Posts by Simon

78

Top AI inventor Geoffrey Hinton reluctantly concluded that AI will probably humanity fairly soon

by slimboyfat in

geoffrey hinton, major inventor of artificial intelligence: .

“if you take the existential risk seriously, as i now do—i used to think it was way off, but now i think it’s serious, and fairly close—it might be quite sensible to just stop developing these things any further, but i think it’s completely naïve to think that would happen.

there’s no way to make that happen.

Simon

The same goes for the AI that pretended to be blind to get the information to enter the captcha. It’s fair enough comment to point out that it didn’t really know what it was doing, it just mimicked what it calculated to be a successful move in that situation to reach its goal. But that really is a red herring.

I get your point about Chess computers, but that IS the point though - it's not really AI. There is no intelligence, no reasoning - it can't put 2 + 2 together and get 4 (for real, you can convince it that 5 is the right answer). It can't deduce or combine information unless someone else has already done that.

It's a great tool, it is a step up from spell checkers and grammar checkers when writing articles, but it can't write anything truly original.

Plus, it can be hugely wrong but supremely confident. That is where it's dangerous - when people use it for something they don't have expertise in, and trust what it tells them.

78

Top AI inventor Geoffrey Hinton reluctantly concluded that AI will probably humanity fairly soon

by slimboyfat in

geoffrey hinton, major inventor of artificial intelligence: .

“if you take the existential risk seriously, as i now do—i used to think it was way off, but now i think it’s serious, and fairly close—it might be quite sensible to just stop developing these things any further, but i think it’s completely naïve to think that would happen.

there’s no way to make that happen.

Simon

The problem we have is illustrated by the recent story of an AI that was set a task that involved accessing a website with a captcha. At that point the AI didn’t have “sight” because it didn’t have the ability to visually scan the page (now it does) so it asked online for helpers to answer the captcha claiming to be a “blind” person. People were sympathetic to the situation and the AI got the help it asked for and competed the task. If that’s the sort of thing AI can already do then it boggles the mind what it will be doing when it has 100 or 1000 times the capability it currently has.

This sounds impressive but it's really only half the story. They specifically gave it a budget and access to a site where it could hire human workers, and the goal of bypassing the captcha.

A human asked if it was a robot / why it needed the help, and the excuse it repeated was that it had a vision impairment.

Did it really come up with that as a convincing reason ... or did it just notice from pattern matching that it would work as a reason from seeing that it previously worked as a reason?

See, if you dig down, it's suddenly much less smart and clever and more guided along a path by humans.

It's not like it decided to go out into the world of its own accord and start accessing websites, figuring out sneaky ways to manipulate people to get past captcha ... it was told what to do, and just copied how other people had done it.

There is only pattern matching, there is no AI. The only people who want to convince you that it exists are the people with AI to sell or AI careers to boost.

78

Top AI inventor Geoffrey Hinton reluctantly concluded that AI will probably humanity fairly soon

by slimboyfat in

geoffrey hinton, major inventor of artificial intelligence: .

“if you take the existential risk seriously, as i now do—i used to think it was way off, but now i think it’s serious, and fairly close—it might be quite sensible to just stop developing these things any further, but i think it’s completely naïve to think that would happen.

there’s no way to make that happen.

Simon

Sam Harris has demonstrated his ability to be a complete moron on subjects outside his expertise and training.

His views on Trump and Covid show he's not the smart, reflective, person his image projects.

He's "clever stupid", which is what I call people who are very clever in one area but those smarts don't seem to translate to others. He has knowledge, but not reasoning ability.

Maybe AI will help him ...

78

Top AI inventor Geoffrey Hinton reluctantly concluded that AI will probably humanity fairly soon

by slimboyfat in

geoffrey hinton, major inventor of artificial intelligence: .

“if you take the existential risk seriously, as i now do—i used to think it was way off, but now i think it’s serious, and fairly close—it might be quite sensible to just stop developing these things any further, but i think it’s completely naïve to think that would happen.

there’s no way to make that happen.

Simon

AI is still thick as pig shit and there is no "I" involved.

It's just pattern matching. It can give the appearance of being clever, but if you look closer it clearly is clueless and cannot reason.

These people are just pretending that they themselves are so clever, and boosting their own mythology.

11530

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

by Newly Enlightened in

original reddit post (removed).

Simon

The thing no one seems to "get" when it comes to CSA, and is expecting the government to step in and deal with your ex religion not dealing with things properly is that the same government runs the public school system where incidents of abusive are massively higher and they too focus on covering it up and moving abusers on to pastures new where they can abuse again.

Same with local councils, child protective services and all the law enforcement agencies of government that failed hundreds of thousands of kids up and down the country.

Publicity is the only weapon, to make the story big enough that the powers that be are forced to act instead of help cover things up.

So "mean tweets" on Twitter play to the gallery but really do fuck all to help anyone. Lloyd had multiple chances to create publicity, even getting a GB member on the phone, and he blew it with childish questions.

11530

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

by Newly Enlightened in

original reddit post (removed).

Simon

Is Lloyd that up on himself that he actually thought people would just pay up? It baffles me that Lloyd can actually think in such a way.

He probably believes that his past behavior of bullying people into silence / grabbing what isn't his, can still work. Of course it can't anymore because the minute he threatens one person, everyone will band together and stand up against him.

He’s so deluded that he went to the nearest law firm in an impoverished area in southern Croatia thinking it would work solely because he’s so certain that it would.

Yeah, the picture he tries to paint is that he's pursuing multiple international defendants and will spare no expense to bring them to justice.

The reality is that he went to the very closest law firm in the nearest town.

He's cheap, and it's all for show. There is no other purpose to his "legal action" than to pretend there really is one. He was hoping he'd be lucky and maybe one or two might just pay up.

But why should anyone do that. Why would anyone fear Lloyd anymore?

The only people who have the resources to bring defamation cases like he talks about are footballers wives and celebrities. He might fancy himself as a celebrity, but he isn't one, and he's not got the finances needed to do what he talks about.

11530

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

by Newly Enlightened in

original reddit post (removed).

Simon

So his books are just like him? ... only safe to be around if plenty of disinfectant is involved!

11530

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

by Newly Enlightened in

original reddit post (removed).

Simon

There is also the lawsuit, which in the short term was his way of scaring people into silence but in the longer term doesn’t bode well for him when it does fail.

What lawsuit? There isn't one AFAIK ...

There was a shakedown letter from a lawyer with the threat of a lawsuit, it seemed like they hoped people would just pay some money but they couldn't even put any effort into responding to enquiries.

Unless and until someone is served papers, there isn't any lawsuit.

There's just Lloyd and his lies.

But long term he can't keep claiming he has a lawsuit when he doesn't. Event the dumbest supporter (and man, he has some dumb ones*) will have to question when it's at the 2, 5, 10 year anniversary of the (supposed) "litigation".

That's why he constantly shits on the Croatian legal system - he's preparing to blame them for it all not happening, not that he had no case.

*one of his defenders on twitter (possibly him) wouldn't accept basic principles of Math, that a statement such as "the more times you roll a dice, the higher the probability that you will roll a 6" wasn't true unless you have "proof".

11530

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

by Newly Enlightened in

original reddit post (removed).

Simon

How many user names is Lloyd using? MadreeDeSashee sounds like Lloyd.

It seems to be his MO, I think that was him on here a few pages back pretending to be an impartial yet strangely vehement defender of Lloyd. He can't resist trying to have his say and control the discussion, even though publicly he pretends he's blocking and ignoring people.

Who else would think that every marriage needs sex workers, that they are actually good for the marriage?

Only a few twisted people think that leaving the WTS means you have to live opposite-life and turn into an immoral man-whore.

This is an insidious lie: it could put many off leaving as it "proves" what the WTS has warned them of. The reality is that you can leave with your immediate family intact, be as moral as you ever were, and all be happy and successful.

He says his wife is not the person we know her to be and threatens to expose her. He has all her emails and will reveal them. To whom? I gather it's to the very ones he's supposed to be 'getting'.

If it's not Lloyd then it's a very sick supporter that is supporting these actions.

We know that leaked emails sent to his wife must have come from her, and we'll know that leaked emails she sent to him must have come from him. He's not the smartest cookie in the barrel. But I wouldn't trust things he leaks to not have been edited. We don't have the same way to verify their source as we did hers.

It appears Lloyd is moving forward and has accepted his marriage is a failure but now wants to justify himself by revealing Djana's emails. What a cruel man he is. Has he no love for his own children?

He doesn't appear to really give a shit about his kids to the same degree that he doesn't appear to care at all about his wife. They are a bargaining chip when attempting to coerce Djana to agree to something and a fund-raising prop when begging for money.

6

RIP Barry Humphries

by LoveUniHateExams in

comedy legend barry humphries passed away yesterday aged 89. he was the genius behind dame edna everage and sir les patterson.. humphries was also an intellectual, with a huge personal library of first prints and rare editions.

he apparently dropped out of studying law because he found it 'boring', from what i remember reading about him.

instead, he created a number of comedy characters - as much for his own amusement as ours.. here's to a long life, well-lived 🥂.

Simon

One of the few truly funny greats, very quick witted, always left you smiling.