Random News Stories

[stui magpie]

^Yeah, fair point. Considering Chimpanzees and humans share 98.8% of DNA, I guess Carlton Supporters must be around 99.5%

[What'sinaname]

Even AI has gone woke.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/google-apologizes-new-gemini-ai-refuses-show-pictures-achievements-white-people

Big Tech is manipulating AI to support their left wing, white hating agenda.

[David]

AI hasn't "gone" woke; it's just a shifting product of programmers and companies that may have biases and rules (or, in this case, overcorrections of biases) in different directions.
I think you vastly overestimate Big Tech's political commitments to, well, anything.

[What'sinaname]

Nah, AI is being programmed as woke. Not condemning pedophilia is no left wing Big Tech.
AI will soon have drag queens read you output.

[stui magpie]

Maybe I'm over estimating it, but isn't AI supposed to be capable of learning as it goes?
Apart from a few likely hardwired parameters up front, with 10's or 100's of thousands of people running queries every day, wouldn't it's "attitude" start to reflect prevalent societal ones?

[stui magpie]

This is one of the great ads.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8amRg2n-L6o

Kia is marketing a new ute that's coming, as yet unnamed, and they make this ad with a bevy of Aus sporting legends as part of a tease campaign. Love it. (I wouldn't buy one, not a personal fan of Kia, my daughter had one, but the Ad I like)
Watch the ad, how many different sporting celebs can you spot? Love the Skull cameo.

[David]

[pietillidie]

It's hardly a profound or controversial world insight to recognise that most sane adults in most public contexts roughly try to abide by social norms. It's just what functional members of our species do to keep the peace and get things done without bother or controversy — or historically being killed.

These are also products with purpose, one of which is to reduce time spent modifying output. Communicating with extremist groups is just not as lucrative a market as Melon Husk or Demented Donald think.

AI will have to keep learning from actual human language because language is (modestly) dynamic (and more than modestly in some contexts, such as countries between cultures such as South Korea ad multilingual cultures). Relevance will remain as important a factor as it is in search indexing, where a lot of the money is, even if there is some dialectic eventually. But AI has to comprehend input as much as it has to provide sensible output, so it can't fundamentally deviate too wildly or it will degrade its own communication. That said, even AI has variables like tone and register, again showing it already has a superior world understanding than the people going on about woke this and that.

[LaurieHolden]

This is not an effort to stir the PETA pot, but I found it interesting there are two primate breeding establishments and facilities in Australia.
A baboon breeding facility in outer Sydney and the National Primate Non-Human Breeding and Research Facility, managed by Monash University in Victoria.
Research includes studies into diseases like HIV-AIDS and much of the research into understanding the human brain and nervous system.

The facility’s permit allows for housing of up to 850 marmoset and macaque monkeys. Very few people have seen inside.
However, recently released (under Freedom of Information) Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) now give a glimpse into the lives and living conditions of the monkeys inside.

So if you live near Lawless Road in Churchill in the Latrobe Valley and your chooks start disappearing, there might have been a breakout...

https://michaelwest.com.au/animal-cruelty-primates-testing/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2024-03-12&utm_campaign=Michael+West+Media+Weekly+Update

[David]

Interesting, thanks LH. I sit on the fence a bit on animal testing – obviously I'm against it for inessential testing like cosmetics, but if it can genuinely help with saving lives or improving medicines then I think human wellbeing has to take precedence.
I don't mind drawing the line at using some of the more intelligent creatures like primates and dogs, too, but considering the undoubtedly far worse stuff that happens to rodents in labs I'd almost prefer to crack down on that kind of cruelty first.

[What'sinaname]

COVID claims another victim in Armaguard. Fewer legal cash transactions has made them unprofitable.
Let's be honest, cash is only used for criminal activities these days.

[David]

Oof, that just gave me a "Black Mirror"-style jolt – I wonder how long it is before merely carrying cash on you becomes grounds for suspicion.

It must be said that credit card transactions are much easier for governments to use for surveillance purposes.

[stui magpie]

[What'sinaname]

^ the latter all have tap and pay these days.
Garage sales have long been replaced by Cash Converters initially, and since then eBay and Marketplace.
Trash and Treasure markets have all but gone by the wayside too.

I know I can go a full month and more without having to handle cash at all.
I also note that in recent trips abroad, I have only used card. Hence why currency converters are disappearing in the suburbs.

[David]

Tbh it’s pretty rare for me to handle cash nowadays. I started giving Ingmar a $5 weekly allowance for doing his chores, and it’s been quite an effort to actually ensure I have that (or anything whatsoever) in my wallet at any given time!