Skynet, here we come!
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The draft report is linked from their web site.
âDeploying and adopting AI remains a hard problem. AI cannot magically solve problems. As AI moves from an elite niche science to a mainstream tool, engineering will be as important as scientific breakthroughs.â
Iâve read the intro, skimmed bits. If itâs more than an exercise in speculative fiction then thatâs not leaping off the page. I gotta get me a consulting gig on one of these commissions.
Perhaps a good counterpoint is the manifesto put out by mostly Google people last November. It barely qualifies as technical, and is the most recent in a string of bright lights pointed at the AI emperorâs frequently naked backside. âAIâ is hard, but you can brute force yourself â90% of the wayâ with readily deployed tools and a server room full of spare computers. That makes you look busy, and hopefully the boss doesnât notice that the last 10% step is a doozyâŠ
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I am reminded of the great chemist Fritz Haber, whose method for making fertilizer feeds half the world now, and who after that turned to developing chemical weapons. Because âdeath is death, no matter how it is inflictedâ, it was not less humane than bullets and might hasten the end of the war. His wife evidently disagreed and shot herself after Ypres.
History has not looked terribly kindly on his point of view, but I guess that doesnât mean we canât repeat the same every time an exciting new idea for killing people comes up.
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The first thing to understand is that âAIâ is just the new word for âcomputerâ
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Then weâre screwed, since all of these âagreementsâ and âpactsâ are and always have been been worse than useless.
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I know itâs 2021, but itâs been a lot of bad years for a long time. I just stumbled upon this from the tail end of 2016.
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I know itâs just a cartoon and the puppyâs not real, but this made me so sad. 
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These days, I am trying to include âhandlesâ or constructive ways to respond positively, whenever I post a negative story. SoâŠ
https://lifewithoutplastic.com/
If you are privileged in your own life to have the option of choosing less plastic consumption, please consider and thank you in advance.
@boingboingshop
@boingboing
@jlw
⊠please stop peddling plastic tchotchkes and other plastic crap when you can aim for higher quality durable alternatives wherever and whenever possible. Please take the time to do the work of digging for better analogous options. âSustainabilityâ is not a new concept.
We can do better.
We must do better.
bOINGbOINGâs still a directory of [mostly or sometimes] wonderful things.
Please reclaim that word âwonderfulâ and make it mean something more positive, and more compassionate for all the lifeforms, present and future, on our only habitable planet.
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And let us not forget, in addition to the environmental cost of the planet, the gewgaws and tech often come from a place of truly awful provenanceâthe cost of human suffering and human lives:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/03/never-again/
And every month, fresh reminders that Xinjiang is part of the âsupply chainâ: that our electronics, covid supplies, and gewgaws are being made by terrorized slaves as part of a wider plan to erase a people:
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The responses in the comments just beggar belief and i would add the usual disclaimer to avoid them because i think The Intercept has a âNazi barâ problem. Yet again what i find utterly dispiriting in the second decade of this century is that when faced with overwhelming evidence of genocide there are those not just not caring but refusing to believe itâs even happening and simply state propaganda.
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⊠and widespread⊠or distributed⊠pick the phrase:
⊠and when info leaks out, the state-operators for the PRC jump all over
and more.
Sadly, the survivors who manage to give account of their time inside are incredibly sad and terrifying:
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Pretty easy to do if you have a PhD and a security clearance.
I havenât and wonât read the comments, but I am used to the tankies defending any authoritarian state who is remotely left wing. The Communist Party of India (MarxistâLeninist) (Liberation) believes that there internment camps in China, and I donât see any reason to think that they are lying even though I donât usually trust M-Ls.
I think this is the article that I read last year.
We do not have to look further than Chinaâs own documents and its own propaganda organs to recognise that the Chinese State is holding vast numbers of Uyghurs in concentration camps, subjecting the entire Uyghur community both inside and outside the camps to forced indoctrination, surveillance and censorship, and attempting to erase the identity and culture of the Uyghur people. China has been touting its Xinjiang model as a successful model of âcounterterrorismâ which the world should adopt.
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Based on the Interceptâs origins as a Greenwald vehicle, Iâd imagine the comments to be a combination of awful pro-Chinese tankie horribleness and awful anti-Chinese Trumpie horribleness
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Thatâs a good bet.
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The $2,000 checks have been downgraded to $1,400 dollars and theyâre now going to âeligible recipientsâ. This comes after the $600 dollars last year where it seems like they think that the â1400 now + 600 earlier = 2000 so everythingâs A-OK and we did our job!â math is something that people are going to be okay with, alongside the way the eligibility cut had gained momentum in ways that went against what people wanted. I really hate Joe Manchin. He doesnât seem to realize that getting full $2000 checks to as many people as possible would give him a huge boost. He also doesnât seem to realize that all of this can wind up being quite damaging to the Dems.
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Care, I think, is the issue.
Atrios thread on the rot trying to creep back into the White House:
And some good news:
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 05, 2021
More Like This
âŠand
by Atrios at 10:29
That they want to means test against people who made $50k in 2019, just, where do you start? Above and beyond what is the point of this again?
Our household actually wonât be quite affected by the cutoff (I make more than $50k, my wife is currently managing the house/child), but so far the âstimulusâ utility has been limited because Iâve lost more income to wage reduction furloughs and annual cost-of-living raises being frozen than Iâve gained, probably even after this round.
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Hmm, did his untimely death involve a dive from a window?
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