Category Archives: Technology

Stochastic Parrots

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Scarlet Macaws from Joy

Dr. Timnit Gebru’s most famous and controversial research paper is entitled On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? Co-authored with Emily M. Bender in 2020. It is widely credited with coining the term “stochastic parrot” to describe modern Artificial Intelligence (AI). A stochastic parrot is a metaphor used to describe Large Language Models, such as ChatGPT or Claude. It suggests that while AI systems are remarkably good at generating fluent, human-like text, they do so purely by predicting word probabilities based on vast amounts of data—meaning they possess no true understanding of what they are actually saying. Gebru was working at Google then and was fired that same year from her position there as an AI ethicist, because she refused to pull her paper. A paper that predicted the problems that have been found with these models. Not a good look for the company whose motto was once don’t be evil.

Anne and I split wood together. Then after she completely finished her new chainmail sweater top, we went out to dinner at the Cozy Inn. This early in the season the place was pretty empty, except for the Piedmonts. Who were there in force. We were too late to join them at their table but got an invite for next week. After dinner, we nerded out with the Scripps Spelling Bee. We rooted for 12-year-old Logan Bailey until he fell with Quincke tube, an acoustic device used to demonstrate the interference of sound waves and calculate the speed of sound. Even throwing in a reference to K-Pop Demon Hunters did not help him. This is our kind of sporting event.

Speaking of Anne and AI, I would like to offer an alternative to artificial intelligence, Anne’s Intelligence. It is all natural, nothing artificial about it. The best thing about it is that it does not require a prompt to activate. It will tell you out-of-the-blue when you are doing something wrong. Like in, “Mark, don’t do that!” or “Polly wants a cracker.” You get the idea.

Checkups

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Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

Went to the doctor this week for a checkup. Unlike in the picture, I did not awake to see seven masked medical professionals looking down on me. I guess that I am OK. They had a new pneumonia vaccine, so I got that. I asked my doctor if he ever had to deal with anti-vaxxers. He groaned and said all of the time. I booked my next three appointments, six, twelve and eighteen months. So, I guess that I should plan on hanging around for a while.

In addition to my personal checkup, I also got one for the car. It too is running fine and I got out of the dealer in record time. A 2019, the RAV4 is beginning to get long in the tooth. I think that it is already too old to use as an Uber. I have been quite pleased with this Toyota, but I am already looking at what will be next. I’ve seen the new Toyota Corolla Hybrid Crossover and would be happy with one of those. Slightly smaller and cheaper than the RAV4, it is still huge when compared to the regular Corolla. What I am keeping my eyes open for though are the even newer all electric Toyotas. These are Chinese manufactured and boast a 400-mile range. That is further than the RAV4 can go on a tank of gas. The best part of them is that they are not Teslas. I think that they are still years away, at least in Saint Louis. So, I’ll have to nurse the RAV4 till then.

Ada Palmer

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Japanese Garden Fountain

Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school; and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used, and, contrary to the king, his crown and dignity, thou hast built a paper mill. It will be proved to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb, and such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear. — Henry VI, Part 2, Shakespeare

This morning, I was busily losing my soul in YouTube, when I happened upon a series of shorts, where podcaster Dwarkesh Patel was interviewing Ada Palmer, a University of Chicago professor in Renaissance and Intellectual History and an accomplished Sci-Fi writer. I had previously encountered Mr. Patel with his interviews of Sarah Paine, an American historian who teaches at the Naval War College. I found those interviews on Chinese, Japanese, and Russian modern strategy, as well as WWII history fascinating. Just today, Patel is featured in a NY Times article about his interviews of Silicon Valley tech bros. While these interviews hold little interest for me, but they go far to credit Patel’s gravitas.

Gravitas aside, it is Ms. Palmer who captivated me in this interview. In her 2+ hour interview she ranged so widely that the only comparable conversation in my experience would be the one captured in Louis Malle’s movie, My Diner with Andre. This podcast is subtitled, “Why Leonardo was a saboteur, Gutenberg went broke, and Florence was weird.” To summarize this podcast, Palmer explores the Renaissance’s information technology revolution and its parallels with our current computer-based revolution. But to summarize it so is only to do the thoughts expressed within a disservice. Bite the bullet and watch the show.

A/C — a Privilege, not a Right

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We had our annual, start of the summer air conditioning season health check on our home’s central unit. The whole idea of these health checks is akin to looking for trouble with a flashlight, because we are basically paying someone to find problems that they can then charge us to fix. This video shows the service tech looking for and finding a freon leak in the condenser coil, which is part of the outside half of the air conditioner. The technician proposed $1,500+ to try to solder the leak or $3,000+ to replace the leaking coil. The tech left but also left questions.

I called the operator and tried asking her my questions, but she got flustered and punted, by dispatching a salesman. The salesman did a drive by, but he was gone before I could ask him any questions. After he was gone, I noticed that the A/C unit was not running anymore. It turned out that it had been disconnected, without telling me, which pissed me off. Especially, since their tech had turned it on, left it running, and then just left. I was so pissed at them.

Then I decided to not get mad but get to work. Our unit is ten years and eight months old. Our warranty was only good for ten. On the internet there is the $5,000 rule. On any air conditioner, multiply its age in years times the repair cost. If this exceeds $5,000 then replace. Even with the proposed somewhat dogie repair, we are way over that line. Although we are way beyond ozone eating refrigerants, our current unit uses still unfriendly to global warming gas. A new unit would be more ecological. I’ve already scheduled another bid and are still awaiting the first. The next week looks reasonably cool, so we have time.

Wind from the Sea, Andrew Wyeth, 1947

The Reviews Are In…

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Photo by Nik on Unsplash

And they are all one-star bad. Apparently, this was the point of last week’s Amazon brushing incident, to dirt on the competitors. Why would anyone want to but this crap? I mean the fake reviews, not the actual products. To remind the casual reader, last week, I was subjected to a “brushing” attack on Amazon. Someone bought half-a-dozen items in my name. They were all useless things, at least to me, so I promptly returned them all. An Amazon gift card was used to spend the almost $200 and all of that money is now credited to my account. Since then, I have received notices that I have one-star reviewed everything. I filed a complaint for the lot of them and have received an automated response saying that they will look into it. Further investigation revealed that these spammers had been mucking about in my account for weeks. I have no idea if this will continue. I supposed that I should put out one of those send to all emails, telling everyone to disregard any of my reviews, but that seems pointless. I’m no influencer and I have no brand to protect. The business model for this e-commerce attack is still a mystery to me, but at least I got paid.