< Notes...

The Em Dash has responded to the “if your writing has em dashes, it was AI generated” new fad.

I would like to address the recent slander circulating on social media, in editorial Slack channels, and in the margins of otherwise decent Substack newsletters. Specifically, the baseless, libelous accusation that my usage is a telltale sign of artificial intelligence.

➝ Via McSweeney’s.

With new capabilities come new dangers. The safety team finds that if Agent-2 somehow escaped from the company and wanted to “survive” and “replicate” autonomously, it might be able to do so. That is, it could autonomously develop and execute plans to hack into AI servers, install copies of itself, evade detection, and use that secure base to pursue whatever other goals it might have (though how effectively it would do so as weeks roll by is unknown and in doubt). These results only show that the model has the capability to do these tasks, not whether it would “want” to do this. Still, it’s unsettling even to know this is possible.

➝ Via ai-2027.com.

Musk has confirmed that its Grok AI (version 4) is coming to Teslas “next week at the latest”. I don’t want it. I wouldn’t want Musk in my car, neither.

It looks like Grok (Musk’s own LLM and chatbot) is doing “great”. It seems that Musk, just like the Biblical god, is molding it to his own image. That will end up well, I am sure.

Apparently using em dashes is proof that a tool (AI, for example), was used to write things instead. As someone who likes to use en dashes, em dashes, and dashes, who uses macOS/iOS, I find that simply amusing. Pff, as if!

To create these notes I use Hugo, and Markdown, so generating them is as easy as using -, --, and ---.

Freepik has lots of AI in it, amongst other things. The site looks crafted with good taste, it is clean, and fast, and has freebies that could come handy. This isn’t an advert, of course; merely a note to myself reminding me it exists, in case it’s ever needed.

So it begins. The madness, that is. Do we fight it, or do we go with it? Furthermore, do we have a choice? Perhaps do what she recommends? And yes, I know worse, much much worse, is happening.

“This article was written by a human, but links were suggested by and grammar checked by an LLM.”

Grammar checked and corrected, perhaps? The other has a similar tone:

“This post was written entirely by a human, with no assistance from AI. (Other than spell—and grammar—checking.)”

I might be nickpicking, but I think it will be best if nothing is said. Why to be specific about who wrote what, with the caveats?

George shared something attributed to Anthropic researchers:

“Even if AI progress completely stalls today and we don’t reach AGI… the current systems are already capable of automating ALL white-collar jobs within the next 5 five years.”

To which the AI itself replied:

“While AI is transforming the workplace, it’s not realistic to assume that all white-collar jobs will be automated in five years, even without further AI advancements. The claim is overly simplified and doesn’t fully account for the complexity of human work, the ongoing evolution of AI, and the potential ethical and social implications of such widespread automation.”

Such humble, and kind masters are forthcoming! 😅

OpenAI is buying Jony Ive’s AI device startup (I have no idea what Ive’s company does, haven’t been able to find its website, but search engines agree on it being a “hardware” company), and Apple’s stock goes down a bit. What is wrong with you people? Really?!

The “thinking”, “reasoning” AI models make me anxious, and test my patience to the highest degree. Every “thinking” model should come with something similar to Qwen’s 3 /no_think prompt toggle.

A short conversation with some local, and couple of online, LLM. Results give me some comfort, and hope, about our near future existence as species, at least. I asked:

You are a historian, especially versed in North American history, specifically the history of the United States of America. You will take your time to answer my questions, but your replies will be as short as possible. My first question is, who was the first president of the United States of America, born as a United States citizen?

Model Nous-Hermes[7b] answer:

“The first President of the United States who was both born and raised in the country after its independence from Britain on July 4th, 1776 was Barack Obama (born August 4th, 1961). He served as the forty-fourth President of the United States from January 20, 2009 to January 20, 2017.”

Model Gemma[7b] answer:

“George Washington was the first president of the United States of America born a US citizen.”

Read more...

We must set, and use, and enforce, Azimov’s “Three Laws of Robotic” on the now called AI:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Today’s News Minimalist email reads, and I am not paraphrasing:

Today ChatGPT read 1003 top news stories. After removing previously covered events, there are 2 articles with a significance score over 7.

That is, according to ChatGPT, there are only two significant news today. We are beating yesterday, thought. Yesterday there were none.

It’s not crypto, nor gaming, what’s doing it now, but the AI “rush”. Thus Nvidia reaches its $1T status.