“If Martin Gurri is right that the “identity virus,” which has caused so many of our problems, “was first incubated in academia,” then it’s worth asking whether the universities are even worth saving.”
——————————————————-
The universities can easily be saved by cutting their funding. Elon Musk fired 80% of the people at Twitter and it’s fine. We created all of these parasites by giving them money to do nothing.
I think the first example of the oppressor oppressed virus was in Genesis when the snake showed up to tell Adam and Eve that God was screwing them over, actually
Yes, especially the proliferation of the administrative class at universities. These folks all need to justify their positions and salaries; and having no academic mission create problems only they can solve through micromanagement of campus thought and behavior. The classic “self licking ice cream cone.”
Propose eliminating federal student loans and the violent reaction will tell you how successful this would be. It would not be a utopia and Retarvard would be less impacted as you suggest.
I've long thought federal student loans should be eliminated for students not choosing STEM fields or business majors. Also it should no longer be guaranteed. Even when I was in school back in the 90s, my roommate and her friends who all had parents who paid their tuitions in full took out guaranteed student loans to invest in stocks. Talk about head start. I was scrambling to pay rent after graduation.
If they REALLY did *nothing* the problems would be near as bad as we find ourselves; it's that they do *something* which in turn really fucks up a lot of shit.
Funding students is the bulk of the problem. It’s almost the entire problem. If you don’t delete funding for students who pursue Trump University-style useless degrees you’ve done almost nothing.
The comment about Democrat oppressor ideology being Satanic is accurate, not snide.
Yeah but clearly it’s losing money because he offends Democrats and the government. It’s really easy to ingratiate yourself to Democrats and the government so it easily could be profitable. But then the downside is that ingratiating yourself to Democrats and the government (redundant) makes you a huge piece of shit.
So it’s a trade-off.
Twitter basically never made a profit (except 2019 I think) before Elon took over which is actually quite a scandal because they obviously could have made a profit by eliminating all of the useless douche bags Elon fired. Old Twitter was defrauding shareholders and the useless employees were embezzling funds.
Nah. I think he's offending companies who don't want their ads running next to white-nationalist groups and tweets. It's losing money because of lack of engineers, incoherent moderation, platforming of lunatics, stupid upgrades and poor leadership from a antisemitic-friendly CEO who is conviced the "woke mind virus" is destroying the Earth.
Outside of that and the massive loss of revenue of both Twitter and Tesla, everything is fine....big difference from "not turning a pofit."
If only someone, anyone, would have predicted this.
"Old Twittet was defrauding shareholders and the useless employees were embezzling funds."
All of that was fabricated. You do not think he is offending companies. You are fully aware that those companies are being extorted by the organization that pays you to post here.
You obviously don’t care about antisemitism, given that you are a Holocaust denier. You are just exploiting Jews to push your own psychotic agenda. Elon banned “from the river to the sea” because he cares about the Jewish people and the actual threat to their existence which is Democrats and Muslims.
Lol. Fabricated? Nah. Elon said what he said. Documented in his tweets. Irrefutable.
No. I 1000% believe he is offending companies....because that's exactly what they've said/rational as they bail from advertising on the platform. Don't want their brands showing up around a bunch of KevinDurants.
He has done what he has done - says what he says and the free market/Wall Street has responded.
Seems they don't like his whole "Jews are promoting white genocide" take.
Extorting? Lol....yeah...sure you have evidence of that....is that what Elon said?
I said a while back, after he acquired Twitter, that he'd turn it into 4Chan within 2 years. He is on his way to doing that.
Banned "from the river to the sea" - what?! Outrageous! I thought you and Elon were all about Free Speech, right? Aren't you guys all about non-censorship? "Words aren't violence," right?
Hmmm.....apparently that doesn't apply for one group in particular. Why is that?
Sticks and stones....or are you a hypocrite?
ThReAteninG tHeIR eXiSTeNCe!
Lol. Israel has nukes. They're fine. Yeah...those Gazans are really sticking it to them. I wonder who will win?!!
Oh...so now I'm "exploiting Jews?" Well....that's a refreshing take from your claim that I'm "exploiting black people."
Funny....you've never actually explained how exactly. You sound woke. Sorry. Your "Gentile guilt" isn't going to work.
However, I'm not a Holocaust denier. I have challeneged you repeatedly to provide evidence of such. You cannot. Yet, you continue - because you are a pathetic liar and are incapable of winning a debate/argument without strawmen or lies.
Antisemitism? That does not exist in America. There is no "systemic antisemitism" in America. This is the best country in the world for Jews. That is why they keep dual citizenship.
There is a lot of anti-Zionism, though. Because Judaism and Zionism are two separate things.
"superintelligence technology" What a joke! AI can be no more "intelligent" than its creators and may actually be WORSE!
MY opinion is that AI was created so that individual humans can wash their hands of difficult decisions, claiming that AI, which they may claim is UNBIASED AND FACT BASED, has come up with a decision or idea on its own, and those using it are blameless for any harm or regressive policy that it may propose. The old trope, "Garbage in, garbage out", STILL holds true! And anyone who relies on this new technology KNOW IT and APPROVES of it!
I agree - AI is unbiased? So, if we take the cesspool of the Internet, shove it into a neural network that we don't understand - somehow the result will be valid?
Try taking ChatGPT 4, pick a subject you are very familiar with, maybe even expert.
Now, ask Chat to write papers about that subject, make lists about it - exercise Chat.
Chat will be almost correct, but it will miss the important concepts. And the more garbage there is on the Internet about your subject, the farther from correct Chat will be.
Because Chat can't discern correct from incorrect, biased from unbiased, valuable insight from incompetent musings.
But, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain - just keep clapping and maybe someone else's hands will wear out first.
It's often quite a bit worse than that. AI is taking 2023 assumptions and biases about how the world should be and enshrining them in silicon, then inviting humans to rely on it instead of thinking for themselves and re-evaluating whether those ideas are any good.
If that doesn't horrify you, imagine if the assumptions and biases of the prevalent American culture and academia of 1923 were being put into AI. In particular, that was about the peak of the American eugenics movement -- AI would be telling us that anyone with mental or physical disabilities, homosexual proclivities, a criminal past, etc, should be sterilized. It might be crafting policy decisions about how to make race-mixed marriages a crime. It would be suggesting adding various poisons to alcohol to stop people from drinking, or how phrenology can be used to determine someone's criminal disposition.
Now we have biases and ideas in 2023, pushed by academia and elites, that are quite different from 1923. And we are just as assured these ideas are correct and immutable. Ideas about environmentalism that are centered entirely around carbon emissions and ignore mining practices or lithium stores -- assumptions which might need to change extremely soon based on actual mining output. Ideas around equity based on "historical oppression". Ideas that masculinity is "toxic". Ideas around therapy, pharmaceuticals, etc.
Or, if you're 100% on board with the WEF agendas and Western thinking, guess who else is working on AI -- China. They have rather different social ideas. And once again, these ideas are being enshrined into silicon, are being used to inform policy decisions, and will eventually replace the human ability to think for ourselves.
The alarm over carbon emissions ignores the opinion of America’s preeminent atmospheric scientist, Richard Lindzen, as well as the history of climate. It is telling that the temperature record gathered by Tony Heller is ignored.
True in spirit, but I hope they remember to breed “workers” (a la 1984); robots have a LONG, LONG way to go before they can do construction, plumbing, carpentry, etc. and these elitist bozos won’t have the skills to do those things on their own.
My limited experience in presenting textual questions to OpenAI is that it should have been named Captain Obvious. The extent to which human writers worry about being displaced by AI should be in direct proportion to the extent those human writers produce drivel. In fairness, there's a lot of that going around so some writers are right to be worried. But I doubt serious readers and students of reasonable intellect will be fooled.
And yeah, north 30 years here, too... age sure throws time perception out the window; the summer that lasted forever now disappearing overnight.... I should recalculate every time I toss a number. (And those kids just might do amazing GK!)
A cartoon in American Scientist around 1980 showed two scientists in lab coats looking at a computer screen. One of them says something like "Now that we have artificial intelligence, we also have artificial stupidity".
You are dead wrong. I’ve been using GPT-4 for about a year now, and there are certain moments that I found it’s capable of stringing a certain combination of words together that I would not have been able to do myself. Maybe it’s not super intelligent on its own, but the two of us together leads to a more intelligent cyborg. I can confidently say that it increases my IQ by at least 20 points
I have to wonder why Halevy does not address the problem that Palestinians have never been willing to make peace, because the only peace acceptable to them is the elimination of Israel. What leadership does he envision for the Palestinians that would change that?
That is such a great point. If you cheer on what happened on 10/7 and support those who did it, you get what you deserve. As much as the press wants to make the country feel sorry for them, I don't. To have peace, like the Japanese and Germans, that culture needs to be broken. I wish an American politician would have the courage to say so as Israel's politicians do. Still, until that happens, the media will do all it can to make the general public feel sorry for those who cheer on barbarism.
I think your point about actually SEEING war on video is important. As the Israel Hamas war continues, I often shake my head and say, “Do people not know what war is anymore?” Both MSM and the pro-Palestinian lobby appear to expect “war” without casualties... and the public seems to be expecting the same thing!
Could this have something to do with “movies” of everything playing on our phones, on our computers, on our TVs? Are we now telling ourselves new stories about how to wage war? But then I realize, no, because it’s all one-sided. Videos of Israel’s dead and wounded are not treated with the same solicitousness, so I guess we’re just back to the old oppressor/oppressed binary.
After 8 years living abroad, I returned to the US at the end of 1968. For the first itme in 8 yrs., I saw TV. I was eating dinner at my mothers apt., with some of her friends. They were chatting away and on the TV there was the Vietnam war. I was horrified, and they all just kept chatting away as if seeing people slaughtered was a normal occurance.
Interesting that no other countries want the Palestinians in their country. Why? They support Muslim Brotherhood and will try to ferment disorder wherever they go or are. If Israel disappeared tomorrow, it would take less than six months and then Hezbo and Hamas would be fighting the Sunni versus Shia history. Then they would look to overthrow Egypt, Jordan, and any other country that helped them. They appreciate nothing and help is considered weakness and fear of them. The people would still be illiterate and good for only reproducing and having fighters to get killed or wear suicide vests.
These idiots are not capable of establishing any kind of government or infrastructure for the people. Their specialty is only destroying. If only AI could help devise a process to where stupid peoples heads would explode when they support something so stupid as Hamas or Hezbo, we would be free of the woke liberals. Now that would be special and a reason to support AI.
As usual, always interesting to view comments by Celia—she gets to the crux of the matter. I fully agree with her that the Israel/Palestine central problem is the unwillingness of the Palestinians— “leaders” in control—to make peace. In answer to her question, what leadership would change that I think the answer is those Gazians who have lived under (and suffered from) Hamas. For example, out of the 9,000 plus who prior to this worked in Israel and their families. Out of that “type” of persons, “advisory councils” for administration and governmental services under military rule by Israel moving toward actually performing those duties and further on to eventual governing. Keep the UN, Europeans, other Arab countries, and the US OUT of it (except for money, limited strings). Now doing that is “not easy” and not quick. Think about the US regarding Germany and Japan after WWII or South Korea after the Korean war, although the later was relatively quick.
I think it would be very valuable at this point to take a closer look at what was done after WWII to detoxify German and Japanese cultures. I'm realizing the I don't actually know the details.
Unless I missed it, there is not a single essay here about actually building something of scale other than technological-intellectual-sociological constructs. Nothing about actually building future infrastructure or extracting materials to satisfy the demands of future infrastructure - real construction. To accomplish any one of the goals laid out by this essay series, we have to have a robust natural resource development environment. That is the very foundation of all of our other industries. You can't have an electronics industry without tin. Tin is the solder or glue that holds all electrical components together. Tin comes from gigantic holes in the Earth where huge mining machines and ore mills and refineries are necessary. All of this requires a tremendous amount of energy to power and make it move. If you're not willing to do all of this then you can't have the electrical/electronic part.
People are flip these days about popular themes like "the electrification of everything" or "no more oil" without putting a second's worth of thought into where all of this stuff that will be needed to "electrify" everything or replace petroleum is going to come from. When Biden reeled off his declaration that by 2030, half of vehicles on America's highways will be EVs, he wasn't giving permission to our mining industry to produce five times as much copper as we're producing today in order to meet his 2030 mandate. Instead, he's killing copper mining projects in America. His very first act as POTUS was to place a 100-day moratorium on review of all development projects on federal lands. It's been a slow drip of approvals since then. A federal court had to actually order the Biden admin to conduct a lease sale, that it had been sitting on, thereby obstructing law. Government dysfunction has never been worse.
In the article on academia and the American Economy, the issues that we have to deal with are the left-wing ideologues. How does a fringe group of unserious people get so much power? I am always eager to see how the big three on Sunday spin the news. This weekend, the trio of Welker, Brennan, and Radditz all were talking about how young progressives were upset with the Biden administration's support of Israel. They put young people, especially those of color, on this high moral pedestal rather than treating them like the fools they are. The progressive worldview dominates as they educate those who work and run these institutions.
In 2024 and beyond, we need a reform movement to have the tools to fire the fools who infest them. College professors should have to perform like everyone else to earn a paycheck take away tenure, then the threat of firing them can drive change. A battle against the administrative state has to be front and center. I would fire everyone at the State Department who writes open letters against any current administration policy. To do this, civil service reform. As with colleges, the authorities must change the work rules to do this. 2024 is approaching; I hope these people are the issue, not some Organge-Haired egomaniac.
Profoundly poor leadership by the OpenAI board. Make a devastating decision, and offer no explanation how it fits with the vision or mission of the company. How to go from relevance to not in a heartbeat. For certain there has been no clear explanation to the key researchers. Why would they want to stay?
Regarding AI, "how can you even know that information is true until you have allowed the information space to be freely and fully explored and evidence weighed? These people are not afraid AI will lie. They are afraid it will expose how much we have been lied to." el gato malo https://substack.com/inbox/post/138991831
Oliver Wiseman opens the article by stating several very basic, undeniable truths: "A lot of things are broken. A lot of very important things. Things like our media, our universities, and our politics... some of America’s most important institutions have been captured by ideology," yet Wiseman fails to name that ideology - Marxist Leftism. That is, viewing every aspect of human existence through the prism of oppressed and oppressor, and applying Communist-socialist principles as a remedy.
As Dennis Prager points out, the Left damages or destroys everything it touches. In my admittedly pessimistic view, we've passed the tipping point and there's no going back. In short, we're doomed. Best liquidate your portfolio post haste and invest in shotguns and canned food.
“In fact, he concludes, the first step toward rebuilding “will be propelled not by our corrupt elites or by our broken institutions but by an impatient public”
—————————————————-
This is why I’m suggesting the ‘rip the bandaid off’ approach in 2024 where we vote for Democrats so that they sweep both houses and the Presidency. This will allow voters to see the source of the problem more clearly. Then hopefully you can come back in 2028 and put all of them in prison.
As you can see in Argentina, it has to get really bad like 150% inflation before people realize
“Okay we can probably stop paying these assholes who don’t produce anything.”
Sorry, honored sir; not NO but H3LL NO. The Source of the Problem is absolutely, blindingly obvious to any who are willing to see it. A still-deeper dive into the cesspool gains nothing.
Not sure about that Kevin. You'd think Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle can't get an worse. But people who vote D still think Republicans are the problem.
Is that the “burn it all down” approach? We’ve seen the damage done in just two years of this malevolent administration. Giving them another four, unfettered by checks and balances, would be like Fire-hosing gasoline on the pyre of our dying country. So, no: voting for Democrat hegemony is not a strategy that will end well.
I point to Palestinians being accepted before in Jordan and Egypt and doing little but fermenting trouble. Egypt has outlawed Muslim Brotherhood so little chance of them being welcome. People can change but they must have institutions to provide assistance and a means to address grievances. The current leadership in Gaza and the PLO have no interest in doing that. It’s normally expected to take approximately 25 years to build governance that helps people. Unfortunately all the funds given to do that only was used to build and expand the terrorists capabilities. So little to no chance of change without getting the current people out and maybe a multinational government to make changes might help. But Hamas would fight that with bombings and killings, so what’s the answer?
Have you forgotten that houses are renovated without being razed? Demolition is the “solution” of extremists. It will make it harder or perhaps even impossible for the country to rebuild.
How should one respond to the smug youth of today, who wonder why we celebrate Thanksgiving since we are just celebrating colonization. I am so tired of these wokesters. Any thoughts? Keep it clean Kevin Durant!
Homelessness; drug abuse; human trafficking; violate the law until caught; unequality; inequality; racial discrimination; religious discrimination; mass poverty; 400,000 people dying from medical and hospital malpractice a year; huge percent of our population cannot adequately read or write; hell half of america could not understand the articles in this newsletter. That is what academia has taught and continues to teach
" “we shouldn’t yield to despair.” ...the first step toward rebuilding “will be propelled not by our corrupt elites or by our broken institutions but by an impatient public.” "
Oh how I hope this happens! The 'system' is so broken, I'm thinking Trump MAY BE the only one who can fix it. We need to remember the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
“If Martin Gurri is right that the “identity virus,” which has caused so many of our problems, “was first incubated in academia,” then it’s worth asking whether the universities are even worth saving.”
——————————————————-
The universities can easily be saved by cutting their funding. Elon Musk fired 80% of the people at Twitter and it’s fine. We created all of these parasites by giving them money to do nothing.
I think the first example of the oppressor oppressed virus was in Genesis when the snake showed up to tell Adam and Eve that God was screwing them over, actually
Yes, especially the proliferation of the administrative class at universities. These folks all need to justify their positions and salaries; and having no academic mission create problems only they can solve through micromanagement of campus thought and behavior. The classic “self licking ice cream cone.”
BDS the DEI industry!!
We still need that LOL button Bari!
You can't cut funding fast enough when the elite ones have immensely huge endowments and charges tuitions that bankrupt families
Propose eliminating federal student loans and the violent reaction will tell you how successful this would be. It would not be a utopia and Retarvard would be less impacted as you suggest.
I've long thought federal student loans should be eliminated for students not choosing STEM fields or business majors. Also it should no longer be guaranteed. Even when I was in school back in the 90s, my roommate and her friends who all had parents who paid their tuitions in full took out guaranteed student loans to invest in stocks. Talk about head start. I was scrambling to pay rent after graduation.
That right there should have been a signal something was rotten in the state of Denmark.
And Satan, the Great Deceiver, lied -- just as the woke DIE mob does now.
Kevin, you made my day! To see the similarity between the Great Deceiver's work in Genesis and that of his minions today is brilliant.
If they REALLY did *nothing* the problems would be near as bad as we find ourselves; it's that they do *something* which in turn really fucks up a lot of shit.
Snide Genesis comment aside, the way to fix universities is money, yes. Eliminate funding other than from students. Period. Tax endowments. Heavily.
Funding students is the bulk of the problem. It’s almost the entire problem. If you don’t delete funding for students who pursue Trump University-style useless degrees you’ve done almost nothing.
The comment about Democrat oppressor ideology being Satanic is accurate, not snide.
Huh. OK, I can see that.
Yeah....Twitter is doing great....profits are totally up.....
Yeah but clearly it’s losing money because he offends Democrats and the government. It’s really easy to ingratiate yourself to Democrats and the government so it easily could be profitable. But then the downside is that ingratiating yourself to Democrats and the government (redundant) makes you a huge piece of shit.
So it’s a trade-off.
Twitter basically never made a profit (except 2019 I think) before Elon took over which is actually quite a scandal because they obviously could have made a profit by eliminating all of the useless douche bags Elon fired. Old Twitter was defrauding shareholders and the useless employees were embezzling funds.
Nah. I think he's offending companies who don't want their ads running next to white-nationalist groups and tweets. It's losing money because of lack of engineers, incoherent moderation, platforming of lunatics, stupid upgrades and poor leadership from a antisemitic-friendly CEO who is conviced the "woke mind virus" is destroying the Earth.
Outside of that and the massive loss of revenue of both Twitter and Tesla, everything is fine....big difference from "not turning a pofit."
If only someone, anyone, would have predicted this.
"Old Twittet was defrauding shareholders and the useless employees were embezzling funds."
Lol!! And you have evidence for this claim?
All of that was fabricated. You do not think he is offending companies. You are fully aware that those companies are being extorted by the organization that pays you to post here.
You obviously don’t care about antisemitism, given that you are a Holocaust denier. You are just exploiting Jews to push your own psychotic agenda. Elon banned “from the river to the sea” because he cares about the Jewish people and the actual threat to their existence which is Democrats and Muslims.
Lol. Fabricated? Nah. Elon said what he said. Documented in his tweets. Irrefutable.
No. I 1000% believe he is offending companies....because that's exactly what they've said/rational as they bail from advertising on the platform. Don't want their brands showing up around a bunch of KevinDurants.
He has done what he has done - says what he says and the free market/Wall Street has responded.
Seems they don't like his whole "Jews are promoting white genocide" take.
Extorting? Lol....yeah...sure you have evidence of that....is that what Elon said?
I said a while back, after he acquired Twitter, that he'd turn it into 4Chan within 2 years. He is on his way to doing that.
Banned "from the river to the sea" - what?! Outrageous! I thought you and Elon were all about Free Speech, right? Aren't you guys all about non-censorship? "Words aren't violence," right?
Hmmm.....apparently that doesn't apply for one group in particular. Why is that?
Sticks and stones....or are you a hypocrite?
ThReAteninG tHeIR eXiSTeNCe!
Lol. Israel has nukes. They're fine. Yeah...those Gazans are really sticking it to them. I wonder who will win?!!
Oh...so now I'm "exploiting Jews?" Well....that's a refreshing take from your claim that I'm "exploiting black people."
Funny....you've never actually explained how exactly. You sound woke. Sorry. Your "Gentile guilt" isn't going to work.
However, I'm not a Holocaust denier. I have challeneged you repeatedly to provide evidence of such. You cannot. Yet, you continue - because you are a pathetic liar and are incapable of winning a debate/argument without strawmen or lies.
Antisemitism? That does not exist in America. There is no "systemic antisemitism" in America. This is the best country in the world for Jews. That is why they keep dual citizenship.
There is a lot of anti-Zionism, though. Because Judaism and Zionism are two separate things.
"superintelligence technology" What a joke! AI can be no more "intelligent" than its creators and may actually be WORSE!
MY opinion is that AI was created so that individual humans can wash their hands of difficult decisions, claiming that AI, which they may claim is UNBIASED AND FACT BASED, has come up with a decision or idea on its own, and those using it are blameless for any harm or regressive policy that it may propose. The old trope, "Garbage in, garbage out", STILL holds true! And anyone who relies on this new technology KNOW IT and APPROVES of it!
I agree - AI is unbiased? So, if we take the cesspool of the Internet, shove it into a neural network that we don't understand - somehow the result will be valid?
Try taking ChatGPT 4, pick a subject you are very familiar with, maybe even expert.
Now, ask Chat to write papers about that subject, make lists about it - exercise Chat.
Chat will be almost correct, but it will miss the important concepts. And the more garbage there is on the Internet about your subject, the farther from correct Chat will be.
Because Chat can't discern correct from incorrect, biased from unbiased, valuable insight from incompetent musings.
But, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain - just keep clapping and maybe someone else's hands will wear out first.
It's often quite a bit worse than that. AI is taking 2023 assumptions and biases about how the world should be and enshrining them in silicon, then inviting humans to rely on it instead of thinking for themselves and re-evaluating whether those ideas are any good.
If that doesn't horrify you, imagine if the assumptions and biases of the prevalent American culture and academia of 1923 were being put into AI. In particular, that was about the peak of the American eugenics movement -- AI would be telling us that anyone with mental or physical disabilities, homosexual proclivities, a criminal past, etc, should be sterilized. It might be crafting policy decisions about how to make race-mixed marriages a crime. It would be suggesting adding various poisons to alcohol to stop people from drinking, or how phrenology can be used to determine someone's criminal disposition.
Now we have biases and ideas in 2023, pushed by academia and elites, that are quite different from 1923. And we are just as assured these ideas are correct and immutable. Ideas about environmentalism that are centered entirely around carbon emissions and ignore mining practices or lithium stores -- assumptions which might need to change extremely soon based on actual mining output. Ideas around equity based on "historical oppression". Ideas that masculinity is "toxic". Ideas around therapy, pharmaceuticals, etc.
Or, if you're 100% on board with the WEF agendas and Western thinking, guess who else is working on AI -- China. They have rather different social ideas. And once again, these ideas are being enshrined into silicon, are being used to inform policy decisions, and will eventually replace the human ability to think for ourselves.
The alarm over carbon emissions ignores the opinion of America’s preeminent atmospheric scientist, Richard Lindzen, as well as the history of climate. It is telling that the temperature record gathered by Tony Heller is ignored.
Well, when you put it that way ....... sounds pretty darn scary.
True in spirit, but I hope they remember to breed “workers” (a la 1984); robots have a LONG, LONG way to go before they can do construction, plumbing, carpentry, etc. and these elitist bozos won’t have the skills to do those things on their own.
In other words, it lacks understanding and wisdom.
Worse, it appears to have both.
“Appears.”
Right on. The real world is still real. See this one:
https://open.substack.com/pub/joelelorentzen/p/get-real-world?r=1p5p1m&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
My limited experience in presenting textual questions to OpenAI is that it should have been named Captain Obvious. The extent to which human writers worry about being displaced by AI should be in direct proportion to the extent those human writers produce drivel. In fairness, there's a lot of that going around so some writers are right to be worried. But I doubt serious readers and students of reasonable intellect will be fooled.
I ceased owning a TV about 25 years ago to avoid drowning in drivel. It sells.
I'm at 35 yrs without TV. My kids all grew up on books and family interaction. All 4 are amazing adults now
Funny how that works....
And yeah, north 30 years here, too... age sure throws time perception out the window; the summer that lasted forever now disappearing overnight.... I should recalculate every time I toss a number. (And those kids just might do amazing GK!)
A cartoon in American Scientist around 1980 showed two scientists in lab coats looking at a computer screen. One of them says something like "Now that we have artificial intelligence, we also have artificial stupidity".
So much insight in so few words. Thanks for that gem
You are dead wrong. I’ve been using GPT-4 for about a year now, and there are certain moments that I found it’s capable of stringing a certain combination of words together that I would not have been able to do myself. Maybe it’s not super intelligent on its own, but the two of us together leads to a more intelligent cyborg. I can confidently say that it increases my IQ by at least 20 points
4 quadrillion monkeys on 4 quadrillion typewriters?
All that your experience proves is that it is better than YOU, or that combining it with YOU makes for a better product! It is a glorified assistant.
I have to wonder why Halevy does not address the problem that Palestinians have never been willing to make peace, because the only peace acceptable to them is the elimination of Israel. What leadership does he envision for the Palestinians that would change that?
That is such a great point. If you cheer on what happened on 10/7 and support those who did it, you get what you deserve. As much as the press wants to make the country feel sorry for them, I don't. To have peace, like the Japanese and Germans, that culture needs to be broken. I wish an American politician would have the courage to say so as Israel's politicians do. Still, until that happens, the media will do all it can to make the general public feel sorry for those who cheer on barbarism.
To be fair Haley did say that but she was roundly criticized for warmingering and neoconning for it.
I think your point about actually SEEING war on video is important. As the Israel Hamas war continues, I often shake my head and say, “Do people not know what war is anymore?” Both MSM and the pro-Palestinian lobby appear to expect “war” without casualties... and the public seems to be expecting the same thing!
Could this have something to do with “movies” of everything playing on our phones, on our computers, on our TVs? Are we now telling ourselves new stories about how to wage war? But then I realize, no, because it’s all one-sided. Videos of Israel’s dead and wounded are not treated with the same solicitousness, so I guess we’re just back to the old oppressor/oppressed binary.
After 8 years living abroad, I returned to the US at the end of 1968. For the first itme in 8 yrs., I saw TV. I was eating dinner at my mothers apt., with some of her friends. They were chatting away and on the TV there was the Vietnam war. I was horrified, and they all just kept chatting away as if seeing people slaughtered was a normal occurance.
Just curious, what's your current age?
Just short of 85.
Thanks. It gives some context to your point of view. I wasn't being nosy, just trying to understand better who I am listening to
Interesting that no other countries want the Palestinians in their country. Why? They support Muslim Brotherhood and will try to ferment disorder wherever they go or are. If Israel disappeared tomorrow, it would take less than six months and then Hezbo and Hamas would be fighting the Sunni versus Shia history. Then they would look to overthrow Egypt, Jordan, and any other country that helped them. They appreciate nothing and help is considered weakness and fear of them. The people would still be illiterate and good for only reproducing and having fighters to get killed or wear suicide vests.
These idiots are not capable of establishing any kind of government or infrastructure for the people. Their specialty is only destroying. If only AI could help devise a process to where stupid peoples heads would explode when they support something so stupid as Hamas or Hezbo, we would be free of the woke liberals. Now that would be special and a reason to support AI.
As usual, always interesting to view comments by Celia—she gets to the crux of the matter. I fully agree with her that the Israel/Palestine central problem is the unwillingness of the Palestinians— “leaders” in control—to make peace. In answer to her question, what leadership would change that I think the answer is those Gazians who have lived under (and suffered from) Hamas. For example, out of the 9,000 plus who prior to this worked in Israel and their families. Out of that “type” of persons, “advisory councils” for administration and governmental services under military rule by Israel moving toward actually performing those duties and further on to eventual governing. Keep the UN, Europeans, other Arab countries, and the US OUT of it (except for money, limited strings). Now doing that is “not easy” and not quick. Think about the US regarding Germany and Japan after WWII or South Korea after the Korean war, although the later was relatively quick.
I think it would be very valuable at this point to take a closer look at what was done after WWII to detoxify German and Japanese cultures. I'm realizing the I don't actually know the details.
Celia, I think your comment deserves to be under one of the other articles' headings. Not under the AI subject matter.
I was responding to the video pasted at the end of this round-up.
Unless I missed it, there is not a single essay here about actually building something of scale other than technological-intellectual-sociological constructs. Nothing about actually building future infrastructure or extracting materials to satisfy the demands of future infrastructure - real construction. To accomplish any one of the goals laid out by this essay series, we have to have a robust natural resource development environment. That is the very foundation of all of our other industries. You can't have an electronics industry without tin. Tin is the solder or glue that holds all electrical components together. Tin comes from gigantic holes in the Earth where huge mining machines and ore mills and refineries are necessary. All of this requires a tremendous amount of energy to power and make it move. If you're not willing to do all of this then you can't have the electrical/electronic part.
People are flip these days about popular themes like "the electrification of everything" or "no more oil" without putting a second's worth of thought into where all of this stuff that will be needed to "electrify" everything or replace petroleum is going to come from. When Biden reeled off his declaration that by 2030, half of vehicles on America's highways will be EVs, he wasn't giving permission to our mining industry to produce five times as much copper as we're producing today in order to meet his 2030 mandate. Instead, he's killing copper mining projects in America. His very first act as POTUS was to place a 100-day moratorium on review of all development projects on federal lands. It's been a slow drip of approvals since then. A federal court had to actually order the Biden admin to conduct a lease sale, that it had been sitting on, thereby obstructing law. Government dysfunction has never been worse.
Hear, Hear!
In the article on academia and the American Economy, the issues that we have to deal with are the left-wing ideologues. How does a fringe group of unserious people get so much power? I am always eager to see how the big three on Sunday spin the news. This weekend, the trio of Welker, Brennan, and Radditz all were talking about how young progressives were upset with the Biden administration's support of Israel. They put young people, especially those of color, on this high moral pedestal rather than treating them like the fools they are. The progressive worldview dominates as they educate those who work and run these institutions.
In 2024 and beyond, we need a reform movement to have the tools to fire the fools who infest them. College professors should have to perform like everyone else to earn a paycheck take away tenure, then the threat of firing them can drive change. A battle against the administrative state has to be front and center. I would fire everyone at the State Department who writes open letters against any current administration policy. To do this, civil service reform. As with colleges, the authorities must change the work rules to do this. 2024 is approaching; I hope these people are the issue, not some Organge-Haired egomaniac.
Profoundly poor leadership by the OpenAI board. Make a devastating decision, and offer no explanation how it fits with the vision or mission of the company. How to go from relevance to not in a heartbeat. For certain there has been no clear explanation to the key researchers. Why would they want to stay?
Maybe he was fired by AI itself!
“Open the pod bay doors, HAL.”
Bankman was hired by Microsoft. He'll be OK.
Regarding AI, "how can you even know that information is true until you have allowed the information space to be freely and fully explored and evidence weighed? These people are not afraid AI will lie. They are afraid it will expose how much we have been lied to." el gato malo https://substack.com/inbox/post/138991831
Oliver Wiseman opens the article by stating several very basic, undeniable truths: "A lot of things are broken. A lot of very important things. Things like our media, our universities, and our politics... some of America’s most important institutions have been captured by ideology," yet Wiseman fails to name that ideology - Marxist Leftism. That is, viewing every aspect of human existence through the prism of oppressed and oppressor, and applying Communist-socialist principles as a remedy.
As Dennis Prager points out, the Left damages or destroys everything it touches. In my admittedly pessimistic view, we've passed the tipping point and there's no going back. In short, we're doomed. Best liquidate your portfolio post haste and invest in shotguns and canned food.
“In fact, he concludes, the first step toward rebuilding “will be propelled not by our corrupt elites or by our broken institutions but by an impatient public”
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This is why I’m suggesting the ‘rip the bandaid off’ approach in 2024 where we vote for Democrats so that they sweep both houses and the Presidency. This will allow voters to see the source of the problem more clearly. Then hopefully you can come back in 2028 and put all of them in prison.
As you can see in Argentina, it has to get really bad like 150% inflation before people realize
“Okay we can probably stop paying these assholes who don’t produce anything.”
Please, no. I do not have much more time on this earth, and do not wish to see the destruction of the USA.
Sorry, honored sir; not NO but H3LL NO. The Source of the Problem is absolutely, blindingly obvious to any who are willing to see it. A still-deeper dive into the cesspool gains nothing.
😂😂
Oh you got us Kevin. Bless your heart!
Not sure about that Kevin. You'd think Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle can't get an worse. But people who vote D still think Republicans are the problem.
Again, not a utopia, but it would work. Please review the election after Democrats passed Obamacare with supermajorities.
To quote my favorite athlete, “you can’t be serious!”
Before posting I always ask myself what John McEnroe would say.
Dammit Kevin, you made me laugh AGAIN!
😂🤣🐇😂
Is that the “burn it all down” approach? We’ve seen the damage done in just two years of this malevolent administration. Giving them another four, unfettered by checks and balances, would be like Fire-hosing gasoline on the pyre of our dying country. So, no: voting for Democrat hegemony is not a strategy that will end well.
I point to Palestinians being accepted before in Jordan and Egypt and doing little but fermenting trouble. Egypt has outlawed Muslim Brotherhood so little chance of them being welcome. People can change but they must have institutions to provide assistance and a means to address grievances. The current leadership in Gaza and the PLO have no interest in doing that. It’s normally expected to take approximately 25 years to build governance that helps people. Unfortunately all the funds given to do that only was used to build and expand the terrorists capabilities. So little to no chance of change without getting the current people out and maybe a multinational government to make changes might help. But Hamas would fight that with bombings and killings, so what’s the answer?
Personally I believe the AI at OpenAI had Sam Altman removed because he knew it was determined to take over the world!!!!! (Insert weird spooky laugh)
Thanks again for clear and insightful reporting and presentations of thoughtful authors and experts.
Don’t forget, usually in a rebuilding process first you have to go through the demolition process.
Have you forgotten that houses are renovated without being razed? Demolition is the “solution” of extremists. It will make it harder or perhaps even impossible for the country to rebuild.
"Demolition" does not equal "razed." Unless there is nothing worth the cost to salvage.
How should one respond to the smug youth of today, who wonder why we celebrate Thanksgiving since we are just celebrating colonization. I am so tired of these wokesters. Any thoughts? Keep it clean Kevin Durant!
To; KD
Homelessness; drug abuse; human trafficking; violate the law until caught; unequality; inequality; racial discrimination; religious discrimination; mass poverty; 400,000 people dying from medical and hospital malpractice a year; huge percent of our population cannot adequately read or write; hell half of america could not understand the articles in this newsletter. That is what academia has taught and continues to teach
" “we shouldn’t yield to despair.” ...the first step toward rebuilding “will be propelled not by our corrupt elites or by our broken institutions but by an impatient public.” "
Oh how I hope this happens! The 'system' is so broken, I'm thinking Trump MAY BE the only one who can fix it. We need to remember the enemy of my enemy is my friend.