"I" in AI? #1

 All this progress in artificial intelligence makes us think more deeply about what we mean by "intelligence." As you already know, AI is used all over today's culture - including diverse applications like farm management, your kitchen appliances, business and military virtual reality training, health care.

image

It looks like real intelligence. But it's still "narrow" AI which simply performs a task it is commanded to do based on the data it collects and on the goal that it is designed to reach. 

Last November, ChatGPT was brought to the public by its creator Open AI. It generates text when given a command in ordinary language, and that makes it look like it has "general" AI (the human kind). But it doesn't. It is still just computing data as its programming dictates. 

It doesn't know what the words mean. It doesn't know or care whether its sources are true. When asked to reveal where it got the information it bases its claims on, it just makes them up. 

from Mind Matters

(cont'd tomorrow - ChatGPT  errors)

Church goer

It used to be that a majority of Americans were church goers. Not so today. In my neighborhood, and probably yours, church goers are in the minority.

Sometimes you hear the complaint that church people are hypocrites. But that's never made sense to me. Rich Mullens put it this way:

"I never understood why going to church made you a hypocrite, because nobody goes to church because they're perfect. If you've got it all together, you don't need to go. You can go jogging with all the perfect people on Sunday morning. 

"Every time you go to church, you're confessing to yourself, to your family, to the people you pass on their way there, to the people who will greet you there, that you don't have it all together. And that you need their support. You need their direction. You need some accountability, you need some help."

As a church goer, I'm saying that I need God in my life and that I need my church family. Church is for us who know that we're far from perfect.

Race over all

Certain things happened during the course of the covid pandemic (2020-2022) that changed us as a society. Working remotely from home is now preferred by people who are able to do that. Churches that were locked down now struggle to regain attendance. And parents discovered that they hotly disagreed with some things promoted in their kids' schools.

To the surprise and shock of many of us, we learned that racism - perversely called "anti-racism" - is often central to policy in our schools. Children are taught that they are inferior because of their race, or that they are hated because of their race. We have fought against that way of thinking for many, many years.

Parents don't like it. Sometimes teachers and administrators deny it. 

Here is one bright student who has seen it in his school, and explains it to his school board in very plain language. You'll have to follow this link to the Twitter video to see it for yourself.

Indispensable 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

America's independence was won and the peace treaty signed by 1783. The Commander-in-Chief, loved and respected by his troops, was a towering hero. Some wanted to crown him as the new king of America but he wouldn't allow it, since the point of the war had been to enable the people to rule themselves.

England's King George heard that The General intended to resign his command and retire to private life on his farm. Knowing that power is almost impossible to resist, he commented: "If he does that, he is the greatest man on earth."

But Washington did it, and enjoyed his private farming life for a short time. After the country was re-organized, after the Constitution was written, he was the obvious and popular candidate for our first president. He set the precedent to serve in that position for only two terms (1789-1787). 

Stories and legends sprang up about him, but Abigail Adams had it right when she said after his death, "Simple truth is his best, his greatest eulogy."

I highly recommend Washington: A Life, by historian Ron Chernow

Indispensable 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Today is George Washington Day in the state of Virginia, a holiday they established for his birthday. You may have heard what he was called by the people of his time: "the father of his country." The people of his own time described him that way, not just modern historians.

Many "founding fathers" contributed to America's founding, but he was considered to be the indispensable figure. 

Before he became the first president, the General was commander-in-chief of colonial forces in the Revolutionary War (1775-1783). Most of his troops had no training and their enemy was the premier military power of the world. Victories were few, hardships were abundant.

On the miserable Christmas Day of 1776, they were camped at Valley Forge PA. They broke camp and crossed the ice-choked Delaware River over night (losing not one man), and marched (some of them without shoes) several miles. The ensuing battle against Hessian mercenaries was one inspiring victory, and helped Washington hang on to his suffering, discouraged army.

photo

(cont'd tomorrow)

Indispensable 1

We celebrated a national holiday this week. Did you observe the big celebration? No, because there wasn't one. This is the holiday that passes with barely a notice. Some people had the day off at work and some places were closed. But it's certain that many went to the post office anyway and wondered why the doors were locked.

Presidents' Day is supposed to honor two of our greatest presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, both of whose birthdays are this month. The birthdays were consolidated for convenience and placed on a Monday so that we can all have a long weekend. 

But these presidents are worthy of honor - despite the fact that they, being as human as you and me, were not perfect. Washington, like most landowners in his region, regrettably owned slaves (and eventually released them). 

Other, different parts of his character and his contribution to America are what we can admire. Historians have called him "the indispensable man" and we should know why. What else did he do besides own slaves? Plenty.

image

(cont'd tomorrow)

Dunk

The National Basketball Association (NBA) held their "slam dunk" competition over the weekend with spectacular results.  For an NBA player, the winner is a little short at 6'2'. But this 24-year-old from Virginia defies gravity.

You won't get the full effect til you see the winning dunks in slow motion here.

H.O.O.D.

A rooftop tent is not a comfortable or convenient spot to spend 345 days, not in Chicago. But Corey Brooks did it to bring attention to Project H.O.O.D.

photo

Pastor Brooks started the project to help the people of Chicago's south side. He wants to give them hope for a good future, to “end violence and build communities, one neighborhood at a time. We are creating leaders, strengthening character, seeking to end violence and generational poverty in urban areas. Our goal is to nurture these human resources and provide them with positive and consistent adult interactions."

It's not a small vision and they need a lot of money to do it. So far they've raised $28.5 million toward the $35 million goal.

The pastor and his wife are driven by a conviction that God gave the vision to them, wants them to do it, and will provide what it takes. Listen to him, the "Rooftop Pastor," on this podcast.

Derailment 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

It happens more often than you might think. So far this year there have been a dozen train derailments nation-wide, and there were 54,539 from 1990 to 2021 (averaging 1704/year). 

But most are not as spectacular as the one at East Palestine, Ohio, thirteen days ago, and most don't spill hazardous chemicals into water sources or fill the air with a big dark plume of smoke.

Maybe most surprising, some happen by intentional design. According to this 2021 report, the FBI at the time was investigating at least 41 incidents of railway sabotage in the state of Washington.

It's not just railways either. A water treatment plant operator personally prevented the poisoning of local people in 2021 when he reversed a hacker's attempt to manipulate the acid content of the water supply in Oldsmar, Florida. 

We all depend on our public utilities, the infrastructure. It's probably not as secure as we'd like it to be. 

Derailment

Days ago, back on February 3, a train carrying dangerous material crashed in Ohio. Dramatic drone footage shows the scattered train cars, some burning.

East Palestine, Ohio, was the site of this fiery disaster. Chemicals got out into the local environment and more leakage was expected. So authorities took a bold step: they set the material on fire to keep it contained. 

Gov. DeWine ordered evacuation of the area, calling it a matter of life and death. Crews released vinyl chloride into a trough and ignited it. But fears abound that the water and air may still be unsafe.

from CBS News

(cont'd tomorrow)

Black success 3

(Sorry for the missing three posts! Technical problems😖. .)

As you know, even after slavery was outlawed in the United States, laws and restrictions worked to oppress black Americans. 

"But that same history is rife with stories of African Americans who embraced the institutions of family, religion, education, and perhaps most notably entrepreneurship to overcome dehumanizing discrimination and achieve enduring prosperity."

Though limited in the founding ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, these individuals used the free market economic system of America to rise above.

"Government—at all levels—failed to protect Blacks’ rights to life, liberty, property, freedom of contract, right to trial by jury, and more. [But] the market didn’t fail Black people. Indeed, Blacks prospered as entrepreneurs, professionals, and laborers within the free enterprise system."

Participation in the free market has been an avenue of prosperity for the black community in all of our history. 

As we obsess and agonize over our failures, it's imperative to study success.

from "A Vision of Black Success"

Fake sources

Follow up to this post

So, Open AI produced ChatGPT and it's being used to write text, like an essay (it can also generate art and music). You can tell it in your own words what to write, then it will survey some internet sources and come up with an article. 

image

This author has been using it and noticed something interesting. He asked it to write a sample blog post and to include its online sources, where it got the information it used. It did give him sources, all right - fake, made-up websites and articles.

He tested it again, and it gave him a list of five links to articles at various URL's. They were all fake. He told it, "None of those articles actually exist." It apologized and gave him another list of fake links. 

Actually, I generate text too. Every weekday I publish a post I've written, and . . and . . give you the actual link to the actual article or book I based my post on. You can always check my sources because the links are real.

You're welcome.

from Mind Matters

Moral mockery

Follow up to last Friday's post

Just as Glenn Loury said, it takes bravery to speak the truth when you may have to pay a price for it. No doubt, you can easily think of a situation in which you stayed quiet about something you believe ("spiral of silence"). Why? 

Babylon Bee's CEO agrees with Loury that we need to be open about what we believe to be true. In fact, he thinks we need to laugh at outrageous, unsound claims in order to expose them.

Casual art

Enjoy this post from almost five years ago, maybe the most beautiful thing you will enjoy today:

Imagine a big extended family gets together. Just for the fun of it, just casually standing around in the living room, wearing t-shirts and jeans - they all break out into glorious harmonious song. 

How can everybody in this family all be amazing?

Black success 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post) 

This successful, intellectual man holds an honored place in the top levels of American higher education. Being of a racial minority did not prevent him from getting there. He probably had to overcome low expectations from his childhood environment. No doubt his life today is a far cry from his upbringing both in personal wealth and public respect.

His views have evolved over the years but the video below, just a month old, expresses his concerns today. Radical, unsound, untrue claims are being made (an example from this blog: sex-change surgery for kids on demand) -- while masses of people who know better censor themselves out of fear of being cancelled. 

We need to bravely speak up to end the "spiral of silence."

Black success

Chicago's south side was segregated for decades until housing laws were successfully challenged in the 1930-40's. Waves of black migration rose after the Civil War and again in the 20th century, creating vibrant black businesses and culture here. But gang activity and civil unrest eventually earned the south side a reputation of crime.

Born in 1948 and descended from slaves, Glenn Loury grew up in this environment. After taking some classes at a junior college, he won a scholarship to Northwestern University where he graduated with a math degree. He then moved on to the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he earned his PhD in economics.

Since then his career has taken him to University of Michigan, Boston University, Brown University, Harvard  (where he was its first black tenured professor of economics). Quite the resume. His political views have changed from time to time.

Why the biography? "It’s time to tell the story of Black Success, not Black Victimhood."

From Wikipedia

(cont'd tomorrow)

Trans policy

(cont'd from Monday's post)

Going back to J. K. Rowland, she tweeted again about an absurd and terrible policy that came from a government affirming gender transition: 

A female former prisoner in Scotland was incarcerated in a women's prison. Out of the 40 inmates, two were "trans women" who looked like men (and were in the shower), one having committed domestic violence and one who committed  murder. 

She was terrified. See her story here.

photo

The Scottish policy was changed, thank God.

Crickets

Follow up to these posts

Climate change is a big, important issue for the European Union (EU) in all their policy-making. It is the primary issue behind closing down farms in The Netherlands. It is an issue for energy decisions like Germany's goal to shut down their nuclear plants ("climate neutral").

Regarding the forcible closing of farms, I raised a question of food security - namely, what will happen to the supply of food for the Dutch people and for the people who import Dutch meat? 

One answer to that question may be revealed now. This month the EU approved the addition of a fourth insect variety that may be added to foods. "House crickets" will be grown, starved for 24 hours, killed, and ground into powder. They will be added at the rate of 1%-2.5% into foods like manufactured snacks.

This author says that the policy may make sense to Europeans because they want to devote large land areas to solar farms and wind rather than to farming. That's the connection to climate change. 

But don't worry, the choice of whether to eat insects instead of meat is still a personal choice in Europe. So far.

Note: I didn't include a repulsive picture in this post. Google it.

Trans opponent

Follow-up to these posts

Not everybody has jumped on the powerful wave of gender transitions. The author of the immensely popular Harry Potter stories fights the current momentum of that wave. J.K. Rowling thinks that male and female sexes are biologically real rather than defined by a state of mind.

photo

In connection with women's rights, she really doesn't like it when men claim to be women: "Men defining what a woman is, what women should and shouldn’t fear, what women should and shouldn’t say . . [is the] ‘real’ misogyny: get a bloody mirror. That’s real misogyny, looking right back at you." She says woman is not a costume, an idea in a man's head, or a pink brain.

The number of girls transitioning to male in Scotland has grown by over 4000%, fed on "social contagion" through social media. She's worried about this. So she's been cancelled on Twitter, of course, and quit tweeting for a while to regain peace. She explains all this on her website.

She bravely fights for what she believes to be right . . as her fictional creation Harry did.

Bible museum 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

"Scripture and Science" opened as a new exhibit last week in the Museum of the Bible. Lots of artifacts are included. 

Nicolaus Copernicus published On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres in the year 1543, containing his model of the universe which put the sun rather than the earth in the center of it. A very old copy from 1566 is being displayed. It's a special copy - owned by Galileo himself.

Some of the great issues of today's world are addressed in the exhibit, one of them being the assumption that science and religion are always in conflict. The exhibit brings evidence to the contrary. 

Early religious figures in the "scientific revolution" (1543 to 1687) brought their principles into the work of studying the universe. They believed that the Creator instilled his own orderliness into the material world, so the universe can truly be studied and understood by humans who were created with His own rationality.

Much more from the exhibit can be found here.

Bible museum 1

Whether you are a believer or not, a visit to the Museum of the Bible located in Washington D.C. may surprise you. It's "an immersive, personal experience" designed to "invite all people to engage with the transformative power of the Bible."

CBS summarizes their own tour through it in this ~4-minute clip:

It's huge (the equivalent of a 17-story building) and located just a block from the Capitol.  Fifty-one thousand donors funded its construction, the biggest of whom was the Green family of Hobby Lobby stores, called "controversial" by this reporter.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Open AI 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Open AI wrote the "chatbot" (ChatGPT) that some students are using. It was not designed for cheating, but to perform a task which you give to it in natural language (not code). A WSJ writer went back to an advanced placement English class to test it. She gave her assignment to the AI program, and it wrote an essay which got the teacher's approval.

When this AI tool launched last November, it had a million users within five days.

Generative models coming from Open AI can generate music and images as well as text, with spoken natural language prompts. The image below was generated from the prompt, "Teddy bears working on new AI research underwater with 1990s technology" 

Potential ethics problems abound. Deceit? Already happening. At this point, you won't know if a person or an algorithm (written by a person) wrote an article you're reading. Bias and manipulation? Sure, just write the algorithm to exclude any idea you don't agree with - like the social media companies do.

Elon's view is that people with good motives must be involved in the inevitable development of AI to move it in the right direction. He wants Open AI's research to be open-sourced, which means accessible, not secret.

Open AI 1

Open AI does research in artificial intelligence (AI). There's a for-profit wing which develops new commercial applications for sale, and a non-profit side with no commercial sales function. Elon Musk was one of the original founders back in December of 2015, but he's no longer on the board.

It reflects Elon's well-known fear that artificial general intelligence will eventually threaten human beings. A simple statement of their mission from the website: "to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity."

(cont'd tomorrow)

Tech layoffs 2

 Follow-up to this post

Technology companies were laying off lots of employees last fall. It seemed like a big wave. It included Twitter, of course, where new owner Elon Musk was getting headlines for doing it to his new company. But now there's an even bigger wave. Lots of tech company CEO's are cutting labor costs.

Amazon is going to lay off over 18,000 people. In addition to that news last Wednesday, it was reported that Microsoft too is cutting jobs to reduce their workforce by 10,000. These are big numbers.

Google is joining the club. They announced their intention to lay off 12,000 people. A memo from the CEO outlines generous severance packages. He says that we are in a different sort of economy than we had the last two years when they were hiring.

After two years of high inflation, individuals and businesses both are feeling the pain and there could be a recession on the way. 

image

Pipeline 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Is the Keystone pipeline safe? If that means "risk-free," no, it is not. Next question: what different method of moving petroleum is safe? Again, if that means "risk-free," the answer is none.  No method is risk-free. 

Petroleum could be transported by tanker trucks. To move the volume that one pipeline (Dakota Access Pipeline) moves every day would require three thousand of those tanker trucks on our roads. Does that sound risk-free? Or  . . that volume could be moved by rail cars. It would require 815 rail cars to move the same amount. Not risk-free.

Another consideration might be carbon emissions. No environmentalist would want increased carbon emissions from 3,000 additional tanker trucks on the roads.

Petroleum products fuel our modern way of life. Beyond use as fuel, they are even found in the carbon fiber of wind turbine blades, not to mention electronics and smartphones. So we won't be eliminating our need for petroleum any time soon.

How to move it is a complex policy decision because there are important issues in conflict. As with every decision, all options must be considered. As the environmentalist said, the priority is to protect both people and planet.

from Energy Transfer

Pipeline 1

On his first day in office, the current president stopped construction on an extension to the Keystone pipeline. According to his energy department's December report, that decision cost up to 59,000 two-year jobs. It would have moved 830,000 barrels of oil per day from Canada to Nebraska where it would have linked with other pipelines.

Environmentalist activists had helped him get elected, and that's what they wanted. The price of power is inflated today, probably due partially to reduced access and supply of oil.

Safety was the issue. Most of the accidents in Keystone's history (it started service in 2010) have been small-scale, but just last month the biggest one happened in the state of Kansas. About 14,000 barrels of oil leaked into a rural creek, soaking part of a family farm. At 42 gallons/barrel, that's over a half-million gallons.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Wave is slowing

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

A wave of very extreme gender policies leaped into public life in recent years, all contrary to biology and common sense. Here are a few:

• Radical medical and surgical treatments for under-aged kids
• Biological males forcibly allowed into girls' showers
• Biological male athletes forcibly allowed to compete against girls

photo

Chloe's comment is right on. How can you do any of these things in good conscience? 

But the wave may be slowing:

• Florida now forbids transgenderism and other sensitive sexual discussion to children in school until fourth grade 
• Medical or surgical transitions to youth are outlawed in three states
• Opposition to biological males competing with girls is growing

Maybe lawyers will rush into the changing momentum with suits like Chloe's. They tend to do so, considering the history of opposition to tobacco and asbestos.

from Humanize

Trans per law

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Long-term research is not definitive regarding sex-change transition. While some who go through that surgery seem to be satisfied, many are not. Some of them de-transition back. Over all, the outcomes (including suicide) are not conclusively positive. Go here to consider some of the available evidence.

So why have some courts demanded that the surgery be done on request? Where is the freedom of choice, the respect that is due to professionals who don't choose to perform it? 

photo

A hospital at the University of Maryland was judged guilty of violating anti-discrimination law because it refused to perform the sex-change surgery. 

Chloe Cole (yesterday's post) is outspoken in her opinion that it was way too easy for her to get the drastic surgery at the age of 15. Even without any religious or moral considerations, scientifically and rationally there's not enough evidence to put the law of the land behind automatic access to it.

from MSN

(cont'd tomorrow)

De-trans story

Parents are the primary protectors of their children. They provide a long-term perspective that the child can't get from just a few years of life. Unfortunately for Chloe Cole, nothing held her back from drastic, unchangeable surgery that she soon regretted but will have to live with.

Chloe started taking puberty blockers at the age of 12 or 13, then chose double mastectomy surgery for herself at the age of 15. 

photo

Very publicly, she is telling the world that she wishes someone had held her back, that the adult advisors in her life had refused to take that action.

"Now that I've seen it all," Chloe says, "I just can't imagine operating on a kid like that in good conscience."

Go to this Twitter account to see her say this.

Change course

It takes courage to re-evaluate and change course. This environmentalist was a true believer,  investing all his effort into what he thought would make the world a better place. But he also kept his eyes open, kept on observing and thinking about his work, and ultimately changed his mind about his course in life.

As he says, the best policies will be those that look honestly at all the energy options open to us and make choices to protect both people and the planet. It looks like The Netherlands didn't pay enough attention to the needs of its people (see this week's previous posts).

Our energy policy choices moving forward need to consider these factors: reliability, affordability, security, scalability, land use. 

Amazing fact - solar farms require 75 times the land that a typical nuclear plant requires to provide 1000 MW of energy. Wind farms require 360 times the land that a nuclear plant requires.