tingilinde

more country rankings

I don't know how they calculate and what information they use, but another set of rankings broken into several categories.  Many seem about right, although I'm surprised the UK did as well as it did - perhaps inertia from the pre-Brexit days.  The US is doing poorly (unsurprisingly) 

a tip of the hat to Sukie

 

on breaking the system of trust

Another Robert Reich essay

snip

...

Think of the common good as a pool of trust built up over generations — a trust that most other people share the same basic ideals. This pool of trust has great value. It makes everyone’s lives simpler and more secure.

But precisely because it has so much value and is maintained voluntarily, it has been possible for some individuals to exploit it for their own selfish gain.

In any social system, it’s possible to extract benefits by being among the first to break widely accepted unwritten rules.

...

a tip of the hat to David

It makes me think of Bruce Schneier's recent book, A Hacker's Mind. While Bruce highlights some computer hacks, the real focus is on hacking the rules of society and how to deal with it. 

 

 

the republican plan for global warming if they win in 2024

Accelerate global warming, enriched fossil fuel companies, become less competitive in emerging energy technologies,  and own the libs.

Many of their voters believe the end of the world is soon anyway, so why not bring it about sooner?

 

what to do when ai causes you harm

Not a lot it seems, but it's an area increasingly important to worry about.

snip

...

The harm is often minimal, involving easily disproved hallucinatory hiccups. Sometimes, however, the technology creates and spreads fiction about specific people that threatens their reputations and leaves them with few options for protection or recourse. Many of the companies behind the technology have made changes in recent months to improve the accuracy of artificial intelligence, but some of the problems persist.

One legal scholar described on his website how OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot linked him to a sexual harassment claim that he said had never been made, which supposedly took place on a trip that he had never taken for a school where he was not employed, citing a nonexistent newspaper article as evidence. High school students in New York created a deepfake, or manipulated, video of a local principal that portrayed him in a racist, profanity-laced rant. A.I. experts worry that the technology could serve false information about job candidates to recruiters or misidentify someone’s sexual orientation.

...

 

 

 

on heightism

An essay by Robert Reich

We know a few very tall women who experience the sexist version of heightism.

 

 

feynman on the manhattan project

a physicist's review of the oppenheimer film

Frank Wilczek offers some comments (a few minor spoilers) and recommends additional resources.

 

Here's the film he recommends

entrapment

Entrapment courtesy of the Republican Party.

snip

...

To corral the cows, milk them and clear their manure at these dairy farms — the dirty, dangerous work that makes this multibillion-dollar industry go — farm owners here and across Wisconsin rely on a labor force that they know is largely undocumented.

But the state makes it almost impossible for workers to have lives outside the farm without breaking the law. In Wisconsin, undocumented immigrants can own and register their cars and trucks, but they aren’t allowed to drive them. Those who drive anyway are pulled over again and again and again, and issued tickets that eat away at their wages.

...

 

 

 

 

 

 

an unusual piece of real estate

A stairwell to nowhere.

 

ai and politics

Bruce Schneier and Nathan Sanders on milestones to look for. 

(I've know Bruce for more than 15 years .. he's one of the good guys)

snip

...

Thinking further into the future: Could an AI candidate ever be elected to office? In the world of speculative fiction, from The Twilight Zone to Black Mirror, there is growing interest in the possibility of an AI or technologically assisted, otherwise-not-traditionally-eligible candidate winning an election. In an era where deepfaked videos can misrepresent the views and actions of human candidates and human politicians can choose to be represented by AI avatars or even robots, it is certainly possible for an AI candidate to mimic the media presence of a politician. Virtual politicians have received votes in national elections, for example in Russia in 2017. But this doesn’t pass the plausibility test. The voting public and legal establishment are likely to accept more and more automation and assistance supported by AI, but the age of non-human elected officials is far off.

...