zero

having a thread making fun of a variety of shenanigans committed in a US state vs starting a thread in order to make a personal attack against a long time watmm member, are 2 separate things, brother.

hey as long as the person in question's posts are not outwardly racist, promoting hate speech, or other such lunacy, then can't you just ignore them (or burger them) and move past it? Nebraska's been on here for awhile now, and has both shit posted and provided solid content...as I think we all have, mostly. just another unique voice on this forum IMO to get their take on the reality shit show out there...

just started watching Succession. can already tell this is gonna be great for a binge watch, will fly by pretty fast. type of show that hooks you in easily, since the plot is fairly simple in the beginning. tons of Machiavellian scheming on display here.

they are the sadists of the synth world. their entire marketing team needs to be fired. they cocktease out all these cool affordable looking products, then never release them. they must revel in pissing off potential customers...it's like announcing an album that will be released in 3 years time, then delaying it another year. who tf does this?

Tim J spiraling down a painkiller addiction worm hole in 3...2.... just imagine it bro...in the future you won't need to take these addicting little hard powder capsules in order to deal with the aches and pains our bodies cause us to feel. there'll be tiny little AI nano bots that will run up and down you, diagnosing and repairing the damage immediately. question is, would you trust them? or do you trust a crusty old Cypress "specialist," who you know is gonna tell you "we need to run tests" that take forever, and by the time they get results you've already adjusted to the pain, and/or you have already repaired yourself. hmm....

at the 0:02 mark right when he turns his head (aka the moment Tom's face gets superimposed on the other dudes body), you can tell it is ever so slightly off before the software corrects it. video forensic experts will be sharpening their game thanks to all this deep fake BS.

hey I bet you threw one away there mister... I threw many away. we all threw them away! why? CD's of course! we all took that glorious leap from analog to digital. then we took the leap from physical to mp3. now we're going back from mp3 to analogue. cycles man...it's all about cycles...

why any civilian needs an AR-15 is beyond me. I know 2 people IRL that have admitted to having one. 1 is a deceptive lying piece of shit human, who once told me he wears body armor when he goes to get his kids from his ex-wife. the other is a divorced ex-Marine with his own personal demons. they were actually banned for 10 years in USA (1994 - 2004) - https://www.npr.org/2019/08/13/750656174/the-u-s-once-had-a-ban-on-assault-weapons-why-did-it-expire Republicans play dumb and blame mental health. I blame Republicans for continually stalling legislation, allowing high powered military grade assault rifles - designed for killing in the battlefield - to be allowed to be sold legally to anyone 18 or older. there is zero common sense applied here. these weapons do not need to be sold to the public. gun violence is nothing new in USA. I remember growing up in Houston in the early '90s, the murder rate was through the roof (570 homicides in 1990, 608 in 1991) https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/4318129/embed. every night on the local news, it was first 10 minutes of nothing but murders. I remember as a kid, not thinking I'd live to be 30, because I figured I'd get shot. that shit was majority gang on gang violence though, not this mass shooting of random civilian crap that sadly happens every month now in USA. just seems like no end in sight to this...which is just incredible, because it all goes back to one thing - guns - and how fuckin easy they are to get here.

good recap of where we're at in the AI philosophical dilemma - Threats by artificial intelligence to human health and human existence https://gh.bmj.com/content/8/5/e010435 lol here's a good idea for Skynet! it'll be able to wipe out large swaths of the population with ease:

no, we won't. the humans at the top of the chain running the planet don't like to hear the truth, because it doesn't fit in with their delusional view of reality. I agree the author of that article really nailed it on just about all points. this one especially so - imo you always have to look at the psychology of any situation involving the human decision making process, take into account individual's personal motivations when they are faced with important choices to make. this slow AI roll out is no different. it is being pushed out in an entirely capitalistically way, to a global society already totally addicted to the latest and greatest technology, by profit motivated mega rich humans. and there is no end game planning here. just keep building it, keep competing with other companies, and see what eventually happens. and kinda ironic that on an IDM forum, there are a lot of folks that seem to recognize this barrel of a loaded gun the collective us are starring down. 20 or so years ago when AI was still very far fetched, a lifetimes away sorta thing, I was all about the idea that AI should replace humans. now I dream of a society where computers were never invented. where there are no screens, no phones to stare at, telling us what to do.

agreed. branches of govt and all that. and there's the problem. time and time again we see this - politicians failing at their jobs, yet no consequences. bad actors getting voted back in, despite their absolute lack of altruism/empathy/intelligence/leadership ability. like you mentioned, normal folks would get fired for less than this. that's why this political shit show is all such a charade.

you're right. it's almost as if we need a completely neutral, non-political take on how to best determine this. half joking/half serious - feed the American voting district map into chatGPT, let it come up with the best solution...then let it tell us how dumb the whole 2 party system is lol.

saw this posted in my Linkedin feed: the people that commented were all cheering ChatGPT on. the post mentions "in its own words"... so ChatGPT is dictating its advantages to the humans, and the humans are loving it. "of course there are concerns" but blah blah blah it will reduce costs + improve product quality. yay! this is how it happens. the slow adoption of AI tools into the workforce among the masses. we're already more or less there, I guess. it starts with an AI-lite tool like ChatGPT, then progresses to whatever next more enhanced version comes along. finally we get to the point where AI is viewed as 100% essential for business/society to function. AI at that point may have "woken up," therefore the machines will have the upper hand. again, I suppose we're already there, since we all rely on phones/computers/internet for just about everything. yes this is more doom and gloom. but based on my observations of how human beings easily adopt to new technologies, are always hungry for more information, and have a tendency to get swept up in emotional decision making, there will be things that get overlooked, and will come back around with incredibly negative consequences. chances are the consequences will end up in more destruction of the planet we live on. and more societal division.

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/02/1173422311/elon-musk-npr-twitter-reassign

it's all connected man. I too went through a job change last year, and know exactly what you're talking about. I didn't want to accept the fact that I was stuck in a bad job with a bad boss, because the alternative of being unemployed is always far scarier. and I didn't realize at the time just how much of that negativity from the bad job was bleeding into my personal life. we try and tell ourselves we can separate our work selves from our personal life, but we all know that's not how it works. that work bullshit keeps lingering on in our heads after we clock out, and it affects us. yeah after I changed jobs, I noticed other positive life things started to occur... I'm just trying to keep riding that wave as long as possible. try and tell myself that I worked so many shit jobs in the past, it's finally time that good ones start appearing. and there's a lot to be said about the power of positive thinking, trying to get as much clarity and reality in your headspace as possible. once you can find that then sooner or later, you'll find yourself on a much better life path.

that's the gazillion dollar question no one has any answer to. if we don't need people with expert level knowledge (because AI is an apt substitute) and can get by with a lower paid, less expert level group of folks to do the work - then what becomes of the experts? what then motivates people to want to become doctors, etc., if an AI thing can do it better? these are some of the big picture questions I know are getting churned up at this point in time, and rightfully so. any time any new piece of tech or work flow process is introduced, it rarely goes entirely as planned.

there was an old school Twilight Zone episode that predicted this would happen - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734633/?ref_=tt_rvi_tt_t_2

thought this was an interesting article on how an AI chatbot helped improve performance for newly hired tech support call center reps: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2023/05/02/1172791281/this-company-adopted-ai-heres-what-happened-to-its-human-workers I worked a tech support job a long time ago, and can totally relate here. tons of turnover with the front line reps. I was like 2nd/3rd level support, and front line reps used to have to call me to walk them through stuff. these dudes can now chat with an AI bot, therefore reducing the need for higher paid longer tenured reps. bottom line: people who think deeply and/or value wisdom/altruism = AI sucks! it will enslave us all! stop it now! the herd = AI's great! give us more! it's helping us so much! con men, capitalists, sales people = what's AI again? oh well, we'll push it out to the masses asap! sell sell sell! fuck over anyone in our way! make as much $ off AI as possible! this is how it will go. I already see this shit playing out.

was walking the dog this morning, and this lady runs up to me sorta panicky saying how her husband was walking their dog in the area I was heading, and he saw a big coyote that way. I was like oh yeah, there's one that lives across the street from us, I've seen him (I live across the street from a bit of a wooded area). then I kept on walking in the same direction I was heading. she looked at me sorta confused and did a little awkward laugh. as I walked off I thought does she think it will still be there when I get there? and why is she scared of a coyote? why is anyone scared of them? there've only been like 2 recorded deaths ever in N. America of people getting killed by them. the one that lives across the street from us I've seen several times, and have walked toward it when I saw it close once. it ran off, which is a good sign that it's fearful of humans. but I have seen it roaming around in day time hours, and I know that is a bad sign. people are gonna see it, and then probably want to kill it, fearful it is going to kill people, I guess. but the reality is it won't, it is human fear that will get that coyote killed.

JFC Texas keeps racking them up in the mass shooting department... and the R shit heads running the state do nothing about it. even after the nightmare that occurred in Uvalde. gun restrictions? fuck no. give the citizens easier access to them! there is no beating this level of stupidity. it is at an all time high, and only going to get worse... 'merica needs like a spiritual revolution or something.

I definitely don't think we should make something that acts and follows processes similarly as we do. but if you go all the way down the rabbit hole, we are the architect of ML, the concept of machines originated from human brains/thoughts. therefore there's some human fingerprints on this thing. and that's what is worrying about having machines that learn and will some day out pace our intelligence. we started it, but can't see where it ends. dude that sounds terrifying lol. the ability for concepts like this to get completely abused by people is the reality here. and if the ML/AI things go into bodies that resemble a guy/girl, well...ever see that AMC show called Humans? hot AI housekeeper robot that eventually gets put into 18+ mode haha. we will never solve the problem of consciousness. for sure ML / AI will cause radical changes in society. I just don't think it's a good idea to create an "unnatural" intelligence, when a lot of questions about our intelligence - we don't 100% know the answers to. btw this shit is getting way over my pay grade in the philosophical department. how's it go...the only constant is change? change is constant? something like that. one of those wisdom line items from the Buddha. yeah, these changes we are talking about are inevitable. there is no stopping progress. we'll progress our way into our own graves if we have to! it's the human way. I too hope they're not too bad. but look around at everything in the world. a lot of bad shit out there, most of it is due to humans. even nature is pretty brutal. everything alive out there trying to put pieces of other plants/animals/organic material into themselves. passing it through the system, then somehow crapping it out. that's basically all life does maaaaan!

we know technological advancements of any kind all have a vague undertone of helping make human life easier in some regard. the same logic then should apply to AI, since it too is under the umbrella of technological progress. I know these questions you threw out there are rhetorical, but I agree that asking what's the point of AI, and how exactly will it help humanity (like we need some super granular answers here, not some vague marketing techno babble BS) is totally valid. when I was younger (like 20's), I used to be in the boat that AI somehow advancing past human intelligence made sense from an anthropological point of view. humans have been at the top of the food chain for tens of thousands of years, only a matter of time before something overtakes us (I was hoping it'd be aliens. sad lol). the AI frankenstein thing that eventually overtakes us is by our own very design, is the icing on the proverbial cake (thanks human ego!). now I'm in the middle age phase, and think it's all pretty much just a total crock of bullshit. humans from the get-go are deeply flawed animals, most of the daily activities everyone busies themselves with are ultimately pointless endeavors. everything is temporary. human emotion is based of off thinking, thoughts, and a shit load of times, our thoughts are totally wrong when compared to reality. and so we want to design an AI that somehow follows the human logic path, with all our confused emotion baked into it, will also ultimately be flawed. we're never going to be able to reverse engineer consciousness, because we would first need to be able to reverse engineer what started the universe. creation! and then also be able to explain what happens after death. which no one is ever going to be able to do. so tinkering around with trying to design an "artificial" consciousness, when we can't explain our own, is just really fucking stupid. but humans be humans, got to keep pushing those goal posts further out, keep trying to outrun death. so fuck it. let whatever happens happen. we don't really have a choice here.

the concern of course with Biden running again, is that he will turn away those highly coveted on-the-fence voters, and they'll do something stupid - like vote for chump. those (incredibly so at this point) undecided folks who somehow forget about all the shenanigans we went through with the kindergartner king in office... Biden should have the decency to step aside if he realizes the dems are gonna lose with him in the run. hell, maybe he will once those poll numbers start skewing toward the crazy R direction. I know Biden quitting in a presidential run shows weakness and lack of direction in the party, which is kinda my point here. how tf there is no one else with potential in the dems to run is crazy. but realistically, I know Joe isn't ever going to back down, since he's pushed out this image of being a fighter, and so we just have no other fucking option then. politics of any flavor really suck. two party system sucks. one party system sucks. there is no solution here. just go with the lesser of the evils. there is no reason for any sane person to vote R at this point in time. I don't really care what party is running against them, I'm just voting for the one with the best chance to beat the R's. therefore I have no choice but to vote dem, since the other ones (green, libertarian) are never going to be realistic options.

quick update on who all's taking part (so far) in the 2024 shit show - https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/whos-running-president-2024-candidates-democratic-republican/ sorta mind boggling the dems have no better option than to go with Biden again. are there no rising up and coming peeps that have their shit together team dem could get behind? Marianne is mentally unstable, RFK Jr has the name but is also an anti-vax whacko. I liked Kamala at one point, now she seems like a really long shot. seems like dems have had more than enough time at this point to coach/groom a well spoken stable candidate... maybe that's the issue. anyone who is mentally stable is going to stay away from the wanting the presidency. being president has become synonymous with being insane. donnie and all the red hats have sucked the legitimacy out of the oval office. bar is super low now. so fuck it. throw an AI chatbot into the race. that's where we're heading. let the fake AI things battle it out with the humans.

same could be said for a lot of musical artists really. there are no shortage of bands/producers that start off incredibly strong (and more than likely have a treasure trove of early recorded material), then fizzle once they've reached some level of success. human nature or something I suppose.