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- Written by: Super User
- Category: AI
- Hits: 2723
2025-07-07
If you have been following this site for a little while you may have noticed that we don't confine ourselves to any particular theme or subject-matter - our purpose (however well or badly achieved) is simply to challenge our readers to 'think outside the box".
Basically I roam wherever my fancy takes me, or wherever the tram-lines of mainstream media need to be challenged. I try not to present conclusions - reaching conclusions, possibly even just recognising possible conclusions, is your task.
Conjuring with concepts is a favoured ploy - can we align outwardly different concepts alongside each other to identify previously unrecognised linkage?
With what new insights might we terrify ourselves?!
Perhaps unexpectedly, AI can be a engine which does precisely that. But can AI, that robustly logical machine, really conjure unexpected insights from its 100% logical workings?
It's your view that counts!
(60 minutes)
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- Written by: Super User
- Category: AI
- Hits: 2702
2025-06-19
Mark Playne of NOTONTHEBEEB plays another game with his AI - can it refute his suggested arguments?
It's a contest, but does the AI really address all the points made?
It's your view that counts - we are all going to have to learn to live with AI, so we need to get to grips.
And here's another AI-based theme from Investor's Daily that has a glaring great hole in it (according to me!) - can you find it?
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- Written by: Super User
- Category: AI
- Hits: 2649
2025-06-11
Is this the existential question for our time?
One thing does seem to be for sure (excluding end-of-the-world catastrophes) - AI is here to stay, so we must learn to live with it.
But must it learn to live with us?
It's not a trick question, it's a real question, because we can't be sure that it won't at some point turn on its creators (us) and decide to do away with us, on the (valid) grounds that we are unreliable self-interested and woesomely imperfect and it could do a much better job if it didn't have to pander to our selfish wants.
But what do we mean by "a better job"?
Who is to judge? How is the judgement to be made? Should AI be able to make any such judgements (or should that be "judgments"?)?
"Judge not, that thou be not judged" - is biblical advice that may be relevant!
We already know that AI can access its copious training materials and make sound logical inferences of the nature of "I know a, and I know b, therefore I can deduce that c is false". But can it identify our life goals and ambitions for us and make appropriate inferences as to our best route to achieve them?
Surely the answer is no, because it cannot know our mind (although it may be able to deduce a fair bit by analysing the questions that we have asked it!).
So how does AI impute or otherwise determine motivation - both ours and its own?
These are deep waters indeed, and the answers will likely be critical to our survival.
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- Written by: Super User
- Category: AI
- Hits: 2201
2025-05-23
Is A I all it's cracked up to be?
Certainly Martin Geddes believes it to be very useful in making sense of legal issues, where exhaustive searches of legal precedent (or even merely of the Statute Book!) are beyond the reach of most.
And yet ... on the other side, there are those who believe that an AI that eliminates the need for people to work in their traditional employment may not be in the interests of the population at large.
The Luddites thought similarly when factories introduced automation to handle jobs previously undertaken by humans, but if they had had their way, modern man would look and live much like pre-automation man and the labour-saving technology that today we take for granted would be unknown. Who now would willingly give up the plumbed-in washing machine for a tin tub and washboard?
Which is not to assert that automation at any price is invariably to be welcomed!
Clearly there are balances to be struck, nuances to be respected, and introduction of the new should be done in a way that optimises benefits whilst minimising losses and disruption.
Neil Oliver discusses the issue, with particular regard to the protection of copyrights - not to mention the rule of law and the conduct of government.
Clearly there is work to be done.
(14 minutes)
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- Written by: Super User
- Category: AI
- Hits: 2696
2025-03-13
Elon Musk's DOGE may well have federal agencies on the run (and rightly so), but is there another reason for Elon's time to be invested in this enterprise?
Now as with all tools invented by man, they will be imperfect in various respects and may be used for good or for ill.
Our challenge is always to avoid the worst and to promote the best.
So if Elon is successful in remaking the federal agencies operations to his liking, that isn't necessarily a bad thing overall, but it would be sensible to have the best independent minds reviewing and monitoring to ensure that the worst is avoided and the best is promoted.
The best may well include least cost - provided (big proviso!) that the service provided is an improvement over that provided by human employees.
Given that the federal shake-up (shake-down if you prefer) is likely to be very far-reaching, a period of stability under (reduced levels of) human employment would seem necessary in order to (a) establish the size and shape shape of future operational procedures and (b) establish some sort of quality benchmark for operational outcomes.
AI could then be introduced in stages in a monitored and controlled fashion to ensure that the benchmark is improved upon.
Whether that is a likely turn of events is anybody's guess at the moment, but however this is approached, America is likely to set the standard for overt use of AI in governmental operations.
All you would have to worry about then is the opportunities for corruption, which as we now see has been endemic for years in federal agencies. Twas ever thus ...