June 22, 2023
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Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
One cannot make up certain scenarios. Let me illustrate.
Navigate to “Google Accuses Microsoft of Anticompetitive Cloud Practices in Complaint to FTC.” You will have to pony up to read the article. The main point is that the Google “filed a complaint to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.” Why? Microsoft is acting in an unfair manner. Is the phrase “Holy cow” applicable. Two quasi or at least almost monopolies are at odds. Amazing.
MidJourney’s wealth of originality produced this image of two adolescents threatening one another. Is the issue a significant other? A dented bicycle? A solution to a tough math problem like those explained by PreMath? Nope. The argument is about more weighty matters: Ego. Will one of these mature wizards call their mom? A more likely outcome is to let loose a flurry of really macho legal eagles and/or a pride of PR people.
But the next item is even more fascinating. Point your click monitoring, data sucking browser at “Send Me Location: Mark Zuckerberg Says He’s Down to Fight Elon Musk in a Cage Match.” Visualize if you will Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg entering the ring at a Streetbeefs’ venue. The referee is the ever-alert Anomaly. Scarface is in the ring just in case some real muscle is needed to separate the fighters.
Let’s step back: Google wants to be treated fairly because Microsoft is using its market power to make sure the Google is finding it difficult to expand its cloud business. What’s the fix? Google goes to court. Yeah, bold. What about lowering prices, improving service, and providing high value functionality? Nah, just go to court. Is this like two youngsters arguing in front of their lockers and one of them telling the principal that Mr. Softie is behaving badly.
And the Musk – Zuckerberg drama? An actual physical fight? No proxies. Just no-holds-barred fisticuffs? Apparently that’s the implication of the cited story. That social media territory is precious by golly.
Several observations:
Okay, ChatGPT, beat these examples for hallucinatory content. Not even smart software can out-think how high school science club members process information and behave in front of those not in the group.
Stephen E Arnold, June 22, 2023
June 22, 2023
![Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]](http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t1-18.gif "Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]")
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
With regulators beginning to wake up to the threats, risks, and effects of online information, I enjoyed reading “Fake Zero-Day PoC Exploits on GitHub Push Windows, Linux Malware.” The write up points out:
Hackers are impersonating cybersecurity researchers on Twitter and GitHub to publish fake proof-of-concept exploits for zero-day vulnerabilities that infect Windows and Linux with malware. These malicious exploits are promoted by alleged researchers at a fake cybersecurity company named ‘High Sierra Cyber Security,’ who promote the GitHub repositories on Twitter, likely to target cybersecurity researchers and firms involved in vulnerability research.
The tweeter thing is visualized by that nifty art generator Dezgo. I think the smart software captures the essence of the tweeter’s essence.
I noted that the target appears to be cyber security “experts”. Does this raise questions in your mind about the acuity of some of those who fell for the threat intelligence? I have to admit. I was not surprised. Not in the least.
The article includes illustrations of the “Python downloader.”
I want to mention that this is just one type of OSINT blindspot causing some “experts” to find themselves on the wrong end of a Tesla-like or Waymo-type self-driving vehicle. I know I would not stand in front of one. Similarly, I would not read about an “exploit” on Twitter, click on links, or download code.
But that’s just me, a 78 year old dinobaby. But a 30 something cyber whiz? That’s something that makes news.
Stephen E Arnold, June 22, 2023
June 22, 2023
![Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]_thumb](http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t1_thumb-28.gif "Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]_thumb")
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Homework has been the bane of students since the inception of school. Students have dreamt about ways to make homework easier, either with the intervention of divine beings or a homework-finishing robot. While the gods of various religions have never concerned themselves with homework, ingenious minds have tackled the robot idea with artificial intelligence. While AI cannot succinctly write a decent essay, Euro News shares the next generation of tools that will make homework easier: “The Best AI Tools To Power Your Academic Research.”
This young lady is not cheating. She is using her mobile phone to look up facts using Bard and ChatGPT. With the information in hand, she will interact with each system to obtain the required 500 words for her US history essay about ethics and Spiro Agnew. She is not cheating. She is researching. The image emerged from the highly original MidJourney system, which never cheats it users. But what does it do with those inputs?
OpenAI’s ChatGPT tool, a generative AI that creates and writes text, has thrown academic for a loop. ChatGPT is the first AI that can “write” a cohesive essay and can answer simple questions better than a search engine. Academics are worried it ruin the integrity of education, but others believe ChatGPT and other AI tools will democratize information.
Postdoctoral researcher Mushtaq Bilal, based at the University of Southern Denmark, believes ChatGPT is a wonderful invention. He explains that ChatGPT cannot produce a full journal article that contains truthful information, peer-reviewed, and well-cited. With incremental prompting, Bilal says the AI tool can generate ideas that resemble a conversation with an ivy league professor. Bilal proposes to use ChatGPT as a brainstorming tool. For example, he used it to create an article outline and he fact checked the information.
Bilal recommends scholars use other AI tools, such as Consensus. Consensus is an AI-driven search engine that answers questions and provides citations. Elicit.org is similar, except it is an AI research assistant and its database s based purely on research. Scite.ai provides fact based citations based on search queries. Research Rabbit fast tracks research similar to how Spotify recommends music. It learns researchers interests and recommends new information based on them. ChatPDF allows users to upload papers, then they can ask the AI questions or summarize the information.
Homework has not seen a revolution this huge since the implementation of the Internet.
“ ‘The development of AI will be as fundamental “as the creation of the microprocessor, the personal computer, the Internet, and the mobile phone,’ wrote Bill Gates in the latest post on his personal blog, titled ‘The Age of AI Has Begun’. ‘Computers haven’t had the effect on education that many of us in the industry have hoped,’ he wrote. ‘But I think in the next five to 10 years, AI-driven software will finally deliver on the promise of revolutionizing the way people teach and learn’.
In other words, homework be much easier to complete and these new tools will make learning better. Students will also cleverly discover new ways to manipulate the tools to cheat just as they have been for centuries.
Whitney Grace, June 22, 2023
June 21, 2023
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Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I zipped through my messages this morning. Two items helped me think about the milieu of mid 2023.
The first is a memento of the health challenges and its downstream effects. The bat in a lucite block is available in some countries from Alieexpress. You can — if you wish — try to order the item from this url which I verified on June 21, 2023, at 1038 am US Eastern time: https://shorturl.at/wyAFL. My reaction to this item was slightly negative, but I think it would be a candidate for a gain-of-function researcher at the local college or university.
The other item is “What is AI Marketing? A Basic Guide to Explosive Growth in 2023.” This article — allegedly written by a humanoid — states:
The real deal with AI marketing is about augmenting human capabilities, not eliminating them. Think of it like your very own marketing superpower, helping you reach the right people, at the right time, with the right message. Or are you worried AI might make marketing impersonal and robotic? Well, the surprising truth is that AI can actually make your marketing more human. It can save you oodles of time and energy so that you can focus on the tasks that truly matter.
I am not sure about the phrase “truly matter,” but the concept of using smart software to bombard me with more advertising is definitely a thought starter. My question is, “How can I filter these synthetic messages?”
The question you may want to ask me, “How on earth are bats associated with a disease linked to smart software used to generate advertising that truly matters?
The answer in my opinion is “gain of function.” The idea is not to make something better. The objective is to amplify certain effects.
Now that I think about it, perhaps the bat and its potential to make life miserable is the perfect metaphor for summer 2023. Perhaps I should use You.com’s smart software to help me think the idea through?
Nah. I am good. Diseased bats and smart software lashed to marketing. Perfect.
Stephen E Arnold, June 21, 2023
June 21, 2023
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Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
American and European technology and trade leaders met in Sweden for the Trade and Tech Council (TTC) summit. They met at the beginning of June to discuss their sector’s future. One of the main talking points was how to control AI. The one thing all the leaders agreed on was that they could not agree on anything. Politico tells more about the story in: “The Struggle To Control AI.”
The main AI topic international leaders discussed was generative AI, such as Google’s Bard and ChatGPT from OpenAI, and its influence on humanity. The potential for generative AI is limitless, but there are worries that it poses threats to global security and would ruin the job market. The leaders want to prove to the world that democratic governments advances as quickly as technology advances.
A group of regulators discuss regulating AI. The regulators are enjoying a largely unregulated lunch of fast good stuffed with chemicals. Some of these have interesting consequences. One regulator says, “Pass the salt.” Another says, “What about AI and ML?” A third says, “Are those toppings?” The scene was generated by the copyright maven MidJourney.
Leaders from Europe and the United States are anxious to make laws that regulate how AI works in conjunction with society. The TTC’s goal is to develop non-binding standards about AI transparency, risk audits, and technical details. The non-binding standards would police AI so it does not destroy humanity and the planet. The plan is to present the standards at the G7 in Fall 2023.
Europe and the United States need to agree on the standards, except they are not-so that leaves room for China to promote its authoritarian version of AI. The European Union has written the majority of the digital rulebook that Western societies follows. The US has other ideas:
“The U.S., on the other hand, prefers a more hands-off approach, relying on industry to come up with its own safeguards. Ongoing political divisions within Congress make it unlikely any AI-specific legislation will be passed before next year’s U.S. election. The Biden administration has made international collaboration on AI a policy priority, especially because a majority of the leading AI companies like Google, Microsoft and OpenAI, are headquartered in the U.S. For Washington, helping these companies compete against China’s rivals is also a national security priority.”
The European Union wants to do things one way, the United States has other ideas. It is all about talking heads speaking legalese mixed with ethics, while China is pushing its own agenda.
Whitney Grace, June 21, 2023
June 20, 2023
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Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I recall learning that some employees have been locked in their offices. The idea was that incarceration would improve productivity and reduce costs. Sounds like an adolescent or high school science club management method. I spotted a couple of other examples of 2023’s contributions to modern management principles. My sources, of course, are online, and I believe everything I read online. I try to emulate ChatGPT type systems because those constructs are just wonderful.
I have no idea if the information in these two articles I will cite is on the money. Just reading them made me giddy with new found knowledge. I did not think of implementing these management tactics when I worked in an old-fashioned, eat-your-meat raw company.
MidJourney captures the essence of modern management brilliance. Like a chess master, the here-and-now move prepares for the brilliant win at the end of the game.
The first write up is “Silicon Valley’s Shocking Substance Abuse: Facebook Managers Turned Blind Eye If They Thought It Boosted Productivity, Insider Claims, As Killing of Cash App Founder Bob Lee Exposes Hardcore Drug-Taking.” The write up in the “real news” service says:
Facebook managers turned a blind eye to substance abuse if they felt it boosted productivity, an insider has claimed, as Bob Lee’s killing shines a light on hardcore drug culture in Silicon Valley. Dave Marlon, who founded one of the largest addiction recovery centers in the US and has worked with several Facebook employees, alleges that managers at the tech giant knew about workers taking drugs in the office but accepted it as part of the culture. He told DailyMail.com that what he would describe as ‘severe substance abuse’ was referred to in the industry as the ‘quirks of being a tech employee’.
Facebook? Interesting.
The second write up points out that the payoff for management is what I call RIF’ing or reduction in force methods. This is a variation of you don’t belong here or Let them go. The write up is titled “Meta Lost a Third of Its AI Researchers Over the Last Year. Now It’s Struggling to Keep Up” reports:
Zuckerberg dubbed 2023 the “year of efficiency” in a February earnings release. Meta laid off over 11,000 employees in November, and continued to shut down projects in the months that followed.
The efficiency tactic has worked. There are fewer people working on smart software. The downside? Nothing significant other than watching other companies zoom farther ahead on the Information Superhighway.
To recap: Facebook allegedly combined “looking the other way” with “efficiency.” Quite a management one-two. As a dinobaby, these innovative techniques are difficult for me to comprehend. I hope that neither write up captures the essence of the Facebook way. Well, sort of hope.
Stephen E Arnold, June 20, 2023
June 20, 2023
![Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]_thumb_thumb](http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t1_thumb_thumb-9.gif "Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]_thumb_thumb")
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
My informal research suggests that every intelware and policeware vendor is working to infuse artificial intelligence or in my lingo “smart software” into their products and services. Most of these firms are not Chatty Cathies. The information about innovations is dribbled out in talks at restricted attendance events or in talks given at these events. This means that information does not zip around like the posts on the increasingly less use Twitter service #osint.
Government officials talking about smart software which could reduce costs but the current budget does not allow its licensing. Furthermore, time is required to rethink what to do with the humanoids who will be rendered surplus and ripe for RIF’ing. One of the attendees wisely asks, “Does anyone want dessert?” A wag of the dinobaby’s tail to MidJourney which has generated an original illustration unrelated to any content object upon which the system inadvertently fed. Smart software has to gobble lunch just like government officials.
However, once in a while, some information becomes public and “real news” outfits recognize the value of the information and make useful factoids available. That’s what happened in “A.I. Call Taker Will Begin Taking Over Police Non-Emergency Phone Lines Next Week: Artificial Intelligence Is Kind of a Scary Word for Us,” Admits Dispatch Director.”
Let me highlight a couple of statements in the cited article.
First, I circled this statement about Portland, Oregon’s new smart system:
A automated attendant will answer the phone on nonemergency and based on the answers using artificial intelligence—and that’s kind of a scary word for us at times—will determine if that caller needs to speak to an actual call taker,” BOEC director Bob Cozzie told city commissioners yesterday.
I found this interesting and suggestive of how some government professionals will view the smart software-infused system.
Second, I underlined this passage:
The new AI system was one of several new initiatives that were either announced or proposed at yesterday’s 90-minute city “work session” where commissioners grilled officials and consultants about potential ways to address the crisis.
The “crisis”, as I understand it, boils down to staffing and budgets.
Several observations:
I will let you ponder the implications of this brief, and not particularly detailed article. I would suggest that intelware and policeware vendors put on their marketing hats and plug them into smart software. Some new hurdles for making sales may be on the horizon.
Stephen E Arnold, June 20. 2023
June 20, 2023
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Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Wow, many people are excited a Bloomberg article called “The AI Boom Has Silicon Valley on Another Manic Quest to Change the World: A Guide to the New AI Technologies, Evangelists, Skeptics and Everyone Else Caught Up in the Flood of Cash and Enthusiasm Reshaping the Industry.”
In the tweets and LinkedIn posts one small factoid is omitted from the second hand content. If you want to read the famous DeepMind-centric paper which doomed the Google Brain folks to watch their future from the cheap seats, you can find “Attention Is All You Need”, branded with the imprimatur of the Neural Information Processing Systems Conference held in 2017. Here’s the link to the paper.
For those who read the paper, I would like to suggest several questions to consider:
I am okay with excitement for a 2017 paper, but including a link to the foundation document might be helpful to some, not many, but some.
Net net: Think about Google’s use of the word “trust” and “responsibility” when you answer the three suggested questions.
Stephen E Arnold, June 20, 2023
June 19, 2023
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Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
For some reason, I remember my freshman year in high school. My family had returned from Brazil, and the US secondary school adventure was new. The first class of the day in 1958 parked me in front of Miss Dalton, the English teacher. She explained that we had to use the library to write a short essay about foreign country. Brazil did not interest me, so with the wisdom of a freshman in high school, I chose Japan. My topic? Seppuku or hara-kiri. Yep, belly cutting.
The idea that caught my teen attention was the idea that a warrior who was shamed, a loser in battle, or fighter wanting to make a point would stab himself with his sword. (Females slit their throats.) The point of the exercise was to make clear, this warrior had moxie, commitment, and maybe a bit of psychological baggage. An inner wiring (maybe guilt) would motivate you to kill oneself in a hard-to-ignore way. Wild stuff for a 13 year old.
A digital samurai preparing to commit hara-kiri with a brand new really sharp MacBook Air M2. Believe it or not, MidJourney objected to an instruction to depict a Japanese warrior committing seppuku with a laptop. Change the instruction and the system happily depicts a digital warrior initiating the Reddit- and Twitter-type processes. Thanks, MidJourney for the censorship.
I have watched a highly regarded innovator chop away at his innards with the management “enhancements” implemented at Twitter. I am not a Twitter user, but I think that an unarticulated motive is causing the service to be “improved.” “Twitter: Five Ways Elon Musk Has Changed the Platform for Users” summarizes a few of the most newsworthy modifications. For example, the rocket and EV wizard quickly reduced staff, modified access to third-party applications, and fooled around with check marks. The impact has been intriguing. Billions in value have been disappeared. Some who rose to fame by using Tweets as a personal promotional engine have amped up their efforts to be short text influencers. The overall effect has been to reduce scrutiny because the impactful wounds are messy. Once concerned regulators apparently have shifted their focus. Messy stuff.
Now a social media service called Reddit is taking some cues from the Musk Manual of Management. The gold standard in management excellence — that would be CNN, of course — documented some Reddit’s actions in “Reddit’s Fight with Its Most Powerful Users Enters New Phase As Blackout Continues.” The esteemed news service stated:
The company also appears to be laying the groundwork for ejecting forum moderators committed to continuing the protests, a move that could force open some communities that currently remain closed to the public. In response, some moderators have vowed to put pressure on Reddit’s advertisers and investors.
Without users and moderators will Reddit thrive? If the information in a recent Wired article is correct, the answer is, “Maybe not.” (See “The Reddit Blackout Is Breaking Reddit.”)
Why are two large US social media companies taking steps that will either impair their ability to perform technically and financially or worse, chopping away at themselves?
My thought is that the management of both firms know that regulators and stakeholders are closing in. Both companies want people who die for the firm. The companies are at war with idea, their users, and their supporters. But what’s the motivation?
Let’s do a thought experiment. Imagine that the senior managers at both companies know that they have lost the battle for the hearts and minds of regulators, some users, third-party developers, and those who would spend money to advertise. But like a person promoted to a senior position, the pressure of the promotion causes the individuals to doubt themselves. These people are the Peter Principle personified. Unconsciously they want to avail to avoid their inner demons and possibly some financial stakeholders.
The senior managers are taking what they perceive as a strong way out — digital hara-kiri. Of course, it is messy. But the pain, the ugliness, and the courage are notable. Those who are not caught in the sticky Web of social media ignore the horrors. For Silicon Valley “real” news professionals, many users dependent on the two platforms, and those who have surfed on the firms’ content have to watch.
Are the managers honorable? Do some respect their tough decisions? Are the senior managers’ inner demons and their sense of shame assuaged? I don’t know. But the action is messy on the path of honor via self-disembowelment.
For a different angle on what’s happened at Facebook and Google, take a look at “The Rot Economy.”
Stephen E Arnold, June 19, 2023
June 19, 2023
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Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I read “Former Samsung Executive Accused of Trying to Copy an Entire Chip Plant in China.” I have no idea if [a] the story is straight and true, [b] a disinformation post aimed at China, [c] something a “real news” type just concocted with the help of a hallucinating chunk of smart software, [d] a story emerging from a lunch meeting with “what if” ideas and “hypotheticals” were flitting from Chinese take out container to take out container.
It does not matter. I find it bold, audacious, and almost believable.
A single engineer’s pile of schematics, process flow diagrams, and details of third party hardware require to build a Samsung-like outfit. The illustration comes from the fertile zeros and ones at MidJourney.
The write up reports:
Prosecutors in the Suwon District have indicted a former Samsung executive for allegedly stealing semiconductor plant blueprints and technology from the leading chipmaker, BusinessKorea reports. They didn’t name the 65-year-old defendant, who also previously served as vice president of another Korean chipmaker SK Hynix, but claimed he stole the information between 2018 and 2019. The leak reportedly cost Samsung about $230 million.
Why would someone steal information to duplicate a facility which is probably getting long in the tooth? That’s a good question. Why not steal from the departments of several companies which are planning facilities to be constructed in 2025? The write up states:
The defendant allegedly planned to build a semiconductor in Xi’an, China, less than a mile from an existing Samsung plant. He hired 200 employees from SK Hynix and Samsung to obtain their trade secrets while also teaming up with an unnamed Taiwanese electronics manufacturing company that pledged $6.2 billion to build the new semiconductor plant — the partnership fell through. However, the defendant was able to secure about $358 million from Chinese investors, which he used to create prototypes in a Chengdu, China-based plant. The plant was reportedly also built using stolen Samsung information, according to prosecutors.
Three countries identified. The alleged plant would be located in easy-to-reach Xi’an. (Take a look at the nifty entrance to the walled city. Does that look like a trap to you? It did to me.)
My hunch is that there is more to this story. But it does a great job of casting shade on the Middle Kingdom. Does anyone doubt the risk posed by insiders who get frisky? I want to ask Samsung’s human resources professional about that vetting process for new hires and what happens when a dinobaby leaves the company with some wrinkles, gray hair, and information. My hunch is that the answer will be, “Not much.”
Stephen E Arnold, June 19, 2023
