The @RollingStone Interview: @VP @KamalaHarris talks about the urgency of the upcoming election, the attack on reproductive rights, Trump's "gaslighting" of the American people, and more.
"What kind of country do we want to live in?"
Interview: https://t.co/d2QfNjvWTr pic.twitter.com/1N316eOtle
— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) June 11, 2024
Longish read, which is why I saved it for the weekend. Rolling Stone, “Kamala Harris: ‘What Kind of Country Do We Want to Live In?’”:
ONE AFTERNOON IN LATE APRIL, Vice President Kamala Harris climbed into a large black car parked in the garage of the CBS Broadcast Center on New York’s West 57th Street and sat bolt-upright in the leather seat. She’d just finished taping an episode of The Drew Barrymore Show — remaining magnanimous as Barrymore had pawed at Harris’ burgundy blazer and pleaded with her to be the country’s “Momala” — and was shortly on her way to a dinner in the GM Building that software and investment executive Charles Phillips had arranged in order for Black finance leaders to share their advice for the campaign (“We’ve got a lot to fight, but this is a fight we can win,” she’d assured those assembled at one end of a sleek room with soaring views of Manhattan). These were strategic visits, and evidence of the administration’s growing reliance on Harris to connect with key demographics (suburban women, Black men) who may not be overly enamored with the prospect of another four years helmed by one of two old white men.
But for the moment, Harris’ thoughts were not on the day’s specific demands or what they might mean come November. They were on what had happened that morning at the Supreme Court. More specifically, they were on the arguments that had taken place over what should befall a pregnant woman were she to enter an emergency room in Idaho: Should she be treated like a real person and offered the full range of medical interventions available to protect her health, her organs, and her future fertility? Or should she be treated like a vessel of the unborn and only granted an abortion if the imminent alternative were death?
“Did you hear the oral arguments? What did you think?” Harris asked, shaking her head and never dropping eye contact as the motorcade made its way toward Central Park. “I knew this was coming.” She had anticipated, she went on to explain, the many legal battles and unintended consequences the fall of Roe would have. And she’d envisioned how those consequences would play out, not just for women having miscarriages or dangerous pregnancy complications, but also for the health care providers trying to care for them. “It’s fucked up,” she said, dropping her voice at the word “fucked,” as we pulled up to the hotel where she and her staff were stationed…
… [D]espite certain breakout moments, Harris’ strengths are often ponderous ones: Her thoughtfulness can look like indecision; her noodling of potential solutions can lead to unexpected changes of course. Her policies may be progressive, but her ways of tackling them have often been incremental. In the understudy role that is the vice presidency, especially, such pragmatism can lack flash. “The vice president’s office has always been the Rodney Dangerfield of the Constitution,” says Rep. Jamie Raskin, who served with Harris in Congress and counts her as a personal friend. “I mean, there’s a lot of vice-presidential disrespect in American history.” …
In the whirlwind weeks I spent with her on the campaign trail (note: Air Force II serves a lot of burritos), I’d seen her mix of political pragmatism and passion. I’d been with her to Parkland, Florida, where she’d stood in the gym of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and outlined the gun reforms that should be “no-brainers.” To Las Vegas, where she’d derided “Trump abortion bans” to chants of “Four more years.” To L.A. and D.C. and New York and Florida again, where on the day the state’s six-week abortion ban went into effect, she’d riled up a rally with the proclamation “Across our nation, we witness a full-on assault, state by state, on reproductive freedom. And understand who’s to blame: former President Donald Trump.”
In an interview conducted in two parts — first in New York and then in her office in the West Wing — she shared her vision for the campaign, the country, and the case at hand…
Do you remember where you were when you first heard about the Dobbs decision?
I was on Air Force II, and I was heading to a maternal-health event in Illinois. I called my husband, Doug — because, you know, I could use words with him — and I was just like—You can use words with me.
“Bleep. Bleep. Bleep. Bleep. Can you believe what they did?” And I remember saying to him, “They did it. They actually did it.” I’m sure for everyone who cares about the issue it was a surreal moment.My entire adult life, Roe had been in place. We always knew that we needed to fight for it. We always knew that there was, from the day it was decided, an intent to get rid of it. But truth be told, most of us really didn’t think [it would happen]. And then they did it. Oh, it took the wind out of me.
Even if you anticipated that it was coming, it did feel like a shock, because America’s not really in the business of taking rights away. It felt like such a reversal.
Our strength as a nation, I believe, is a function of many things, including our commitment over time to the expansion of rights. And all of a sudden, we are seeing powerful forces that are trying to restrict rights. That is profound.We as a nation take great pride in our commitment to freedom, liberty. We as Americans take great pride in those concepts. What should it mean to everyone —regardless of their gender — that the government is now taking fundamental freedoms like the freedom to make decisions about your own body? And if that’s happening, what else could happen? [That] should set off an alarm for everyone, regardless of how you feel about the issue.
And then the other piece of it, of course, is that I know how this plays out in real life. I could predict, from the time of the leaked decision, what was going to happen in terms of the harm to real people, every day. And I’m sad to say that I was mostly correct…
So how do people fight in this moment?
Elections. Period. Elections. It is an exercise in folly for people to throw up their hands and say, “How did this happen?” Let me tell you how it happened. First of all, there was a president of the United States, Donald Trump, that made himself clear about what he was going to do. And he did it. He handpicked three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would undo Roe, and they did as he intended.But it didn’t start there. Pay attention to what was happening for years, if not decades, around a commitment by people who had this position on an issue like choice, who started paying attention to state legislative races. Paid attention to gerrymandering. Understood that every election is important — not only who’s in the White House and who’s in Congress, but who is the attorney general, who is the governor, who has the majority in the state legislature. That has been in play for quite some time. And all of those things combined led up to the state that we’re now in, which is that in over 20 states you have these bans on a woman’s right to reproductive freedom…
So, I’ve been on a number of trips with you. One of the big ones was to Parkland. Closing the gun-show loophole was a big win for this administration, but there’s, obviously, a lot still to do. You might have seen today the study that came out that said one out of seven Americans lives within a quarter-mile of a recent gun fatality?
I did not see that. But what’s equally horrific [is that] gun violence is the leading cause of death of the children of America. Not car accidents. Not cancer. Gun violence. What is horrific is that one in five Americans has a family member that was killed because of gun violence.Remember that the victims of gun violence are, obviously, the person who was shot, who was killed, but [also] their family, the community, all of us, psychically. That takes a toll on society. A lot of the work I’ve done — actually, I’ve talked a lot with Kim Kardashian about it recently — a lot of my work from my earliest years when I was DA was focused on undiagnosed and untreated trauma that is the result of people experiencing violence, either directly or within the community. Understand the ramifications. Listen, I have worked with, and in, communities where when gunfire breaks out, the children are told, “Jump in the tub,” because that’s a place that you can avoid a stray bullet…
NEW: In an intv, VP Kamala Harris takes on Trump's VP list: “[DT] wants an enabler. He doesn’t want a governing partner. The litmus test is r they going to be absolutely loyal to Trump over country or their oath of office or frankly the American people?”https://t.co/38R7xtD9j1
— Eugene Daniels (@EugeneDaniels2) June 10, 2024
… What she was eager to discuss in the brief interview was just how little daylight Democrats are going to leave between Trump and whomever he picks as his No. 2.
“What we know is that Donald Trump wants an enabler. He doesn’t want a governing partner. He doesn’t want another MIKE PENCE, and I think that is clear,” Harris said. “The litmus test is, are they going to be absolutely loyal to Trump over country or their oath of office, or, frankly, the American people?”
Our big takeaway from the chat and other reporting is that Harris (and the JOE BIDEN-Harris campaign and allied Democratic organizations) are mobilizing to ensure any candidate is lashed directly to Trump and to forestall any effort by the presumptive GOP nominee to use his new running mate to sand down his sharp edges in swing voters’ eyes.
“Everyone on that list has supported a Trump abortion ban in their state or has called for a national ban,” Harris said. “In fact, many voted this week in the Senate against the right to contraception. That’s how far down the road they are.”…
… Harris will potentially be sharing a debate stage with Trump’s VP nominee, and she made clear she is ready and willing to spar. She reiterated in the interview that she is committed to a CBS-hosted debate set for either July 23 or Aug. 13. (While Trump has not rejected that invitation, he instead accepted a competing Fox News invite on behalf of his future running mate.)
“I’m planning on being at the CBS studios … in either July or August,” Harris said. “And let’s see if the other side shows up. I’m ready to make the case — whoever he picks, no matter who it is.”…
That's been my whole gameplay. How did you know? https://t.co/nkNQyLeOXj
— Blue Blooded Dem-No Time 4 Stupidity ?????????? (@blewis823) June 14, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris says the Supreme Court decision preserving access to the abortion pill mifepristone "is not a cause for celebration, because the reality of certain things are still not going to change," citing state abortion bans and Donald Trump's potential plans to… pic.twitter.com/w86Jku79IZ
— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 13, 2024
Baud
If Biden is too old, shouldn’t we want Harris as president?
NotMax
Dragged up from downstairs.
Weekend longish watch. Anyone mentioned this nugget?
God Bless the USA Bible 🇺🇸 An Honest Review of the Bible Endorsed by Donald Trump.
Short version: overpriced crap on a shingle.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: The whole POINT of worrying about Biden being old, when Trump is the alternative, is mostly to stoke fear that Kamala Harris will become President. That’s what it’s really about.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Exactamundo.
It’s always fascinating that everyone in the so called liberal media that goes off on Biden’s age never suggests that Harris should take over.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I’ve seen a few people say it over the past 4 years. I can count them on one hand.
NotMax
BTW, DJT stock down another 7.2% at closing Friday.
Suzanne
I have had a busy week. I was working locally (in local office and at home) on Monday and Tuesday, but then on Wednesday, I had a day trip to Chicago with my client to tour a similar facility. They loved it so much that they…. totally changed our project. Sigh. Head explode. Then on Thursday, I drov to Buffalo to work from that office and then participate in the “Corporate Challenge”, which was a 3.5-mile race. Lots of fun. I ended up being the fastest woman on my company team. Take that, children!
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: What? A black woman?? C’mon… First you Libtards forced a very smart assed black man on us fragile white men, and now you want to do the same with a black woman???
You go too far, way too far!!! Spare a thought for us! How much more can we take?
@Suzanne: Wahhhh.
Congrats on a fine finish.
Ken
@NotMax: The market has spoken.
As have the CEOs who met with Trump earlier this week.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Yeppers. if they really were the liberal media, with no scare quotes or so-called, they’d be saying, “age, schmage, if Biden can’t do the job anymore, Harris will step in and be just fine” which is how I’ve felt about it since the get-go, and why I’ve never been concerned about Biden’s age as anything expect its effect as a very stupid campaign issue.
And of course the media never brings up Trump’s age (he’s older now than Biden was on Election Day 2020) nor, more recently, the accumulating evidence of his cognitive decline – while Biden’s still sharp as a tack. Would you want to debate Biden about any of the few things we disagree on? I sure wouldn’t – he knows his shit and would wipe the floor with me. But taking on Trump? While Biden could (and will, if Trump actually debates him) demolish him better than any of us could, many of us here could embarrass that orange fart cloud.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ken: I wonder how many people still think he’ll debate Biden.
lowtechcyclist
@OzarkHillbilly:
I sure expect him to find an excuse to pull out.
ETA: But it’s just twelve days away, so here’s hoping!
OzarkHillbilly
So, this happened yesterday:
OzarkHillbilly
Shit, I had no idea it was that close.
I can here him now: “I think I can I think I can I think I can I think I can I think I can I think I can …..”
lowtechcyclist
The GOP, from Trump on down, really is about taking away our rights. So I’m glad that Harris is focusing on that.
Even the only right they want to expand – gun ownership – is really a deprivation of rights for the vast majority of us who would like to be safe in public spaces without having to worry about the possibility of someone opening fire on us.
Ken
Meanwhile in news of our AI overlords, you may recall the mockery a few weeks ago when one of them recommended gluing cheese to pizza, because its trainers had let it ingest the whole of reddit and Cracked and The Onion. Said trainers promised they would work on the problem.
Well, they’ve delivered. The AI is still recommending the glue, but now instead of citing parody sites, it’s citing the news sites that reported its earlier faceplant. This isn’t technically “model collapse” (aka “Habsburg AI”) where the models start training on their own output and are reduced to gibbering idiocy, but it’s pretty close.
hueyplong
If he brags again today about passing a cognitive test administered by the uber credible Ronny Johnson, it will likely mean that a foundation is being laid for a fatal unfairness in the debate format to be uncovered and exposed to an outraged American public.
Need to pre-counter the expected liberal lies that Trump won’t debate because he can’t.
eclare
@lowtechcyclist:
Same here.
rebelsdad (aka texasboyshaun)
@Baud: But she’s too blah and female //
/s
MomSense
@Ken:
I think I may be an old because I really don’t want to engage with AI. If AI were to advance such that it could dig holes for me to plant trees, or clean the gutters, or do the boring household chores I would be more receptive. I don’t want AI composing emails, imitating actors, writing and performing music, etc. The best things that humans do are creative and it’s already a vow of poverty to be a creative in this economy. Do we have to make it worse?
Are humans going to end up doing manual labor so the robots can do all the cool stuff?
ETA And apparently our robot overlords require all the water.
Ken
More like “I think I — squirrel! — I think shark battery, I, I, revenge, I can, I think Ivanka has a hot ass, I can, can pardon myself, when’s lunch, think, think, think daddy never loved no mustn’t think that, I can….”
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Harris wasn’t in my Top 4 during the 2020 Primaries but I’ve become a big fan. Interviews like the one linked are one reason why.
And yeah, the GQP dog whistling is in full force irt her, ie “Biden is OOOOLD!!!!!!!”. Double whammy of not being melanin-challenged and that pesky gender thing.
rebelsdad (aka texasboyshaun)
@lowtechcyclist: Harris was always one of my top 5 picks if Biden hadn’t run in the primary. In that situation, I was hoping for either Kamala, Klobuchar, Booker, Mayor Pete, or Gillibrand. Any of them would have been just fine as presidents.
Nukular Biskits
Good mornin’, y’all!
How it is?
TBone
@Ken: I am bringing my comment up from yesterday. I tend to see connections where others don’t (and sometimes simply before others make connections that are real). I hope I’m not being hyperbolic, but all the media hype and financial dominance of the market for AI has me nervous.
“Former head of NSA (appointed by Dotard) to sit on board of OpenAI, committee of safety and security. I feel safer already!
https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/13/former-nsa-head-joins-openai-board-and-safety-committee/
Coupled with the news about the military Covid disinformation campaign under Dotard’s command, I have questions.”
Today, I ran across this from MIT (CA = Cambridge Analytica) and my Spidey senses are tingling.
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/how-data-fueled-neurotargeting-could-kill-democracy/
Neurotargeting?!? AI on steroids? Somebody talk me down.
OzarkHillbilly
@Nukular Biskits: How it is? Blech.
MomSense
@TBone:
Come sit by me. We already can’t handle Al Gore’s internet. We are not ready for what is coming.
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly: How is Mrs. OH? Arm on the mend?
TBone
@MomSense: thank you for not making fun of me. I’m close to tears today. I quit all social media over this at the time of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and kept my online mouth shut for years of self imposed solitary confinement. I only got brave enough to speak out again here at BJ fairly recently.
OzarkHillbilly
@O. Felix Culpa: Yep. It looks uglier than ever, and it now has a weeping hole in the skin, but the doctors told us to expect that and the Doc she saw on Monday said it was progressing well.
TBone
@OzarkHillbilly: praise be she didn’t need a skin graft like my Dad! I’m glad to hear mending is coming along. 😊
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@OzarkHillbilly:
glrble.
But seriously, it’s gone down to 88 degrees in Athens from a high earlier this week of 105, so why does it still feel strength-sappingly hot?
Nukular Biskits
@lowtechcyclist:
BINGO!
That’s something I’ve been asking for years; i.e., why is my right to be safe in public of a lesser priority than the “right” of Bubba to carry around his penis-extender in public?
Betty Cracker
Interesting presidential debate prep quote in the NYT:
The zinger writes itself if this comes up:
If there is a debate, I’m not sure I can bear to watch it live. Or maybe I’ll watch with my fingers covering my eyes, as if unwillingly enduring a slasher movie…
Baud
@TBone:
It was funny watching the propaganda bots on Reddit explain that this was standard Pentagon MO and one shouldn’t hold Trump to account. Like much propaganda, the first part isn’t false, but the purpose of course is to dissuade people who might care to do nothing in the election.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
The problem is the media is going to try to spin it against Biden no matter what. But the only way out is through.
OzarkHillbilly
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
Gonna hit 97 here tomorrow, then drop back all the way to 96 on Monday.
TBone
@Nukular Biskits: I noticed the nod to toxic masculinity evidenced by the female voices at the Supremacists Court being the only voices of dissent on bumpstocks. Toxic masculinity doesn’t have to include only males IMO. It permeates the cult.
Matt McIrvin
@TBone: The thing that makes me worry less about these things than some people is that I think the capabilities of AI, while impressive, are overhyped–the dangers have more to do with what people THINK it can do than with what it actually can do (and with the mismatch between those things). Nobody knows what they’re doing and there’s a lot of money sloshing around in search of a big score.
I do worry about machine-generated bullshit adding to the general corruption of perceived reality already happening due to human-generated bullshit. But honestly people are already plenty good at making bullshit.
TBone
@Baud: 👍😡
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly: Glad to hear it, even if the process sounds awful. All my best to her!
Nukular Biskits
@OzarkHillbilly:
Looks like another warm one here today. As soon as I finish my coffee and sausage/egg/cheese biskit, headed outside to build flowerbeds in the backyard.
BTW, I’ve missed your updates: How’s the missus?
ETA: Didn’t see your response to Felix when I posted that.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
No, according to the political media, we should support a Hypothetical Democrat.
Baud
@TBone:
Eh, the three libs are female, so not that surprising.
There was a trademark case on Thursday where all four females basically had words with Thomas (in the way they do in the Supremes).
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: I have never watched a debate. I’ll catch the lowlites the next day.
Baud
@Melancholy Jaques:
Baud!/Hypothetical Democrat! 20XX!
TBone
@Matt McIrvin: it’s the fact that humans in positions of power are putting AI in charge of important functions, letting it do the work for them, that bothers me so much. Algorithms are not a substitute for human judgement.
O. Felix Culpa
@Melancholy Jaques:
Writing the quiet parts out loud.
TBone
@Baud: Then there’s the Starbucks case ruling that further weakens union protection and ability to form unions in the first place. Corporate overlords won again.
OzarkHillbilly
Off to get my meatbirds which have finally reappeared w/in the US postal service.
O. Felix Culpa
@Betty Cracker:
Same. Maybe I’ll follow some live bloggers and watch select clips afterwards. I hope that Joe’s debate prep team is preparing him for really weird shit. It’s hard to anticipate what narcissists will do…they can always be more awful and more out of left field than you can imagine.
Ken
@TBone: There are so many XKCDs for that, but this one seems most relevant.
Geminid
Last week Georgia Rep. Clyde proposed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have required returning a statue celebreating Confederate heritage to Arlington National Cemetery. It failed with all Democrats and 24 Republicans voting against.
The 24 Republicans voting against included 5 from California: Duarte, M. Garcia, Kiley, Kim and Valadeo. Three were New Yorkers: Garbarino, Lalota and Lawler.
All three Iowa Republicans voted Nay: Feenstra, Hinson and Miller-Meeks. Other Midwesterners voting against included James and McLain from Michigan, Steil (WI) and Joyce (OH).
Republican freshmen Ciscomani (AZ) and Chavez-DeRemer (OR) voted against, as did Fitzpatrick (PA) and Don Bacon (NE). All four are prime Democratic targets this year.
Newhouse (WA), Simpson (ID), Burgess (TX) and Austin Scott (GA) hold safer seats and voted against. Burgess is retiring.
I’m missing one Republican.
Baud
@Geminid:
Surprised by Iowa.
lowtechcyclist
@rebelsdad (aka texasboyshaun):
I was a Warren stan in 2019-2020. I was very much anti-Biden; the last big thing that he played a significant role in was the 2005 Bankruptcy Deform Act, which I’d still love to see repealed. And Harris was in the large cloud of candidates that I had little opinion of, either way.
Biden has obviously long since won me over, he’s been the best President of my lifetime, and it’s not even close. (LBJ might have been a better President if he hadn’t escalated the war in Vietnam, but he did, so fuck LBJ.) And Harris has done nothing but impress me as VP. If the need should arise, she’ll be ready.
BTW, it’s worth mentioning that Anne Laurie is the main reason I have any idea what MVP has been doing as VP. So big props to our overnight and early morning front-pager!
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: Maybe they remembered which side they fought on in the Civil War.
Chief Oshkosh
@NotMax: What just cracks me up is that the market is doing incredibly well. Of course this won’t last, but geeze Louise, how do you lose over 7% in this environment
ETA: Oh. Right. We’re talking Trump and his idjits.
Leto
@lowtechcyclist:
What rights?
Voters have no right to fair elections, NC lawmakers say as they seek to dismiss gerrymandering suit
Just straight up full authoritarian. They’ll do whatever they can to lock in minority rule, with the express help of the SCROTUS six.
Betty Cracker
@Matt McIrvin: Same.
So far, Apple’s approach seems more sensible than that of its peers. Basically, they plan to deploy it on devices in a limited way to help people complete vexing tasks, such as finding a specific photo among 10,000.
Nukular Biskits
@TBone:
Good point and agreed. As a male of almost 60 years, I’ve NEVER understood women who deferred to, defended and excused misogynistic assholes. Stockholm Syndrome, perhaps?
TBone
@Ken: perfection.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone 😊😊😊
lowtechcyclist
@TBone:
Link, please? This is the first I’ve heard of this, as best as I can recall.
TBone
@Leto: the Spirit of the Law has flown right out the window.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
rikyrah
@NotMax:
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Chief Oshkosh
@OzarkHillbilly: Great news!
eversor
@Matt McIrvin:
Stop this it’s stupid. This is like saying the whole point of Obama being not born here is that Biden would be president. Or that Clinton being a sex creep was fear of Al Gore.
The POINT of “Biden is old” is that’s all they have. He has been by far the most effective president since LBJ or FDR in terms of getting shit done. He’s also been around for so long and been a moderate (read conservative) Democrat for long it’s impossible to tar him as some sort of radical. And his obvious verbal foibles and penchant for just saying shit work for him because everyone knows just blurts shit out and keeps going. He’s genuinely good at politics and connecting with people. He may not have the soaring oratory skills of Bill or Obama but he’s light years better than both of them combined at glad handing and connecting with people. It’s impossible to land a blow on someone like that so they are stuck with “that is man is OLD OLD OLD OLD OLD”. And he is fucking OLD.
It’s not going to work because most people who vote are old. So it’s a direct insult to them. It also won’t work because Biden’s SOTU show’s he still has the same spark from when he took out Rudy Guilliania (noun, verb, 9/11) and pantsd Paul Ryan and laughed him out of a debate. His mouth may shoot in the foot from time to time but it’s also landed him a long list of just ending people. So OLD.
Also keep in mind that OLD is not really used in that Kamala is secretly running things. It’s followed up by the Obamas or the Clintons are running things. Kamala really doesn’t register on most peoples radars. She’s a non entity. She’s probably not going to be the nominee in 2028 as the Democratic party is so stacked with top level talent. That’s not a bad thing. If you look at say the governors of Michigan or Illinois it’s clear we don’t lack for talent. Shit Newsom isn’t all that bad even though he’s a fucking peacock and probably better as a party rotweillier than a candidate. We’ve also got mayor Pete. Who, despite my hatred of all things consulting (I worked at Deloitte), has managed to prove himself the master of fixing shit and explaining shit to the point where even Fox News loves him.
I said it before but Kamala should go on Hot Ones and just crush it and slug a beer at the end. Not because she has to. But it sort of seems to fit her personality and since the Biden campaign has gone YOLO FUCK TNYT it’s the sort of outside game that works.
rikyrah
@Baud:
Come on, now😒😒😒
A Black woman?
Surely, you jest 🙄🙄
TBone
@Nukular Biskits: in some cases. A lot of women just don’t know any better because they’ve nothing to compare with. Everyone else in their circles subjugates themselves without question so nobody sees any other possibilities. Also, they might be beaten, ostracized, left for dead.
Miki
@Betty Cracker: 🫣
TBone
@lowtechcyclist:
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/06/14/pentagon-stands-secret-anti-vaccination-disinformation-campaign-philippines-after-reuters-report.html
mrmoshpotato
@lowtechcyclist:
2005 Bankruptcy Deform Act?
Nukular Biskits
@TBone:
Good points. Agreed.
lowtechcyclist
@Nukular Biskits:
They would surely respond that the Constitution includes no right to be safe in public. But that’s bullshit: a reasonable expectation of being safe in public is a prerequisite for a functioning society. When that breaks down, documents such as a Constitution become meaningless.
The weapons generally available in the 1780s and 1790s didn’t threaten that expectation, and it boggles the mind to believe that the Founders would have been OK with weapons that do so.
Geminid
@Baud: Iowa has become more Republican, but it was strongly Unionist back in the day and a “yes” vote might still have triggered a reaction. I think two of those seats are in play this year.
Austin Scott’s vote is harder to explain. Scott is a big defense hawk, so maybe he objected to cluttering up the NDAA with that kind of amendment. Or maybe he just doesn’t like Andrew Clyde, his fellow Georgian.
zhena gogolia
@MomSense: You are so on point.
rikyrah
@Matt McIrvin:
Thank you.
Truth 👏🏾
lowtechcyclist
@mrmoshpotato:
Technically that’s ‘Reform’ but many of us at the time thought otherwise, and still do.
Elizabelle
@eversor: Great comment.
Matt McIrvin
@TBone: They’re gonna get bitten. When you’re dealing with real-world things, reality always gets the final vote.
I’ve used AI for work-related functions in small ways and I’m doing work that is adjacent to this. But in my experience, all these systems can do is get you past the first step: the blank screen, or winnowing down the firehose of raw data. They won’t get you all the way there. You need an accountable person in the loop.
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker:
I still regret paying any attention to the orange shitstain in 2015/16.
rikyrah
@Chief Oshkosh:
It was overpriced, overinflated crap. Only being kept alive through the propping up by his overseas backers.
Nukular Biskits
@lowtechcyclist:
Which, IMHO, pretty much destroys the “originalist” bullshit so-called constitutional “conservatives” have used to destroy laws/regulations that benefit the greater good.
raven
@Geminid: Our local moron and gun store owner.
lowtechcyclist
@TBone:
Holy shit, that’s horrible!
So our ‘payback’ to China was to visit death upon thousands of Filipinos. Both horrible and [sarcasm] fucking brilliant.
I’m sure that if the orange fart cloud returns to the White House, we’ll see many more instances of such brilliance, both domestically and on the world scene.
mrmoshpotato
@eversor: Well put. And I second MVP Harris sitting down with Sean Evans for hot questions and even hotter wings.
Scout211
I won’t watch it live. If there is a live blog thread, I will read jackals’ comments, though. That’s how I have “watched” the recent debates.
I read somewhere that now that the debates are freed from the Presidential Debate Commission, CNN is considering adding commercial breaks. That would be interesting in that it makes the debate seem more like infotainment than something lofty and revered. Of course, lofty and revered went out the window with “cue the escalator!”
ETA for clarity.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@mrmoshpotato: I can’t listen to or look at Trump at all, so I won’t watch the debate live (assuming it happens)
raven
@eversor: fuck lbj
Starfish
@Ken: That’s amazing! I love it.
TBone
@raven: 😆
eversor
@TBone:
He’s a Democrat and a huge donor and a social liberal. This is the cost we must pay for the social issues we care about. Without them, social liberalism is dead.
Anne Laurie
@Betty Cracker: Maybe we should do bingo cards? Assuming a debate actually happens, at least some of us won’t be able to resist watching, if only through the online filter of reading liveblogs. Maybe choose a list of predictable words / phrases? Separate cards for the two candidates, or a dual Not a joke, folks! / Very unfair Democrat judges version?
(Disclaimer: I have no idea how to do this online)
TBone
@lowtechcyclist: it went even farther than the Philippines according to the original reporting. I think the coverage now is trying to obliterate that fact.
TBone
@eversor: ??? I’m not seeing a connection to my comment about the SC ruling on the Starbucks case – who is the he to which you refer?
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: I haven’t either. They’re not really debates, the moderation has been horrible for years, and I don’t think they add any value. They’re for people who only pay attention to politics once every 4 years.
rodwell
@Geminid: The last republican was Kean from NJ
TBone
@Matt McIrvin: hard agree!!!
did you read about neurotargeting? The publicly available AI programs are seriously different than what’s available to power brokers. fElon Skum Neuralink is an example.
Geminid
@rodwell: Thanks. Kean also has a tough race this year.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Scout211:
That’s been my approach for a long time now. Last debate I watched was Biden vs the Granny Starver in 2012. Otherwise, it’s been follow along on a live blog thread. I get as much out of them and don’t start immediately screaming at the electrical teevee device.
Nukular Biskits
Biskit’s been done ate.
Coffee’s been done drunk.
Time to get outside.
NotMax
@Ken
“Woman, man, something, something, TV. I like TV i starred i the greatest TV show in history.”
Starfish
@TBone: Like Momsense said, people are in their yards and walking away from the internet increasingly filled with jibberish.
“AI brain” is infecting the top layers of the C-suites of a lot of companies, and it is doing things that people neither need nor want. I think it is a bubble, and it will burst.
I think that AI generated text will kill literacy. Who wants to read paragraph after paragraph of filler words? No one. If that is all there is to read, people will quit reading.
lowtechcyclist
@Nukular Biskits:
Works for me. See y’all later!
NotMax
@Matt McIrvin
If it had been called Artificial Mimicry I for one would be more comfortable with it.
Starfish
@TBone: There are AI experts with similar concerns. They got fired from places like Google, but they have very important papers about the shortcomings of AI. DAIR Institute is where a lot of important AI-critical AI researchers come together.
The “Stochastic Parrot” paper is a really important paper in the field.
NotMax
@Starfish
AI has already made trash out of Google results.
Nota bene: Quit using Google some time back. Plenty of worthy alternatives.
sab
@TBone: Thank you, thank you, thank you for continuing to mention this.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: @NotMax:
Brad DeLong calls it “page-level autocomplete”.
I think that’s about right.
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
The Democratic VA10 primary has been roiled by sexual harrasment allegations against one of the top contenders, state Delegate Dan Helmer. Helmer is resisting widespread calls to drop out, but I think he’s sunk.
Now it looks like Tuesday’s contest will come down to state Senator Suhas Subramanyam and former Delegate and Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn. Subramayan, a 37 year-old Obama White House veteran, was endorsed by retiring Rep. Jennifer Wexton.
Retired Army colonel Eugene Vindman seems to have the inside track for the 7th CD Democratic nomination.
Betty Cracker
@Anne Laurie: I don’t know how either, but for the sake of our livers, we should avoid any games that focus on consuming alcoholic beverages when a certain phrase is uttered…
Starfish
@NotMax: Yup. I moved away from Google for this. They are not to be trusted with search.
NotMax
@Another Scott
Saw someplace that Dolt 45 has bragged about using AI to write some of his rally screeds.
Coming sooner than we think: “The criminal Biden administration wants to ban using glue to keep the cheese on your pizza.”
Ksmiami
@lowtechcyclist: When that breaks down, Supreme Court justices have no right to tax payer funded protection from the bloody society they created.
TBone
@Ksmiami: 💜 the recently bolstered security for the SC should be defunded for the bumpstockers. I think I might refer to the 6 as bumpstockers henceforth.
mrmoshpotato
@lowtechcyclist: Gotcha.
sdhays
@lowtechcyclist: My mother-in-law lives in Hong Kong and has yet to get a COVID vaccine. There’s a decent chance she will never get one. There was a lot of FUD about Chinese produced vaccines, including Pfizer which was manufactured by a Chinese company under license there.
Hong Kongers are understandably skeptical of the Chinese government, but now I wonder how much of that FUD was a US propaganda attack.
mrmoshpotato
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Same.
TBone
@Starfish: thank you for sharing that. 💙
As Timothy Snyder urged, “pick an institution and support it,” I will be donating to DAIR.
sdhays
@satby: I stopped paying attention to debates after 2000 when the media changed the outcome of the debate through shear force of narrative. The first debate had polls showing people who watched the debate thought Gore won, but the media hated Gore and talked on and on about how insufferable he was and engineered the outcome that he actually lost.
After that, I learned that what happens in a debate is meaningless. What matters is the narrative after.
TBone
@sab: 💜❤️💜 I really thought I was gonna get mansplained or told I’m being too screechy. I am relieved to see others are similarly concerned!
TBone
@Betty Cracker: 😆
Tony Jay
All this politics film-flam aside, the Swiss have been bossing a limited looking Hungarian team around all game at the Euro Championships. 2-0 up on 65 mins, just need to see the game out.
Loss of concentration. Beautiful whipped in ball by the Hungarian captain (Liverpool FC’s midfield adonis Dominik Szoboszlai) and BOOM. It’s 2-1, the Swiss are looking nervous and the Magyars are suddenly in the game.
As an aside, the Scots will be praying for a draw here. After their 5 – 1 battering at the hands of the Germans last night they really don’t want to be three points off second place in this group and needing to win their last two games.
Ksmiami
@TBone: I want to petition my congress ppl
TBone
@TBone:
https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/13636
This. This. This!
OzarkHillbilly
Meat bird report: 5 dead birds, another 5 or so in a very weakened state that I don’t expect to survive. I’ll be checking on them all day long to try to nurse them thru their ordeal but pretty sure I’ll lose at least a couple more.
The hatchery will take care of me.
As of just before 8 AM, the PO tracking still had them in Park Hills. Now updated.
Starfish
@TBone: People have been concerned since 8 years ago when Twitter turned Microsoft’s chatbot Tay into a Nazi.
There are a lot of things about these systems amplifying existing biases, like “show me a picture of a doctor,” and they are all white dudes.
The problem with the current company is that all the big companies fired their AI ethicists so they could do what they want.
Scout211
CNN article this morning on debate agreements
So two commercial breaks.
ETA: Should we have a contest for how quickly Trump breaks the rules?
Heidi Mom
@Nukular Biskits: I’ve seen it explained (maybe on this site) as: Under the white male patriarchy, second place in the status sweepstakes is occupied by white females. Under the system that we prefer, everyone is equal. Some people prefer “second place” to “equal.”
TBone
@Starfish: Nakasone being put on board of OpenAI and on their “safety and security” committee is the cherry on top.
TBone
@Heidi Mom: I feel like maybe women are not in second place, maybe competing for second place? It’s right there in the word. Women.
Timill
@Scout211:
“Go fetch my dart gun, boy”
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
I switched to bitters and soda with a lime or lemon. Still enjoyable to drink and much better for the organs.
Melancholy Jaques
@O. Felix Culpa:
The hostility toward Harris is especially appalling compared with how the political media treat the freaks that the Republicans put forward as their leaders.
TBone
@Timill: 💙
NotMax
@TBone
Tricky.
:)
TBone
@NotMax: link not working for me
Inspired this 🎶 though
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l-O5IHVhWj0
Melancholy Jaques
@Nukular Biskits:
I asked my female friends about this after the Disaster of ’16. The consensus was that the white women who voted for Trump were defending their men. It might make sense, but I will never understand it. If a female candidate talked about men they way Trump talks about women, she’d get no more than 10% of the male vote, if that.
Melancholy Jaques
@NotMax:
Examples?
eversor
@mrmoshpotato:
To tip my toe in the racist pool, I’m 100% certain that a person of Indian heritage can fucking wreck some hot wings that would make most white boys cry. Then again, Sean is Sean and I doubt he cares.
To get more serious I think we do better with more free form formats where it’s just all out there. For better or worse. Take Biden with Stern, that worked. So having the nations mom (I know sexist but she should lean into it) slam hot wings and just have a good time is probably the best idea out there. Also these screwball shows tend to be more honest than New York Times, as they aren’t out for gotchas. For those who haven’t watched Hot Ones it’s utterly honest. It’s random crap that humanizes people and ends with letting the guest go off on what they want to say without interruption and then a smile.
That’s why it works. It’s a better read of a person as a person than long winded NYT blow hards and everyone sees that. It humaizes someone fast.
kalakal
@Matt McIrvin:
Exactly my take on it too
Nukular Biskits
Damn it’s hot outside.
I take comfort in the rightwing narrative that Al Gore is fat, though.
Just checkin’ on you guys.*
.
.
.
*Came in to get some water.
stinger
@Geminid:
There are, sadly, four Iowa Republicans, and Nunn voted yea.
Starfish
@Melancholy Jaques: I have my default browser set to duckduckgo, and I was using ecosia for a while. There was one that was created by former Google engineers that was pretty good and wanted people to pay, but they gave up in the face of AI.
Mike E
John Heinz? Yeah, me too! Oh wait, never mind.
NotMax
@TBone
My bad. Fix.
Tricky.
@Melancholy Jaques
One option (and a fine one at that insofar as privacy is concerned) is Startpage (formerly Ixquick).
Starfish
@eversor: That would be amazing. He asks some really interesting and well-researched questions.
rebelsdad (aka texasboyshaun)
@eversor: I know we disagree on religion, but come sit by me!
TBone
@Starfish: Duck Duck Go has recently started offering (asking for) subscription service. Enshittificaton coming soon? I love Duck Duck Go!
frosty
@eversor:
I would LOVE to watch Harris on Hot Wings!!
Regarding South Asians and hot stuff. Many years ago my co-workers decided to have a hot sauce test during the lunch break. Everyone brought in their favorites and chips were supplied. We were warned to only try a drop of Dave’s Insanity Sauce.
Our Sikh co-worker tried them all, saying “This is not hot. In my country we make hot food, not like this.”
NotMax
@TBone
Anyone else remember the short happy life of Scroogle?
Good times, good times.
TBone
@NotMax: 😆 I like the first comment there too
mrmoshpotato
@eversor: The Melissa McCarthy episode is particularly entertaining and informative.
TBone
@NotMax: I do not remember Scroogle. But now I know! Wikipedia 💙
TBone
AI is not merely language-based mimicry. It’s going places.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37180-x
CaseyL
@TBone:
DuckDuckGo is my go-to as well, and I have definitely noticed creeping enshittification: more ads, fewer targeted (useful) results.
@NotMax:
Hmm. I’ll give that one a try. Thanks!
TBone
@CaseyL: I haz a😓
eclare
@eversor:
Great comment. Either she or Joe should also go on Dax Shepherd’s podcast, he is a good interviewer with a big following.
eversor
@Starfish:
That’s the kicker though. He’s not out for gotchas. It’s more of a chat where he tries to get somebody out of their comfort zone with… hot sauce. Which is a much loved condiment.
It’s sort of sad that Howard Stern and the Hot Sauce guy deliver better interviews than NYT or WAPO but that’s where we are. I think it’s that they don’t take themselves all that seriously and get the point of the matter is the guest.
eversor
@rebelsdad (aka texasboyshaun):
I’m not that bad.
Layer8Problem
Speaking as an IT person, regular expressions for the win.
eclare
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Same here. If BJ has a thread, I’ll read that. Otherwise I’ll depend on Colbert and Kimmel to see how it went. If it happens.
Jackie
@Scout211: I’m looking forward to seeing TCFG’s mouth and accordion hands moving while muted! I assume Joe will hear him, but have the wisdom to ignore him.
BruceFromOhio
It certainly is, Madame Vice President. I look forward to supporting you as we work to un-fuck it as rapidly as we are able.
Geminid
@stinger: Thank you for the correction; I forgot that Rep. Axne lost in 2022.
Earlier this Spring, the Des Moine Register reported a poll showing that Republican Rep. Miller-Meeks’ 1st District seat is vulnerable.
Matt McIrvin
@TBone: They may be different but they’re not magic. You can get better results just by throwing more CPU (and energy, and refrigeration etc.) at the problem. And it feels like with existing approaches, there are diminishing returns.
Right now, a major limit is just that it seems to take exponential amounts of energy do to anything with an AI model as it gets more sophisticated. They’re faster at churning out hackwork than a human, but their power requirements are far greater than a human. And human bodies are not that efficient at processing energy.
I do think there’s probably a lot of potential gain to be had there since human brains are an existence proof of the ability to do far better. There’s something about the compute requirements that we’re not getting right now. Maybe just because the early focus of research hasn’t been on bringing them down.
sdhays
@Starfish: I still find Google better for technical searches that I do for work (I’m a software developer), but DuckDuckGo is my default on my phone and have no serious complaints.
eclare
@NotMax:
All I need to know is that AI recently recommended that you add glue to pizza to keep the cheese from running. It’s way overhyped IMHO.
eversor
@frosty:
So years ago I dated a Bangleshi lady. She was smoking hot, the food was even hotter. She made curry out of ground up ghost peppers. That shit would kill an elephant. But I loved it with that cheese and some bread.
She was here for diplomatic reasons and had to go but she’s my one that got away. We are still in contact and I still have fee fees for her. But after you eat TRUE curry you realize all the shit you get her is bland. If you don’t shit your ass out the next day you didn’t eat.
Anyway
@Matt McIrvin:
Totally agree with your take on AI.
Did you go to Japan? How was it?
CaseyL
OK, I took Startpage out for a spin, and it isn’t bad at all. (Multiple and accurate hits for the menu at a particular neighborhood diner I’ll be going to later with some friends.) I’ll add Startpage to DuckDuckGo as my main search engines.
Thanks, NotMax!
@sdhays:
GoogleMaps is still my go-to for anything to do with getting from Point A to Point B, though a misadventure last weekend, where it couldn’t find a particular riverfront park, has me nervous.
Anyway
Yeah I never watch debates — used to pass on them even before Dotard and I never want to see or hear him. So no.
Isn’t it too early for debates? I thought they were after summer/ Labor Day … Feels like the news media is bored and are manufacturing events and hype …
Another Scott
@TBone: Thanks for the link.
I think that “True AI” is like nuclear fusion – always 30 years away. :-/
I vaguely remember that, in the ’80s or ’90s, some vacuum cleaner manufacturer in Japan was talking about how they were using “AI” to figure out when a carpet was clean (enough).
Lots of impressive work is going on now, but there’s still a very long way to go. Lots of money is being set on fire now in the hopes of quickly replacing people with giant databases and LLMs. (A lot of the money that earlier was dumped into self-driving cars and NFTs and the like is probably going there now.) I think that most of those hopes will be dashed (but maybe there’s a niche where something useful can be done with it (if they’re smart enough to train it with known-good and verified information – i.e. not by scraping the web and Reddit and TheOnion)).
We’ll see!
Cheers,
Scott.
stinger
@Geminid:
The Dem candidate is the same person as last time, Christine Bohannon. In 2022 it was M-M 53% to Bohannon’s 46%. I’m not optimistic. Still donating, though.
eclare
@Anyway:
I read or saw somewhere that the Biden team wanted them early because so many states have early voting that a debate in October is pointless. Also they want to show Joe to try to counter the “Joe is senile” talking point.
Frankensteinbeck
@TBone:
That article says it is and that it inherently cannot get much better. The author is suggesting a complete change in course. I agree that it will be necessary. “I think we can do this!” is all the strength the author puts into AI getting better, however.
@Matt McIrvin:
The fundamental approach of what is being called AI is completely different from how an animal’s consciousness works, and it’s hitting its limits now.
Leto
@eversor: it helps that Hot Ones lowers people’s guard because 1) the research team is phenomenal and 2) the person’s brain is on fire so they’re a bit more forthright due to just wanting to get to the end to make the fire stop. A+
Anyway
@eclare: Thanks, I had no idea the Biden campaign was in favor of the early debate schedule.
TBone
@Frankensteinbeck: the article says it is now. I posted it only for illustration of where this is headed. The huge, almost incomprehensible amount of $ being invested is pushing scientific advancement based on neurological science. Again, what’s publicly available now should not be confused with what’s going on experimentally. Behind closed doors.
fElon being a clowny troll is deceptive.
https://neuralink.com/
That’s just the tip of this iceberg. The ideas behind his failures are a foundation, a springboard. Fully self driving computers hahaha
Matt McIrvin
@Anyway: We got back yesterday–we had a great time! The trip was divided roughly equally between Tokyo and Osaka, riding the bullet trains between (we don’t go for the whirlwind multi-city approach). I think Osaka may be seriously underrated as a tourist destination-we particularly loved it. They’re hosting their second world Expo next year, though, so that may change.
Mai Naem mobile
@Anyway: Biden supposedly agreed to the debate because his team got worried about polling. Orange Lump agreed to it because he has no other option. Whoever said TFG is going to whine about the debate rules being unfair – nobody cares about the rules. It’s all about the.visuals and the performance. Also, it seems like the Biden team is really paying attention to TFG’s psych issues and tweaking him and winding him up.
evodevo
@OzarkHillbilly: I worked for the USPS for 24 yrs, and we would occasionally have someone order chicks. What can be done by us backroom personnel to help them out when the shipment gets bogged down in transit? We’d like to do something, but are unsure what emergency measures can be applied…give them water? what kind of food? We know to keep them warm, but not too warm, but anything else?
Frankensteinbeck
@TBone:
No it’s not. The huge, almost incomprehensible amount of $ being invested is pushing replacement of labor costs with small refinements of currently existing LLM and art and programming versions of the same technology. I assume, like with the money poured into Meta, that it’s going into the pockets of con men consultants. There is no sign anywhere that significant research has been made and is going anywhere in the radically different directions required to create better AI. It has to be started again from scratch, figuring out new directions. Neuralink sure as Hell is no proof of anything. It’s one of Musk’s shell games, promising the moon and producing very, very little. Alas, cyborging is another science where we’ve been almost there for 30 years.
Starfish
@sdhays: I find that a lot of Google searches for software related things lead to stackoverflow questions or places that have mirrored stackoverflow questions.
It is more rare that those searches lead to the documentation provided for the software.
Sometimes, they lead to random Medium articles.
Jackie
@Anyway: Biden actually threw down the gauntlet
challengingdaring TCFG to do two debates – including the proposed (at that time) dates. TCFG had to accept or look cowardly 😁Citizen Alan
@Melancholy Jaques: After Brent Kavanagh was confirmed, I was stunned when my RWNJ sister told me that she was far more afraid of either of her sons being falsely accused of rape than she was of her daughter actually being raped.
Mart
One quibble, it was not Trump who picked judges, it was Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society. Any R resident with a pen would have moved forward with Leo’s picks. Leo, a religious whackaloon, who has been gifted $1.5 Billion to fuck over the American judicial system.
sdhays
@Starfish: What do you prefer? I don’t mind hits on stackoverflow since documentation is so often inadequate for my issue.
Starfish
@sdhays: As the searches have gotten worse, I will go to sites like stackoverflow directly instead of counting on Google to take me there.
It is a little bit like the way people would put in a search term followed by the word reddit to get a better result from reddit. You can go to reddit directly and try to search there.
Some of the AI stuff does help (sometimes) with the type of technical information I am looking for, unless the technical stuff is very new.
TBone
@Frankensteinbeck: I must be hallucinating
https://www.neurotech.com/ai-in-neurotech-access-report
sab
@TBone: My city has cancelled all Junteenth events in city facilities, and is threatening to cancel all events for the entire summer. This was at the request of 8 of our 13 city council members. We had a mass shooting at a neighborhood block party June 2. One fatality and 27 injured (the good guys with the guns fired back but hit the wrong people.) Then there was a drive-by shooting at the funeral. The original shooter has not been identified and is presumably still at large.
I am glad I am so old that I can remember when things like this were not normal.
Eyeroller
@Frankensteinbeck: I wouldn’t say that we have a very good understanding of how animal brains work as things stand now. Even if we confine ourselves to mammals. (The octopus could be considered to have nine brains, for instance.) But from my limited knowledge of neuroscience, and somewhat greater understanding of neural networks, I am convinced that “AI” is based on a flawed model of the brain.
Anyway, “AI” is just pattern matching. That’s basically all it does. Admittedly, a large portion of our brains is devoted to various kinds of pattern matching and “autofilling” (especially the visual system), but we can, somehow, do more than that. Pattern matching can be extremely useful and AI is unquestionably better at it in certain circumstances, such as image processing, than our brains are. But it’s not “general intelligence” for sure.
Baud
@Eyeroller:
Pretty sure they respond to food and tummy rubs.
Anyway
@Matt McIrvin:
That sounds like a great trip! Japan’s high on my wish-list — but am a little intimidated.
TBone
@sab: oh fuck. Goddamnit. To. Hell.
I’m sorry! I wish we could immediately fly off to a better place instead of having to push the boulder uphill. We need time travel. I don’t know what else I can offer in comfort. Just time
💔
Eyeroller
@Baud: We’re animals and not all of us like tummy rubs. Also cats are animals and don’t particularly like tummy rubs. (Going beyond what they’ll tolerate is a good way to get your hand shredded.)
TBone
@Mart: 👍
Ken
@Starfish: The one thing you can always count on with software searches is that the top answers will be from four years ago, and two major releases behind the version you’re using, and thus utterly useless.
Frankensteinbeck
@TBone:
No, you’re not hallucinating, you have it backwards. That isn’t using neurology to develop AI. It’s using AI to develop neurological medications. That’s old news. Machine learning is very useful in biotech.
EDIT – And since it’s worth a little more detail, the machine learning that we used to call AI and is different from large language models is able to run trial and error experiments at a gigantic rate, which is fantastic for figuring out what new proteins might do. Admittedly, now we call literally anything a computer figures out AI. It’s inane buzzword chasing.
TBone
Comment of the Day
TBone
@Frankensteinbeck: although I used that link as an example of where the billions in investment capital sloshing around are going more than as an example of advancement in the technoscience, maybe you missed this point they use to advertise, a selling point: “Notable Use Cases and Industry Developments: Unveiling the Case of AI Implementation for Brain-Computer Interface.”
Frankensteinbeck
@TBone:
I don’t see anywhere on that page any evidence or even assertions that it has actually been only done, only that there is a paper where someone talks about efforts at cyborging. I certainly would believe machine learning would be very useful for developing cyborging tech. It would really help map out the nerve interfaces.
I don’t see anything about a new generation of AI based on neurotech. I see a lot of buzzword marketing and mentions of the kind of machine learning tools that have been useful in biotech for… what, a decade, two decades?
Marc
Don’t be intimidated, Japan is an amazing, but surprisingly easy, place to visit. There are plenty of lower cost hotel chains (we tend to like Dormy Inn, but there are several others, most are around $100/night outside of Tokyo), food is inexpensive apart from fancy/trendy restaurants. Getting around the country by train is easy; the JR Rail Pass is no longer cost effective, but train tickets are generally inexpensive (aside from the Shinkansen). Restaurant menus generally have pictures of the food you can point at, if they don’t have English menus.
For a first trip, like Matt suggested, I’d go to Osaka rather than Tokyo, it’s smaller and less busy. There are numerous historic sites, temples, and tourist attractions within the city, plus Kyoto, Kobe, and Nara are less than an hour away by local trains.
TBone
@Frankensteinbeck: I guess my use of jargon and your use of jargon make this a logjam. Jargon is problematic.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Brain-reading&diffonly=true
Frankensteinbeck
@TBone:
Alright. Let me reduce this to the most universal terms I can.
The original discussion was about whether AI is going to get much better. You provided a page where someone said it would be if people used things we have learned about neurons to develop it. I agree, but I haven’t seen evidence that anyone has made any progress doing so.
You asserted that a huge amount of money is going into that research. I asserted that I have seen no evidence of that.
The web page you showed me does not say that money is going into researching new kinds of AI using neurons as a base. It says that existing kinds of AI are used to make biotech. This is old news. ‘AI’ is used a foggy catch-all term these days for many different types of programs. One type of program that has always been under that banner has been used in biotech for a long time. All the references on this page would fit under that category, or are meaningless buzzwords.
The BCI page has nothing to do with developing new AIs. I like seeing some of the very limited but still nice developments in cyborging it lists, but I won’t go over them in detail because they’re not relevant to this conversation.
It’s not happening. There is no breakthrough on the horizon, and the types of programs we call AI right now seem to be hitting their limits.
EDIT – I could argue about your quote’s relevance to anything, but what’s important is that it has nothing to do with improving AI.
Matt McIrvin
@Anyway: It’s actually a great time to go to Japan just because the dollar is very strong right now vs. the yen and if you can afford the admittedly steep fare to get there, actually being in Japan (hotels, meals, transit, attractions) is surprisingly inexpensive. It feels like you’re getting everything for a discount.
One of the biggest problems with planning a Japan vacation, though, is that a lot of websites there (and most notably the railway system) don’t take most foreign credit cards. The one that works best, oddly, seems to be MasterCard. I ended up doing some of my advance booking through Klook, a Hong Kong-based travel broker, because they’d take my cards, but that wasn’t always necessarily the best deal.
More businesses run on cash than you’d expect from US or European experience. The language barrier is less of a problem than I expected: Google Lens works oddly well at translating signs, and many restaurants (ramen joints and the like) run on a sort of vending-machine ordering experience where the machine will often have English labels even if nobody there speaks the language.
There’s an all-Japan rail pass you can buy that includes Shinkansen (bullet train) tickets, and it seems like a lot of people go for that, but since we were basically only going to two cities I didn’t think it was a good deal. We bought most transit a la carte the way Japanese people do, and that took some figuring out. Tokyo and Osaka both have metro day passes that simplify things a bit if you’re riding the subway a lot, but they don’t include things like commuter rail. The ticket machines usually do have an English mode, but sometimes, there will be sections of the UI that are only available in Japanese.
TBone
@Frankensteinbeck: it appears there is nothing deferential I can say that will impede your need to be correct, except that I hope your prediction is correct.
Starfish
@Ken: This is true, and it hurts.
Someone was pushing back on me wondering why the answer she found on the internet was not the correct one. “Because it is 10 years old.” 😭
Marc
Most of the major Japanese hotel chains now support English on their web sites and take foreign credit cards. We’ve also used Hotels.com, Booking.com, and Rakuten.com successfully in the past.
This is actually a bit trickier than it sounds, as Japanese bank ATMs (outside of airports) mostly don’t accept US debit cards. The trick is that Japanese Post Office ATMs (civilized countries do postal banking) do take them, and there is usually one within a few blocks whatever city you’re in.
Google Lens is great for just about anything that is printed. Unfortunately, it doesn’t yet handle hand-written signs or menus, and it’s kind of iffy with text displayed on screens.
The price of the all-Japan pass nearly doubled a year ago. It’s no longer worth the cost unless you really want to travel on the Shinkansen every other day. Plus, the JR Pass doesn’t cover the numerous non-JR railroads, which are sometimes the better or only choice.
The main problem we’ve had is making JR seat reservations in English mode. For non-reserved trips, be truly Japanese, buy a Suica card at any JR station, works with all JR and most non-JR lines nationwide, and buses, just tag on and tag off. You can get a refund of any unused balance at a JR ticket office. Otherwise, you have to lo look at the big map, note the start/finish stations, determine the fare, then buy a ticket for the correct amount from a machine.
The only time I truly had to negotiate a Japanese web site in Japanese, was buying tickets to see the Hanshin Tigers play the Yomiuri Giants at Koshien Stadium (an incredibly Japanese experience, even if you don’t much like baseball). I needed multiple windows open, numerous Google translations, and tips from other web sites. In the end, it worked.
Matt McIrvin
@Marc:
Nope. There’s a nationwide shortage of IC chips right now and you can’t buy Suica or Pasmo cards, basically at all. There’s a tourist-only version called Welcome Suica that you *can* buy… but it can only be picked up at a certain desk at Tokyo Haneda airport, where we weren’t flying in.
The ticket machines in Tokyo and Osaka are actually pretty good about letting you search for stations by name so that it can calculate the correct fare. For reservations, I actually managed to get proficient enough by the end of the trip that I bought our seats on the Narita Express back to the airport from JR’s website, and it just sent me a QR code that the ticket machines at Tokyo Station could scan.
Marc
Sadness, we bought ours years ago and kept them since we travel there fairly frequently (air fare is cheap off-season from the west coast). There is a Suica app, but it does not work with most US cellphones, unfortunately.
Matt McIrvin
Yeah, I didn’t even try. We knew we were going to need cash so we’d exchanged some for a mildly extortionate fee at the airport exchange bureau before we left. It was in 10,000 yen notes (about $60 US) and the prospect of breaking the big bills had mildly worried me, but it needn’t have: every single subway ticket machine in Japan will apparently happily break a 10,000 yen note to sell you a 130-yen ticket. (In many other cities, like Singapore, this can be a problem–Singaporean metro ticket machines are really pissy about refusing to break bills that are too big for what you’re buying.)
Marc
Out of curiosity I checked, apparently regular Suica and Pasmo (essentially equivalent for our uses) were in short supply for a while, but can now be obtained at most ticket offices on request. However, the Welcome Suica and Pasmo Passport cards for tourists are now in short supply. The regular cards are generally preferable, it just takes a bit more effort to find them. And, the Digital Suica works with Apple Wallet on iPhones, it just doesn’t work on non-Japanese Android phones (which I have). If one is flying into KIX (Osaka area), they have the equivalent ICOCA card, which also works pretty much anywhere Suica and Pasmo works. Just a note for anyone heading over there soon.
Kayla Rudbek
@Starfish: it not only garbage in garbage out, it’s bias in bias out.