This Week’s News
A.I. an Extinction Level Threat – a report commissioned by the U.S. government warns that “[t]he rise of advanced AI and AGI [artificial general intelligence] has the potential to destabilize global security in ways reminiscent of the introduction of nuclear weapons.” AGI refers to a technology that could one day perform most tasks at or above the level of a human as opposed to current A.I. technologies that are task specific (ex. chess programs). Some experts predict AGI could be a reality in the next few years and with this and the worst-case scenario in mind (see the Terminator and Matrix movies), the report recommends policies actions that would make it illegal to train AI beyond a certain computing power, establishing a new federal AI agency, and tightening “controls on the manufacturing and export of AI chips.” While some controls and regulations are vital, I believe that the fears are overblown as I, somewhat sarcastically, describe in this article:
First-of-its-kind blood test to revolutionize detection of psychiatric disorders – A new blood test is being developed to identify psychiatric and neurological issues, including postpartum depression, schizophrenia, and epilepsy. By analyzing extracellular vesicles in the blood researchers hope to identify “potential biological markers for conditions that are currently diagnosed primarily through clinical interviews.”
Social Media: Mental Health Issue, Security Threat, or “Just an App.”- While parents, mental health advocates, and politicians on both sides of the political divide have issues with social media, people remain divided on how to deal with these concerns. On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation calling for Chinese tech giant ByteDance “to divest TikTok” or the app will be banned in the United States. The bill is headed to the Senate where it faces an “uncertain future.” Politicians in both Florida and Texas have expressed their own frustrations with social media companies by attempting to pass laws that prevent “censorship” and “viewpoint bias.” A US Supreme Court ruling on both laws is expected by the end of June.
The 2024 Presidential Candidates hit rock bottom and keep digging – On Saturday President Biden stated that he regrets referring to the suspected killer of Laken Riley as an “illegal” when he should have said “undocumented person.” Clearly hurting a murderer’s feelings is the crime we need to be concerned about here. On a lighter note (just kidding), not to be outdone, Trump has been accused of praising Adolf Hitler. Former Chief of Staff John Kelly recently told CNN that Trump was fascinated with Hitler, read Nazi speeches in bed, and believed that Hitler “did some good things.” These two incidents raise many questions not the least of which are is there a rock bottom for this campaign and how will we know when we’ve reached it.
Sorry, woke AI generated this.
What I’m Reading
Harvard Tramples the Truth - Perhaps the best and most complete summary of why I have lost faith in government, medical experts, and sadly the broader scientific community. Perhaps I flatter myself, but I believe I’m a pretty good judge of risk, understand statistics, and am a logical thinker and so mask policies (you need them when you’re standing but not when you’re sitting) and universal vaccine mandates always struck me as…well, moronic.
I Left Out the Full Truth – Over at “The Free Press,” Patrick Brown, a PhD climate scientist, describes how getting published in “the world’s most prestigious journals” such as Nature and Science requires “a simple storyline.” This often means that scientists cannot “quantify key aspects other than climate change” as “it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival, Science, want to tell.” He argues that “climate science has become less about understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate change.” If supporting “the mainstream narrative” is required if scientists wish to be published (vital for their careers), how do we trust that what is being written? Isn’t this just a repeat of what happened during the COVID epidemic in which the opinions of dissenting voices are suppressed?
When Science Journals Become Activists – In a related article on “The Liberal Patriot,” Brown once again raises his concerns that scientific journals are trading the dispassionate pursuit of knowledge and understanding for ideological based narratives. By way of examples, he takes two recent articles to task for their claims regarding the impact of climate change on wildfires, infectious disease, deaths, and food security. Not surprisingly he finds that these claims are not only unfounded, but in the case of wildfires, what is occurring is the opposite of what is being claimed.
My Podcast Recommendation(s) of the Week
I must be listening to more podcasts than usual, or the quality has increased because for the second week in a row I’m going to recommend two. The first is the Lex Fridman Podcast. This week Lex interviews Tucker Carlson about his interview of Putin earlier this year. Regardless of where you stand on Carlson – I have mixed feelings – it is extremely interesting discussion about Putin, Navalny, Trump, CIA, NSA, War, Politics and Freedom.
For my second pick I am once again returning to Joe Rogan. This week I listened to his discussion with Ray Kurzweil who is “a scientist, futurist, and Principal Researcher and AI Visionary at Google.” I have been fascinated by Kurzweil’s take on longevity and “the singularity” since reading his book The Age of Spiritual Machines and failing to finish his much bigger book, The Singularity Is Near.