Tag: too much technology

So You Want a ‘Smart Home,’ Do You?

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

Okay–who out there did not know that this would happen? If that’s you, take your head out of that hole in the sand.

So the Amazon delivery guy, wearing headphones, thought he heard some forbidden remark from the customer’s “smart” doorbell; so he reported it to Amazon, they decided it was Racist… and shut down the whole shebang (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/amazon-shuts-down-customers-smart-home.2392704/).

Locked out. No lights. No air conditioning. No phone service. The poor devil was locked out of his home for a week! Because some delivery guy thought he heard something that mighta-coulda been Racist. Betrayed by a wonky doorbell and a delivery man too lazy to take off his earphones so he could hear things clearly.

Is the lesson here that Amazon can do anything to you that it pleases? Or just that having a “smart home” is really pretty stupid? It’s not a court of law, you know: they don’t have to prove their case, and you don’t get any opportunity to defend yourself. “That feller thought you said…” is enough to get your locked out of your home. You can’t appeal the decision.

Freedom, liberty–if the government isn’t lusting to take it away from you, many major corporations are.

Let AI Arrange Your Marriage!

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

15 of the World's Strangest Flags - swaziland flag, funny flags - Oddee

The flag of Palookastan (Don’t ask…)

The People’s Republic of Palookastan likes to call itself “The Science Is Happening Place of All Central Asia.” And to prove it, they’ve passed a law that from now on, all marriages in Palookastan will be arranged by Artificial Intelligence.

President For Life Timoor Shakaleg laughed off some early glitches in the program. “These things happen!” he chortled, in between supervising firing squads. “A man in Jezhnivabad was told he had to marry the city’s founder, Lady Zoof, who died eight hundred years ago. And we had a woman in the mountains for whom is was arranged that she marry her wheelbarrow! So who said science has no sense of humor?”

Comrade Timoor found it slightly less than humorous when the robot directed him to marry his old nurse, Madame Pzessky, who used to make him eat bugs and told him The Blob was going to get him if he didn’t. “A thoroughly odious woman–I hate her!” he said. But moments later, “Well, science is science and we have to do what Science says! Even when we don’t understand it. Science is the only defense we have against Religion. So if Science says ‘Marry your old baggy pants,’ well, then, you marry your old baggy pants! But I regret to report that Madame Pzessky’s whereabouts are currently unknown.”

He has turned down an offer by Acme Robotics Inc. to replace Madame Pzessky with a convincing facsimile.

Texas Judge Curbs ‘AI’

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Hammer law keyboard Stock Photos, Royalty Free Hammer law keyboard Images | Depositphotos

Justice and computers–it won’t work

We had a case just like this one in New York a few days ago. There’ll probably be more of them–because lawyers are as lazy and shifty as anybody else, and they’d rather let a robot prepare court briefs than do it themselves.

A Texas judge has banned the use of “Artificial Intelligence,” aka AI, in preparing briefs for court cases (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-judge-bans-chatgpt-court-filing/). No more ChatGPT, says Judge Brantley Starr.

Why not? Because, he explains, the robot can and does “invent facts”–invented facts aren’t facts at all–and has “a tendency to hallucinate.” Oh, spiffy. Imagine losing a major lawsuit, or even going to prison, because some machine invented “facts” against you. I wonder if that’s happened yet. “AI” is coming on too fast to be monitored. We’ve heard lots of warnings about that, including some by the same tech wizards who developed AI in the first place.

And anyway, do we really need robots to help us lie? We’ve always done a fabulous job of that ourselves.

AI Inventor Predicted ‘Perils’ of Computer Addiction

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

talking computer - Google Search | Computer humor, Computer, Computer technology

It’s only hi-tech make-believe.

More than 50 years ago, the man who invented the first “conversational” computer, now known as “Artificial Intelligence” or “AI,” predicted the dangers of users getting, as it were, addicted to the “superficial conversations” provided by computers (https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23617185/ai-chatbots-eliza-chatgpt-bing-sydney-artificial-intelligence-history?fbclid=IwAR2xHMA5SHuU9yyXrUnafdQC8vRWQ-HxUpedzKRNMwJmY42qc6aPvtjR7_I).

It seems the computer is only “parroting back what its users ask for.” Its interactions with users mimic human relationships without actually experiencing them. The more you use AI, the more it “learns” about you.

And somehow the users gradually grow more lonely, more loveless, more devoid of insight, than they were before.

All of this was apparent to the inventor of “ELIZA” in 1966. Now we’re in 2023… and all the problems with ELIZA are still there. Which doesn’t stop us from diving headfirst into AI as an infallible guide to living life.

Yo! A computer doesn’t KNOW anything! It doesn’t experience anything. It doesn’t feel anything. It only mimics humans–without anything we can call “understanding.” The more you put into it, the better it mimics human thoughts and feelings. It can string together a bunch of cliches into a love letter, a short story, or a political speech. All it can do is imitate life without being alive.

And while all this is going on, the AI is, in a way, “programming its users.” The machine imitates us, and we wind up imitating the machine.

I do wish God had made us wiser.

‘More Artificial Stupidity’ (2019)

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See the source image

That’d be great if dindles like ourselves could actually create machines with real intelligence and then have them solve all our problems for us.

This is a profoundly stupid notion.

More Artificial Stupidity

Intelligence has to be alive. The works of our hands are not alive. 

But as we can so easily and sadly see, being alive is no guarantee of intelligence.

We haven’t come such a long way from worshiping silly idols made of wood or stone, have we?

‘Now Your IPhone Is Spying On You’ (2019)

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How to Tell If Someone Is Spying on Your iPhone in 2022—and Prevent It

They’re watching you!

Is there such a thing as too much technology? You mean there isn’t?

Now Your iPhone Is Spying on You

Those porch-climbers at Davos want to control every aspect of your life, no matter how trivial. They have a right to devour you: John Kerry says so.

We just can’t wait to get every new “phone”–the word is hardly adequate anymore–that comes along. And they can all be used to spy on us.

They couldn’t enslave us with violence, so now they’re using seduction. Be warned: whatever they offer that looks nice… isn’t.

My Interview Is… Here?

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

Anole Podcast Introduction - The Anole Podcast | iHeart

Last week I did an interview with Paul Engel (“America Out Loud”), which he posted yesterday, and which you can now listen to if you’re better at navigating websites tfhan I am. The interview’s in here somewhere.

https://www.americaoutloud.com/the-importance-of-limited-and-enumerated-powers/

The show is almost an hour long, and I don’t come on until the last 20 minutes or so. The show (podcast? I don’t know) may be accessed immediately under the big picture of letter cubes.

If you manage to hear the interview, you will agree that I have a voice ideal for semaphore. (This might just slip by with no one hearing it at all.)

Oh, Boy! A Computerized Court System!

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

Robot judge Stock Photos, Royalty Free Robot judge Images | Depositphotos

Red China’s working on a project that’ll have Western leftids salivating with envy–a court system run by “Artificial Intelligence”… by machines instead of people (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11010077/Chinese-courts-allow-AI-make-rulings-charge-people-carry-punishments.html), the Daily Mail reports.

Computers will correct “perceived human error” (an acquittal, for instance), and judges will have to consult the machines “on every case.” The robots will have the power to sell off a defendant’s property, and an “AI prosecutor” will have the power to charge someone with a crime (if the police can’t think of one, offhand).

It’ll be great because computers are never wrong and never change their minds… because they don’t actually have minds.

Boy howdy, you’d better keep your Social Credit numbers up–or some algorithm somewhere will pack you off to a camp in Turkestan and donate your organs to a deserving Party member. Don’t get caught saying anything that the Party doesn’t want to hear!

This is the kind of technology Democrats will need when they have another try at setting up a Disinformation Governance Board. Why settle for any half-baked tyranny when you can go whole hog?

‘Cursed! By Alexa’ (2019)

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You might be cursed by an Old Testament prophet or an ancient Welsh bard–but cursed by a stupid plastic robot? That’s taking things a bit far.

Cursed! by Alexa

A man in South Wales cancelled his Amazon Prime subscription, and next thing he knew, his Alexa was calling him a s***-head. Is that worse than being served by a surly waiter, or what? “Want any dessert, you moron?”

Why do I think of Caliban saying, “You taught me to curse”?

‘That’s Entertainment? “Brain-Controlled Movie”‘ (2018)

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The 60-year evolution of Godzilla

I said change the freakin’ plot!

How would you like a movie in which the story could change, depending on what kind of mood you were in while you were watching it?

Hi-tech can be awfully frivolous when it wants to be.

That’s Entertainment? ‘Brain-Controlled Movie’

So you’re watching a movie with this special device (Lord knows what it’ll cost) that sort of reads your mind and either stays with the original plot because you’re digging it, or switches off to another direction because you don’t like what you’re seeing now.

How cool is that? You’re bored out of your skull by some artsy mainstream Serious Film, the preposterously expensive gizmo picks up on that, and voila!–Godzilla breaks into the Serious Film and restores sanity.

But no. The Scientists who are working on this project are using a Scary Movie about a right-wing takeover of America… where practically everybody’s Far Left and into Climbit Chains and Trans and Citizens of the World, blay-blah-blah. Well! If you’re going to indulge in fantasy, we’ll put you in charge of these voting machines…