Sugoi & Yokunai

Last thing humanity needs.  A vaccine is out that effectively sterilizes women.  It induces an immune response to hCG, which could last indefinitely.  Although there could be appropriate indicates to render someone incapable of pregnancy, taking an immune approach to this problem seems fraught with hazard.  It will likely be applied to third-world countries or countries like India, rather than Europe, Eastern Asia, or North America.

How do you square these two articles?

• California Defaults On $18.6 Billion In Debt, Saddling Employers With The Expense
• California Approves Reparations Recommendations, Proposing $1.2 Million Checks For Black Residents

More insightful A.I. commentary:

• The A.I.-P.R. industrial complex:  If a Press Release Says “Artificial Intelligence,” There’s a Good Chance It’s Meaningless.  Seems like everybody wants to jump on the A.I. bandwagon.  "Technology this powerful should be able to make workers more productive, not unnecessary."  
• Researcher Meredith Whittaker says AI’s biggest risk isn’t ‘consciousness’—it’s the corporations that control them.  This person seems to agree with Ted Chiang to some extent.
• Free-lance writer posts on Reddit the experience of losing all his writing contracts due to ChatGPT, and having to switch occupations to being a plumber.  Well, at least A.I. didn't drive him to suicide as it did this Belgian man. 
• Stanford published a summary of the state of A.I.  The most important takeaway (to me) is:  "More than 70% of Chinese, Saudi, and Indian respondents felt AI had more benefits than drawbacks. Americans? 35%."  Indeed China is not afraid of advancing A.I. (even while American leaders advocate for a 6 month pause).  Chinese A.I. will come with a few quirks, though.
  

So true!

RAGCs are facilitated sessions involving participants grouped according to self-identified racial or ethnic identity to support integration of antiracism curricula into clinical practice.

Seems like everyone's got an opinion about the impact of A.I.  Here are some recent ones that I thought were worth sharing:

• Artifical general intelligence will be possible in a few years. At least some form of it. This is from Google DeepMind's CEO, who ought to know.
• Well, you might put it that way. AI is Just Someone Else’s Intelligence.  Current A.I. is just outputting the results of what it has been trained on.  But in the near future, there may be true synthesis.
  
• Fears of hypercapitalism. Sci-Fi author Ted Chiang has given interviews and writing articles about the real threat to A.I., which is that it will accentuate the negative aspects of capitalism and put more money and power in the hands of those who harness the technology to their advantage.  I think that now, perhaps more than ever, those with a special knowledge and capability can gain control over those who don't have this special permeative expertise.  People in power currently will want and will pay for this ability, which will only feed the drive to develop the technology to its ultimate end.  About a year ago, before all the current hype, Ted thought that the Singularity would never come.  Wonder if he feels the same way now.
  

There's no science behind this.  It's all someone's whim. 

"There is literally no data on how well a single dose of a bivalent mRNA vaccine will protect anyone. But we have known for over 2 years that a single dose of the original vaccines was not good enough." 

I think it's because they know the vax is essentially ineffective, even with potential harm outweighing any benefit, but they can't just say not to get it anymore, because just recently they were still urging people to get it.  So this is probably a compromise - get the token jab, and we'll pretend all's good.

Geoffrey Hinton is quitting Google in order to speak freely about the risks of AI.  His first concern is not about what the AI might do of its own volition.  Hinton’s second concern is that AI will soon eliminate rote jobs.  His final concern is that he is literally worried that an advance Artificial General Intelligence could eventually “possibly eliminate humanity itself.  Hinton mentored A.I. legends like Yann LeCun and Alex Graves, so he knows what he is talking about.  Humanity can be destroyed in different ways.  I don't think that A.G.I. will necessarily kill us by dropping bombs us.  It may not even disable our financial system.  It could trigger the end of humanity as we know it by causing humans to think in destructive ways, by exploiting new powers that people didn't have before.  Powers to deceive us, to distract us, to demoralize us and to cause harm and grief to each other. 

Man, this must suck.