Author: Reid

ChatGPT Thread

“ChatGPT is a development on par with the printing press, electricity and even the wheel and fire.”

That’s according to Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury Secretary in the Obama administration. I had heard about ChatGPT before, but I knew nothing about it. (Actually, when I listened to Summers, it sounds like he’s referring more broadly to the ability of AI to think and express itself like humans.)

Here’s what I learned from an NYT article.

“In ChatGPT’s case, it read a lot. And, with some guidance from its creators, it learned how to write coherently — or, at least, statistically predict what good writing should look like.”

Some benefits:

“It can help research and write essays and articles. ChatGPT can also help code programs, automating challenges that can normally take hours for people. Another example comes from a different program, Consensus. This bot combs through up to millions of scientific papers to find the most relevant for a given search and share their major findings. A task that would take a journalist like me days or weeks is done in a couple minutes.”

The benefits here are obvious, but, off the top of my head, here are some drawbacks:

  • For humans, the ability to comb through lots of information and find the most relevant information could deteriorate.
  • My sense is that different people make different judgments about what is relevant; the ability to do this, which includes making connections with other information, including seemingly unrelated information, can differ significantly from person to person. Will this capability become more uniform if done by an AI?
  • My sense is that this process can lead to important insights. How will AI impact that?

In a survey, a group of scientists who work on machine learning had even more dire response:

Nearly half said there was a 10 percent or greater chance that the outcome would be “extremely bad (e.g., human extinction).” These are people saying that their life’s work could destroy humanity.

This seems like a big problem, one that that seems blatantly foolish:

“The problem, as A.I. researchers acknowledge, is that no one fully understands how this technology works, making it difficult to control for all possible behaviors and risks. Yet it is already available for public use.”

To go ahead with something that we don’t fully understand, but could pose an existential threat to humanity (albeit a relatively small probability) seems foolish. And how can we accurately assess the risk if we don’t fully understand how the technology works?

Sight and Sound’s 2022 All-Time Greatest Movie List

For most of my adult life, the subject of all-time great movies interested me a lot, but in the past few years, that interest has waned considerably.This fact came to my attention with the release of Sight and Sound’s all-time great movie list, which they release every decade starting in 1952. The list has several significant changes, and those changes made me think about this topic again. I use this thread to work out some thoughts on this, as well as comment on the list. By the way, here’s the top 100:

Continue reading “Sight and Sound’s 2022 All-Time Greatest Movie List”

2022-2023 NFL Week 11

Titans@Packers

I like the way the Titans play. This is a team you don’t want to face in the playoffs. Also, imagine if the Titans were in Buffalo or Green Bay. Homefield advantage, with their style of play, would be formidable.

Oh, and while I’ve seen worst defenses (Seahawks earlier this season or in previous seasons), the Packers defense isn’t that good.

The GOP Will Control the House of Representatives

I purposely avoided reading about politics for several weeks prior to the election–primarily because it was just causing too much anxiety. When I finally started reading reactions after the election, the overall tone was positive from many Democratic supporters. The reaction seemed based on two things: 1) there was no “red wave”–and the Democrats had a good chance of controlling the Senate; 2) many of the election deniers who ran for positions that could impact elections lost. I was genuinely happy to hear this, especially the latter.

However, who controlled the House was still undecided, and the degree to which the reaction was positive seemed out of place. To me, the GOP winning the House, while maybe not as bad as election deniers gaining control over state and local electoral processes, was almost as bad. What I found most disturbing was their likely use of their power to hold political investigations, and possibly attempt to impeach, Biden and his administration. The idea was nauseating and revolting.

Today, I heard the Republicans held a news conference that they would be investigation Biden and his family (Hunter Biden, most likely), based on disingenuous concerns over corruption. The level of cynicism and bad faith is off the charts.

I’ll have more to say, but I’ll leave with more remark. It is disheartening that so many Americans believed the Republicans deserved their vote–that the GOP is fit to govern.

Favorite Song in Intermediate School

I was recently asked this question, and I had a hard time answering it. In reality, I don’t think there’s an answer–that is, I didn’t have <i>one</i> favorite song. Indeed, I don’t have one all-time favorite song. It seems like an impossible question to answer.

And yet, I wanted to try and answer this, so the best song I could come up, within a relatively short time, was Toto’s “Africa.” Really, I think I could probably think of a better song to mention, but I was pressed for time.

But I’m not pressed for time now, so I want to see if I can find a better pick–i.e., a pick that comes closer to my favorite song–or, one of my very favorites–during the intermediate years.

What’s you favorite song during intermediate school years?