AeroSphere

A stunning product was revealed this week by Tesla: the AeroSphere.

Eventually there will be more information - but so far, this is all I've seen:

Trust AI?

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

A parent who is willing to hand over hours of his child's conversation to AI (Tuesday's post) may be training him or her to trust that voice for everything. 

Eventually bad people will use AI for bad purposes. It's the perfect tool for deception. Why? Check out this re-post from 2023:

Fear of AI 5

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

There's no doubt AI can be used positively in many ways, like in healthcare diagnosis.  If you watched Khan's tutor video yesterday, you know the tutor bot looks helpful and very convincing. It's easy to assume the AI tutor is thinking. But actually, AI doesn't understand anything. It just surveys relevant internet content and arranges it per its algorithm instructions. When a student asks it for ethics advice, he will get the opinion/algorithm designed by the AI tutor's programmer at Khan Academy. May be good, may not be good.

And that's why it's dangerous. It sounds very much like us (that's intentional), but it's not a person. It doesn't understand the difference between true and false. It "makes stuff up," as the MIT article says.

That's why Hinton is worried: “It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things . . I console myself with the normal excuse: If I hadn’t done it, somebody else would have.”

How would bad actors use it for bad things? It's a perfect tool for deception, for fake news, for manipulation, for corrupt politicians. Will we get to the point where we trust nobody?

Trust ChatGPT?

AI should be understood to be potentially dangerous. All of us need to learn how to use AI, but also to learn what AI does not do well. Here's a 2023 post showing a serious weakness:

"I" in AI? #2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Gathering and processing data is the function of narrow, or weak, artificial intelligence. It can analyze  immense amounts of data and answer questions based on data it gathers. That helps human beings reach conclusions, and it saves us from doing all the data gathering.

But it's not equal to the kind of intelligence humans have. It doesn't question the truth of the data it gathers, and it doesn't really understand what the words mean. That's why ChatGPT can write an article based on common word sequences on the internet, but it can also make big and obvious errors like this:

Human: How many bears have Russians sent into space? ChatGPT: According to estimates, about 49 bears have been sent into space by Russia since 1957

Humans will continue to improve ChatGPT and other "large language models" like it. But this college professor is cautious:

"My fear is that people will be so bedazzled by articulate LLMs that they trust computers to make decisions that have important consequences."

from Mind Matters

Toddlers & ChatGPT

Looks like some parents find it easy to offload some of their parental responsibility to ChatGPT.

A dad admitted that he got tired of listening to his little boy talk about trains, so he gave the 4-year-old his phone so he could talk to ChatGPT. The child talked with it for two hours, unsupervised.

It seems that some parents do the same at bedtime because the voice is soothing. 

In effect, these parents invite and enable people whom they don't know to speak into their child's life. Would they ever bring in a complete stranger off the street to care for the child for a few hours? They have no idea what that voice on the phone is going to say to her or him. 

Caution is warranted. It's no secret that touchscreen devices can have various bad effects.

Ultimately, your instinct that your child needs you, not just entertainment, is correct. 

from Futurism

Fasting 19 hours

A whole day and a half of fasting (last week's post) can be intimidating. Here's some help toward making a start, with information on just a 19-hour fast: for most of us, that's more doable than 36 hours. 

But it's still not that easy. It will help if you're very motivated to defeat cancer or just to maintain good health.

So here's information about how it will affect your body. The narrator is a Radiation Oncology Therapist.

Is AI true? 2

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

Yes, there's a lot of room for interpretation of simple data. Just look at the way the Oregon Department of Education thinks math should be taught. Even a math fact like 2+2=4 can be "re-imagined" and "re-interpreted". Their claim that 2+2 may be 5 is just not true.

Do all people want the truth when they ask a question? Sure. 

But they may still be ok with giving untrue answers to other people . . if they don't like what would result from giving a truthful answer. Everybody is tempted to give answers that they prefer (true or not) and builders of software are just as human as everybody else. Their ideology, their favorite opinions, are built into their software. See below Gemini AI's image of Nazi soldiers in World War II (hint: no people of color would ever have been Nazi soldiers):

Do AI systems claim to present true information? Not to my knowledge. Except for Elon Musk. He says of his AI system, "The goal of Grok is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We will never be perfect, but we shall nonetheless strive towards that goal."

Grok has been trained to look for the truth. Of course it won't be perfect. But as far as I can tell, the other systems don't even make it a goal. That's enough for me. I'm using Grok.

Is AI true?

Artificial intelligence exploded into public life just a few years ago but it's changing our lives, as so many have predicted.

Nvidia, a major force driving the movement, describes it this way: "AI can be thought of as the development of computer systems that can perform tasks autonomously, ingesting and analyzing enormous volumes of data, then recognizing patterns in that data."

NASA uses the government's definition, which you might summarize this way: "An artificial system designed to think or act like a human."

IBM says there are three types. The only one currently operating, as John Lennox once explained, is "Narrow AI" which can only perform the task it was trained to do. "General AI" will have human intelligence, and "Super AI" will surpass human intelligence. They're still theoretical.

When we ask AI a question, do we want its answer to be true: factual, based on reality, accurate? Yes, and we assume it is. But there's a lot of room for interpretation or opinion on any given topic. How was it trained . . and whose integrity or values were built into it?

(cont'd tomorrow)

Fasting 36 hours

For several years I've been doing intermittent fasting, and I plan to keep it up. Lots of information has been published about the good effect it has on your health. 

As an example, autophagy sets in after about 18-20 hours of fasting. 

Here's an entertaining way of communicating the message:

Why Mamdani? 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Some thought that the specter of socialism was chased out of America by the fall of Russian communism, and by changing politics in the U.S. But it's still strong. It just won the election in NYC.

A quote in yesterday's post, "I'm a college student--and I want a future," comes from her belief that her financial future will be best under Mamdani's socialism. Billionaire Peter Thiel explains why she thinks that: he says "Capitalism Isn't Working for Young People." 

College student debt is a big factor. "Too many people go to college, they don't learn anything, and they end up with incredibly burdensome debt." In  2000, U.S. student debt amounted to $300 billion. Now it amounts to $2 trillion.

Housing, too, is way more expensive for younger generations (image is Grok-generated).

Thiel's interviewer cites evidence that Thiel is right: "Exit polling after Mamdani's victory shows that his voters were likely motivated by two things: high rent and student debt." 

from "Capitalism Isn't Working for Young People"

Why Mamdani?

"I'm a college student--and I want a future." That about sums up common wisdom as to how socialist Zohran Mamdani (photo) won last week's election to be the new mayor of America's biggest city, New York. "Gen Z voters turned out in droves for the beloved underdog whom they turned into the frontrunner."

This student got up at 4 a.m. on election day to go out and knock on doors for him. She was strongly motivated and just 18 years old. 

It's been many years since the average student was taught to understand our own economics system aka capitalism. When I was a new high school teacher, I realized that even I--the teacher--didn't know how to define free enterprise.

What is it going to take to turn that education structure around? Some kind of huge effort. Young people must learn how capitalism historically has been responsible for the growth of wealth: not just for billionaires, but across society.

Besides the fact that they have been educated to approve of socialism and despise America's own system, what convinces Gen Z voters to go for Mamdani? That's tomorrow's post.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Welfare Europe 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Why did French voters reject the budget cut proposal last summer? Because they wanted their share of benefits after paying high taxes for years to support benefits for others. They couldn't bring themselves to vote for financial sacrifice. 

France is not the only EU country headed toward economic disaster. 

One-tenth of working-age people in Britain claim payouts at public expense because of sickness/disability. Are they really entitled to the fruits of the labor of their neighbors? A politician says what they need is the old "work ethic" back, where it's the default to get a job so you take care of yourself and your family.

Germany has been "living beyond its means" for years according to the German chancellor. He says they can't go on with their welfare state. Politicians know this, but can they convince the people to make painful budget cuts for the greater good? It will be tough.

What will they do? As the president of European Central Bank warned a year ago, Europe's welfare states are “utterly unsustainable.”

from The Stream

Welfare Europe

Sustainable agriculture (examples in the last two posts) is farming that preserves resources that we depend on. Unsustainable methods would eventually mean that soil or water quality won't be there for future farming.

It's a good word that can be used in other contexts. An unsustainable over-spending habit, for instance, results in a serious lack of money in the future. Some Europeans worry about that very thing on a national scale in their countries.

Over-spending has been the story for decades. Europeans pride themselves on extravagant welfare hand-outs. They consider it a core European value to be very generous. But how long can anyone keep giving away more money than they have? 

Last summer the Prime Minister of France made a serious attempt to reign in his country's spending because he realized they are drowning in debt. "The life of the nation is at stake," he told them (photo).

But the proposed budget cut was bitter medicine for voters, and they rejected it--and him as well. He left office in September.

from The Stream

(cont'd tomorrow)

Good cattle? 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

A scientific study was done on the raising of beef at White Oak Pastures to answer that question. Quantis, an environmental research firm, looked into all aspects of beef production at this farm and came to a stunning conclusion: their "grass-fed cattle sequester more carbon than they produce."

Far from adding to carbon emissions thought to produce climate change, beef production done this way is actually a benefit to the Earth.

By the way, climate activist Bill Gates no longer believes that climate change will wipe out humanity. He's joined the trend to de-escalate the fear of climate catastrophe. Good news.

from blog at White Oak Pastures

Good cattle?

White Oak Pastures stopped using the industrial model of cattle farming and switched to the regenerative model. Many animals - not just cattle - now live off his land and even improve it.

Microbial life thrives in the rich soil. Rain water is absorbed into the soil rather than running off of it, and much more carbon is sequestered in it. The regenerative model of farming is healthier for the animals and for the soil than the industrial model of farming.

But maybe you have heard Bill Gates' claim that cattle actually have a negative effect on the environment, that we should all eat manufactured lab meat rather than meat from real animals on real pastures. A different regenerative farmer thinks that's wrong. He claims that real cattle are not bad for the climate or environment.

So, which is it? Are cattle really a threat to the climate and the Earth, or not? 

(cont'd tomorrow)

2+2=5

Our whole education system needs to be re-worked, re-prioritized, re-organized. Woke ideology was ingrained over the years and we didn't even notice it. 

It's not just gender madness or the new "anti-racism" racism: even mathematics education surrenders to woke ideology. Solid, foundational facts may be denied. You may say, "that can't happen because everybody still knows that 2+2 equals 4."

No, unfortunately in the minds of some educators the answer could be 5. True or correct math answers, they claim, is a symptom of "white supremacy." That's what the Oregon Department of Education told teachers in 2021. (Maybe they've stopped that. One can only hope so.) It's a diabolical trend. 

The short fictional film below suggests the chilling scenario where children are taught to believe a lie just because the teacher says so.

from Mind Matters