Everyone is tired of talking about this, but I feel the need to scream this into the void. Artificial general intelligence (AGI) We've had it since early 2023. Probably before, but it became publicly available and took the world by storm and everyone sorta freaked out. The current array of LLMs are artificial general intelligence. Some better than others. That's not a real popular stance to have, ... » Continue Reading
The Chinese Room is a shit argument and Searle has done more harm to the AI industry 2nd only to the Perceptrons book. Instead consider the Mandarin room. Same setup. Slips of paper. Man in the room, just following instructions. But instead of a filing cabinet, there's a small child from Guangdong in there that reads it and tells the man what marks to make on the paper » Continue Reading
Picard. They got Patrick Stewart back for this one. God Damnit, I wanted to like this one. It had a high production value and even half-way through I had high hopes. I didn't understand the hate. A lot of mystery and drama buildup. But after the finale... yeah. I get it. ok. overall plot. [Spoiler Alert!] Some intergalactic robo-group set up a planet with a message to any synths: You're gonna ... » Continue Reading
Yeah, Star Trek Discovery... I was really hoping we'd see how the federation deals with prison and reform after I saw an officer commit mutiny, kill a dude, and start a war. But nope, it's just more or less ignored and swept aside. But you know what I want? On top of that classic standard of a liberal utopia and the machinery that solves problems and keep the federation going (That's starfleet)... » Continue Reading
STD is a fucking mess all over the place. For a brief moment I had hope that we'd explore how the federation deals with actual criminals that have done serious wrong. Mutiny, murder, violating orders, starting wars. You know, a progressive look at criminal reform. NOPE. Let's just ignore that for Spock's brother. ooooof. TOS was hella progressive and open-minded for it's day. The movies had a wide... » Continue Reading
Magic. That wondrous element of the unknown. Unexplainable phenomena come in many different flavors and packages. And each one is a precious gift of that child-like wonder that comes from experiencing something that escapes explanation. Because you can kill it. You can take that ignorance out back and beat it down until nothing remains except the numb feeling that comes after a lesson. Anything an... » Continue Reading
So here's the thing about quantum mechanics, it averages out as you get bigger. Take a fair die. Roll it, and you'll get something between 1 and 6. Each value just as likely as any other. Random. Roll 2d6, and you'll get anything between 2 and 12. But 7 will be the most likely roll. 1+6, 3+4, and 6+1 all equal 7, but only 1+1 equal 2. This is probabilistic. Roll two dice and it'll come up near 7,... » Continue Reading
2021/09/14 447th: A StarTrek without everyone having a snowflack backstory. Because seriously, how much of VOY was some sort of sleeper-agent? Chakote, Tuvok, Paris was in jail, Bashire was a super-baby, Anyone with the Maquis background. Tasha was from a rape-gang planet which thankfully never got fleshed out. Ugh, and Spock's sister... Wesley had that nonsense with the traveler. Kes was some... » Continue Reading
There's plenty of technologies that are here, right now, that will get more prevalent and have additional effects on the world: 3D printing, drones, autonomous vehicles, VR, and while they've been around for a decade: Smartphones. Yeah, I still think there's additional changes to our lives that will be the result of everyone carrying around a smartphone with them. Couple that with very promising t... » Continue Reading