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Plato explains Artificial Intelligence (AI)

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  Who could have guessed that Plato, that Greek philosopher from from the 4 th century BC, could have come up with a great explanation of our current Artificial Intelligence? His Allegory of the Cave is a great way to understand how AI works, and its built-in weaknesses. Imagine, says Plato, a group of people chained to a wall in a cave. In front of them is a high wall, which is all they can view. Behind them is a rise where a fire is burning. Between the fire and the chained people is a walkway where individuals walk, holding up silhouettes of various things. The silhouettes create shadows on the high wall that the chained people can see. These silhouettes are the only way the chained people get information about the outside world. To them, that is the world, since that is all they know. While Plato is using this allegory as a promo for philosophy, I think it’s an excellent explanation of AI. Consider the chained people as AI programs. The fire and silhouette hol...
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Some people to listen to regarding AI

  PEOPLE TO LISTEN TO RE AI: Molly Crabapple - https://www.mollycrabapple.com/ Cory Doctorow - https://doctorow.substack.com/ Gil Duran - https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Nerd-Reich/Gil-Duran/9781668221402 Karen Hao - https://karendhao.com/home Helen Toner - https://cset.georgetown.edu/staff/helen-toner/
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Is President Trump trying to bankrupt the US (part 2)?

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I wrote previously asking if President Trump is trying to bankrupt the United States. The current national debt (what our country has borrowed) is about $40 trillion. Of that, $3.18 trillion has been added in Trump’s second term in office, which is not even half way through. $7.88 trillion was added from his first term .  You would think this would be a priority for any president to REDUCE the national debt, since we have to pay interest on what we borrow. Currently we are paying $1 trillion annually in interest. Trump is simply spending like a drunken sailor, probably subconsciously guided by his own history of 6 bankruptcies. Here are a few other things he’s either spending or trying to spend our tax dollars on: $1.5 trillion proposed defense spending.  $275 billion to build Trump-class battleships , even though the Navy says they are a relic of the past.  $100 billion going back to businesses because of illegal tariffs $11 billion for Navy icebrea...
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Tech Bros want all the electricity and money

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  Of course data centers take a lot of electricity. I saw an Amazon center someplace and it was huge, like big mall size. All the searches you do, all the shopping you do, all the email spam you get, your google maps directions, that all goes through a data center. So ok, we need those. But on top of these data centers, we have spam, bots, viruses, scams, etc. going on too, with their own systems, and in fact it was just announced that there are more bots than humans on the internet now. That uses up a lot of electricity and bandwidth. Then along comes krypto currency. Bitcoin, for example, is created by a huge amount of computation. So if you want to make money here, you need a lot of computers chugging away doing essentially useless calculating until you wind up with a new Bitcoin yourself. The Tech Bros built a way for themselves to make money by sucking up electricity into their computers. There are huge warehouses of Bitcoin mining all around the world. Th...
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Over-hyping and under-warning Artificial Intelligence (AI)

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 One of the biggest problems with the rush to build out and grow AI is the extreme hyping by those who are promoting it.  Elon Musk, for instance, said "AI+Robots will be able to do everything, resulting in univeral high income.  Work will be optional."  AI will be smarter than humans soon, say others.  But all this over-hyping is just spin from the billionaire promoters who seek profit and power from the product. Another problem is that growth in computation needed for current AI is unsustainable. The electricity demands, chip production, and water for cooling are not there at this time unless we totally disrupt the rest of the economy and society to feed these new demands.  Alex Reisner wrote an excellent article on the stupidity of pushing AI so hard now, since it is not scalable - meaning that if you grow it too fast right now it's inefficiency will harm rather than help.  Just keep in mind that the promoters of AI are over-hyping their ...
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The US military activity toward Iran is staggering

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  These are 9 US jet fuel tankers flying around the Strait of Hormuz, captured July 10.  Of course, they are there to refuel other planes, which apparently do not have their transponders on.  Most jet fighters do not have transponders on, to make them harder to follow.  JUST this part of the war in Iran is amazingly expensive.  Imagine these 9 craft and their fuel, followed by others when they have to go land, and all the fighters running around bombing things.  This is just a small snapshot of the cost of the Iran war.  Remember the ground crews for all these planes, the bombs and supplies that need to be brought over, the Navy vessels nearby that also house fighters and maintain the off-and-on blockade, etc., etc.    At an estimated cost of $1 billion per day to maintain this war, the fact that Trump has found no way to end it means we are once again throwing our tax dollars down the drain for an unnecessary foreign entanglement. ...
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Don't be distracted from what a president SHOULD be doing

  “Look over there!” That’s the most popular distraction tool when you are doing something you don’t want someone to notice or observe. Give them something else interesting to look at somewhere else. Trump is a master at this. Consider the current media attention. Trump tears down a part of the White House, holds a UFC fight on the lawn, spends millions painting the reflecting pool, more millions to gild Washington DC statues, and starts building a huge arch. The deflection works, and the media take the bait every time. Trump also hires clowns to important governmental positions, again to distract from where he doesn’t want us to look. Look at the clowns! Look at my crazy construction projects! Over here! Did you ever stop to think what a president SHOULD be working on? How about affordable housing, health care, the national debt, switching away from fossil fuels, and faithfully executing the office of President? But no, he’s concentrating on his attacks on immigrants,...
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