Greg Langmead

@greg.langmead.info

77 Followers 68 Following

Nerd, , math, music, games.

Screenshot of The Ring App on iPad, showing a menu of leitmotifs with instance counts, and the libretto of Das Rheingold.
A splotch graphic with the text "AI" on top, indicating an AI, aka slop, web page.
A screenshot of the following text: At the annual national mathematics conference this January, Geordie Williamson, an Australian mathematician whose experiments with AI were among the first academy-industry collaborations to be widely publicized, warned a packed auditorium that "industry Al labs (and government) are not primarily motivated by intellectual curiosity" Mathematics motivates them for the reason already noted: "solving" mathematics, as they put it, is an obligatory step on the way to their real goal. They call the goal AGI, or ASI (artificial superintelligence), but whatever name they choose, its intrinsic worth is measured in money. As Paul Ford wrote in the New York Times this February, "much of the AI industry is led by people who see human thought as raw material, like a steel manufacturer sees ore." Sam Altman, OpenAI's CEO, was clear enough about the goal at a BlackRock summit in March: "a future where intelligence is a utility, like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter."
A diagram with comments below. The diagram has four ideas: A1, A2, B1 and B2. A1 is how the human brain works, and there's an arrow to A2, what people say. B1 is how LLMs work and has an arrow to B2, what LLMs say. A dotted arrow called "Claims" goes from B2, what LLMs say, to A1, how the human brain works. This is unsubstantiated. That's the diagram. The comments beneath say three things: If you’re curious how B2 came about, learn about B1, it’s just a computer program! If you’re curious how A1 and B1 relate, our species needs to figure out A1 first! Ignore CS terms like “neuron,” “intelligence,” “learning,” and “hallucination,” they are analogies that generate a convenient confusion.
ut even among libertarians, there is disagreement. Angela McArdle, a former chair of the Libertarian Party, argued this weekend that the nation was in crisis mode and that now was not a time for libertarians to stick so strictly to their ideology. “The threat of mass migration is civilizational,” Ms. McArdle wrote on X on Sunday, adding: “It sucks that ICE shoots people sometimes. If we don’t deport illegal aliens and stop Democrat fraud, we will be Canada in less than 10 years.”
Screenshot of a quote: I can't avoid the conclusion that the government of the United States of America is in the hands of people who believe that they can apply a genetic hierarchy to humanity, and that American laws and customs should recognize and serve that hierarchy.
My Certificate of Merit for the online course 100 Days of SwiftUI!
A headline and secondary headline from The Guardian that says: Donald Trump says he is deploying troops to Portland, Oregon. Apparently misled by hyperbolic reporting from conservative outlets on a single small protest, president described peaceful city as 'war ravaged'
A chart from Pew research showing that although 76% of US adults think it is “extremely important” to be able to tell if content was generated by AI, only 12% are extremely confident they would be able to tell. If we include the “somewhat” qualifiers, then importance goes up to 93% and confidence in detection goes to 47%.
A screenshot of an iPad app. It’s a synthesizer, with a keyboard below and a bunch of settings above, for oscillators, filters, effects, envelope, and LFOs. There are even graphical representations of the envelope, filter, and LFO.
A YouTube video thumbnail with a headline that says “physics had it backwards“ and title “this simple change makes quantum theory (finally) makes sense“
A screenshot from my iPad of an old school roguelike named Angband, showing a few of its standard terminal screens arranged in a certain way.
A chart from a Pew survey, about whether AI will harm or benefit the respondent personally. Among US adults 43% say harm, 24% say benefit (33% not sure). Among AI experts 15% say harm, 76% say benefit (9% not sure).
Picture of my TV showing a paused frame of The Terminator film, with Kyle Reese looking as if he’s rolling his eyes while under police detainment. In fact he’s frustrated with their metaphorical blindness.
Sixth Sense meme of the boy Cole looking sad, saying “I see tradeoffs”.
Spoof of a motivational poster. Photo is a runner with head bowed, hands on head. Caption says “Failure: when your best just isn’t good enough.”
Bar charts showing relative support for 2024 presidential candidates, broken down by self-reported “news attentiveness”, showing that low attentiveness tracks with low support for Kamala Harris.
From the movie "Fail Safe" a deranged general screams "I'm better than you are", baring his broken psyche.