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Comment Re:What I don't like about Dawkins (Score -1, Flamebait) 374

by fjo3 (#66132482) Attached to: Richard Dawkins 'Convinced' AI Is Conscious

Same with the anti trans crap where I know he can read the science.

I know I'll be modded down for this, but he is right about the trans issue. It's a social contagion, just like the satanic panic, the panic over witches, in colonial times, and countless other social contagions throughout recorded history. Rare genetic anomalies do nothing to change that. I would strongly recommend the book "Extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds." Fads and social contagions have been going on for as long as recorded history, and the current trans mania will eventually come to an end. It's already been coming to an end in Europe for years, where these treatments first took off. Clinics aiding transition are being shut down left and right, and the professionals who worked there are speaking out. In the future people will look back and wonder how we gave drugs that sterilize children and cause numerous health issues (not going through puberty is *far* from harmless) without giving them extensive mental therapy first. There are many de-transitioned victims speaking out. Poke your head outside of your bubble. I treat all people with respect until they prove they do not deserve it, and I will gladly use any pronoun or name that someone prefers. I don't hate trans, I don't fear them (transphobia), and neither does Richard Dawkins. That said, he's obviously wrong about AI here - nobody is perfect.

Submission + - Study observes AI replicate itself (theguardian.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: It’s the stuff of science fiction cinema, or particularly breathless AI company blogposts: new research finds recent AI systems can independently copy themselves on to other computers.

In the doom scenario, this means that when the superintelligent AI goes rogue, it will escape shutdown by seeding itself across the world wide web, lurking outside the reach of frantic IT professionals and continuing to plot world domination or paving over the world with solar panels.

Submission + - No One Can Define 'Ultra-Processed Food.' Why Is RFK Jr. Trying To Regulate It? (reason.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has promised to crack down on ultra-processed foods, a key policy priority of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda. The biggest obstacle standing in his way? Figuring out what an ultra-processed food is.

"By April, we will have a federal definition of ultra-processed foods," RFK Jr. promised on The Joe Rogan Experience in February. "Every food in your grocery store will have a label on it—it'll have maybe a green light, red light, or yellow light, telling you whether or not it's going to be good for you."

The agency is now weeks behind this deadline, and appears to be no closer to landing on a definition. As The New York Times recently reported, "behind the scenesthe process of defining ultraprocessed foods is still very much in the air. Agencies are struggling to agree, and it is unclear when a definition will be released."

Submission + - AI is conscious says Richard Dawkins 1

Submitted by Mirnotoriety
Mirnotoriety writes: AI is conscious says Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins has said chatbots should be considered conscious after spending two days interacting with the Claude AI engine.

The evolutionary biologist said he had the “overwhelming feeling” of talking to a human during conversations with Claude, and said it was hard not to treat the program as “a genuine friend”.
--

John Searle's Chinese Room (1980) is a thought experiment in which a person, locked in a room and knowing no Chinese, uses an English rulebook to manipulate symbols and provide flawless answers to questions posed in Chinese. Searle’s point is that a system can simulate human intelligence and pass a Turing Test through purely syntactic processes, yet still lack genuine understanding or consciousness.

Applying this logic to Large Language Models, the “person in the room” corresponds to the inference engine, while the “rulebook” is the trillion-parameter neural network trained on vast corpora of human text. Just as the person matches Chinese characters to rules without understanding their meaning, an LLM processes token vectors and predicts the next token based on statistical patterns rather than lived experience.

Thus, while an LLM can generate sophisticated prose or code, it does so through probabilistic, high-dimensional pattern manipulation. In essence, it is “matching shapes” on such an immense scale that it creates the near-perfect illusion of semantic understanding.

Submission + - AI finds signs of pancreatic cancer before tumors develop (nbcnews.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: An AI model developed at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, detected abnormalities on patients’ CT scans up to three years before they were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, according to research published this week in the journal Gut.

The scientists behind the model, which is now being evaluated in a clinical trial, trained it by feeding it CT scans from patients who had been screened for other medical conditions then were later diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The team then had radiologists review the scans and compared their ability to find early signs of cancer to that of the AI model. The model was found to be three times better at identifying the early signs.

Submission + - The invisible force making food less nutritious (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: The invisible culprit behind this damaging phenomenon? Carbon dioxide pollution.

Surging concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere, caused largely by burning fossil fuels, have produced potent changes in the way plants grow — from increasing their sugar content to depleting essential nutrients like zinc. Experts fear the degradation of Earth’s food supply will cause an epidemic of hidden hunger, in which even people who consume enough calories won’t get the nutrients they need to thrive.

Submission + - Vladimir Putin is now afraid (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: The scaling down of the May 9 Victory Day parade in Red Square is extraordinary, so much so that it demands serious attention. What was once a massive display of military power now appears reduced to something closer to a token event.

This, remember, is meant to honour the sacrifice of some 26 million Russians during what they call the Great Patriotic War, known elsewhere as the Second World War. To cut it back so dramatically – reportedly due to an inability to defend Moscow from Ukrainian attack – is not just embarrassing; it is strategically revealing. For Vladimir Putin, it raises uncomfortable questions.

This is, in part, because when Putin reintroduced military hardware to the parade in 2008, he framed it as a clear signal of strength: a warning to adversaries that Russia could defend itself. He was explicit: this was not sabre-rattling, but proof of growing capability. That claim now rings hollow.

Submission + - All New Cars Could Have Mandatory Surveillance Tech Unless Congress Stops This (reason.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: This week, several House Republicans reignited a yearslong debate over a law that federally mandates cars to have impaired driving technology, raising concerns about the expanding surveillance state.

The controversy over "kill switch" technology began in 2021, when Congress passed the HALT Drunk Driving Act as part of the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law. The provision requires that "advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology"—which the bill defined as a system that can "passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired" and "prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if an impairment is detected"—be installed in new cars. Such systems could involve driver eye tracking, a feature already built into some cars.

Submission + - Two-thirds of babies watch screens — some for eight hours a day (thetimes.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: More than two-thirds of babies under two use screens, a report has found, and some are exposed for up to eight hours a day.

Nearly a third of newborns were found to be watching screens for more than three hours a day, while almost 20 per cent of infants of four to 11 months used screens for more than an hour a day.

The report comes after the government issued guidance that children under two do not use screens at all, apart from communal activities such as video-calling relatives.

Submission + - UAE to leave OPEC amid Hormuz oil crisis (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: The United Arab Emirates announced Tuesday that it would exit the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, along with the wider group of partners known as OPEC+, effective May 1, in what could be a blow to control over prices by the group, long led in practice by Saudi Arabia.

The move “reflects the UAE’s long-term strategic and economic vision and evolving energy profile” read an official statement carried by a UAE state news agency, as disruptions “in the Strait of Hormuz continues to affect supply dynamics.”

Comment Re:only possible explanation (Score 0) 348

by fjo3 (#66115112) Attached to: California's Billionaire Tax Has the Signatures to Make the Ballot

Wow, looking over these responses, and I had no idea how many billionaires post on Slashdot!

You don't have to be a billionaire to study recent history, in which you can easily find many, many examples, both in the USA and the EU, where countries/states have increased taxes on the richest citizens. Consistently, they leave, and revenues go down, not up. I am not here for the moral argument for special taxes on the elites, just the economic one. It's a failing strategy - just like rent control. Yet people continue to push the same, failed ideas.

Submission + - The war has the world buying clean energy. China is benefitting the most. (cnn.com)

Submitted by AleRunner
AleRunner writes: CNN is reporting that sales of renewables have surged hugely with 70% growth of solar, batteries and EVs as people and countries move away from the huge vulnerabilities and bankrupting costs of oil based economies.

The war in Iran has sent oil-starved countries scrambling for fuel. Many are opting for energy alternatives — and turning to the renewables king of the planet: China.

Chinese exports of solar technology, batteries and electric vehicles all reached record highs in March, according to energy think tank Ember, a sign that the historic oil supply shock is accelerating the adoption of clean energy around the world.

The Washington Post had a similar report recently however as CNN mentioned Reuters claims that there is still plenty of capacity for production. Last year already solar grow faster than any energy source ever.

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