN? Oh…”
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Oh no. My condolences. Hugs.
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Thanks, Sarah. This blog helps a lot.
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I’m glad, but LORD just my brother’s lung cancer diagnosis sent me for a spin for weeks. I wish I could have you over for tea.
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For real, I had no idea it would kick my butt this hard. You sure do understand.
I would drive a ways to share tea! Some day we shall.
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So have my uncle’s lung cancer, then blood cancer. Who we lost this last summer. He is only 8 years older than me. He also had heart problems, so does his surviving older sister, and younger brother. But, both uncles are heavy smokers, and close to being alcoholics. Their sister, doesn’t drink or smoke, but she’s also 84. I’m not old enough to have heart problems since I don’t smoke or drink; dang it.
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My brother’s is stopped. He will die WITH cancer, not of cancer, but yeah…
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God bless. That’s hard.
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Thank you, Dorothy.
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Hugs and condolences. Just lost my mom last November after a long struggle with Parkinson’s and dementia. It’s never easy, but as you said, we keep going…
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Oh gosh man, I’m sorry. Never easy, no matter the circumstance. Hugs and prayers back atcha.
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Thank you <3
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Condolences on losing your mother.
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Thank you, sincerely
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Years ago, a friend of mine was in seriously bad health. He lived several states away. But cellphones on the same carrier could call each other “for free” then. So at any random moment I’d hit speed dial ‘1’ on the candy-bar phone and call him, or vice versa. He only slept intermittently, and I worked alternating shifts, so it was as likely to be at 3AM as 3PM. We didn’t care. “Hey, what’cha doin’? Yeah? Talk to you later.”
I was waiting for my wife to come out of the house so we could go somewhere, pushed the button, and talked to him for a few minutes. He said he was tired and was going to take a nap. We hung up, he didn’t answer the phone the next couple of times I called, and I got a call from his number; his sister, returning my calls. He has passed away on the couch shortly after talking to me.
It weirded some people out when I told them about it, but I’ve always been glad we got to chat that last time.
I had that phone for a long time, and eventually began referring to it as “The +10 Cellphone of Doom.” When it finally expired, four of the entries in the dialing directory had shuffled off this mortal coil.
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Beautiful story, and not weird at all. What a gift.
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I’m so sorry.
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Thanks, Mary.
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My big frustration with (what is currently called) AI is that so many of the pro-and-con decisions being made that affect millions are being made off of “we promise it will soon be able to….” (do something miraculous, or incredibly dystopian). These promises are made by marketing-minded CEO-types and are often flagrantly farcical flights of fantasy. The ones not only buying the hype but deciding millions of jobs on it, who _should know better by now_ are also CEO types, yet somehow they’re _blind_ to the possibility that straw might not turn into gold overnight. It’s just like trying to point out the follies in an article to a journalist who knows how the sausage is made – somehow this wild claim that someone else wrote is inerrant, even though they could quote you a dozen counterexamples if it was an article they disagreed with.
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Several explanations are admissible.
1) Their incentives are not what you model them to be. 2) Their monkeyspheres are more alien to you than you expect.
I don’t know how to iterate through the possibility space, and I don’t see that I need to.
There is sufficient evidence for a fundamental difference of opinion on modeling, and on consensus. There is a split running directly through economics in America. We’ve had Austrian and Chicago economics for decades, and those are very resonant with American culture. The academic side of economics looks at tax policy, because the people supplying the grants are into tax policy.
The Draghi report, taken at face value, speaks also to the latter sort of government centric modeling.
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Most of the decisions are being made by idiot bureaucrats that don’t have a clue what A.I. is and what it can or can’t do.
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Ah, what was the Revolution that the Founding Fathers appealed to, when they spoke to Great Britain? Oh, yes, the Glorious Revolution – a return to the original order, not the institution of an entirely novel one. :glares at French Revolution something fierce:
We’re going back to the original blueprint: The Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration. Sure, we’ll keep some of the useful ad-ons, but there is plenty of bling we can shake off as completely unnecessary. Considering we got through the War for Independence with the king keeping his throne while we kept our laws and governing practices, I think we can manage much the same now. God willing and the creek don’t rise, of course.
So, let’s roll up those sleeves and get to work while praising the Lord – and you know what, we can pass the stories. Here, have this one: https://www.amazon.com/Theophany-Caroline-Furlong-ebook/dp/B0F7YMR6NT
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The internet has a dark side. I don’t mean the pr0n, I mean things like internet-connected household thermostats and refrigerators, and the mandate that the Authorities must have the ability to remotely shut down your new car.
The new developments will have a dark side too. Some of that will be unforced errors and own-goals.
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And some of these ideas (see the ones named) are truly, deeply, breathtakingly stupid ideas. I mean, “dumber than rocks” would be an insult to the intelligence of every rock ever, anywhere, anytime. Not “stupid” in any merely abstract way, either, but in a consequential way.
For a long time, there was this thing (idea, fetish) called “fair cryptosystems” — the idea being that the (sainted) government (or The People or The King or…) had “the right” or even “the duty” to be able to decode any enciphered communication, but most especially Internet-type ones. (Yes, the “fair” part was exactly that defective, backdoored part.) See “key escrow” and all similar schemes.
The reason (almost) nobody has heard of these things, except by living through the olden times, is that people finally got it through their heads that defective means defective, and back-doored means back-doored, and that there is (and can be) no guarantee that The Right People will be the only ones to ever use these things, or that even they will do so “properly” and/or for only the stated reasons and/or only for the stated purposes. “Fair” cryptography is defective cryptography is, by obvious extension, mostly-useless pretend security, due to having widely-known but inherent bugs.
Take this (it’s been simmering awhile by now, just like “fair cryptosystems” did) notion of having some remote “official hack” to just turn off your car and leave you stranded. Sure sounds nice in the abstract, when they’re talking about a point-and-click end to some high-speed fugitive chase.
Less when you’re a woman alone on a deserted highway, and “Your car has been disabled” pops.
Okay, now let’s talk Covidiocy. “If you try to drive your car in a lockdown, we’ll brick it for a month.” Now, have a major family medical emergency, oops, start walking with the heart-attack victim in a fireman’s carry. (“But the ambulances…” yeah, right, Fauci.) But that’s still only the surface gloss.
What would a “point-and-click” car-shutdown box sell for on the Dark Web? Betcha quantities of a million (or dozens) would be easy to move; now consider the sheer resources that justifies, from “social engineering” to old-school network hacks, right down to kidnapping some person’s children and spouse and showing them the costs of not turning over the “keys” to the Car Killer system. It has (IIRC) been done for “mere” bank robberies; this is orders of magnitude more remunerative.
The only unrealistic part of that, is that only the “newest” cars will be vulnerable. But, it actually gets worse. This is just “mere” self-interested crime, after all: for ‘crime does pay’ motivations.
Now “Imagine” people with genuinely ill intent.
There’s a hurricane coming. The Phantom has pointed out that our gas stations rarely even have backup gas-fueled generators to run their electrical pumps, and basically never any hand-cranked ones. Now, see not “we can’t get gas” but “our highways are clogged with bricked cars for fifty miles every direction, and there’s a Cat 5 storm coming!!” — courtesy of Invincibly Oblivious Stupid.
Creating mass, single-point failures is not smart. Doing it deliberately is insane, maybe for Batman villain Arkham Asylum levels of criminal insanity.
Some things in life are just an intelligence test, if maybe other things too. “Unsafe at any speed” is not only an old Ralph Nader line — and, remember what Heinlein said about stupid?
If deliberately-defective products just won’t sell… sooner or later, non-defective ones likely will be made and offered for sale, again. Until then, as always, the Gods of the Copybook Headings aren’t going anywhere, anytime soon.
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I read a story, pretty sure it was in Analog, where some nefarious group took control of people’s self-driving cars, directed them to a roadside booth selling ‘tiny berries’ (supposedly aphrodisiac or ‘male enhancing’ or both but probably merely harmless) and not letting them leave until they made a purchase.
This would have been back in the 90s, or even the 80s, so the warning has been out there for a looong time. The characters noted that taking over people’s cars could be put to far more harmful purposes.
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As you say, a long time. And let’s remember, ca. 1975, someones in gov’t thought it might be a Good Idea to make cars not start unless the seatbelts were fastened. Even, IIRC, was a National Mandate for a couple years or so.
Then the casualty statistics started rolling in. Like people robbed, assaulted, etc., because these “safety” (cough!) systems didn’t let their cars go anywhere to escape. Since this was 1975-ish, and some basic social common sense was yet intact, this Noble Experiment and its “mandate” died a quick death. My first (used) car was one of those, with its “won’t start” system (legally) bypassed. But, every once in a long while, that bypass (or the lockout) would malfunction; and I had to pop the hood and hit the “please start anyway” switch — good for exactly one start-and-run per flip.
Real food for thought, the next few miles or so.
My example of “fair” (creampuff) cryptosystems is a good one largely because the whole crypto community and its peer-review, collective-wisdom process worked very well. It slowly took apart the mirage of reasonableness being peddled by the “fair” folk — before anybody (or their personal data or finances) were ever much put at risk by this self-defeating, almost self-contradictory, idea.
May it be that we come to our senses about Car Killer Boxes, before the costs and casualties run high; and (much as I hate to say it), the earlier the human costs come rolling in with it, the lower the eventual total butcher’s bill is likely to be. Unless, of course, Car Killer cars turn out to be the Edsels of the 21st century — Unsellable at (almost) Any Price — first.
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Our Plymouth’s had that; we just unplugged the seat sensors.
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Lots of people bought new, high-tech mattresses that could rise up and down, and had built-in thermostats.
And then an AWS data center on the east coast went down one day last year, and the mattresses all cranked the heat up until the data center was back on-line.
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I will NOT have an internet connect appliance. TV, which I can live without. Not my refrigerator or thermostat, etc. Unfortunately, and they are not connected to our internet Wi-Fi, the power and water meters, are “smart meters”, that can not only be read remotely, but tattle tell, and be shut off, remotely. Must admit after the line breakage in mid-’90s and not being “*told” our winter water usage was 6 to 7 times normal (6 VS 40 kgals), for 4 months, when the smart meter tattles that we must have a leak? It is appreciated.
(*) I might be a bit of a fanatic on checking usage since then. How we discovered the “leak”? There was 4″ of water in the front yard between the house and the (offending) Giant Sequoia trees. It had been raining a lot, but not enough to build up water like that on the front yard. Offending, because it was the tree root systems that shattered the plastic water line. Trees almost took out the new copper line 20 years later (grew around and pinched). Found when the irrigation system went in. Trees been removed 4 years earlier (ice storm). We thought we’d nipped the probability of reoccurrence by rerouting and using copper instead of plastic. Apparently not. Giant Sequoias – the trees one loves and hates.
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Back a few years ago, before whole house wi-fi became common, there were multiple products (TP-Link was one) that turned your house wiring into a capable network. If the monitoring is in there, that smart electric meter is also a network hub.
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(looks up from wiring/soldering project) “hmm? Killswitch? lol” (back to hobby electronics)
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Takaichi’s win in Japan is a huge poke in the eye for China and anything that pokes the CCP in the eye is good for the rest of us. LOoking around the world, I see the blob starting to erode away. The Epstein files seem to be acting as a solvent all over Europe and we’ve seen positive things in central and South America. THe Castro’s may fall and Cuba liberated and maybe even the mullahs in Iran.
The blob will take a lot of melting and it could all go horribly wrong, but we just have to keep the faith. TOlkien made the point with Aragorn’s name in elvish. Estil means hope, but actually means trust — trust in the Lord, if that’s your belief. All we have to do is keep on keeping on.
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Major anti-black pill event. Her party didn’t just win the election, they (her party and a coalition party that won three dozen seats) absolutely *clobbered* the left. She’s the first Japanese prime minister to have such a large majority since World War 2 (when “not getting assassinated by zealous army officers” was a concern), and has a super-majority in the Diet. It’s an amazing moment. And since it’s Japan, and not Central or South America, where the governments seem to shift between left and right every so often, the changes she enacts will likely last for a good long time. People are already talking about changes to Japan’s constitution, in particular letting the country have a proper military again.
I’m also seeing a lot of people who are very jealous about Japan being able to dial down the immigration spigot so rapidly. Japanese citizens started to complain, and it’s being dealt with. Citizens in pretty much every other western nation complain, and their politicians ignore them at best, and call them racists at worst.
Now if they could just figure out how to fix problems with things like “herbivores” and the lack of babies, they’d probably be in pretty good shape.
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Wonderful illustration
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Kathy, my deepest condolences. Losing a sibling is hard. May God bless you and your family.
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Generally agree. Four years ago, I was making bad impressionist fanart of P&P and GBU in Midjourney. Three years ago, I was making book covers in it and marvelling at the relevance of an older but new to me series called Person of Interest (presented by FreeTeeVee with ads about pool cleaning robots and AI laptops!) Sunday of this week, I was paying Openrouter.ai $4.11 so I could run various AI automations, that I’d built with AI help, to tell me, politely, what I’d done wrong with the first draft of the space regency. (In retrospect, I could have just run one of the automations and paid $1.37 but one lives and learns.) The speed of change is frightening.
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But also exciting. Roller coaster metaphors may apply.
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Yep. This.
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I’m not terribly worried about AI being mal-used. Part of the process of investigating, adapting, and adopting new technology consists of experimenting with all the different ways to use it good, bad, wrong, or just totally idiotic. We discover the 90 ways that don’t work for making a light bulb, the 8 ways that work somewhat, the one way that it works beyond all expectations, and the one way that works that we can actually profit from manufacturing and selling. The hard part is who gets royalties for the idea, how much, and for how long; and how long they have exclusive rights to it before release to the wild.
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There’s a big pattern or coincidence going through our instincts in our back brains.
The lockdown/shutdown? Academics who maybe really hate the uneducated, trying to disemploy and replace people doing economic tasks which the henwitted scholarly cargo cultists in question did not understand.
The immigration thing? Some go to academia to learn to make industrial automation, and some go to learn to become slave overseers, they are not the same. Slave labor is both screwing the automation engineers, and the native ‘uneducated’ workers (who are often actually very skilled, knowledgable, and thoughtful). But, the balance of the policy being pushed is the social services overseers backing the former regime.
Energy transistion is a weirder case.
So, do AI push fit into this at all? Is it merely a coincidence?
The AI push makes a lot of sense if it is merely another bunch of PMC replacemetn nutters, who disdain ‘uneducated’ labor too much.
Then the shortcomings of the analyses in the traditional old man logic make perfect sense.
Anyway, some people should be having a false positive on this question no matter the circumstances. They would naturally be resistant to an academic theory explanation that is similar to the other bullshit they have been asked to eat.
I’m personally betting that there will be a continued need for the ‘uneducated’ workers, and likewise also a continued need for people like me who are interested in preserving machines in working condition.
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The elitists and academics believe that A.I. can provide them with intellectual slaves to think for them, and complement the literal slaves they want doing grunt labor for them.
They have found that people smarter than themselves are troublesome. They have to depend on people who understand and create things they are unable to comprehend.
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https://pjmedia.com/sarah-anderson/2026/02/10/dems-move-to-kneecap-trump-in-latin-america-send-monroe-doctrine-to-dustbin-of-history-n4949338
Factcheck everyone!
This article is totally incorrect, because it describes certain persons as the most progressive members of the Democrat Party. They are actually the most communist paid agents of the cartels in congress.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
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