| Time |
Event |
| 3:49a |
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| 3:49a |
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| 3:49a |
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| 3:49a |
Gaza kill rate comparable to Bosnia, Syria, and Yemen
Comparing the rate of killing of civilians in Gaza with the rate in
Bosnia, Syria and Yemen shows that the rate of killing in Gaza, when
measured as fraction of population killed per unit time, is on the
order of 50 times faster in Gaza.
Being opposed to sexism, I see no significance in whether a person killed
was male or female. People have the right to life regardless of sex,
and regardless of gender.
I suspect that figures about the number of "children" killed really
count the number of minors killed -- which would be much larger, since
many minors are adolescents, not children. But if these figures
really do count only children, that would place tighter limits on what
fraction of those killed could be HAMAS fighters. Some minors will be
combatants, but hardly ever will a child be a combatant.
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| 3:49a |
Tories starved vital state activities
Tories, practicing neoliberalism, have starved many vital state
activities. Adding up the shortfalls suggests that around 70 billion
UKP per year would be needed to fix things up in a reasonable time.
That doesn't count the cost of decarbonizing. Dependence on fossil
fuels was not introduced since Thatcher by Tories, since it already
existed, but Britain must nonetheless do its share to fix that.
The easy and natural way to get this money is by taxing the rich.
Easy, that is, if the rich can't prevent the state from trying. Any
other way would cause real difficulties.
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| 3:49a |
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| 3:49a |
GPT-4 fake medical data set
Scientists demonstrated use of GPT-4 to create a fake medical data set,
purporting to compare the outcomes of various types of medical
procedures -- which were not really carried out.
I do not describe GPT-4 as "artificial intelligence" because I reserve
that term for systems that really know or understand something. These
"generative" models can imitate the form of real writing or data, but
the output is not based on any knowledge or understanding of the
subject matter supposedly being described.
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| 3:49a |
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| 3:49a |
ChatGPT Gender Bias
When ChatGPT is asked to generate letters of recommendation, it
reproduces gender bias.
This does not surprise me. LLMs work by reproducing patterns that are
typical in the material it was trained with). These systems do not
understand any of the patterns, so they would not be able to avoid
reproducing those that embody bias.
This is why I refuse to refer to those systems as "artificial
intelligence."
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| 3:49a |
OpenAI
The OpenAI board has not explained the somersaults in that organization,
but this article explains that its structure was ripe for trouble.
This article reports that the infighting was a battle between the
board, which tried to carry out the organization's nonprofit mission,
and Sam Altman, who had set up a for-profit LLC nominally under
OpenAI's control and wanted to use it for large profit.
Most of the staff of the LLC supported Altman, and so did Microsoft,
and this could make it appear that Altman was defying unjust power.
But it seems to be exactly the opposite.
Here's another pertinent article.
Although the name of the organization has "AI" in it, I still maintain
that GPT4 and ChatGPT do not qualify for the term "artificial
intelligence" since they do not know or understand what their output
purports to talk about.
Their software is very tightly restricted -- it is not released as
free software, nor even as nonfree software. People can use it,
but only as SaaSS.
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| 3:49a |
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| 3:49a |
Pesticides in baby food
Non-"organic" commercial baby food in the US still contains
pesticides, but it shows up somewhat less often than it did in 1995,
and some very toxic pesticides no longer appear.
That shows some progress.
The article gives no information about the levels of these pesticides,
but the level is crucial. If the levels found this year are
considerably less than the levels found in 1995, that would be
substantial progress.
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| 3:49a |
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| 3:49a |
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| 3:49a |
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| 3:49a |
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| 3:49a |
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| 7:19p |
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| 7:19p |
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| 7:19p |
Renewable generation investment
Australia's government has proposed a large additional investment in
renewable generation, and batteries.
This will be a big step forward provided Australia takes advantage of
it to reduces its extraction and use of fossil fuels.
|
| 7:19p |
Private jet and expensive large seating tax
It makes logical sense to put heavy taxes on using private jets, and
on flying in expensive (large) seats.
However, Piketty's suggestion makes economic sense, but it is unjust
because it requires total surveillance of everyone's carbon emissions.
Taxes are compatible with a free society; higher tax rates for the
wealthy are also compatible. But total surveillance destroys freedom.
|
| 7:19p |
Trance-Pacific Partnership
The UK is trying to sell its democracy for a tiny economic boost,
by signing up to the Trance-Pacific Partnership. This is a business-supremacy treaty that contains an ISDS clause
that allows businesses to demand "compensation" over any laws or policies
that arguably cause the to have lower profits than they might have had.
The article reports that the economic boost is likely to be even
tinier than was previously forecast, but that side issue is nothing
compared to the suffering and injustice that handing foreign
businesses increased power over the country will cause.
When such clauses block the measures needed to cut down greenhouse
emissions, as in the case of the Energy Charter Treaty, they are
likely to cause megadeaths or even gigadeaths. A war could easily be
less deadly than obeying the treaty, so threatening war against any
countries that stand in the way of canceling the treaty could be the
moral choice.
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| 7:19p |
Palestinians buried under rubble
In addition to the list of 15,000 Palestinians known to have been
killed by Israel's attacks, there is another list of 6,000
Palestinians who were buried under rubble of collapsed buildings.
They were almost certainly killed by that, but that is not proof, so
they are usually not included in the "number of those killed".
The report that northern Gaza has been reduced to rubble, that there
is nothing to return to there except the possibility of digging up
corpses of relatives, suggests that the Israeli government intended to
achieve permanent ethnic cleansing by demolishing all structures so
there is no way for a million people to live there even with aid.
Will it continue by doing the same to southern Gaza? Is this a plan
to drive the whole population of Gaza into Egypt as re-refugees?
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| 7:19p |
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| 7:19p |
Billionaires think they're above civil society
Douglas Rushkoff: Today's richest billionaires are not richer than
their counterparts of 120 years ago, but they think of themselves as
above civil society, not part of it.
They believe that *with enough money, one can escape the harms created
by earning money in that way. … with enough genius and
technology, they can rise above the plane of mere mortals&ellip;*
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| 7:19p |
Press freedom laws in jeopardy
*EU laws to protect press freedom in jeopardy, campaigners claim.*
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| 7:19p |
Fossil gas drilling
Fossil gas companies in Canada are drilling more new wells now that
they expect the Trans Mountain Pipeline to be finished soon.
In the long term, global heating is the main threat to the national
security of every country. What's the use of maintaining a large army
if you don't use it to make other countries stop drilling?
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| 7:19p |
Jailed without trial
Israel asserts that all the Palestinian prisoners that Israel offered
to release are terrorists, but most of them were never put on trial
for any alleged crime. They were jailed arbitrarily.
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| 7:19p |
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| 7:19p |
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| 7:19p |
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| 7:19p |
Ag-gag law
An Australian state already imposes an enormous fine for "trespassing"
on a farm, and is planning to double it. This seems to be meant as a
kind of ag-gag law.
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