“Little men in lofty places throw long shadows”

On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“Little men in lofty places throw long shadows, because our sun is setting.” —Walter Savage Landor

“AI isn’t just like an intern, but like a *dishonest* intern. With careful supervision it can be productive enough to be useful. But you have to know what it’s doing better than it does, and watch it like a hawk And unless there’s something specific it offers that saves you time or gives you access to information you wouldn’t have otherwise, it probably isn’t worth that effort. I’m starting to wonder if the necessary skill for the AI age is going to be knowing where those lines should be drawn.” —tokyo_0

“It helps to understand that LLMs are basically machine learning programs for finding statistical relationships in language use. It’s an advanced form of the sort of ML that digital humanities researchers have used to, say, chart the incidence of sexist language in English literature over time. So there are logical uses for LLMs, but a) they’re mostly limited to the study of language, and b) they don’t necessarily justify the costs piling up around commercial startups like OpenAI and Anthropic.” —@lrhodes

The case against generative AI

Every CEO talking about #AI replacing workers is an example of the real problem: that most companies are run by people who don’t understand or experience the problems they’re solving, don’t do any real work, don’t face any real problems, and thus can never be trusted to solve them. The Era of the Business Idiot is the result of letting management consultants and neoliberal “free market” sociopaths take over everything …

Your Brain on ChatGPT

Brain connectivity systematically scaled down with the amount of external support: the Brain‑only group exhibited the strongest, widest‑ranging networks, Search Engine group showed intermediate engagement, and LLM assistance elicited the weakest overall coupling.

“I will not talk with a chatbot
I do not want it while I shop

I do not want it on Windows X-box
I do not want it in Firefox

I do not want it in my house
I do not want it on my mouse
I do not want it here or there
I do not want it anywhere.

I do not want AI and Spam
I do not want them Sam-Alt-Man”
—@illegalhex

The hidden military pressures behind the new push for small nuclear reactors

So why then, all this attention to nuclear in general and smaller reactors in particular? There is clearly more to this than meets the eye.

The hidden link

The neglected factor is the military dependence on civil nuclear industries. Maintaining a nuclear armed navy or weapons programme requires constant access to generic reactor technologies, skilled workers and special materials. Without a civilian nuclear industry, military nuclear capabilities are significantly more challenging and costly to sustain.

A flowchart asking “Do I need AI?” with a downward arrow leading to a box labeled “No.” The background is a dark grid pattern. — via @luci