Daniel Dvorkin @medigoth@qoto.org

#Scientists are cautious, #businessmen are idiots. Film at 11:00, as we used to say in the days when we wore onions on our belts.

With the usual #statistician's caveat that #causality is really hard to sort out in data like this even with good #controls ... yes, I believe this. And the #mechanisms aren't hard to find, either. 😐

Can't argue with the #logic here.

Only mad scientists on either side of the Atlantic pronounce all the syllables. It was kind of a shibboleth for us until all those movies came out and people caught on.

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-Americans-pronounce-the-word-laboratory-as-labratory-They-spell-it-correctly-but-I-wonder-if-theyre-all-dyslexic/answer/Claire-Jordan-10

The usual disclaimers: not posted for agreement (although I did get a chuckle out of the first image), if you share from my post please leave my commentary intact, originally posted by a friend I won't name unless they want me to because I'm not looking for a fight ... etc.

I really hope it's possible to have a middle-ground discussion about this.

On one hand, the idea that #AI-generated #text and #images are purely #plagiarism strikes me as fundamentally untrue. If you prompt #ChatGPT to write you a story, it will give you a combination of words which has never existed before. With a little back-and-forth, those words will be at least a reasonable approximation of the #story you had in your head when you started. Same with #Midjourney and pictures. That is a #creative act.

On the other, it's not just a tool like pen and paper, or word processors, or even add-ons like suggested text. You can plagiarize with all of those—but they don't *push* you toward plagiarism the way ChatGPT does, and although I'm not a visual artist I understand Midjourney is even worse. (I'm using those as the two best-known examples; I know there are lots of others.) My #writing contains turns of phrase from favorite books, and so does everyone else's. But not whole paragraphs or pages with the names changed ... if there's even that much editing.

So it seems to me that neither "nothing generated by AI can ever be true art" nor "stop whining, it's just another way to tell stories" is quite right. One thing for sure is that it's not going away, and things like the open letters urging a halt to AI development strike me as more attention-seeking stunts than serious attempts to solve the very real problems involved. We need to find a way to deal with it that respects *everyone's* rights.

Please tell me I'm not the only human, typing on my keyboard with my normal human hands, who sees it this way?

If they were *real* #goths, they'd have denied that they were ever #goth at all.

Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.

Realistically, there is zero doubt that #Russia blew the #Kakhovka dam. Destroying dams with bombs or artillery is hard work, as the amount of effort devoted to it in WW2 demonstrates. #Ukraine most likely doesn't have the specialized resources for it, nor do they have any good reason right now. On the other hand, demolition of a dam you control, as Russia did until now, is ... not easy, but a whole lot easier.

And if you squint and turn your head sideways, it kinda sorta makes sense in the short term. The floodwaters will prevent any large-scale Ukrainian crossing, and do a whole lot of damage to densely populated areas that are mostly under Ukrainian control. Which fits perfectly with the Russian policy of destruction for destruction's sake.

Long-term, or even medium-term? Not so much. The #Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant will have to be shut down completely, and remain so until the dam is rebuilt. Even bigger, the dam and its reservoir provided most of #Crimea's water supply. Sustaining a long-term Russian presence there will be impossible. There just isn't enough water.

So what it boils down to is, RUSSIA HAS SURRENDERED CRIMEA.

They may genuinely not realize this yet. Thinking through the consequences of their actions has not been one of their strong suits, since about the third day of the war. But that's what it means.

Holy shit. Holy *fucking* shit.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ukraine-war-kakhovka-dam-destruction-russia-rcna87868

The usual disclaimer: this is promising, but don't count on great results.

If it works as advertised—*if*—it could be what #Theranos promised and so spectacularly failed to deliver. #Grail is using well-understood technology and (I think) large enough samples to make the claims for the #Galleri test believable, at least. And the #NHS (again, I think) doesn't have the kind of incestuous relationships with financially interested parties that helped #Holmes et al. get away with such fraud for so long. So I'm inclined to trust their reporting.

With that said, the usual #statistician's disclaimer applies: #multiple #testing is hard. So, for that matter, does the #medic's and the #biologist's, because there are multiple *kinds* of multiple testing going on here. The more you test, the more you will screw up.

I almost appended "it's like a law of nature" to that last sentence above ... but no, it *is* a law of nature. Unreasonable effectiveness of #mathematics something something.

#Cancer screening is important, and steady improvements in the field have already saved untold numbers of lives. I expect this will continue to be the case. So take this with cautious optimism. Pushing back the boundaries a little bit at a time, each small step representing another decade or year or month of life—it's what we do, every day. I want to believe.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jun/02/blood-test-50-types-cancer-could-speed-up-patient-diagnosis-study

"ToughVet." Okay, sweetie. I think I covered that here:

https://qoto.org/web/statuses/110262136476106779

#BlackFriend, #GayFriend, #JewishFriend, etc. Those #Republicans, they’re just a friendly bunch.

https://www.quora.com/GOP-Senator-Tim-Scott-announced-he-is-running-to-be-POTUS-OK-seriously-How-many-in-the-GOP-will-support-a-black-man-for-POTUS/answer/Daniel-Dvorkin-3

Another "some answers just write themselves," this one more serious than most. I'm genuinely appalled that anyone even asks this kind of question—which means I spend a whole lot of time being appalled. So it goes.

#welfare #benefits #SNAP #Medicaid #Section8

https://www.quora.com/Why-are-Democrats-against-stricter-work-requirements-for-individuals-who-receive-welfare-benefits-and-are-not-disabled/answer/Daniel-Dvorkin-3

And now you know ... the rest of the story.

https://www.quora.com/Did-atheists-kill-the-dinosaurs/answer/Daniel-Dvorkin-3

#AlleyGuy is shouting, "I want fifteen dollars. You hear me? Fifteen dollars!" Now I kind of wonder if he's the paperboy from Better Off Dead all grown up. Inflation, you know.

There are ways the #executive class could make returning to the #office more attractive, of course—say by going back to the concept of an *office*, where everyone who works there has a room assigned only to them, with at least a desk, a chair, and a door they can close when they really need to concentrate. But that might give the #peasants ideas above their station, so don't hold your breath.

Really this may the one good thing to come out of #covid. The traditional office structure was already pretty rickety before the #pandemic: the #infrastructure was in place for half or more of "office" work to be done at home. I've been doing exactly that for coming up on four years now (!) and although I do sometimes miss the camaraderie of the #lab, for the most part I'm quite happy with the situation. I won't be at all sorry if the nineteenth crow turns out to be the coup de grace.

The new #nobility is going to have to adapt, and just like the old nobility, they don't handle that well. It's not about #money, and it never has been. It's about #power, and one way to make your power over your fellow human beings explicit is forcing them to be somewhere they don't want to be for most of their adult lives. #Duke #CEO and #Baron #MBA are quite reluctant to give that up. Things are going to be messy for a while.

https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/5/15/23721410/return-to-office-remote-work-commercial-real-estate

It's synthetic, I swear!

This is your erratically scheduled reminder that building rock #cairns when you're out #hiking is not a way to show your love of #wilderness, or a cute little addition to the #scenery. It's #vandalism at best, and gets much worse from there. Please stop.

https://www.google.com/search?q=environmental+effect+of+rock+cairns