Archive for 2023

WELL, JONATHAN CHAIT. “Did Chait listen to the whole context of Musk’s quote? I did. And I can tell you that Musk agreed with the proposition that it’s a free market and advertisers can go where they want. He also said that X is the best platform, that he’s making it good according to his standards, which he won’t compromise, and that advertisers will lose out if they avoid it. He said he looks forward to the ongoing competition and predicts he’ll win. If Musk were threatening to sue Disney for withdrawing its ads, Chait’s argument would make more sense.”

It doesn’t have to make sense. It’s just part of an ongoing campaign by midwit journalists to convince their midwit audiences that Elon Musk isn’t as bright as they are.

Related: Meta’s Threads struggles to grow amid rivalry with Elon Musk’s X, ranking ahead of only Tumblr.

CHANGE? 14-year-old girl arrested in connection to 15 SF retail thefts, $30K loss.

A young teenage girl who police said was involved in over a dozen organized retails [sic] thefts of over $30,000 in merchandise in San Francisco was arrested, the San Francisco Police Department announced Thursday.

San Francisco police investigating organized retail crimes on the 800 block of Market Street had identified the 14-year-old girl as one of the suspects in a large number of retail thefts, SFPD said. The thefts were being committed by a “large group of juvenile and adult suspects” and stole merchandise totaling over $30,000, according to police.

When the city systematically goes after the organized crime rings, I’ll believe real change has come.

SKYNET FROWNS: Microsoft President: No Superintelligent AI Soon.

The comments by Brad Smith, also vice chairman, come one year after Microsoft-backed OpenAI released AI chatbot ChatGPT to the public, sparking a flurry of investment and concern such systems could pose an existential threat to humanity.

Recent reports suggested OpenAI founder Sam Altman may have been ousted from the company following internal wranglings over a potentially dangerous AI discovery. However, Smith rejected these claims.

“I don’t think that is the case at all,” he said, speaking to reporters in Britain on Thursday. “I think there obviously was a divergence between the board and others, but it wasn’t fundamentally about a concern like that.”

Altman was forced out of OpenAI by the company’s board earlier this month, but was swiftly reappointed after a weekend of public outcry from company employees and shareholders.

Smith added: “There’s absolutely no probability that you’re going to see this so-called AGI, where computers are more powerful than people, in the next 12 months.

Besides, if history is any guide, Microsoft’s superintelligent AI won’t be very good until version 3.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: What Did DeSantis vs Newsom Do for DeSantis vs Trump? “I like DeSantis, I didn’t need last night’s debate to convince me that he’s a better governor than Gavin Newsom. I’m also a big believer in not giving attention-seeking pathological liar Dems like Newsom any added exposure.”

WHY ARE SO MANY DEMS LEAVING CONGRESS? There are twice as many Democrats as Republicans opting not to seek re-election to Congress in 2024. As I report this morning for The Epoch Times, there are reasons for the imbalance, it’s not accidental.

 

ROUGH NEIGHBORHOOD: Earth-like planets may form even in harsh environments, James Webb Space Telescope finds.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has found water and organic carbon molecules near a massive, active young star that’s situated in a faraway star-forming region of space, suggesting Earth-like exoplanets could form even in the harshest environments in our Milky Way Galaxy. Potentially, some of those exoplanets may even exhibit habitable conditions.

The planet forming disk in question, officially designated as XUE-1, surrounds a star about as big as our sun. But that star’s much larger, and more vicious, siblings are not far away.

Don’t call your travel agent just yet.