(Image by NEIVANMADE)
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.
Good health to you, fellow Ukrainians!
A report on this day.
I held a meeting of the Staff. The main issues are the protection of our ports and the continuation of food exports by sea. This is a strategically important issue, and not only for our country.
Last year, thanks to our Black Sea Grain Initiative, we managed to prevent a price crisis on the global food market. A price spike would inevitably have been followed by political and migrant crises, particularly in African and Asian countries. Obviously, the Russian leadership is now trying to provoke these crises. Without our exports, the deficit in the global market will, unfortunately, be very tangible. And not only for the poorest countries. Different countries will feel it: from Libya and Egypt to Bangladesh and China. We are working with our partners to prevent this.
For our part, we are developing options for action and agreements to preserve Ukraine’s global role as a guarantor of food security, our maritime access to the global market, and jobs for Ukrainians in ports and in the agricultural industry. We are fighting for both global security and our Ukrainian farmers.
By the way, recently, I met with representatives of African media – newspapers, radio, television – from South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire. They were not only in Kyiv, but also in Kherson region and Bucha, where they talked to the families of the victims of this war. Every time journalists from other countries come to Ukraine and see the consequences of Russian aggression with their own eyes, they return home with the truth about this war. And we speak with them during interviews not in English or French, we speak the language of truth, and this helps us a lot to keep and increase the world’s attention to Ukraine, to our struggle for freedom. We talked to African media, among other things, about the situation with grain exports and Russian aggression against global food stability. And I am grateful to everyone in the world media who honestly tells their audience what they see in our region, in our country.
Of course, there were reports from the military, intelligence, the Security Service, and the Interior Ministry. The issues are clear – the situation on the frontline, all the hot areas – from Kupyansk to Kherson region, Donetsk region, southern areas of Zaporizhzhia region. We discussed the supply of ammunition and protection from Russian missile and drone strikes.
I would like to thank our Air Force and all the defenders of the sky from other branches and types of military forces. I am grateful for every downed Russian missile, for every downed Shahed, for saving the lives of our people and infrastructure, particularly in Odesa and the region. I am especially grateful to the 160th Odesa and 208th Kherson anti-aircraft missile brigades, the 302nd Kharkiv anti-aircraft missile regiment and the warriors of the 14th Bohdan Khmelnytskyi radio engineering brigade for timely target detection. Thank you!
And every fact of using components from the countries of the free world to produce weapons for Russian terrorists, in particular, missiles and Shaheds… Every such fact will be our argument that the existing sanctions and pressure against Russia are not enough. The world must limit trade relations with a terrorist state to such an extent that no component from the free world can be used for terror.
Today I held an important meeting on the spiritual independence of Ukraine, our further steps to protect the rights and legitimate interests of Ukrainian citizens in the field of religious relations. There will be news soon.
We continue working on the preparation of the Doctrine of Ukraine, on our post-war transformation and on today’s decisions to help our people. The Minister of Health and the Minister of Social Policy presented the concept of creating a network of rehabilitation centers in Ukraine to me. Different levels and functionality, but absolutely necessary rehabilitation services. The implementation has already begun. The ministers will present all the details.
I met with the President of the Japan International Cooperation Agency. This is one of the world’s largest institutions supporting economic and social development. Its work is similar to that of, for example, USAID, which is already known in Ukraine. The Japanese agency is currently implementing an emergency recovery program in Ukraine, and the program is worth half a billion dollars. In general, since the beginning of the full-scale aggression, this Japanese agency has already provided more than a billion dollars in support to Ukraine. And we have the potential to increase cooperation – this is exactly what we talked about: demining, energy, infrastructure projects, education. Importantly, the construction of rehabilitation centers to overcome the consequences of the war.
And one more thing.
I signed decrees on awarding our warriors. Seven decrees. A total of 1255 warriors. Combat brigades and units. Different parts of the front. The same supreme bravery! Since February 24, almost 51 thousand Ukrainian warriors have received state awards.
I thank everyone who fights for Ukraine! Glory to all our heroes! To everyone who fights for Ukraine, who trains our warriors, who heals and helps them recover after wounds!
Thank you to everyone in the world who helps! And thank you to all our partners for today’s Ramstein, and especially to U.S. Secretary of Defense Austin for his very clear, unambiguous and powerful statements. Overcoming Russian aggression and punishing Russia for terror is a historic task for the current generation of world leaders. And the world will fulfill this task. Ukraine will win!
Glory to Ukraine!
Yesterday Russia pulled out of the grain deal. The Financial Times has details:
Russia has formally withdrawn from a UN-brokered deal to export Ukrainian grain across the Black Sea, potentially imperilling tens of millions of tonnes of food exports around the world.
President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Monday that the agreement had “essentially stopped” and Russia would no longer co-operate with the deal.
Russia has complained since the UN and Turkey first brokered the deal a year ago that western sanctions were holding up a parallel agreement to allow payments, insurance and shipping for Moscow’s own agricultural exports.
Peskov said Russia would resume participation “as soon as the relevant agreements are fulfilled”. A western diplomat and a UN official confirmed that Moscow had said it would withdraw from the deal.
Carlos Mera, head of agricultural commodities markets at Rabobank, said that without a Black Sea deal, Ukraine would have to reroute exports via its land borders and smaller ports on the river Danube. This would increase costs and reduce farmers’ profits, which could lead them “to plant less next season, placing further pressure on supplies going forward”.
Monday’s move is the second time that Russia has withdrawn from the grain deal. It exited briefly in November before rejoining a day later under pressure from Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Yet people involved in the grain talks said Russia had appeared more set on derailing the deal in the run-up to Monday’s deadline.
Erdoğan said on Monday that he believed Putin wanted the grain deal to continue and that Ankara had “intensified” its diplomatic efforts. The Turkish and Russian foreign ministers were due to discuss the pact later on Monday, although Erdoğan’s recent embrace of the west in a bid to end Turkey’s economic troubles could limit his ability to broker an extension.
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen on Monday condemned “Russia’s cynical move” to quit the grain initiative, although an EU official said Moscow was “still leaving the door open” to continue negotiations.
“It looks like a suspension,” the official added.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken called for the deal to be restored “as quickly as possible”.
“The result of Russia’s action today weaponising food, using it as a tool, as a weapon, in its war against Ukraine, will be to make food harder to come by in places that desperately need it,” he said.
John Kirby, spokesperson for the US National Security Council, told reporters at the White House on Monday the US would continue to work with allies to “enable both Russian and Ukrainian grain to reach the rest of the world, including by ensuring that our sanctions do not target . . . Russian food or fertiliser”.
He added: “There is no possible way, just mathematically, we’re going to get as much grain out now as we were going to be able to get out through the grain deal if it had been extended.”
Russia lost interest in the deal after efforts to ease pathways for its own food and fertiliser exports ran afoul of western sanctions. Though the US and EU introduced carve-outs for Russia’s agricultural exporters and back doors to facilitate payments to a large Russian state bank, Moscow complained not enough had been done to allow its exports back on the market.
“Absolutely nothing has been done — I want to stress that. It’s one-way traffic. Not a single point linked to the fact Russia has its own interests has been fulfilled,” Putin said last week.
David Harland, director of the Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, which helped broker the grain talks, said Russia “felt it wasn’t getting much in return, and might as well continue to squeeze Ukraine”, while adding that Erdoğan could still persuade Russia to return.
Russia’s complaints over the sanctions have been a critical element in rallying sympathy for its position on the war from countries in the global south, particularly in Africa, which has been hit hard by the war’s impact on food and fertiliser prices.
The new threat to the grain deal comes ahead of next week’s Russia-African summit in St Petersburg, which a host of African leaders are set to attend. An African delegation led by South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa visited Kyiv and St Petersburg last month in an effort to mediate an end to the war and help secure agricultural supplies.
But, speaking to Ramaphosa over the weekend, Putin said barriers to Russia’s agricultural exports had not been lifted and complained that “the main goal of the deal, which is grain supplies to countries that need it, including in Africa, has not been realised”, according to a Kremlin readout of the call.
Mera at Rabobank said the Kremlin move would force countries in Africa and the Middle East to buy Russian wheat.
This is purely being done to, as The Financial Times report, force African and Middle Eastern states to buy Russian wheat. But only after it reignites the food crisis that Russia created when it genocidally re-invaded Ukraine in February 2022. It is also intended to drive up negative attitudes towards Ukraine and those supporting it – the US, the EU and EU member states, NATO, in Africa and the Middle East, as well as other portions of the global south.
On @ZelenskyyUa's instruction, I am holding urgent consultations with partners at the UN in New York on our next steps following Russia’s withdrawal from the Grain Initiative. Russia puts global food security in jeopardy. We do our utmost to preserve the Black Sea grain corridor.
— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) July 17, 2023
Essentially, nothing prevents Erdogan from keeping the grain shipment running without Russia’s concept.
If he needs Ukrainian bread to uphold his status as the biggest D'Artagnan of all Africa and the Middle East and sends his warships to convoy Ukrainia freighters — who’s going…— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) July 17, 2023
Essentially, nothing prevents Erdogan from keeping the grain shipment running without Russia’s concept. If he needs Ukrainian bread to uphold his status as the biggest D’Artagnan of all Africa and the Middle East and sends his warships to convoy Ukrainia freighters — who’s going to stop him in the Black Sea?
This is correct. Whether Erdogan decides to do this or not is another story.
Torske-Kupyansk Axis:
The recent counteroffensive in the Torske-Kupyansk axis has come as a surprise to many. However, I had previously written about their preparations for this counteroffensive almost a month ago.
Currently, the Russians are conducting extensive training of new motorized units in… https://t.co/YGgo48DW8e
— Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) July 17, 2023
The recent counteroffensive in the Torske-Kupyansk axis has come as a surprise to many. However, I had previously written about their preparations for this counteroffensive almost a month ago. Currently, the Russians are conducting extensive training of new motorized units in the Soutern military district. In order to strengthen our troops, we will need additional weaponry and improve training conditions I don’t mean to doom, but it is important for analysts, politicians and military observers to take these warnings seriously. By doing so, we can effectively prioritize obtaining the necessary armament for Ukraine, as well as exert pressure on our own MoD to address internal issues.
Vuhledar:
From the Ukrainian officer who tweets as Tataragami. First tweet from the thread, the rest from the Thread Reader App:
🧵With new satellite imagery from Vuhledar revealing the extent of the catastrophe experienced by the Russian army during the winter, as well as the ongoing counter-offensive, it is crucial to explore the role of minefields and operational planning in shaping assault operations. pic.twitter.com/0vAy0OB7X5
— Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) July 15, 2023
2/ The objective of a minefield extends beyond causing harm; it also aims to impose a specific mindset and tactical approach on the opponent, compelling them to act in a manner most advantageous for the party laying the minefield. Minefields limit the enemy’s maneuvering options3/ Mechanized units are used for maneuvering, executing assaults, bypassing enemy positions, and launching flanking maneuvers. Their firepower and off-road speed make them ideal for such operations. However, minefields restrict maneuvering space, hampering the assault’s tempo.4/ When encountering minefields, the enemy must allocate extra resources for mine clearance, including engineering vehicles. Yet, even after clearance, the available path remains narrow, compelling large forces to move predictably along a confined route5/ It is often mistakenly assumed by observers that russians and Ukrainians are not utilizing tank plows to clear paths. However, this is inaccurate as both sides employ tank plows. It’s important to note, though, that tank plows are not a universal solution to all the challenges6/ While not a widely adopted tactic, the utilization of off-route mines, such as the TM-83, is not uncommon. It enables the engagement of tanks from the flank once they are detected by mine sensors, rather than relying on the pressure exerted by the tank’s weight itself.7/ Another alternative is the use of modified mine setups that are designed to resist mine plows. In this specific case, the mine is configured to detonate approximately 1.5 to 2 meters after encountering the plow.8/ As troops follow the narrow-cleared path, if the clearing tank is immobilized, it significantly hampers or even blocks the movement of the column. This situation presents a perfect opportunity for artillery to target and inflict damage on the immobilized or slowed-down forces.9/ Reinstalling mines after their detonation or removal by the enemy is a critical factor. This introduces an additional layer of complexity that the assaulting side must plan for, prepare, and counteract.10/ Insufficient preparation results in a reduction of mechanized firepower advantage in assaulting forces, shifting the battlefield dynamics to artillery duels and infantry assaults. This restricts and challenges maneuverability for the assaulting side.11/ In summary, the critical role of minefields and AT measures in limiting enemy maneuverability and impeding their mechanized forces from achieving a breakthrough is evident. However, the root cause of this failure lies in the absence of proper planning and bad intelligence.12/ Minefields add complexity, but with effective planning, they are not detrimental. If planners on the assaulting side fail to allocate resources properly, make incorrect decisions based on bad intel, or order assault despite insufficient resources, they are bound to fail.If you found this content valuable, please support by liking, retweeting or following. Your engagement enables me to provide more and better materials.
Lithuania has issued its 2023 national threat assessment. You can find the pdf at this link. Here’s an interesting tidbit highlighted by The Economist‘s Shashank Joshi:
Missed this from Lithuania's annual intel report: "We assess it is highly likely that China’s top political echelon had been notified that Russia would be resorting to military action against Ukraine…they could have predicted neither scale nor…course" https://t.co/1zY4wjAIP0 pic.twitter.com/Y97etemhhd
— Shashank Joshi (@shashj) July 17, 2023
I want to draw everyone’s attention to the series he was the editor for and a primary author of at The Economist on the future of war. It was published about ten days or so ago and every time I want to highlight it in an update something more pressing needs to be covered.
🧵 This week's @TheEconomist cover story is my ten-page special report on lessons from Ukraine. The cover evokes a key theme: the various technologies of precision warfare are likely to co-exist with—rather than supplant—legacy weapons, mass & attrition. https://t.co/PI2UmhvH7c pic.twitter.com/8bb6qQVBzO
— Shashank Joshi (@shashj) July 6, 2023
Here’s the link to the special report, I highly recommend taking the time to read some or all of it.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies has published a new assessment of Russian cyber operations during Russia’s genocidal re-invasion of Ukraine. Here’s the landing page, which describes the project as:
This installment of On Future War analyzes Russian cyber operations linked to the war in Ukraine. This study uses the publicly attributed record of Russian cyber operations in Ukraine to extrapolate insights about the character of cyber operations as instruments of warfighting and coercion in the twenty-first century. The empirical evidence demonstrates that while there has been an uptick in cyberattacks during the conflict, these attacks did not demonstrate an increase in severity, a shift in targets, or a shift in methods. Despite proclamations of doom, gloom, and a revolution in warfare, Russia behaved in a manner contrary to most popular expectations during the conflict. While cyber-enabled targeting at the tactical level is almost certain to occur alongside signals intelligence—a practice first documented in Ukraine in 2016—the prevailing trends suggest cyber operations have yet to make a material impact on the battlefield.[5] Where Russian cyber operations have made a difference is in their support to information operations and propaganda in the Global South, where Moscow has successfully spread disinformation to undermine support to Ukraine. Similar to earlier academic treatments that find cyber operations play a key role in shaping intelligence, deception, and political warfare, the Ukrainian case illustrates that the digital domain plays a shaping rather than decisive role even during extensive and existential combat.[6]
In addition to casting doubt on the cyber thunder run, the empirical record, especially when compared to previous Russian cyber operations, offers a baseline prediction about the future and how states will integrate cyber operations into a spectrum of conflict ranging from crises to major wars.[7] While the system could evolve and cyber operations might prove to be decisive instruments of war in the future, the record to date suggests alternatives for how this technology will be leveraged on the battlefield. Specifically, integrating the empirical record of cyber operations in Ukraine alongside well-established findings from the quantitative study of war suggests three scenarios.
- Cyber Stalemate: Russia struggles to integrate cyber and conventional effects on the battlefield and beyond due to the resilience of cyber defense as well as the power of public-private partnerships.
- War Comes Home: Russia regroups and launches a wave of cyberattacks against critical U.S. infrastructure.
- Digital Lies: Russian cyber-enabled influence operations and computational propaganda degrade support for the United States and the war in Ukraine.
Looking across these scenarios suggests key policy options—each consistent with active campaigning and integrated deterrence—the Biden administration could take over the next two years to shape what will likely be a long-term competition with Russia that extends deeper into the twenty-first century. Over time it has become clear that resilience and a focus on defensive operations can forestall the potential impact of offensive cyber operations. Defense in cyberspace requires expanding public-private partnerships and collaboration alongside pooled data to identify attack patterns and trends. Last, the United States and its partners will need to develop better ways and means for countering how malign actors such as Russia use cyberspace to distort global public opinion. For every failed network intrusion, there are thousands of successful social media posts skewing how the world looks at the war in Ukraine.
And here’s the links to the full report and the statistical appendix.
That’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
A new tweet!
Met @PatronDsns, a dog with a very important job – sniffing out bombs and saving lives. He’s become a symbol of bravery and resilience for Chernihiv @SESU_UA, and his animated series “Adventures of Patron” teaches mine safety to children. pic.twitter.com/6xMHVqS052
— Samantha Power (@PowerUSAID) July 17, 2023
Open thread!
Geminid
As is typical, Erdogan is holding his cards close to his vest. For now, he’s leaving negotiations in the hands of Hakan Fidan, his Foreign Minister while he shakes down Saudi Arabia for investments and Bayraktar contracts.
Hakan Fidan is no lightweight. A long time confidant of Erdogan, Fidan served a number of years as head of Turkiye’s intelligence agency before Erdogan made him Foreign Minister last month.
It seems like Erdogan’s Plan A is to jawbone Putin into rejoining the Grain Initiative. He said he might speak to Putin before Putin’s trip to Turkiye next month, to resolve the matter “if neccesary.”
Reports after Erdogan’s July 8 meeting with Zelensky said that Erdogan agreed to escort grain ships with the Turkish Navy (and Air Force) of Russia would not renew. Neither side has confirmed this. But if that is Erdogan’s Plan B, he probably won’t announce it until he gives the orders, and a convoy of empty ships sails leaves the waters near Istanbul under Turkish escort.
The sticking point there might be reluctant marine insurers. Ukraine’s parliament voted a couple months ago to set up a $500 million indemnity fund, and that might help.
The role played by Turkiye when Russia suspended the Initiative last November was very interesting. Russia announced a suspension of the deal after a sea drone attack on Sevastopol. They said Ukraine had exploited the shipping lanes protected by the deal to launch the attack.
Within 24 hours, a Turkiish official announced that the next convoy would sail. Erdogan told reporters that the continuation of the shipments was in Turkiye’s “vital interests,” and then his Defense Minister told reporters the same. The convoy sailed, and Russia rejoined the deal after a day or so of grumbling.
Alison Rose
I don’t have anything more coherent to say than just: I hate putin so fucking much and I really wish he would meet his maker as soon as possible. I know that wouldn’t end the war. I still want it. And I detest that someone could be so evil as to make my bleeding-heart self look forward to their demise.
From a FB post from Zelenskyy: The Ukrainian flag, although riddled with bullets, is alive, proud and free. And this means that every flag in Europe will be alive, proud and free.
Indeed.
Thank you as always, Adam.
MomSense
@Alison Rose:
Well said! I also hate him so fucking much.
I’m considering going as a counter protestor to the Friday night demonstration where a local peace group is promoting NATO as aggressor/expansionist BS. Trying to figure out what to put on my sign.
Anonymous At Work
South Africa is still trying to allow Putin to visit without violating treaties by arresting him. Younger Putin enjoyed these games but I gotta ask if current Putin, the one who survived Wagner without a ton of dignity, if he would let South Africa give him the green light and then “chicken out”. Call me crazy but that seems like an invitation for more mutinies in the longer run.
Also, about the South Africa BRIC talks, why is Brazil participating? Brazilian Trump, Bolsonaro, seemed hte type to eagerly talk with fascists, but now?
Chetan Murthy
@MomSense:
MomSense
@Chetan Murthy:
Ha! I was thinking Stop Russian War Crimes against Ukraine.
It’s crazy how this group has bought into Russian propaganda. Apparently Richard Armitage and others do regular zoom meetings where they bash NATO and push this crap.
YY_Sima Qian
I wonder if the Lithuanians have any specific intelligence, or is their assessment based on speculation by analysts in Western capitals. I think there is something of a consensus among Western analysts (& echoed by some Chinese analysts) that Putin might have told Xi in early Feb. ’22 that he would conduct some kind of military operation in Donbass (perhaps on par w/ ’14), but the Chinese leadership was caught completely off guard by the “SMO” being an all out invasion of Ukraine, including an attempt at a “thunder run” to Kyiv to collapse the Ukrainian government. Otherwise, the Chinese embassy would gave at least given a heightened alert to Chinese students & other nationals in Ukraine to take greater caution & stock up on supplies. Evacuation plans had to be drawn up on the fly at the last minute, once the invasion started.
Chetan Murthy
@MomSense: I’d take a page from NAFO: don’t try to argue against them: just insult and belittle them. Make them feel foolish and stupid.
MomSense
@Chetan Murthy:
Good point. I’m thinking that my audience is actually the people driving and walking by so I need to pick simple messages for them.
YY_Sima Qian
@Anonymous At Work: BRICS has been a Brazilian foreign policy priority since Lula’s 1st term. It is an important avenue for Brazil to advance its ambitions of foreign policy independence & tilting the international order away from Western preponderance toward the Global South (which Brazil, like India, sees itself as a leader of). Bolsonaro was the one that did not think much of BRICS, preferring the company of Trump. However, he was forced to sustain engagement w/ the organization by the government bureaucracy. China is by far the largest export market for Brazil, & a key source of inbound investment & source of technology (such as 5G infrastructure). Brazil is in BRICS because of China & Global South solidarity, not Russia. Russia has never been considered part of the Global South.
Sebastian
@Chetan Murthy:
This is the way. Yakkety Sax and Baby Shark on loop, too.
Alison Rose
@MomSense: How about “Go hold your protest in Bakhmut and then tell us how you feel”.
Andrya
@MomSense: My suggestion: “Surrender to genocide is not peace.”
Uncle Cosmo
@MomSense: How about a large headshot of Vova with a toothbrush mustache? Caption: LIAR, AGGRESSOR, MURDERER or something to that effect?
Sally
@Andrya: That’s great – for a sign could be shortened to “Genocide =/= Peace”
Gin & Tonic
I’m part way through “The Future of War” (I am a dead-tree subscriber of very long standing.) It’s worth picking up a physical copy if you can.
30 or so years ago, I read Manuel de Landa’s War in the Age of Intelligent Machines. May have to find it and open it up again to see how it’s held up.
Oh, and disjointedly, since The Economist was mentioned, this week’s edition has an obituary of the Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina, who was killed in the rocket attack on the pizzeria in Kramatorsk. Their obituaries are almost invariably works of art – here is a gift link to this one (but I don’t know how well their gift links work , as compared to WaPo or NYT gift links.)
Sally
@MomSense: Or “Fascism vs Democracy” with the former in the Ru flag colours, and the latter in the iconic blue and yellow. Or “Fascism vs Freedom”.
@Sally: Or “Fascism vs Democracy” .
oldster
@MomSense:
I’m partial to:
If Russia stops fighting, the war is over.
If Ukraine stops fighting, Ukraine is over.
Not mine, but it makes an important point.
YY_Sima Qian
@oldster: +1
WaterGirl
@MomSense: then this is perfect.
other good suggestions, too. Make 3 signs and see if you can get passers-by to join you.
Ruckus
@oldster: +1 as well.
I don’t think some people get that this is a lopsided war.
A slightly different take from another angle.
Russia is trying to steal another country.
Ukraine is trying to save their country.
Ixnay
@MomSense: as a mainer on the west coast, where is this happening? Good luck. Don’t Mainuhs know all the good Anglo Saxon swear words?
Bill Arnold
@Gin & Tonic:
Please let us know if you do.
Long-term tech forecasting is really really difficult.
In 2010, I bet a friend (bragging rights and a quarter dollar) that by 2023, an AI system would test at human level performance on a high stakes standardized test (GRE). GPT4 got there solidly, according to their paper at least, along with human-level results for some other standardized tests. (Intuition and projection on a few log-linear plots.)
Lyrebird
@Andrya:
Nice.
@MomSense:
I think your original plan is a great one.
I was trying to boil down something from the Italian PM, I think that is her title, where she was pointedly reminding people that an invasion is not peace. Andrya’s take was better than anything I had in mind. But yours is super!
Go MomSense!
Alison Rose
@Ruckus: I like this too.
Or maybe…
Ukrainians want russians to leave
russians want Ukrainians to die
Chetan Murthy
@Bill Arnold: I think all that this is showing, is something that has been said by many for a long time: standardized tests are a terrible way of measuring intelligence. Just as chess was. Just as Go was. Just as Scrabble was.
I have a better test: I’ll wait until an AI *passes* the entrance exam for Ecole Normale Superieure or Ecole Polytechnique (the top two unis in France). Those are “first-past-the-post” exams: the top N get in, and everybody else doesn’t. Those tests are *hard*, and require real problem-solving, real mathematics knowledge and ability to apply it, not just “set up the problem” or “memorize a ton”.
I took the SAT in 1981, and did well (the score isn’t relevant). When I took the GRE in 1986 (general + CS), my friend Bob and I both agreed that it was *easier* than the SAT.
Andrya
@Chetan Murthy: I firmly believe believe that human intelligence isn’t one thing, but multiple independent faculties. I have a relative who can pick up any language quickly and without effort (including the most difficult for English speakers): She speaks fluently (as well as English) Spanish, German, Dutch, Japanese, Turkish, and Kurdish, as well as moderate knowledge of Farsi and Arabic. I have always failed miserably at languages. On the other hand, I’m better at math than she is. Which of us is more intelligent? In my opinion that can’t be measured on a common scale. It’s like asking whether an inch or a degree Fahrenheit is bigger.
Chetan Murthy
@Andrya: I’d like to believe that language ability is an indicator of human-level intelligence. But the evident capabilities of Google Translate strain that belief. My belief is that the hallmark of human intelligence is real problem-solving, e.g. as exemplified by the scientific method.
But hey, we all have our beliefs.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chetan Murthy: Well, for the foreseeable future, A”I” remains a tool for humans, but actual intelligence. It can replace humans in repetitive & menial work LLMs can even “create” by recombining existing data that it has been trained on (which can also describe some aspects of human “creativity”), sometimes in surprising ways, but it cannot create anything truly new & unseen before. It cannot deal in the abstract.
That is why I am skeptical of A”I” “taking over” warfare any time soon. Any algorithm is only as good as the data it has been trained on, & “fog of war” means “garbage in” as training sets for A”I” algorithms. It can be very useful tools in specific applications, such as highly sophisticated pattern recognition.
Apparently, Israel has been using A”I” to assist w/ targeting recommendations against targets in Gaza, Lebanon & Syria, w/ man in the loop for final approval. However, I think Israel would be less trusting of relying upon algorithms if the adversary was peer level, & can generate far greater blow back against its actions.
Chetan Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian: Do you remember learning integral calculus? I remember it as learning a few rules, and then practicing them on a ton of examples (homeworks galore). What it *wasn’t* was reading thru the derivations of a million examples, and then trying to apply that memorized knowledge. That’s not how it worked. I know that “AI”s are doing the latter. But they can’t do the former. That is, take an LLM and show it the various basic rules of integration, and then, somehow, it figures out how to integrate. Heck, give it a ton of problems to solve, too. There’s a gap between an LLM and Macsyma/Mathematica, in that the latter have been programmed with those rules and strategies for applying them: the precise thing that humans can *learn* by practice, where the former has none of that.
Andrya
@Chetan Murthy: In 3-5 years, if we are both alive, and putin hasn’t nuked the world, and BJ still has a comments section, we should compare notes about how far AI has come with basic problem solving.
I can say this, that instructors in literature/history/social sciences at the community college where I teach have their hair on fire about students who buy AI generated papers- which do the type of problem solving lower division college students generally do.
Chetan Murthy
@Andrya: We most definitely should check our predictions against outcomes!
I remember in college, we all got “points for setting up the problem”. I think that that’s a great example of what “AI” will be good at.[1] Similarly, all these intermediate homeworks and such: those are going to go away, and be replaced with only a couple exams, conducted under proctoring, without access to LLMs. And the problems will be hard ones — really hard ones.
[1] someone wrote that LLMs aren’t good at answering questions; they’re good at producing something that resembles an answer. What an answer would look like.
Anoniminous
Given a three word sequence ChatGPT4 computes the statistically most likely fourth word, thus it is spewing Word Salad at the speed of electrons. Now add The Eliza Effect:
“the tendency to unconsciously assume computer behaviors are analogous to human behaviors; that is, anthropomorphisation.”
and here we are today.
Bill Arnold
@Chetan Murthy:
I saw one (tweet, perhaps) that was “Large language models give you information-shaped text, that can pass off as information. The text is not real information, except by accident.”
Chetan Murthy
@Bill Arnold: Ha! Also, courtesy of Sister Golden Bear, “ChatGPT is mansplaining-as-a-service”! Ha!
Andrya
@Chetan Murthy: One question that really interests me is whether AI simply “chops and remixes” work that already exists, or whether it is capable of coming up with radically new solutions to open-ended problems. Or questions that no one has yet posed.
For example: Gandhi’s insight that non-violent resistance could (under certain circumstances) defeat a far more powerful and well armed enemy. Special and general relativity (if they were not already known). Sir William Jones’ insight that Welsh, Greek, Latin, English, and Sanskrit were all branches of one language family, although seeming to be so different. Can AI not just find answers to questions already posed, but (far more important) pose the next important question?
Chetan Murthy
@Andrya: It’s the $100k question, isn’t it? On this a lot hinges. B/c one of the ways humans train to solve heretofore unsolved problems, is by solving already-solved problems for practice. If AI can do the latter (which I suspect it can, with a large-enough training-data-set) then that removes an important ladder for human expertise.
It’s like those articles that talk about how autopilots in commercial jets contribute to crashes, b/c with autopilots, pilots no longer get the day-in/day-out training and practice in flying a plane, so when the moment comes and they need to both fly an plane and problem-solve to avoid a crash, they just can’t do both at the same time …. and they make mistakes.
Jay
@MomSense:
Join the “Peace Group”.
Have a sign with photo’s from Bucha.
Large text saying “We Support Genocide”.
Chetan Murthy
@Jay: Bring along a couple of friends and start a cheering section for “Genocide!”
Chetan Murthy
@Jay: “2,4,6,8, who do we appreciate? PUTIN!”
Andrya
@Chetan Murthy: To be followed by:
“1, 3, 5, 9
Who thinks genocide is fine?
putin!”
Tim Ellis
I know there’s still a fair bit of info (and even more disinfo) flowing through Twitter, but I do expect it to continue declining in both quantity and reliability.
This article detailing the demise of InfoSec Twitter captures the general trend: https://www.cyentia.com/the-death-of-infosec-twitter/
Is there a general move towards one (or more) of the Twitter alternatives by UKR experts, commentators, and primary sources, and/or are there at least plans to have a backdrop in the event of continued destruction of Twitter by Elon and active disinfo measures?
Bill Arnold
@YY_Sima Qian:
A potential example seen today: geolocation of images has been a major feature of the information warfare parts of the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, and also has been often used for targeting of kinetic attacks. Here (not peer reviewed), a ML system performs at the level of the top 0.01 percent of humans at geolocating a random global google street view location. Presumably, a similar model could be trained for a particular theater, including images before and after war damage. (It would have to learn more local features. than in the paper.)
PIGEON: Predicting Image Geolocations (Extended Abstract(26 pages!), Lukas Haas, Michal Skreta, Silas Alberti, 13 July 2023)
Chetan Murthy
@Bill Arnold: [OK, so: completely uninformed conjecture]
I have to ask: what was it trained-on? B/c if it was trained-on ….Google Street View images, that would go some way to explaining how it works. Whereas actual OSINT is often geolocating images taken from places other than streets.
Dirk Reinecke
The DA (Democratic Alliance) has taken the ANC to court regarding the upcoming Putin visit.
It seems that Russia has threatened South Africa with war if Putin is arrested.
Friends don’t threathen their friends, but in the mind of the ANC the “west” is the enemey.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-07-18-arresting-putin-risks-engaging-in-war-with-russia-president-ramaphosa-warns-on-national-security/
Eolirin
@Chetan Murthy: Sure, but if it’s trained on theater data, which, one would think governments would be able to get very good high resolution sat info on, plus any other data sets they’d need, say, large scale scraping of geolocated social media posts, it really wouldn’t matter, would it?
That kind of pattern matching is basically a solved problem now. If there’s enough data available and there absolutely would be, the algos will do a very good job with it.
I think y’all are mostly being really silly around AI, especially if we’re going to look out another couple of decades. So still within many of our lifetimes. The shifts in AI methods and techniques in the last 20 years has been significant. I’m not sure why any of you think the limitations of today’s methods are determinant of much of anything. We’re not going to be relying on LLM as they exist now in 10 years.
And there’s nothing special about human intelligence. The only thing that’s going to get in the way of machine intelligence that’s capable of being able to problem solve or be fundamentally creative is going to be whether we allow it to be built or not, not whether we can figure out how to build it. We almost certainly will.
There may be some limitations on creativity if we don’t allow for robots to directly interact with the world, or to splinter off into individualized and distrinct entities with unique memories, for instance. But that’s also just an engineering problem to accomplish. Something, again, which we would have to choose not to do, rather than something we couldn’t do.
The fundamental limitation up to this point has been the hardware, which simply wasn’t powerful enough to do any of what we’ve been doing for the last decade. That’s no longer the primary limiting factor. We’re going to see a continued rapid innovation in techniques unless we run into hardware limitations again. I’m not sure we will this time.
YY_Sima Qian
Very sobering report, as a Twitter thread, from Franz-Stefan Gady, who has recently returned from an extensive visit to Ukrainian front line units. Look for more output from him, Rob Lee and Michael Kofman. He posits that Russian prepared defenses all along the front present enough of an obstacle that requires a high level of proficiency in combined arms & “deep battle” operations to overcome, & the Ukrainian military is not yet proficient enough. He guesses that it would be daunting for most NATO militaries, especially w/o air superiority. More & better equipment sooner will not solve the challenge by itself.
TheMightyTrowel
@Chetan Murthy: On the HASS (humanities arts and social sciences) side of things we’re actually not pivoting to exams but to a different sort of hard assessment: creative outputs. Unique projects and written/non-written coursework that doesn’t answer set questions but requires new material to be created. The basic end of that is producing a meme (using an established or new meme template) that critically engages with a given piece of course material. On a bigger scale, we’re seeing increasing uses of unessays and student learning portfolios which include both creative output and reflective writing that cannot be generalist. Aside from (waves hands) everything else going on, it’s a fun time to be a uni professor…
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Chetan Murthy: I do enough translation for my work, and use translation tools enough, to recognize that “AI” tools will all too often fail to understand the context, and lock onto one translation of a word when another is much more appropriate. I’ve had three AI tools give me three different definitions of a word, when digging into a dictionary and asking native speakers revealed that there was a fourth, correct answer.
“AI” tools can get you into the neighborhood – they can get you an approximation, but not a reliable one. If you rely on it, you’ll have results rather like that attorney who used ChatGPT to draft a legal filing, only for the filing to contain fabricated citations to non-existent cases (because ChatGPT is set up to make stuff that looks plausible, not for accuracy).
Sebastian
@Eolirin:
The problem we are running into is not hardware but availability of electric power.
Geminid
@Geminid: More news regarding Ukrainian grain exports, from Polish commentator Visegrad 24:
Reports are that Kaliber missiles launched from the Black Sea inflicted the most damage.
Wheat prices jumped when the Russia renounced the Black Sea Grain Initiative July 17. They are still below the price six months ago because of good world supplies overall, but that could change a lot if the hiatus in Ukrainian Black Sea shipments runs into next month.
Meanwhile, port facilities at Odesa will need some rebuilding, and maybe some more protection.
Carlo Graziani
@Eolirin: This is a subject of some considerable professional interest for me, and I’ve come to a number of conclusions starting from the applied math end of things that are a bit contrarian when viewed from the computer science perspective.
In my view, deep learning is nothing like reasoning, and for foundational reasons will never emulate reasoning, despite superficially impressive party tricks like GPT-4.
The reason is that all such systems can be viewed as a composite of a data distribution approximator coupled to a decision engine. Training tunes the approximation to the distribution while optimizing the decisions to be made at inference time based on that distribution. The problem is that DL architectures are unable to recognize when an inference is requested “out of training sample”, that is, with a query that lies in a region of data space that was not covered by the training data. Under these conditions, DL systems give wildly inaccurate (basically random) responses, with high confidence. There is a boundary between sense and bullshit, determined by the shape of the training data, that these architectures are unable to discern.
When it comes to LLMs, which operate on complex sequence data (as opposed to the high-dimensional vectors treated by, say classifiers) that boundary is essentially fractal—there is bullshit only a slight prompt perturbation away from every prompt yielding sense. And ChatGPT cannot tell the difference—only a person acquainted with the subject matter can. This is a feature that is built-in to tge foundational structure of the entire approach to AI that has produced all the progress of the past 15 years. Deep Learning just is this way. There are certainly going to be AI schemes in the future that can emulate reasoning, but I am morally certain that they will require abandoning the DL paradigm.
The Pale Scot
@MomSense:
GO BACK TO RUSSIA U FILTHY VATNICKS
HOW DOES PUTIN’S DICK TASTE?
OH LOOK, THE IDIOT’S BRIGADE IS HERE
Chris
@Dirk Reinecke:
Okay, that’s hilarious.
Unless they’re planning to use nuclear weapons, what the fuck does Russia think they could do to South Africa? They can’t even walk across their own border with Ukraine. Now they’re going to try invading someone who not only has their own not insubstantial arsenal, military record, and industrial capabilities, but is sitting a continent and a half away from them? Oh please, don’t throw them into that briar patch.
Chris
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
If translation is any indication, AI mostly means creating a half-assed version of the original text and then assigning a human to go through it and correct all the AI’s mistakes, which turns out to be just about as long and difficult and requires just as strong a command of two languages as if you were translating the damn thing in the first place, but allows the bosses to pay you a lot less because you didn’t “really” translate the text “yourself,” you just did some “light” “editing” after the “real” translator.
Which as near as I can tell remains the only purpose of AI, or at least the only purpose the powers-that-be are really interested in using it for: a rhetorical argument that justifies screwing their employees some more.
Miss Bianca
@MomSense: Richard Armitage? That’s disappointing.
Geminid
@Chris: Now I read that Putin has reached an “understanding” with South Africa that he will not attend the BRICS summit in person.
Putin may still visit Turkiye next month. At least, Turkish President Erdogan says he will. That will generate a lot of outrage, but the stubborn Erdogan doen’t care what foreigners say. I willl be interested in Ukraine’s reaction.
MomSense
@Miss Bianca:
Not the handsome actor one, the Deputy SoS under Powell.