April 2023 - Page 6 of 6 - Ramblin' with Roger

Should AI labs hit pause?

ChatGPT’s pronouns

In the March 30 Daily Skimm, I read:

“An open letter called on artificial intelligence labs to hit pause on advanced AI projects for six months. More than 1,000 researchers, tech experts, and others signed the letter — including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. They warned companies are creating AI tech so fast and aren’t thinking about the potential consequences. Now, tech leaders are saying that anything smarter than GPT-4 (aka ChatGPT’s newest sibling) may “pose profound risks to society and humanity.”

I’m getting “Black Mirror” flashbacks…

“It’s not the first time experts have raised alarms. While chatbots like ChatGPT have helped people write everything from essays to computer code, they’ve also been linked to disinformation, phishing, and other types of cybercrime. Companies like Google, Microsoft, and Snapchat have been rushing to create chatbots that flex their own AI algorithms. It’s got many worried advanced AI could lead to a faster spread of disinformation and that bots could coax people’s behavior.

Can it be stopped?

“Maybe ChatGPT can answer that question.”

I HAD to ask

So, like the lazy blogger I am, I asked it or them or whatever ChatGPT is, “Should artificial intelligence labs hit pause on advanced AI projects for six months?”

“As an AI language model, I do not have opinions or personal beliefs, but I can provide information on this topic.

“There is ongoing debate in the AI community about the risks and benefits of advanced AI development, and whether it is necessary to pause or slow down AI projects. Some researchers and experts have called for a temporary pause on certain AI research in order to ensure that ethical considerations and potential risks are adequately addressed. Others argue that AI development should continue, but with a focus on developing safe and beneficial AI systems.

On one hand…

“One reason for the call to pause AI research is the potential for unintended consequences, including the risk that AI systems could be developed with biases or could be used to create autonomous weapons. Another concern is the risk of job displacement and other economic impacts as AI systems become more advanced.

“However, there are also arguments in favor of continuing AI development, including the potential benefits that AI systems could bring to society in terms of increased efficiency, productivity, and quality of life. Furthermore, some experts argue that it is not feasible or desirable to pause AI development, as other countries or organizations may continue to push forward with research and development.

“In summary, whether AI labs should hit pause on advanced AI projects for six months is a complex and nuanced question, and there are valid arguments on both sides. Ultimately, the decision will depend on a range of factors, including the goals of individual organizations, the ethical considerations involved, and the potential risks and benefits of AI development.”

Since I brought it up

Because I wanted to know, I asked, “What are ChatGPT’s prnouns?” Yes, I put in the typo, which I noticed right away.

“As an AI language model, I do not have gender or personal pronouns. You can refer to me as “it”. My purpose is to assist with answering questions and providing information to the best of my knowledge based on the data I was trained on. If you have any questions or need assistance with anything else, feel free to ask!”

I was interested in how Grammarly would feel about ChatGPT’s word choices. Grammarly likes articles: “an ongoing debate” It prefers “regarding” to “in terms of” and “various” instead of “a range of.” “In order to” should be “to.” It eliminates the second of the “could be” references. Also, it axed “to pause AI development” in the penultimate paragraph as redundant.

I’ve now had a bot check the work of a bot. This is getting too meta for me.

55 years after the MLK assassination

“We must revolt against this peace.”

Many have noted that August 28, 2023, will be the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington. Incidentally, that date is also the 15th anniversary of the nomination of Barack Obama for the presidency.

But today is 55 years after the MLK assassination. I remember the day extremely well. I’m not particularly prone to conspiracy, but even The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford asks the question of who killed the reverend, was more than one person involved, and the like. And my thought: was it a coincidence that he was killed on the first anniversary of his sermon denouncing US military involvement in Vietnam?

Missing the point

I despair that King’s message is often obfuscated. Dr. King campaigned against not just racism but poverty. In his final book, “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?”, he wrote:

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look at thousands of working people displaced from their jobs with reduced incomes as a result of automation while the profits of the employers remain intact, and say: ‘This is not just.’ . . . Let us be those creative dissenters who will call our beloved nation to a higher destiny, to a new plateau of compassion, to a more noble expression of humanness.

Yet Census data show an increase in income inequality in the US. Worldwide, the rich keep getting richer. “The top 1 percent seized twice the new wealth as the rest of the world in the past two years.”

So it is absurd when the Christian nationalist founder of Pastors for Trump said he was ‘pretty sure‘ that Martin Luther King Would Have Been a ‘MAGA’ Republican. I’m “pretty sure” Jackson Lahmeyer has heard, at most, one piece of one MLK sermon. For your maximum irritation, readers, go to the link above to see a MAGA hat photoshopped onto an image of King.

Labor

The AFL-CIO posted on the most recent King holiday: “We must remember him and his words truthfully—far beyond the often-repeated and misused line about skin color and character.

“Most people know Dr. King only as a civil rights leader. But we must remember him as a labor leader who was assassinated while supporting 1,300 Black men in their fight against neglect and abuse at the sanitation strike in Memphis, Tennessee.

“Dr. King is associated with ‘peaceful protest.’ But we must remember his sermon ‘When Peace Becomes Obnoxious.'”

“If peace means a willingness to be exploited economically, dominated politically, humiliated, and segregated, I don’t want peace. So in a passive, non-violent manner, we must revolt against this peace.”

(Coincidentally, I linked to that piece two years ago.)

Really honoring MLK

I recommend to you that you read Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Peruse his speeches.

If you want to take in I Have A Dream, which was at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom – he was an economic warrior – read or listen to the WHOLE thing; it’s about 17 minutes long.

“There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, when will you be satisfied? We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality…

“It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds. But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.”

Then remember, he advised the crowd not to “drink the poisonous wine of hate,” but to use the “way of nonviolence” when taking “direct action” against oppression.

News stories I’m not commenting on (much)

Disenfranchisement in Virginia

There are lots of news stories I’m following. But some I’m not commenting on (much) because I don’t know what to say that others haven’t said. Or that I haven’t said before.

ITEM: The shooting of three children and three adults at a Presbyterian church school in Nashville, TN. What can I say that I didn’t write about Sandy Hook or Parkland – undoubtedly more than once?

Friend Chuck noted regarding his weekly musical playlist, “This is an edited – and sadly, updated – broadcast from May 2022.” Because, as I saw in a Boston Globe headline, these repeated, repeated, repeated headlines – only the names and places change -risk making us numb to the madness.

I will note that “solving the mental health crisis” is an objectively good thing but a damn difficult thing to achieve. When a Denver, CO, high school student was searched for weapons, he shot two administrators. He fled the scene and was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Interesting fact: “From 1980 to 2021, the US automobile fatality rate declined by 64%. From 2000 to 2021, American gun deaths increased by 56%.” We CAN do something. Bring back the 1994-2004 assault weapons ban. It’s not THE answer, but it is AN answer.

I won’t even get into the obviously bogus transphobia that spinners of the Nashville story have tried to insert.

Orange crush

ITEM: djt was indicted. I’m not jumping up and down for joy. For one thing, it’s merely an indictment. For another, I’m more interested in other possible indictments, which on the surface, appear to be more substantial cases about more significant wrongdoing, such as the attempt to manipulate the 2020 Presidential election in Georgia or fomenting insurrection on January 6.

SO many people pointed out that the government got mobster Al Capone for tax fraud.

Maybe I’ll do a happy dance if djt is CONVICTED of something. Still, I don’t mind if the New York Post calls him Bat Hit Crazy.

ITEM: Virginia now has the harshest felony disenfranchisement voting regime in America. Thanks to Gov. Glenn Younkin, a Republican as though you couldn’t guess, Jim Crow is back! Depressing but unsurprising.

ITEM: “They banned Dolly Parton: Republicans want the dumbest parent at the school to control the curriculum.” The conventional wisdom is that people my age should become more conservative. But as the stories – some of which are linked in the story, such as banning a banning a movie about Ruby Bridges – get more inane…

ITEM: I LOVE how the Disney folks outmaneuvered the board that Governor Ron DeSatan, oops, I mean Desantis (R-FL) imposed on the company’s special district. “The agreement restricting the new board’s rights is ‘in effect until 21 years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, King of England living as of the date of this Declaration.'” And it is such an arcane maneuver that I laughed out loud when I read about it.

ITEM: Baseball season is here. As someone who still dislikes the designated hitter (instituted in 1973) and DESPISES the rule putting a runner on second base in extra-inning games(instituted in 2020), I find that I LIKE the pitcher/batter clock that was instituted in MLB spring training.

Sunday Stealing:Tuesday 4

summer vacation

Whatever Tuesday 4 is – Ruby Tuesday?- Sunday Stealing is stealing.

1. Are you currently reading a book you’d like to tell us about? Maybe a TV program you can recommend to us?

I’ve circled back to The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Green (no relation). I bought it when it first came out, signed by the author, but then I got distracted. Fortunately, it’s a compilation, so each essay, even as it reflects how John’s mind works and how he pays attention to his surroundings, stands independently.

I suppose the only newish TV show I could recommend is Abbott Elementary, in its second season. It’s a comedy about an elementary school in a poor section of Philadelphia, PA.

2. Are you a Jane Austen fan? So many seem to be. If you are, what is your favorite book, and who is your favorite character? If you aren’t a fan, is there an author you especially like to read? Favorite character, etc.

I tend to read mostly non-fiction, but I don’t have a favorite author, though it was Russell Baker.

However, I have seen quite a few movies based on Jane Austen books, such as Clueless (1995), Sense and Sensibility (1995), Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001), Pride and Prejudice (2005), and Emma (2020).

3. How do you spend your time during the day? Do you set apart time to read, watch TV, and study?

Wordle, Dordle, Quordle, Octordle, blogging, working on things for my church and the Friends and Foundation of the Albany Public Library. I don’t have a designated time to read.

My wife and I tend to watch the recorded NBC Nightly News after dinner. I view JEOPARDY and try to tackle the recorded but not watched episodes of several shows, mostly the CBS news programs Saturday Morning, Sunday Morning, and 60 Minutes, plus Finding Your Roots on PBS.

I never change?

4. Have your beliefs changed in your lifetime?

Of COURSE! Everything from the nature of God to my understanding of science. How could they not?

5. What are your interests and hobbies? Reading? Writing? Collecting?

Genealogy. I have some coins I’ve collected but have not been diligent about it. I listen to music, and I have a lot of it.

6 How much time a week/day/month do you devote to your interests?

I have no idea. For one thing, I tend to tackle things in chunks of periods based on the running time of my CDs. So I’ll work on my word games and start my blog. Then I need to change it up, so I wash the dishes or clean the kitchen counter. Next album, I’ll check my email and return to the blog post. When I have set events- Bible study, book review events, doctors’ appointments, trips, that’ll affect things.

I’m retired. I don’t punch a clock.

7. Do you share your interests with anyone?

Genealogy with my sisters. Book review with those folks. Choir with the choir. In the words of Yul Brynner, “et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”

8. Tell us why you enjoy your hobbies, pastimes, or interests.

They bring me joy, especially choir and blogging.

9. What emotions and feelings does summer conjure up for you?

I’m not primarily a summer guy. As a kid, it was baseball or softball at Ansco Park, trips to Eldridge Park in Elmira, Corning Glass Works, and visiting my mother’s aunt Charlotte.

10. What’s summer weather like in your neck of the woods?

Variable. While it doesn’t usually get above 90F, it can be hot. Or unexpectedly not.

11. Got some special summer meals you and your family enjoy?

Other than corn on the cob, not really.

Vacation

12. What do you enjoy doing in summer? Sports, trips… Do you go on vacation?

My mother-in-law’s kin has had a family reunion each summer near Binghamton, NY, for the last three-quarters of a century except for COVID and a year during WWII. Our nuclear family had extended vacations on the way to and from the Olin international reunions in 2011 (Ontario) and 2016 (Ohio). I wrote about my favorite vacations last year.

13. Did your parents have things better than you today?

Absolutely not. Because my mother was much fairer than my father, they were perceived as an interracial couple, which they were not. As a result, they could not find a place to rent in their hometown, and they lived in a rental property owned by my maternal grandmother for over two decades after they married.

14. What time period would you rather live in… or are you okay with today?

On the one hand, advances in technology. On the other, climate change. It’s difficult to peg a specifically better period. I don’t romanticize the past. IDK.

15. What changes would you make for our time to make it nicer/better to live in?

The improvement in freedom, even in ostensibly free nations.

Some fool songs

Plato

It being April 1st, I thought I’d play some fool songs. There are a LOT of fool songs if you Google lists of them. I’ve heard and mostly own these, but it’s hardly complete even by those criteria.

Fools in Love – Joe Jackson (1979). “Are there any creatures more pathetic?” I related to this a lot last century.

Why Do Fools Fall In Love – Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers (#6 pop, #5 RB in 1956). Joni Mitchell covered this live.

Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool – Connie Francis #1 for two weeks pop in 1960)

The Fool – Sanford Clark (#7 pop in 1956)- I couldn’t remember the artist’s name, but I indeed remembered the song. The guitar riff by Al Casey was based on Howlin’ Wolf’s song Smoke Stack Lightnin, released the same year.

1962

What Kind Of Fool Am I – Sammy Davis, Jr. This song charted four times in 1962, which must have been a foolish year. Davis (#17 pop, #6 adult contemporary), Anthony Newley (#85 pop), Robert Goulet (#89 pop), and Vic Damone (#131 pop)

Fool for You – the Impressions (#22 pop, #3 RB in 1968)

Fool on the Hill – Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66 (#6 pop, #1 for six weeks AC in 1968). Of course, this was originally in the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour movie

Fooled Around And Fell In Love– Elvin Bishop (#3 for two weeks pop in 1976. Mickey Thomas, later of Jefferson Starship/Starship, was on lead vocals

What A Fool Believes – Doobie Brothers (#1 pop, #22 AC, #72 RB in 1979)

Won’t Get Fooled Again – The Who (#15 pop in 1971). Of course, its chart action doesn’t begin to cover the song’s significance.

Chain Of Fools – Aretha Franklin (#2 pop for two weeks, #1 for four weeks RB in 1968); this is the album version

Everybody Plays The Fool – The Main Ingredient (#3 pop, #25 AC, #2 for three weeks RB in 1972). I’ve heard the Aaron Neville version a lot in the Hannaford supermarket

Ship of Fools

There are a lot of items in popular culture using the title Ship of Fools, including some gaming devices. A 1965 movie features Janet Leigh. The eponymous website is “‘for people who prefer their religion disorganized,’ says the Ship’s editor and designer, Simon Jenkins. ‘Our aim is to help Christians be self-critical and honest about the failings of Christianity, as we believe honesty can only strengthen faith.'” Then there’s a book by someone who I think IS a fool.

The Wikipedia page describes the term: The ship of fools “is an allegory, originating from Book VI of Plato‘s Republic, about a ship with a dysfunctional crew. The allegory is intended to represent the problems of governance prevailing in a political system not based on expert knowledge.”

Ship Of Fools (Save Me From Tomorrow)- World Party (#27 in 1987)

Ship of Fools – Robert Plant (#84 in 1988)

Ship Of Fools– Erasure (1988)

Ship Of Fools– Grateful Dead (1974)