THAT PRETTY WELL SUMS HIM UP: Trump deems Kanye West a ‘seriously troubled man’ who ‘just happens to be Black’ after Mar-a-Lago trip fallout.
Author Archive: Stephen Green
November 28, 2022
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Republicans Might Make House Takeover the Wrong Kind of Interesting. “The problems with not winning a decisive majority in the House are going to be rearing their ugly heads for quite some time. There is now a chance that they might get uglier than a Hillary Clinton Halloween mask.”
TWITTER IS FUN AGAIN: Twitter new user signups at an ‘all-time high,’ says Elon Musk.
As of November 16th, Twitter was adding more than 2 million new users per day over the last seven days, according to one of the graphs Musk shared. He added daily signups are up 66 percent compared to the same seven-day period in 2021.
Musk said user active minutes were also at an all-time high, with Twitter’s userbase averaging nearly 8 billion active minutes per day over the last seven days as of November 15th – representing a 30 percent increase from the same period last year. He also used a graph to claim hate speech impressions recently decreased.
To be fair, I’ve also noticed an uptick in spam accounts following me, which I block as soon as I catch them.
IT ISN’T ELECTION DENIAL WHEN THE RIGHT PEOPLE DENY ELECTIONS: Election Denier Refuses to Give Up House Leadership Position.
CHANGE? McCarthy struggling to secure GOP votes in House speaker’s race. “McCarthy launched his effort to be House speaker earlier this month in a closed-ballot vote by his conference. At the time, he only earned 188 of the 218 votes necessary to become speaker, with 31 votes going to his surprise challenger: House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Biggs (R-AZ). Biggs is one of the dozens of Republicans who have refused to support McCarthy’s speakership bid. That opposition, combined with a less-than-stellar turnout by Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections, is jeopardizing McCarthy’s chances of securing the gavel.”
November 23, 2022
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: On This Thanksgiving, a Very Important Thank You.
FROM BATTLESWARM BLOG: Pre-Black Friday Cold Weather/Christmas Gift Guide.
WE KEPT KIDS IN A BUBBLE FOR A YEAR AND THEY NEVER BUILT UP NATURAL IMMUNITIES TO LOTS OF THINGS: ‘I’ve never seen anything like this’: Doctors warn America is running out of FOUR child antibiotics and flu drugs as kids bear brunt of ‘tripledemic.’
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY (COMMUNIST CHINA EDITION): Hundreds riot at Foxconn iPhone plant over terrible conditions. “The various videos reportedly show workers complaining about not getting meals while in COVID lockdown. They also say that China and Foxconn’s ‘closed-loop production’ health measures — where staff live and work on-site — do not work.”
FAIL, BRITANNIA: More Than a Third of UK Restaurants Could Close by Early 2023.
THIS IS BOTH IMPRESSIVE AND DISTURBING: Meta researchers create AI that masters Diplomacy, tricking human players.
I’ve been playing Diplomacy since middle school, and there are no random elements like dice or cards — it’s all human interaction.
Even before Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov at chess in 1997, board games were a useful measure of AI achievement. In 2015, another barrier fell when AlphaGo defeated Go master Lee Sedol. Both of those games follow a relatively clear set of analytical rules (although Go’s rules are typically simplified for computer AI).
But with Diplomacy, a large portion of the gameplay involves social skills. Players must show empathy, use natural language, and build relationships to win—a difficult task for a computer player. With this in mind, Meta asked, “Can we build more effective and flexible agents that can use language to negotiate, persuade, and work with people to achieve strategic goals similar to the way humans do?”
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The resulting model mastered the intricacies of a complex game. “Cicero can deduce, for example, that later in the game it will need the support of one particular player,” says Meta, “and then craft a strategy to win that person’s favor—and even recognize the risks and opportunities that that player sees from their particular point of view.”
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At the same time, this technology could be used to manipulate humans by impersonating people and tricking them in potentially dangerous ways, depending on the context. Along those lines, Meta hopes other researchers can build on its code “in a responsible manner.”
Meta claims to have taken steps to prevent Cicero from being abused (or from becoming abusive, I suppose), but the source code is also open-sourced on GitHub.
From the comments at Ars: “Unbelievable. Training a non-conscious AI to ruthlessly deceive, manipulate and enlist humans towards the achievement of an arbitrary value function no matter the cost, as one of the first AI functions to develop. It’s like these guys want a paperclip-optimising singularity apocalypse.”
And yet: META WORKS ON AN AI, INSTEAD PRODUCES a “random bullshit generator.”
Similar programs, totally different results.
SPOILER: THE ADMINISTRATION IS SIGNALING WILLINGNESS TO ACCEPT IT. Rail shutdown is ‘not acceptable.’ “With a potential rail strike less than two weeks away, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told NewsNation’s Leland Vittert that a shutdown ‘is not acceptable’ but declined to say whether President Joe Biden’s administration would support rail workers if they strike.”
MEGAN FOX, FILLING IN ON KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: When Kruiser Is Away, the Fox Will Play. “While I have you here, did you hear about all the gay hate? According to the MSM, everyone hates the queers (their vernacular! Don’t blame me!), including the queers. Please believe me when I tell you that you will not laugh harder this week than you will at the replies to this New York Post article about a man throwing a brick through the window of a gay bar. I’m seriously dying.”
REALITY HAS A WAY OF DOING THAT: The Ukraine War Is Crushing Germany’s Green Energy Delusions. “The combination of pretending to transition to a green energy future combined with dependence on Russian gas and the fallout of the Russo-Ukrainian War has Germany looking at some very tough choices.”
CRISIS BY DESIGN: As Title 42 Comes to an End, ICE Nabs 138 Sex Offenders.
WHO ARE THEY SO DESPERATE TO PROTECT, AND WHY? Chaos erupts at the White House press briefing as KJP shuts down questions about COVID origins.
November 22, 2022
LAUGHING WOLF: Asymmetrical Musings 4.
Sadly, I fear we are well on our way to learning a wrong lesson from the Russia-Ukraine war. For far too many, the focus is on drones, loitering munitions, and advanced artillery. The first two in particular have grabbed popular fascination, and what is being done with them is indeed amazing, successful, and more. There are already concepts for the next drone du jour, and a lot of armchair talk about how drones and other unmanned systems are the future.
To my mind, there are two big problems for anyone facing or under occupation in regards this. First, drones are the technology of today. Second, the enthusiasts miss the key point that makes drones possible: data.
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Knowing where to start looking for targets takes data. Controlling drones at remote ranges takes data. Sharing your wild hair for modifying a drone to hit enemy targets takes data. Sharing the 3-D printer file for grenade tail fins (and other delights) takes data. Assessing strike and other action results takes data. Data, and the ability to share/communicate it, are essential to fighting any invasion or occupation.
In last week’s craziness, I failed to link to the first three parts in the Asymmetrical Musings series, but they’re all quite good.
JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON: The ‘Respect For Marriage Act’ Is An Exercise In Tyranny, And Everyone Knows It. “To paraphrase George Orwell’s famous line, if you want a picture of the future under the Respect for Marriage Act, imagine a boot stamping on Jack Phillips’ face — forever.”