Monday, December 23, 2024

Friday, December 20, 2024

Leslie Groves

"General Leslie Groves, Bringer of the Bomb"

AI "Granny" to Tie Up Phone Scammers

"A phone company developed an AI 'granny' to beat scammers at their own game"

Thursday, December 19, 2024

Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Use End-To-End Encryption

"Why the U.S. government is saying all citizens should use end-to-end encrypted messaging"

Confused Waymo

"Empty Waymo Robotaxi Loops Roundabout 37 Times As If It Was Stuck In Logic Loop"

Monday, December 16, 2024

Beware "Total App Reliance"

"'Nightmare' Zipcar outage is a warning against complete app dependency"

Math Update: Moving Sofa Problem

"The open problem -- the 'moving sofa problem' -- has possibly just been solved!"


Thursday, December 12, 2024

Redaction Failure

"Avoid Super-Embarrassing Redaction Failures"

I have often run across documents written by lawyers that looked redacted—but all the supposedly secret information in them could be extracted with literally three keystrokes (ctrl-A, ctrl-C, ctrl-V). One was a court filing that was filed pursuant to a court order authorizing the redaction; but the material so carefully marked secret proved not to be secret at all.

AI Jesus Is Popular

"'AI Jesus' avatar tests man's faith in machines and the divine"

“What was really interesting (was) to see that the people really talked with him in a serious way. They didn’t come to make jokes,” said chapel theologian Marco Schmid, who spearheaded the project. Most visitors were aged 40 to 70, and more Catholics respondents found the experience stimulating than did Protestants, the report showed.

Schmid was quick to point out that the “AI Jesus” – billed as a “Jesus-like” persona – was an artistic experiment to get people thinking about the intersection between the digital and the divine, not substitute for human interaction or sacramental confessions with a priest, nor was it intended to save pastoral resources.

“For the people it was clear that it was a computer ... It was clear it was not a confession,” Schmid said. “He wasn’t programmed to give absolutions or prayers. At the end, it was more summary of the conversation.”

 

Wednesday, December 11, 2024

Aaronson On Willow

Scott Aaronson: "The Google Willow thing"

WaPo Panel On The Future Of AI

"The Futurist: The Age of AI"

Today you'll hear from tech executives and AI experts who are studying these trends. First, Shyam Sankar, the chief technology officer and executive vice president of Palantir, will discuss America's technological edge on the battlefield. Then Kweilin Ellingrud, the director of the McKinsey Global Institute, and Conor Grennan, the chief AI Architect at the NY Stern School of Business, will discuss how artificial intelligence is already impacting productivity and the economy. And finally, Cristóbal Valenzuela, the co-founder and CEO of Runway, will talk about how generative AI is reshaping the media and entertainment industry today...