Joe @twitskeptic@qoto.org

@merz Or free lifetime Twitter Blue status.

@lauraalbertphd Not one word in that puff piece about the dangers of AI bias or even inaccuracy. Like this famous example from a few years ago: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-jobs-automation-insight/amazon-scraps-secret-ai-recruiting-tool-that-showed-bias-against-women-idUSKCN1MK08G

@mgrass Thanks for the tip. I walk a block away from that area a couple of times a week on my way to the light rail station and now I plan on checking it out soon.

@ct_bergstrom That's interesting - I never heard of imprecise probability.

Also interesting after my quick search (and ironic in light of the Iraq WMD assessment) is that the "Ellsberg paradox" played a big part in the development of the theory.

@ct_bergstrom

Just a reminder that the intelligence assessments used to assess Saddam Hussein's potential use of WMDs 20 years ago were also "low confidence".

FWIW here are the definitions of likelihood and confidence that the intelligence agencies apparently use. Note that "most likely" isn't even defined. And, of course, with the large confidence intervals the best answer would have been "we don't know".

@Popehat Looks like Adams started laying the groundwork last fall.

@Popehat Soon to be selling supplements if he isn't already.

Nature's lesson in humility for those like me who immediately assumed it was the current widely circulating avian flu.

Also didn't know that there are around 40 human H5N1 cases per year worldwide.

@skua @m_scribe @dsacer The article is deceptive because "most likely" has a different common meaning than statistical meaning. Many, if not most people, will interpret that as meaning "it was a lab leak".

For the statistical case, you need both the MLE and the uncertainty in that estimate. If you have poor information quality then the uncertainty is so large that the MLE estimate is not likely to be close to the "true" value (if you're a frequentist). In that case it's better to just say that the analysis is inconclusive.

@m_scribe @dsacer Statisticians banging their heads on the wall trying to reconcile headline "likely a lab leak" with "low confidence".

@zoomar Are there content restrictions on YouTube shorts?

@zoomar That's funny. Maybe entering the "only old people use it" phase meaning someone who's 18.

@zoomar Spotify has never made a profit and the podcast push hasn't worked well for them. Seems like they're out of ideas so, hey, why not chase the latest trend? It will be interesting to see if young people get tired of all the TikTok-ization.

@zoomar They don't care about me - I'm too old - by chasing young people who like TikTok and won't buy the ad free version. Increased engagement = higher ad prices.

@zoomar More enshittification. If Spotify changes to TikTok autoplay format, I'm gone. TBF, I was on the verge of leaving anyway.

Is there a version of Godwin's Law that includes bad quantum theory analogies? https://www.wsj.com/articles/chatgpt-heralds-an-intellectual-revolution-enlightenment-artificial-intelligence-homo-technicus-technology-cognition-morality-philosophy-774331c6