Hauling Data: Is There a Chance of Derailment?
February 13, 2025
Another dinobaby write up. Only smart software is the lousy train illustration.
I spotted some chatter about US government Web sites going off line. Since I stepped away from the “index the US government” project, I don’t spend much time poking around the content at dot gov and in some cases dot com sites operated by the US government. Let’s assume that some US government servers are now blocked and the content has gone dark to a user looking for information generated by US government entities.
If libraries chug chug down the information railroad tracks to deliver data, what does the “Trouble on the Tracks” sign mean? Thanks, You.com. Good enough.
The fix in most cases is to use Bing.com. My recollection is that a third party like Bing provided the search service to the US government. A good alternative is to use Google.com, the qualifier site: command, and a bit of obscenity. The obscenity causes the Google AI to just generate a semi relevant list of links. In a pinch, you could poke around for a repository of US government information. Unfortunately the Library of Congress is not that repository. The Government Printing Office does not do the job either. The Internet Archive is a hit-and-miss archive operation.
Is there another alternative? Yes. Harvard University announced its Data.gov archive. The institution’s Library Innovation Lab Team said on February 6, 2025:
Today we released our archive of data.gov on Source Cooperative. The 16TB collection includes over 311,000 datasets harvested during 2024 and 2025, a complete archive of federal public datasets linked by data.gov. It will be updated daily as new datasets are added to data.gov.
I like this type of archive, but I am a dinobaby, not a forward leaning, “with it” thinker. Information in my mind belongs in a library. A library, in general, should provide students and those seeking information with a place to go to obtain information. The only advertising I see in a library is an announcement about a bake sale to raise funds for children’s reading material.
Will the Harvard initiative and others like it collide with something on the train tracks? Will the money to buy fuel for the engine’s power plant be cut off? Will the train drivers be forced to find work at Shake Shack?
I have no answers. I am glad I am old, but I fondly remember when the job was to index the content on US government servers. The quaint idea formulated by President Clinton was to make US government information available. Now one has to catch a train.
Stephen E Arnold, February 13, 2025
Orchestration Is Not Music When AI Agents Work Together
February 13, 2025
Are multiple AIs better than one? Megaputer believes so. The data firm sent out a promotional email urging us to “Build Multi-Agent Gen-AI Systems.” With the help of its products, of course. We are told:
“Most business challenges are too complex for a single AI engine to solve. What is the way forward? Introducing Agent-Chain Systems: A novel groundbreaking approach leveraging the collaborative strengths of specialized AI models, each configured for distinct analytical tasks.
- Validate results through inter-agent verification mechanisms, minimizing hallucinations and inconsistencies.
- Dynamically adapt workflows by redistributing tasks among Gen-AI agents based on complexity, optimizing resource utilization and performance.
- Build AI applications in hours for tasks like automated taxonomy building and complex fact extraction, going beyond traditional AI limitations.”
If this approach really reduces AI hallucinations, there may be something to it. The firm invites readers to explore a few case studies they have put together: One is for an anonymous pharmaceutical company, one for a US regulatory agency, and the third for a large retail company. Snapshots of each project’s dashboard further illustrate the concept. Are cooperative AI agents the next big thing in generative AI? Megaputer, for one, is banking on it. Founded back in 1997, the small business is based in Bloomington, Indiana.
Cynthia Murrell, February 10, 2025
LLMs Paired With AI Are Dangerous Propaganda Tools
February 13, 2025
AI chatbots are in their infancy. While they have been tested for a number of years, they are still prone to bias and other devastating mistakes. Big business and other organizations aren’t waiting for the technology to improve. Instead they’re incorporating chatbots and more AI into their infrastructures. Baldur Bjarnason warns about the dangers of AI, especially when it comes to LLMs and censorship:
“Poisoning For Propaganda: Rising Authoritarianism Makes LLMs More Dangerous.”
Large language models (LLMs) are used to train AI algorithms. Bjarnason warns that using any LLM, even those run locally, are dangerous.
Why?
LLMs are contained language databases that are programmed around specific parameters. These parameters are prone to error, because they were written by humans—ergo why AI algorithms are untrustworthy. They can also be programmed to be biased towards specific opinions aka propaganda machines. Bjarnason warns that LLMs are being used for the lawless takeover of the United States. He also says that corporations, in order to maintain their power, won’t hesitate to remove or add the same information from LLMs if the US government asks them.
This is another type of censorship:
“The point of cognitive automation is NOT to enhance thinking. The point of it is to avoid thinking in the first place. That’s the job it does. You won’t notice when the censorship kicks in… The alternative approach to censorship, fine-tuning the model to return a specific response, is more costly than keyword blocking and more error-prone. And resorting to prompt manipulation or preambles is somewhat easily bypassed but, crucially, you need to know that there is something to bypass (or “jailbreak”) in the first place. A more concerning approach, in my view, is poisoning.”
Corporations paired with governments (it’s not just the United States) are “poisoning” the AI LLMs with propagandized sentiments. It’s a subtle way of transforming perspectives without loud indoctrination campaigns. It is comparable to subliminal messages in commercials or teaching only one viewpoint.
Controls seem unlikely.
Whitney Grace, February 13, 2025
Are These Googlers Flailing? (Yes, the Word Has “AI” in It Too)
February 12, 2025
Is the Byte write up on the money? I don’t know, but I enjoyed it. Navigate to “Google’s Finances Are in Chaos As the Company Flails at Unpopular AI. Is the Momentum of AI Starting to Wane?” I am not sure that AI is in its waning moment. Deepseek has ignited a fire under some outfits. But I am not going to critic the write up. I want to highlight some of its interesting information. Let’s go, as Anatoly the gym Meister says, just with an Eastern European accent.
Here’s the first statement in the article which caught my attention:
Google’s parent company Alphabet failed to hit sales targets, falling a 0.1 percent short of Wall Street’s revenue expectations — a fraction of a point that’s seen the company’s stock slide almost eight percent today, in its worst performance since October 2023. It’s also a sign of the times: as the New York Times reports, the whiff was due to slower-than-expected growth of its cloud-computing division, which delivers its AI tools to other businesses.
Okay, 0.1 percent is something, but I would have preferred the metaphor of the “flail” word to have been used in the paragraph begs for “flog,” “thrash,” and “whip.”
I used Sam AI-Man’s AI software to produce a good enough image of Googlers flailing. Frankly I don’t think Sam AI-Man’s system understands exactly what I wanted, but close enough for horseshoes in today’s world.
I noted this information and circled it. I love Gouda cheese. How can Google screw up cheese after its misstep with glue and cheese on pizza. Yo, Googlers. Check the cheese references.
Is Alphabet’s latest earnings result the canary in the coal mine? Should the AI industry brace for tougher days ahead as investors become increasingly skeptical of what the tech has to offer? Or are investors concerned over OpenAI’s ChatGPT overtaking Google’s search engine? Illustrating the drama, this week Google appears to have retroactively edited the YouTube video of a Super Bowl ad for its core AI model called Gemini, to remove an extremely obvious error the AI made about the popularity of gouda cheese.
Stalin revised history books. Google changes cheese references for its own advertising. But cheese?
The write up concludes with this, mostly from American high technology watching Guardian newspaper in the UK:
Although it’s still well insulated, Google’s advantages in search hinge on its ubiquity and entrenched consumer behavior,” Emarketer senior analyst Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf told The Guardian. This year “could be the year those advantages meaningfully erode as antitrust enforcement and open-source AI models change the game,” she added. “And Cloud’s disappointing results suggest that AI-powered momentum might be beginning to wane just as Google’s closed model strategy is called into question by Deepseek.”
Does this constitute the use of the word “flail”? Sure, but I like “thrash” a lot. And “wane” is good.
Stephen E Arnold, February 12, 2025
A New Spin on Insider Threats: Employees Secretly Use AI At Work
February 12, 2025
We’re afraid of AI replacing our jobs. Employers are blamed for wanting to replace humans with algorithms, but employees are already bringing AI into work. According to the BBC, employees are secretly using AI: “Why Employees Smuggle AI Into Work.” In IT departments across the United Kingdom (and probably the world), knowledge workers are using AI tools without permission from their leads.
Software AG conducted a survey of knowledge workers and the results showed that half of them used personal AI tools. Knowledge workers are defined at people who primarily work at a desk or a computer. Some of them are using the tools because their job doesn’t offer tools and others said they wanted to choose their tools.
Many of the workers are also not asking. They’re abiding by the mantra of, “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission.”
One worker uses ChatGPT as a mechanized coworker. ChatGPT allows the worker to consume information at faster rates and it has increased his productivity. His company banned AI tools, he didn’t know why but assumes it is a control thing.
AI tools also pose security risks, because the algorithms learn from user input. The algorithms store information and it can expose company secrets:
“Companies may be concerned about their trade secrets being exposed by the AI tool’s answers, but Alastair Paterson, CEO and co-founder of Harmonic Security, thinks that’s unlikely. "It’s pretty hard to get the data straight out of these [AI tools]," he says.
However, firms will be concerned about their data being stored in AI services they have no control over, no awareness of, and which may be vulnerable to data breaches.”
Using AI tools is like any new technology. The AI tools need to be used and tested, then regulated. AI can’t replace experience, but it certainly helps get the job done.
Whitney Grace, February 12, 2025
The Google: Tell Me, Please, What Is a Malicious App?
February 12, 2025
Yep, another dinobaby emission. No smart software required.
I suggest you take a quick look at an important essay about the data which flows from Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. The paper is “Everyone Knows Your Location: Tracking Myself Down Through In-App Ads” by Tim. The main point of the write up is to disclose information that has been generally closely held by a number of entities. I strongly recommend the write up, and it is possible that it could be made difficult to locate in the near future. The article says:
After more than couple dozen hours of trying, here are the main takeaways:
- I found a couple requests sent by my phone with my location + 5 requests that leak my IP address, which can be turned into geolocation using reverse DNS.
- Learned a lot about the RTB (real-time bidding) auctions and OpenRTB protocol and was shocked by the amount and types of data sent with the bids to ad exchanges.
- Gave up on the idea to buy my location data from a data broker or a tracking service, because I don’t have a big enough company to take a trial or $10-50k to buy a huge database with the data of millions of people + me.
Well maybe I do, but such expense seems a bit irrational.
Turns out that EU-based peoples` data is almost the most expensive.But still, I know my location data was collected and I know where to buy it!
Tim’s essay sets the stage for a Google Security Blog post titled “How We Kept the Google Play & Android App Ecosystems Safe in 2024.” That write up is another example of Google’s self-promotion. It lacks the snap of the quantum supremacy pitch and the endless backpatting about Google’s smart software.
The write up says:
To keep out bad actors, we have always used a combination of human security experts and the latest threat-detection technology. In 2024, we used Google’s advanced AI to improve our systems’ ability to proactively identify malware, enabling us to detect and block bad apps more effectively. It also helps us streamline review processes for developers with a proven track record of policy compliance. Today, over 92% of our human reviews for harmful apps are AI-assisted, allowing us to take quicker and more accurate action to help prevent harmful apps from becoming available on Google Play.
I want to ask one question, “Is Google’s advertising a malicious app?” The answer depends on one’s point of view. Google would assert that it is not doing anything other than making high value services available either for free or at a very low cost to the consumer.
A skeptical person might respond, “Your system sustains the digital online advertising sector. Your technology helps, to some degree, the third party advertising services firms to gather information and cross correlate it for the fine-grained intelligence described in Tim’s article?”
Google, which is it? Is your advertising system malicious or is it a benefit to users? This is a serious question, and it is one that smarmy self promotion and PR campaigns are likely to have difficulty answering.
Stephen E Arnold, February 11, 2025
Innovation: Deepseek, Google, OpenAI, and the EU. Legal Eagles Aloft
February 11, 2025
We have smart software, but the dinobaby continues to do what 80 year olds do: Write the old-fashioned human way. We did give up clay tablets for a quill pen. Works okay.
I have been thinking about the allegations that the Deepseek crowd ripped off US smart software companies. Someone with whom I am not familiar expressed the point of view that the allegation will be probed. With open source goodness whizzing around, I am not sure how would make a distinction between one allegedly open source system and another allegedly open source system will work. I am confident the lawyers will figure innovation out because clever mathematical tricks and software optimization are that group of professionals’ core competency.
The basement sale approach to smart software: Professional, organized, and rewarding. Thanks OpenAI. (No, I did not generate this image with the Deepseek tools. I wouldn’t do that to you, Sam AI-Man.)
And thinking of innovation this morning, I found the write up in the Times of India titled “Google Not Happy With This $4.5 Billion Fine, Here’s What the Company Said.” [Editor’s note: The url is a wonky one indeed. If the link does not resolve, please, don’t write me and complain. Copy the article headline and use Bing or Google to locate a valid source. Failing that, just navigate to the Times of India and hunt for the source document there.] Innovation is the focus of the article, and the annoyance — even indignation bubbling beneath the surface of the Google stance — may foreshadow a legal dust up between OpenAI and Deepseek.
So what’s happening?
The Times of India reports with some delicacy:
Google is set to appeal a record €4.3 billion ($4.5 billion) antitrust fine imposed by the European Union seven years ago, a report claimed. Alphabet-owned company has argued that the penalty unfairly punished the company for its innovation in the Android mobile operating system. The appeal, heard by the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg, comes two years after a lower tribunal upheld the European Commission’s decision, which found Google guilty of using Android to restrict competition. However, the company claimed that its actions benefited consumers and fostered innovation in the mobile market. This new appeal comes after the lower court reduced the fine to 4.1 billion euros ($4.27 billion).
Yes, Google’s business systems and methods foster innovation in the mobile market. The issue is that Google has been viewed an anti competitive by some legal eagles in the US government as behaving in a way that is anti competitive. I recall the chatter about US high technology companies snuffing innovation. Has Google done that with its approach to Android?
The write up reports:
In this case, the Commission failed to discharge its burden and its responsibility and, relying on multiple errors of law, punished Google for its superior merits, attractiveness and innovation.” Lamadrid justified Google’s agreements that require phone manufacturers to pre-install Google Search, the Chrome browser, and the Google Play app store on their Android devices, while also restricting them from adopting rival Android systems. Meanwhile, EU antitrust regulators argued that these conditions restricted competition.
Innovation seems to go hand in hand with pre-installing certain Google applications. The fact that Google allegedly restricts phone companies from “adopting rival Android systems” is a boost to innovation. Is this Google argument food for thought if Google and its Gemini unit decided to sue OpenAI for its smart software innovation.
One thing is clear. Google sees itself as fostering innovation, and it should not be punished for creating opportunities, employment, and benefits for those in the European Union. On the other hand, the Deepseek innovation is possibly improper because it delivered an innovation US high technology outfits did not deliver.
Adding some Chinese five-flavor spice to the recipe is the fact that the Deepseek innovation seems to be a fungible insight about US smart software embracing Google influenced open source methods. The thought that “innovation” will be determined in legal proceedings is interesting.
Is innovation crafted to preserve a dominant market share unfair? Is innovation which undermines US smart software companies improper? The perception of Google as an innovator, from my vantage, has dwindled. On the other hand, my perception of the Deepseek approach strikes me as unique. I have pointed out that the Deepseek innovation seems to deliver reasonably good results with a lower cost method. This is the Shein-Temu approach to competition. It works. Just ask Amazon.
Maybe the US will slap a huge find on Deepseek because the company innovated? The EU has decided to ring its cash register because Google allegedly inhibited innovation.
For technologists, the process of innovation is fraught with legal peril. Who benefits? I would suggest that the lawyers are at the head of the line for the upsides of this “innovation” issue.
Stephen E Arnold, February 11, 2025
Men, Are You Loving Those AI Babes with Big Bits?
February 11, 2025
The dating scene has never been easy. It is apparently so difficult to find love these days that men are turning to digital love in the form of AI girlfriends. Vice News shares that “Most Men Would Marry Their AI Girlfriends If It Were Legal” and it is astounding the lengths men will go to for companionship.
EVA AI is a platform that allows people to connect with an AI partner. The platform recently surveyed 2000 men and discovered that 8 in 10 men would considered marrying their AI girlfriends if it was legal. It sounds like something out of the science fiction genre. The survey also found more startling news about men and AI girlfriends:
“Not only that, but 83% of men also believe they could form a deep emotional bond with an AI girlfriend. What’s even scarier is that a whopping 78% of men surveyed said they would consider creating a replica of their ex, and three-quarters would duplicate their current partner to create a “polished” version of them.”
Cale Jones, head of community growth at EVA AI, said that men find AI girlfriends to be safe and they are allowed to be their authentic selves. Jones continued that because AI girlfriends are safe, men feel free to share their thoughts, emotions, and desires. Continuing on the safety train of thought, Jones explained that individuals are also exploring their sexual identities without fear.
AI girlfriends and boyfriends are their own brand of creepiness. If the AI copies an ex-girlfriend or boyfriend, a movie star, or even a random person, it creates many psychological and potentially dangerous issues:
“I think what raises the most concern is the ability to replicate another person. That feels exploitative and even dangerous in many ways. I mean, imagine some random dude created an AI girlfriend based on your sister, daughter, or mother…then, picture them beginning to feel possessive over this person, forming actual feelings for the individual but channeling them into the robot. If they were to run into the actual human version of their AI girlfriend in real life, well…who knows what could/would happen? Ever heard of a crime of passion?
Of course, this is just a hypothetical, but it’s the first thing that came to mind. Many people already have issues feeling like they have a right to someone else’s body. Think about the number of celebrities who are harassed by superfans. Is this going to feed that issue even further, making it a problem for everyday people, like classmates, friends, and colleagues?”
Let’s remember that the men surveyed by EVA AI are probably a small sample of “men.” So far.
Whitney Grace, February 10, 2025
A Case for Export Controls in the Wake of Deepseek Kerfuffle
February 11, 2025
Some were shocked by recent revelations of Deepseek’s AI capabilities, including investors. Others had been forewarned about the (allegedly) adept firm. Interesting how social media was used to create the shock and awe that online information services picked up and endlessly repeated. Way to amplify the adversary’s propaganda.
At any rate, this escalating AI arms race is now top-of-mind for many. Could strong export controls give the US an edge? After all, China’s own chip manufacturing is said to lag about five years behind ours. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei believes they can, as he explains in his post, "On Deepseek and Export Controls."
The AI maestro begins with some groundwork. First, he describes certain ways AI development scales and shifts. He then looks at what makes Deepseek so special—and what does not. See the post for those details, but here is the key point for our discussion: AI developers everywhere require more and more hardware to progress. So far, Chinese and US companies have had access to similar reserves of both funds and chips. However, if we limit the number of chips flowing into China, Chinese firms will eventually hit a proverbial wall. Amodei compares hypothetical futures:
"The question is whether China will also be able to get millions of chips. If they can, we’ll live in a bipolar world, where both the US and China have powerful AI models that will cause extremely rapid advances in science and technology — what I’ve called ‘countries of geniuses in a datacenter‘. A bipolar world would not necessarily be balanced indefinitely. Even if the US and China were at parity in AI systems, it seems likely that China could direct more talent, capital, and focus to military applications of the technology. Combined with its large industrial base and military-strategic advantages, this could help China take a commanding lead on the global stage, not just for AI but for everything."
How ominous. And if we successfully implement and enforce export controls? He continues:
"If China can’t get millions of chips, we’ll (at least temporarily) live in a unipolar world, where only the US and its allies have these models. It’s unclear whether the unipolar world will last, but there’s at least the possibility that, because AI systems can eventually help make even smarter AI systems, a temporary lead could be parlayed into a durable advantage. Thus, in this world, the US and its allies might take a commanding and long-lasting lead on the global stage."
"Might," he says. There is no certainty here. Still, an advantage like this may be worthwhile if it keeps China’s military from outstripping ours. Hindering an Anthropic competitor is just a side effect of this advice, right? Sure, in a peaceful world, international "competition and collaboration make the world a better place." But that is not our reality at the moment.
Amodei hastens to note he thinks the Deepseek folks are fine researchers and curious innovators. It is just that bit about being beholden to their authoritarian government that may be the issue.
Cynthia Murrell, February 11, 2025
Google Goes Googley in Paris Over AI … Again
February 10, 2025
Google does some interesting things in Paris. The City of Light was the scene of a Googler’s demonstration of its AI complete with hallucinations about two years ago. On Monday, February 10, 2025, Google’s “leadership” Sundar Pichai alleged leaked his speech or shared some memorable comments with journalists. These were reported in AAWSAT.com, an online information service in the story “AI Is ‘Biggest Shift of Our Lifetimes’, Says Google Boss.”
I like the shift; it reminds me of the word “shifty.”
One of the passages catching my attention was this one, although I am not sure of the accuracy of the version in the cited article. The gist seems on point with Google’s posture during Code Red and its subsequent reorganization of the firm’s smart software unit. The context, however, does not seem to include the impact of Deepseek’s bargain basement approach to AI. Google is into big money for big AI. One wins big in a horse race bet by plopping big bucks on a favorite nag. AI is doing the big bet on AI, about $75 billion in capital expenditures in the next 10 months.
Here’s the quote:
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a "fundamental rewiring of technology" that will act as an "accelerant of human ingenuity." We’re still in the early days of the AI platform shift, and yet we know it will be the biggest of our lifetimes… With AI, we have the chance to democratize access (to a new technology) from the start, and to ensure that the digital divide doesn’t become an AI divide….
The statement exudes confidence. With billions riding on Mr. Pichai gambler’s instinct, stakeholders and employees not terminated for cost savings hope he is correct. Those already terminated may be rooting for a different horse.
Google’s head of smart software (sorry, Jeff Dean) allegedly offered this sentiment:
“Material science, mathematics, fusion, there is almost no area of science that won’t benefit from these AI tools," the Nobel chemistry laureate said.
Are categorical statements part of the mental equipment that makes a Nobel prize winner. He did include an “almost,” but I think the hope is that many technical disciplines will reap the fruits of smart software. Some smart software may just reap fruits from users of smart software’s inputs.
A statement which I found more remarkable was:
Every generation worries that the new technology will change the lives of the next generation for the worse — and yet it’s almost always the opposite.
Another hedged categorical affirmative: “Almost always”. The only issue is that as Jacques Ellul asserted in The Technological Bluff, technology creates problems which invoke more technology to address old problems while simultaneously creating a new technology. I think Father Ellul was on the beam.
How about this for a concluding statement:
We must not let our own bias for the present get in the way of the future. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve lives at the scale of AI.
Scale. Isn’t that what Deepseek demonstrated may be a less logical approach to smart software? Paris has quite an impact on Google thought processes in my opinion. Did Google miss the Deepseek China foray? Did the company fail to interpret it in the context of wide adoption of AI? On the other hand, maybe if one does not talk about something, one can pretend that something does not exist. Like the Super Bowl ad with misinformation about cheese. Yes, cheese, again.
Stephen E Arnold, February 10, 2025
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