Posts by bohm

491

What is your opinion of the news media?

by minimus in

to me they have an agenda and they really don't care about professional journalism.

most are untrustworthy and that's a shame.

bohm

Just my 2c:

I think a bit part of the problem is that the question is framed as "is the news media truthful, yes or no".

In reality, the questions we should ask are

how often is the news media false
how biased is the news media in its choice of stories (and more importantly, what do we mean by bias)
what does the news media do when it is found to be false?
how consistent is a news media (i.e. does it call out the same behavior from both sides)?

I simply can't see how anyone can claim with a straight face that e.g. Breitbart does better than the CNN or nytimes on these counts.

17

AI on the cusp of tremendous breakthroughs

by azor in

jw
friends

what does this mean for us as individuals and our civilization?

harris, kurzweil, and musk among others have some interesting thoughts on the subject.

as do shows like westworld.

Azor: Oh, I just read Breitbart every now and then, and they seem to always be running at least one story along the line of "so-and-so is crying/having a meltdown over this-or-that" and the comment sections always agree that whatever the person is having a meltdown over is the best thing ever :-).

17

AI on the cusp of tremendous breakthroughs

by azor in

jw
friends

what does this mean for us as individuals and our civilization?

harris, kurzweil, and musk among others have some interesting thoughts on the subject.

as do shows like westworld.

bohm

Azor: All we got to do is dye your hair blue and make a youtube video where we cry every time someone says "redistribution"; they will demand redistribution within a month :-D.

17

AI on the cusp of tremendous breakthroughs

by azor in

jw
friends

what does this mean for us as individuals and our civilization?

harris, kurzweil, and musk among others have some interesting thoughts on the subject.

as do shows like westworld.

bohm

Azor: In the short run automation of manufacturing should lead to a great increase in wealth and it (should!) be a problem of redistribution.

In the long run there will be true AI and all bets will be off, but it's in all likelihood a very long way off (we don't know how the brain fundamentally gives rise to intelligence).

17

AI on the cusp of tremendous breakthroughs

by azor in

jw
friends

what does this mean for us as individuals and our civilization?

harris, kurzweil, and musk among others have some interesting thoughts on the subject.

as do shows like westworld.

bohm

Well, this is actually my research area (statistical methods for machine learning).

There is currently a huge increase in applications and interest in machine learning. What many don't realize is that this is the result of a gradual but steady improvement in the field since the 90s which around 2010 meant machine learning could begin to solve "real" problems (image classification, etc.). That created a huge influx of investments which has increased the rate of progress considerably, however the progress is happening by modifying and tweaking technologies known since the 50s.

So despite the hype people should think about the development in machine learning as what happened with batteries for cars where you have a steady improvement until batteries are "good enough" and then it seems like an explosion.

In terms of AI, what machine learning can do well today is classification and regression tasks of various sorts and (to some degree) control tasks in limited environments and (to a lesser extent) image/sound generation... it would be very surprising to nearly everyone in the field if the current methods that are used now will generalize to true AI.

What does seem within reach is machines that might not be able to think in any conventional sense but can still accomplish rich control tasks, for instance driving (nearly solved) or replacement of low-skill factory labor with robots (progress will depend on task with the truly big breakthroughs some way off). These robots can't "think", but at some point they will begin to replace low-skill factory jobs in large numbers and that will have a *huge* consequence.

In other words, terminator might take your job but it won't kill you :-).

89

Trump Voters, Is This What You Voted For?

by Village Idiot in

all that talk about hillary clinton's unsecured e-mails?

read the following:.

"deagazio posted additional photos from the weekend, including one of his dining companions kissing trump on the cheek, a selfie with white house strategist steve bannon and another selfie identifying a man named rick who he says is responsible for carrying the nuclear “football,” which allows the president to authorize a nuclear attack while away from the white house.. "“this is rick,” wrote deagazio.

bohm

Simon: I encountered it a few times. You can see an example of it here:

(check the "no stand down order" item).

89

Trump Voters, Is This What You Voted For?

by Village Idiot in

all that talk about hillary clinton's unsecured e-mails?

read the following:.

"deagazio posted additional photos from the weekend, including one of his dining companions kissing trump on the cheek, a selfie with white house strategist steve bannon and another selfie identifying a man named rick who he says is responsible for carrying the nuclear “football,” which allows the president to authorize a nuclear attack while away from the white house.. "“this is rick,” wrote deagazio.

bohm

Take 9/11. I have spent a long time debunking left-wing conspiracies about 9/11, many of which revolved around the idea that the WH instantly could have scrambled F16 jets and taken down the airliners very early on and since they didn't, they must have been somehow in on it.

This idea seems very reasonable (this is US airspace, presumably the most monitored airspace in the world, and there are airforce bases littered over the USA), but in fact it took a very long time to even get F16s in air and the pilots say that they didn't even have ammunition to shoot down the airliners but would have needed to fly into them...

89

Trump Voters, Is This What You Voted For?

by Village Idiot in

all that talk about hillary clinton's unsecured e-mails?

read the following:.

"deagazio posted additional photos from the weekend, including one of his dining companions kissing trump on the cheek, a selfie with white house strategist steve bannon and another selfie identifying a man named rick who he says is responsible for carrying the nuclear “football,” which allows the president to authorize a nuclear attack while away from the white house.. "“this is rick,” wrote deagazio.

bohm

freemindfade:

I am aware that these quotes exist, but we have had 33 hearings so must be possible to put them in context, i.e. what support was actually available (as opposed to being believed by some to be available) and what actions were taken by the WH.

Just to clarify, are you saying that requests were made to the WH (Obama and/or Hillary?) for support and these requests were denied?

Or are you saying that requests were made elsewhere in the chain of command and these requests were denied?

Or that help could have been sent in but wasn't?

89

Trump Voters, Is This What You Voted For?

by Village Idiot in

all that talk about hillary clinton's unsecured e-mails?

read the following:.

"deagazio posted additional photos from the weekend, including one of his dining companions kissing trump on the cheek, a selfie with white house strategist steve bannon and another selfie identifying a man named rick who he says is responsible for carrying the nuclear “football,” which allows the president to authorize a nuclear attack while away from the white house.. "“this is rick,” wrote deagazio.

bohm

freemindfade: Well, minimizing fallout from something like Benghazi is what any administration would do?

Let me just focus on one item (this is a "smoking gun" item IMO) and be a bit of a pain in the ass again:

They told the security team, they couldn't have received help in time,

I am not 100% sure what this is referring to. "They" I assume is Obama and Hillary and the security team is the security team at the embassy. So according to the above the security team was told during the attack they could not receive help?

89

Trump Voters, Is This What You Voted For?

by Village Idiot in

all that talk about hillary clinton's unsecured e-mails?

read the following:.

"deagazio posted additional photos from the weekend, including one of his dining companions kissing trump on the cheek, a selfie with white house strategist steve bannon and another selfie identifying a man named rick who he says is responsible for carrying the nuclear “football,” which allows the president to authorize a nuclear attack while away from the white house.. "“this is rick,” wrote deagazio.

bohm

Freemindfade: Come on now bohm you like being a pain in the ass , admit it, just a little, no? don't be like that. I don't mind it, ok I do a little, but I'm too chill to hold it against anyone lol

Okay, I'll admit I kinda went after that one fact since I knew it to be wrong from my own research and it was easy to disprove. There is a more serious point here: we are 33 hearings in on Benghazi. I think a hearing or two is reasonable since lives were lost, but I'm thinking that IF there were a real smoking gun you wouldn't be citing basic stuff that contradicts the timeline in such an obvious way.

Suppose Obama had actually send in a drone, what's wrong with that?

The problem (as I see it) is that the discussion always goes down to some fuzzy and pretty opinion-based things. Like if it is a big deal if you are saying "an act of terrorism" or a "terrorist act" (getting mileage out of these two seems very quaint in an era of Trump), or if Obamas actions were sufficient or not.

To judge the later, we have to understand what actions Obama could normally be expected to take and what actions are expected to be taken by the military.. I don't know and that makes it hard for me to really see a "smoking gun".

Since lives were lost it is likely that bad calls were made, however, it must be seen in the context of how the decisions were made and what information was available at the time... as an example, take the failed Yemen raid. There is (some) indication that Obama didn't okay the mission because it was deemed too risky but Trump did over dinner and it turned out to be a total clusterf#ck with resulting loss of life.

It is easy to second-guess that decision (we can BET there was intelligence available that it would be a high-risk mission), but I don't think that in itself is that bad considering such information is probably nearly always available.

Heck, if the mission to capture Bin Laden had resulted in all helicopters being downed I bet there would have been information available to suggest that might happen.