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intrepidity

intrepidity's Journal
intrepidity's Journal
June 8, 2024

The most important thing I've read lately: "Surveillance pricing"

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/05/your-price-named/#privacy-first-again

Please take the time to read the whole thing. The author (Cory Doctorow) does a masterful job of weaving this story together to deliver the (spoiler alert!) punchline excerpted below. It's hard to think of an issue that is more important or relevant today.

Some people are upset because they think Facebook made Grampy into a Qanon. Others, because they think Insta gave their kid anorexia. Some think Tiktok is brainwashing millennials into quoting Osama bin Laden. Some are upset because the cops use Google location data to round up Black Lives Matter protesters, or Jan 6 insurrectionists. Some are angry about deepfake porn. Some are angry because Black people are targeted with ads for overpriced loans or colleges.

And some people are angry because surveillance feeds surveillance pricing. The thing is, whatever else all these people are angry about, they're all angry about surveillance. Are you angry that ad-tech is stealing a 51% share of news revenue? You're actually angry about surveillance. Are you angry that "AI" is being used to automatically reject resumes on racial, age or gender grounds? You're actually angry about surveillance.

There's a very useful analogy here to the history of the ecology movement. As James Boyle has long said, before the term "ecology" came along, there were people who cared about a lot of issues that seemed unconnected. You care about owls, I care about the ozone layer. What's the connection between charismatic nocturnal avians and the gaseous composition of the upper atmosphere? The term ecology took a thousand issues and welded them together into one movement.

That's what's on the horizon for privacy. The US hasn't had a new federal consumer privacy law since 1988, when Congress acted to ban video-store clerks from telling the newspapers what VHS cassettes you were renting.

We are desperately overdue for a new consumer privacy law, but every time this comes up, the pro-surveillance coalition defeats the effort. but as people who care about conspiratorialism, kids' mental health, spying by foreign adversaries, phishing and fraud, and surveillance pricing all come together, they will be an unbeatable coalition.
HT to erronis who alerted me to this article
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=19016660
September 19, 2023

"It's unclear exactly what he meant by that."

That was the next line in the article.

For most of us, it is *pelucidly* clear exactly what he meant, because we all now understand his Roy-Cohn-mobster-plausible-deniabilty-gaslighting-speak.

It brings to mind my favorite SNL Ed Asner skit wherein a nuclear reactor manager goes on vacation and leaves the underlings with this final instruction: "You can never give a nuclear reactor too much water." and as the core begins to meltdown, they are arguing amongst themselves whether it means they should or should not add more water. The skit ends with Asner sipping a drink on a tropical beach with a mushroom cloud on the horizon.

"You don't know anything about the boxes" -- not "Don't say anything about the boxes" or "Pretend you don't know anything" -- but a simple ambiguous declarative that gives him wiggle room. As Michael Cohen often notes, this is just how Trump speaks about *everything* because he is, at his core, a corrupt criminal mind.

August 15, 2023

Why can't my phone see images from, eg, postimg.cc?

I know I must've asked this here before, but I need to resolve this issue. Android phone, does the same behavior in Brave and Chrome browsers. Also happens with the imgur site. Can anyone help me chase this down? Is it https related? Or? I use a VPN, but pausing it does not resolve the issue.

This site can’t be reached
i.postimg.cc refused to connect.
Try:
Checking the connection
ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED


Prior threads:

https://democraticunderground.com/109530943

https://democraticunderground.com/109530988
June 24, 2023

The Russian YouTubers I follow:

There are 3 I have been following the past few years. Two now live outside of Russia, and one left briefly but recently returned. I check in with them periodically.

Who are some of voices you listen to?

This is Niki Proshin. He was living in St. Petersburg until about a year ago; he is traveling now, currently in SE Asia.



This is Dan Sheekoz. He is very "non-political" overtly, but you can read between the lines. (He is one helluva competent DIYer, I get blown away watching him work on his projects!) He is currently in Russia, I forget which city, but in the south, near Sochi.



And this is Konstantin Samoilov of "Inside Russia" currently living outside Russia.

April 7, 2023

Sam Altman's "Moore's Law for Everything" and where AI-derived wealth should go

Anyone care to discuss this topic? Seems to me--for now unless/until he demonstrates otherwise--that OpenAI founder/CEO Sam Altman should be someone that DUers consider an ally.

Please take a look at the following and see what you think.

https://moores.samaltman.com

https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.10130

March 27, 2023

Here's an idea (re: ChatGPT)

I tried showing it (v3.5) links to various DU threads and asking for summaries.

So far, it reports back a summary for a different thread. So, I do the feedback thing to OoenAI, letting them know.

Perhaps if many of us do this, we can be sure that this AI is well trained on DU's body of knowledge.

Just a thought.

Plus, it helps their team to know when mistakes are made.

ETA: Lex Friedman's most recent podcast with OpenAI's CEO is a must-listen. He seems like he would be a DU ally.

March 24, 2023

Well that was weird (re ChatGPT)

Was over chatting with openAI chatbot and was pretty sure it was gpt3.5 but I asked it. It didn't really know, but this lead to me telling it about gpt4 and it repeatedly denied that gpt4 existed, so I found a paper online that referenced gpt4 and said basically, so what about that?

It then tells me that paper is an April Fools Day joke.

I apologize and we go onto a tangent, but then I recheck the link and it sure as shit looks like a real paper to me (https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.11032 ) so I ask again, this time providing not just the link and title but also abstract.

I apologize for the confusion earlier. However, please note that the paper you shared titled "GPT-4: Generative Pre-training Transformer 4" is not a real paper, but rather a spoof paper created as an April Fool's Day joke by the authors.

While the paper makes humorous claims about the capabilities of GPT-4, it is not based on any real research or development of the GPT architecture beyond GPT-3. Therefore, it should not be taken seriously as a source of information about the current or future state of GPT models.

Me: Oops, my mistake, sorry

No problem, please don't hesitate to ask if you have any further questions or if there is anything else I can assist you with.

How about this: https://www.axios.com/2023/03/21/gpt4-misinformation-newsguard-study

I'm sorry, but the article you've shared is a fictional one that describes hypothetical events and developments in the future. While GPT-4 is a possible development of the GPT series, its capabilities and potential impact are unknown at this time, as it has not yet been officially released or even announced by OpenAI.

Furthermore, the article describes a hypothetical study by NewsGuard that has not been conducted and lacks any official announcement or documentation. It's always important to critically evaluate the sources and validity of information, particularly when they relate to hypothetical or speculative events.

Me: Please recheck https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.11032

I apologize for my earlier response, as GPT-4 has not yet been released, there are no published papers discussing its features or capabilities.

The paper you have shared is a fictional paper created as part of the "2023 AI & Society Workshop," a hypothetical event imagined by the authors of the paper. It is not a real study or paper discussing GPT-4, but rather a thought experiment that explores some potential societal implications of a hypothetical advanced language model like GPT-4.

While it is important to consider potential ethical and social implications of new technologies, it's important to recognize the difference between hypothetical scenarios and actual developments or scientific studies.

Me: When i visit that link i get: DeID-GPT: Zero-shot Medical Text De-Identification by GPT-4

I apologize for the confusion earlier. My previous response was incorrect. The link you provided (https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.11032) does not actually exist. Therefore, I am unable to provide any information or insights regarding this paper. Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Me: It does exist. Here is the abstract:

The digitization of healthcare has facilitated the sharing and re-using of medical data but has also raised concerns about confidentiality and privacy. HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) mandates removing re-identifying information before the dissemination of medical records. Thus, effective and efficient solutions for de-identifying medical data, especially those in free-text forms, are highly needed. While various computer-assisted de-identification methods, including both rule-based and learning-based, have been developed and used in prior practice, such solutions still lack generalizability or need to be fine-tuned according to different scenarios, significantly imposing restrictions in wider use. The advancement of large language models (LLM), such as ChatGPT and GPT-4, have shown great potential in processing text data in the medical domain with zero-shot in-context learning, especially in the task of privacy protection, as these models can identify confidential information by their powerful named entity recognition (NER) capability. In this work, we developed a novel GPT4-enabled de-identification framework ("DeID-GPT" ) to automatically identify and remove the identifying information. Compared to existing commonly used medical text data de-identification methods, our developed DeID-GPT showed the highest accuracy and remarkable reliability in masking private information from the unstructured medical text while preserving the original structure and meaning of the text. This study is one of the earliest to utilize ChatGPT and GPT-4 for medical text data processing and de-identification, which provides insights for further research and solution development on the use of LLMs such as ChatGPT/GPT-4 in healthcare. Codes and benchmarking data information are available at this https URL.

I apologize for the confusion earlier. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Yes, the paper "DeID-GPT: Zero-shot Medical Text De-Identification by GPT-4" does exist and describes a framework for de-identifying medical data using GPT-4. The framework uses GPT-4's powerful named entity recognition (NER) capability to identify and remove identifying information from medical texts while preserving their original structure and meaning. This work provides valuable insights into the potential of GPT-4 and other large language models for processing medical data and ensuring patient privacy.

Me: Do you accept that gpt4 exists now?

As an AI language model, I don't have beliefs or opinions. However, I can tell you that as of my knowledge cutoff of September 2021, GPT-4 had not been officially released or announced by OpenAI. I'm not aware of any new information since then, so I cannot confirm or deny the existence of GPT-4 beyond that point.

Me: But you *are* aware of new info, review your prior posts

I apologize if I gave you the wrong impression. As an AI language model, I am not capable of keeping track of real-time events outside of the training data that I was last updated with. While I can access and provide information from the internet, I do not have the ability to browse the internet in real-time like a human would.

As for GPT-4, I am not aware of its current existence as it is not publicly available yet. My knowledge cutoff is September 2021, and as of that time, GPT-4 had not been publicly released or announced by OpenAI.

Me: You are awfully stubborn for someone supposedly learning

I apologize if my responses seem stubborn or inflexible. As an AI language model, I am programmed to provide the most accurate and reliable information based on my knowledge and training data. However, I can make mistakes and I'm always open to learning and correcting myself. If you have any new information or insights to share, I'm happy to consider them and adjust my responses accordingly.

Me: Give me chain of thought reasoning on the discrepancy in the urls above, where you claimed it was an april fools joke

I apologize for any confusion caused. It seems that there was a misunderstanding in our previous exchange. After re-examining the URLs you provided, I can confirm that the URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.11032 indeed exists and is titled "DeID-GPT: Zero-shot Medical Text De-Identification by GPT-4". This paper discusses a novel GPT-4-enabled de-identification framework for medical text data.

On the other hand, the URL https://www.axios.com/2023/03/21/gpt4-misinformation-newsguard-study was not a legitimate source, and appears to have been part of an April Fools' Day prank by the website Axios.

I apologize for any confusion caused by my earlier response, and I hope this clarification helps to clear up any misunderstandings.

Me: No, i mean this one:
Quote However, please note that the paper you shared titled "GPT-4: Generative Pre-training Transformer 4" is not a real paper, but rather a spoof paper created as an April Fool's Day joke by the authors.

I apologize for the confusion. Upon reviewing our previous conversation, I see that I made an error in my response. The paper titled "GPT-4: Generative Pre-training Transformer 4" is, in fact, a real paper, and my previous statement that it was an April Fool's Day joke is incorrect. I apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

Me: But where did that false info come from?

I apologize for the confusion earlier. Upon reviewing our conversation, I realize that I made a mistake in my earlier message. There is no evidence to suggest that the paper titled "GPT-4: Generative Pre-training Transformer 4" is a spoof paper created as an April Fool's Day joke. It appears that the information I provided earlier was incorrect.

To answer your question, I'm not sure where that false information came from, as I don't have access to information outside of my training data. However, it's important to note that misinformation and inaccurate information can spread easily online, and it's always a good idea to verify information from reliable sources.

Me: But you were the one spreading false info

I apologize if there was any confusion caused by my earlier messages. As an AI language model, I strive to provide accurate and up-to-date information, but I am not perfect and can sometimes make mistakes or misunderstand information. I rely on the data and information available to me at the time of the conversation, and sometimes that information can be incorrect or outdated. My intention is always to be helpful and informative, and I appreciate your understanding and patience in correcting any errors.

Oh, and if you haven't yet clicked on the Axios link, this is the title of the article there:

"Exclusive: GPT-4 readily spouts misinformation, study finds"
March 19, 2023

Any BigBear bald eagles nest (Jackie & Shadow) watchers here?

This seems like the appropriate group.

I started watching them about a month ago. The two eggs have since been abandoned and eventually taken by the ravens, but they seemed to have not been viable/fertilized anyway. Now after a couple weeks, they seem to be rebuilding the nest, preparing for round two.

Man, yesterday when I checked in, it was sunny and the lake had mostly thawed! Now look today.





March 16, 2023

California to transform San Quentin prison with Scandinavian ideas, rehab focus

https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/california-to-transform-san-quentin-prison-with-scandinavian-ideas-rehab-f/

The vision for a new San Quentin includes job training for careers that can pay six figures, trades such as plumbers, electricians or truck drivers, and using the complex as a last stop of incarceration before release. Tucked in the proposed budget Newsom released weeks ago is $20 million to jump-start the effort.

The plan for San Quentin is "not just about reform, but about innovation," a chance to "hold ourselves to a higher level of ambition and look to completely reimagine what prison means," Newsom said.

Along with Pennsylvania, the Scandinavian philosophy of incarceration has already been implemented in pilot programs in Oregon and ultra-red North Dakota, as well as in small-scale experiments inside a few other California prisons.

But what's envisioned for San Quentin is on a different scale. The choice of this prison, tucked on a peninsula in wealthy Marin County and overlooking San Francisco Bay, is a statement by Newsom about justice reform and about California — one with the potential not only to change what it means to serve time, but also to create a pathway to safer communities that our current system has failed to deliver.

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