It is amazing more isn’t made of this. Esp when very strong rumours say he was actually 14 when it began, and of course she was his teacher
I don't know how a 40 year old can "date" a 15 year old, unless that was legal in France at the time, especially when the 40 year old was the child's teacher. It'd end up in court in the UK today.
It's probably me. But every time I read on here about AI and all the wonderful things it will be able to do, I find myself thinking about Horizon and all the wonderful things those inventing it said it would do. And, even more, all the idiots who believed this and did not ask any basic questions.
And then I remember the consequences for human beings of all this blind belief by gullible idiots in what machines produce.
From 2.41 minutes in when Edward Henry KC starts to question one of the prosecutors, Warwick Tatford.
As I say, it's probably just me.
No. UNV the biggest danger from the AI systems we have now - and are likely to have in the near future - is in people trusting them too much when they give faulty data. "The computer says no."
Another issue, as mentioned below, is systematic biases in the input data sets. As MS found, it's quite easy for an 'AI' to turn racist...
On topic - who knows? When the Tories do pop back into the 30s - probably briefly - it will likely either be a statistical outlier (and probably by a firm with house effects that benefits the Tories inter-elections), or be in response to some momentary political effect, whether a govt initiative, Labour screwing something up, or externally.
However, on other polling counters:
- it is nearly 2 years since the Tories last recorded a lead (6/12/21, Red&Wilt, following the initial breaking of Partygate, and hot on the heels of the Paterson vote); - it is 20 months since any poll did not have Labour in the lead (17-21/3/22, Kantar) - it is nearly 14 months since any poll did not have a double-digit Labour lead (22-26/9/22, Kantar), pre-Truss/Kwarteng 'budget').
No party since Blair's Labour, pre-Iraq, has recorded such consistent and enduring dominance in the polls as Labour is currently doing, based on that last stat. The last calendar year in which any one party recorded double-digit leads throughout was 1999.
May I ask an ignorant question about AI and its future. I was doing bits and pieces on the new AI thingy recently with someone who is a cutting edge enthusiast to see how it responded, including to stuff I was actually interested in.
My sense was that despite its amazing speed, it gave the strong sense of being a rapid but lazy student who had read the reviews but hadn't read the book or evaluated the argument.
So, for example, on law case X, it could summarise the issues but could not evaluate the weaknesses of the submissions on one particular side (even though they had been live streamed on the internet); on academic subject Y it had obviously read the major website and couldn't respond to a specific detailed question going beyond it.
This, I understand, is because if a source does not exist digitally then AI doesn't know it. This limitation is immense.
Most important modern books (there are millions) don't exist in that digital space SFAICS.
Will AI get beyond that limitation?
Chat GPT is a large language model, or LLM. Simplifying… LLMs can’t get beyond this limitation, no. That doesn’t mean LLMs aren’t potentially very useful, but they’re not really intelligent. It’s not even clear if they represent a significant step towards real general artificial intelligence. Of course, different AI systems probably will, at some point, go beyond that limitation.
The history of AI is the history of hype followed by disappointment, and also the history of discovering you can build computers to be very good at doing some things much better than people, but that doesn’t mean they do those things like people do them.
Add the Tory and Reform totals and the Conservatives would be on 30%+ in most of those polls. So the key to get them back to 30% is to squeeze ReformUK
On topic - who knows? When the Tories do pop back into the 30s - probably briefly - it will likely either be a statistical outlier (and probably by a firm with house effects that benefits the Tories inter-elections), or be in response to some momentary political effect, whether a govt initiative, Labour screwing something up, or externally.
However, on other polling counters:
- it is nearly 2 years since the Tories last recorded a lead (6/12/21, Red&Wilt, following the initial breaking of Partygate, and hot on the heels of the Paterson vote); - it is 20 months since any poll did not have Labour in the lead (17-21/3/22, Kantar) - it is nearly 14 months since any poll did not have a double-digit Labour lead (22-26/9/22, Kantar), pre-Truss/Kwarteng 'budget').
No party since Blair's Labour, pre-Iraq, has recorded such consistent and enduring dominance in the polls as Labour is currently doing, based on that last stat. The last calendar year in which any one party recorded double-digit leads throughout was 1999.
I definitely would have guessed Cameron pre-expenses scandal.
Ok, I may have cast aspersions on Leon’s acuity previously but he’s spot on about the Bernard Manning thing. Am I being a sap to worry about a politician being called el Loco before they’ve even started?
He likes to dress up as a superhero called General AnCap.
It's probably me. But every time I read on here about AI and all the wonderful things it will be able to do, I find myself thinking about Horizon and all the wonderful things those inventing it said it would do. And, even more, all the idiots who believed this and did not ask any basic questions.
And then I remember the consequences for human beings of all this blind belief by gullible idiots in what machines produce.
From 2.41 minutes in when Edward Henry KC starts to question one of the prosecutors, Warwick Tatford.
As I say, it's probably just me.
No. UNV the biggest danger from the AI systems we have now - and are likely to have in the near future - is in people trusting them too much when they give faulty data. "The computer says no."
Another issue, as mentioned below, is systematic biases in the input data sets. As MS found, it's quite easy for an 'AI' to turn racist...
Add the Tory and Reform totals and the Conservatives would be on 30%+ in most of those polls. So the key to get them back to 30% is to squeeze ReformUK
What are the ex-Tories don’t knows doing? I wouldn’t be surprised if they were still a key driver.
It's probably me. But every time I read on here about AI and all the wonderful things it will be able to do, I find myself thinking about Horizon and all the wonderful things those inventing it said it would do. And, even more, all the idiots who believed this and did not ask any basic questions.
And then I remember the consequences for human beings of all this blind belief by gullible idiots in what machines produce.
From 2.41 minutes in when Edward Henry KC starts to question one of the prosecutors, Warwick Tatford.
As I say, it's probably just me.
No. UNV the biggest danger from the AI systems we have now - and are likely to have in the near future - is in people trusting them too much when they give faulty data. "The computer says no."
Another issue, as mentioned below, is systematic biases in the input data sets. As MS found, it's quite easy for an 'AI' to turn racist...
May I ask an ignorant question about AI and its future. I was doing bits and pieces on the new AI thingy recently with someone who is a cutting edge enthusiast to see how it responded, including to stuff I was actually interested in.
My sense was that despite its amazing speed, it gave the strong sense of being a rapid but lazy student who had read the reviews but hadn't read the book or evaluated the argument.
So, for example, on law case X, it could summarise the issues but could not evaluate the weaknesses of the submissions on one particular side (even though they had been live streamed on the internet); on academic subject Y it had obviously read the major website and couldn't respond to a specific detailed question going beyond it.
This, I understand, is because if a source does not exist digitally then AI doesn't know it. This limitation is immense.
Most important modern books (there are millions) don't exist in that digital space SFAICS.
Will AI get beyond that limitation?
Chat GPT is a large language model, or LLM. Simplifying… LLMs can’t get beyond this limitation, no. That doesn’t mean LLMs aren’t potentially very useful, but they’re not really intelligent. It’s not even clear if they represent a significant step towards real general artificial intelligence. Of course, different AI systems probably will, at some point, go beyond that limitation.
The history of AI is the history of hype followed by disappointment, and also the history of discovering you can build computers to be very good at doing some things much better than people, but that doesn’t mean they do those things like people do them.
Does anyone else find the following really frustrating.
So the Guardian puts out an interesting article about the fact that Leeds has the highest paid advertised jobs outside of London (I'd have expected Edinburgh).
Yet you read the article, and nowhere in it is a link to the study or the actual data. Neither has a google search helped discover the data, just other news articles without links.
It was probably just a press release from Adzuna, the company named in the article. Go to their site and play with the tools, I guess, if the report is not there.
May I ask an ignorant question about AI and its future. I was doing bits and pieces on the new AI thingy recently with someone who is a cutting edge enthusiast to see how it responded, including to stuff I was actually interested in.
My sense was that despite its amazing speed, it gave the strong sense of being a rapid but lazy student who had read the reviews but hadn't read the book or evaluated the argument.
So, for example, on law case X, it could summarise the issues but could not evaluate the weaknesses of the submissions on one particular side (even though they had been live streamed on the internet); on academic subject Y it had obviously read the major website and couldn't respond to a specific detailed question going beyond it.
This, I understand, is because if a source does not exist digitally then AI doesn't know it. This limitation is immense.
Most important modern books (there are millions) don't exist in that digital space SFAICS.
Will AI get beyond that limitation?
Chat GPT is a large language model, or LLM. Simplifying… LLMs can’t get beyond this limitation, no. That doesn’t mean LLMs aren’t potentially very useful, but they’re not really intelligent. It’s not even clear if they represent a significant step towards real general artificial intelligence. Of course, different AI systems probably will, at some point, go beyond that limitation.
The history of AI is the history of hype followed by disappointment, and also the history of discovering you can build computers to be very good at doing some things much better than people, but that doesn’t mean they do those things like people do them.
I think there is a strong future for LLMs in the Performative Bullshit jobs - the ones where people exist entirely to summarise others work in badly prepared powerpoint decks.
The LLMs can do the slide decks. And sit through the presentations. And give the presentations.
Add the Tory and Reform totals and the Conservatives would be on 30%+ in most of those polls. So the key to get them back to 30% is to squeeze ReformUK
Move to the right, get some Reform voters, but lose Lab and LibDem voters. Which amount is the greater?
I asked the new AI thing in Photoshop to take a beer bottle out of somebody's hand and it put another two there instead so the subject was drinking three beers at once like he was the fucking Queen Mother or something.
Prediction: spring election will be called when the HOL block rwanda legislation. Then leaving ECHR will be put in a manifesto as will brain dead tax cuts. The tories do not want to go to an autumn GE with a summer full of Palestinians crossing from France. Right now they can claim boats are down (autumn/winter storms) and some progress on inflation. Next year will be a recession year. There is nothing good for the tories to wait for.
On topic... I tend toward the nihilistic vision of a Jan 25 election because sunak.xlsx doesn't give a fuck about the county in general and the tory party in particular. He just wants to be PM as long as possible before he goes off to be Musk's cabana boy.
So the tories will probably get over 30% in that campaign in Dec 24/Jan 25.
I’ve added up the LLG and RefCon totals for the last 8 polls (those taken since the greatest/worst reshuffle of all time) as this helps to eliminate house biases in how the minor parties score, as well as intra-bloc movement.
There is a stark difference between the last 3 polls which have LLG-RefCon gaps in the mid 20s, and the previous 5 which all have a gap in the 30s (36 being the highest).
Either something momentous happened around the 15th to boost Tory and Ref fortunes, or this is a house effect. More polls needed.
I’ve added up the LLG and RefCon totals for the last 8 polls (those taken since the greatest/worst reshuffle of all time) as this helps to eliminate house biases in how the minor parties score, as well as intra-bloc movement.
There is a stark difference between the last 3 polls which have LLG-RefCon gaps in the mid 20s, and the previous 5 which all have a gap in the 30s (36 being the highest).
Either something momentous happened around the 15th to boost Tory and Ref fortunes, or this is a house effect. More polls needed.
Prediction: spring election will be called when the HOL block rwanda legislation. Then leaving ECHR will be put in a manifesto as will brain dead tax cuts. The tories do not want to go to an autumn GE with a summer full of Palestinians crossing from France. Right now they can claim boats are down (autumn/winter storms) and some progress on inflation. Next year will be a recession year. There is nothing good for the tories to wait for.
That is my reasoning too, except that I think it points to a late-2024 election or even January 2025. The weather in the Channel will be as bad at the end of next year as it is now, and that nice Mr Sunak will have enjoyed an extra year in Downing Street hoping for something to turn up.
Prediction: spring election will be called when the HOL block rwanda legislation. Then leaving ECHR will be put in a manifesto as will brain dead tax cuts. The tories do not want to go to an autumn GE with a summer full of Palestinians crossing from France. Right now they can claim boats are down (autumn/winter storms) and some progress on inflation. Next year will be a recession year. There is nothing good for the tories to wait for.
There’s the dilemma though: if you want to make it about small boats and “foreign courts” you have to be able to show the problem is bad and getting worse. But if you do that, you are pointing out your own policy failures.
If on the other hand you want to point to small boat numbers successfully coming down, without the help of Rwanda, then it somewhat nullifies your argument that you’re being stymied by lefty lawyers.
Best bet for the government is to make the next election about nothing much. Call it while nobody’s watching. Perhaps season with a couple of irresponsible tax cuts. Encourage low turnout through boredom. Their own client vote will still faithfully turn up.
Does anyone else find the following really frustrating.
So the Guardian puts out an interesting article about the fact that Leeds has the highest paid advertised jobs outside of London (I'd have expected Edinburgh).
Yet you read the article, and nowhere in it is a link to the study or the actual data. Neither has a google search helped discover the data, just other news articles without links.
Yeah, it always annoys me - but this isn't just the Guardian, loads of places do this.
I’ve added up the LLG and RefCon totals for the last 8 polls (those taken since the greatest/worst reshuffle of all time) as this helps to eliminate house biases in how the minor parties score, as well as intra-bloc movement.
There is a stark difference between the last 3 polls which have LLG-RefCon gaps in the mid 20s, and the previous 5 which all have a gap in the 30s (36 being the highest).
Either something momentous happened around the 15th to boost Tory and Ref fortunes, or this is a house effect. More polls needed.
Labour pissing off their base over Israel?
That was my first thought, but then you’d expect a rise in Green, which has not happened. In fact Green has been dropping a bit. Lib Dems are up. Yes they have a pretty reasonable Gaza position but it seems unlikely they’re attracting disaffected far left or Muslim voters.
It's probably me. But every time I read on here about AI and all the wonderful things it will be able to do, I find myself thinking about Horizon and all the wonderful things those inventing it said it would do. And, even more, all the idiots who believed this and did not ask any basic questions.
And then I remember the consequences for human beings of all this blind belief by gullible idiots in what machines produce.
From 2.41 minutes in when Edward Henry KC starts to question one of the prosecutors, Warwick Tatford.
As I say, it's probably just me.
No. UNV the biggest danger from the AI systems we have now - and are likely to have in the near future - is in people trusting them too much when they give faulty data. "The computer says no."
Another issue, as mentioned below, is systematic biases in the input data sets. As MS found, it's quite easy for an 'AI' to turn racist...
May I ask an ignorant question about AI and its future. I was doing bits and pieces on the new AI thingy recently with someone who is a cutting edge enthusiast to see how it responded, including to stuff I was actually interested in.
My sense was that despite its amazing speed, it gave the strong sense of being a rapid but lazy student who had read the reviews but hadn't read the book or evaluated the argument.
So, for example, on law case X, it could summarise the issues but could not evaluate the weaknesses of the submissions on one particular side (even though they had been live streamed on the internet); on academic subject Y it had obviously read the major website and couldn't respond to a specific detailed question going beyond it.
This, I understand, is because if a source does not exist digitally then AI doesn't know it. This limitation is immense.
Most important modern books (there are millions) don't exist in that digital space SFAICS.
Will AI get beyond that limitation?
That’s where the “G”’ in AGI comes in. The ability to make links. You’re right that, at the minute, you’re looking at a more complex version of autocorrect.
Despite the breathless hopes of our AI fan boy member, current “AI” is misnamed. There is no real “I”. What you get out is entirely based on the prompt you give it, and given that prompt could only ever have been that output.
One could argue the same for people - though the prompts and their responses are for now rather more complicated.
It is amazing more isn’t made of this. Esp when very strong rumours say he was actually 14 when it began, and of course she was his teacher
I don't know how a 40 year old can "date" a 15 year old, unless that was legal in France at the time, especially when the 40 year old was the child's teacher. It'd end up in court in the UK today.
Would it have ended up in court 30 years ago? Possibly, just about. In France the age of consent is 15 so it is OK from that point of view but if she was his teacher, they have the same rules we do.
Dunno. Who cares? It is clearly not going to stop Macron becoming president because he already is.
30 years ago, the police would have said “You should be so lucky, son.”
On topic - who knows? When the Tories do pop back into the 30s - probably briefly - it will likely either be a statistical outlier (and probably by a firm with house effects that benefits the Tories inter-elections), or be in response to some momentary political effect, whether a govt initiative, Labour screwing something up, or externally.
However, on other polling counters:
- it is nearly 2 years since the Tories last recorded a lead (6/12/21, Red&Wilt, following the initial breaking of Partygate, and hot on the heels of the Paterson vote); - it is 20 months since any poll did not have Labour in the lead (17-21/3/22, Kantar) - it is nearly 14 months since any poll did not have a double-digit Labour lead (22-26/9/22, Kantar), pre-Truss/Kwarteng 'budget').
No party since Blair's Labour, pre-Iraq, has recorded such consistent and enduring dominance in the polls as Labour is currently doing, based on that last stat. The last calendar year in which any one party recorded double-digit leads throughout was 1999.
I definitely would have guessed Cameron pre-expenses scandal.
The Conservatives had some huge leads in 2008/09, but Labour had a mini-rally at the end of 2008, and swing back started at the end of 2009.
Labour did considerably worse in local elections in 2008/09 than the Conservatives did, this year.
Thought I’d be braving the waves in a kind of ferry. Or maybe a speedboat. Not a fucking long tail squid boat with just me an old guy who speaks Khmer and laughs manically when I fall over as the boat violently yaws
He has talked of abandoning the Argentine currency and dollarisation as a means of stopping runaway inflation, currently 140%. There is no doubt that the fiscal and monetary policies of Argentina have been disastrous. It will be interesting to see how he does.
Trump (temporarily) likes anyone described as Trump like.
His foreign policy assessments appear to go no further than that, other than admiring the power of brutal dictators.
I’ve added up the LLG and RefCon totals for the last 8 polls (those taken since the greatest/worst reshuffle of all time) as this helps to eliminate house biases in how the minor parties score, as well as intra-bloc movement.
There is a stark difference between the last 3 polls which have LLG-RefCon gaps in the mid 20s, and the previous 5 which all have a gap in the 30s (36 being the highest).
Either something momentous happened around the 15th to boost Tory and Ref fortunes, or this is a house effect. More polls needed.
Labour pissing off their base over Israel?
That was my first thought, but then you’d expect a rise in Green, which has not happened. In fact Green has been dropping a bit. Lib Dems are up. Yes they have a pretty reasonable Gaza position but it seems unlikely they’re attracting disaffected far left or Muslim voters.
Yeah, but is there an increase in Don't Knows? We're talking about a smallish shift (5-6%), and that won't all go to the same place.
Argentina: I was going to say a 1970s era Les Dawson but, yes, it's more Bernard Manning actually. In fact it's VERY Bernard Manning. Not sure if that's a good or a bad thing. Probably bad.
It's probably me. But every time I read on here about AI and all the wonderful things it will be able to do, I find myself thinking about Horizon and all the wonderful things those inventing it said it would do. And, even more, all the idiots who believed this and did not ask any basic questions.
And then I remember the consequences for human beings of all this blind belief by gullible idiots in what machines produce.
From 2.41 minutes in when Edward Henry KC starts to question one of the prosecutors, Warwick Tatford.
As I say, it's probably just me.
No. UNV the biggest danger from the AI systems we have now - and are likely to have in the near future - is in people trusting them too much when they give faulty data. "The computer says no."
Another issue, as mentioned below, is systematic biases in the input data sets. As MS found, it's quite easy for an 'AI' to turn racist...
May I ask an ignorant question about AI and its future. I was doing bits and pieces on the new AI thingy recently with someone who is a cutting edge enthusiast to see how it responded, including to stuff I was actually interested in.
My sense was that despite its amazing speed, it gave the strong sense of being a rapid but lazy student who had read the reviews but hadn't read the book or evaluated the argument.
So, for example, on law case X, it could summarise the issues but could not evaluate the weaknesses of the submissions on one particular side (even though they had been live streamed on the internet); on academic subject Y it had obviously read the major website and couldn't respond to a specific detailed question going beyond it.
This, I understand, is because if a source does not exist digitally then AI doesn't know it. This limitation is immense.
Most important modern books (there are millions) don't exist in that digital space SFAICS.
Will AI get beyond that limitation?
Chat GPT is a large language model, or LLM. Simplifying… LLMs can’t get beyond this limitation, no. That doesn’t mean LLMs aren’t potentially very useful, but they’re not really intelligent. It’s not even clear if they represent a significant step towards real general artificial intelligence. Of course, different AI systems probably will, at some point, go beyond that limitation.
The history of AI is the history of hype followed by disappointment, and also the history of discovering you can build computers to be very good at doing some things much better than people, but that doesn’t mean they do those things like people do them.
I think there is a strong future for LLMs in the Performative Bullshit jobs - the ones where people exist entirely to summarise others work in badly prepared powerpoint decks.
The LLMs can do the slide decks. And sit through the presentations. And give the presentations.
And you still need the bullshit job to run an eye over the outputs to make sure they aren't complete drivel, but because they "aren't doing most of the work themselves" they'll get paid less.
It is amazing more isn’t made of this. Esp when very strong rumours say he was actually 14 when it began, and of course she was his teacher
I don't know how a 40 year old can "date" a 15 year old, unless that was legal in France at the time, especially when the 40 year old was the child's teacher. It'd end up in court in the UK today.
Would it have ended up in court 30 years ago? Possibly, just about. In France the age of consent is 15 so it is OK from that point of view but if she was his teacher, they have the same rules we do.
Dunno. Who cares? It is clearly not going to stop Macron becoming president because he already is.
30 years ago, the police would have said “You should be so lucky, son.”
And more to the point why would it be Macron's fault anyway? If the relationship was inappropriate then he was the prey, not the predator.
I had a somewhat similar teacher-pupil experience (though I was 17 and it didn’t last as long). This shared experience always warmed me a bit to Macron.
Of all the polls that reported in the last seven days (Sunday to Sunday), the average was still a LAB lead of 20.1%. The polls from Opinium and MoreInCommon are not outside the range of CON/LAB shares for those two pollsters. So I think we're just seeing noise... until other polls come along to suggest otherwise.
On topic - who knows? When the Tories do pop back into the 30s - probably briefly - it will likely either be a statistical outlier (and probably by a firm with house effects that benefits the Tories inter-elections), or be in response to some momentary political effect, whether a govt initiative, Labour screwing something up, or externally.
However, on other polling counters:
- it is nearly 2 years since the Tories last recorded a lead (6/12/21, Red&Wilt, following the initial breaking of Partygate, and hot on the heels of the Paterson vote); - it is 20 months since any poll did not have Labour in the lead (17-21/3/22, Kantar) - it is nearly 14 months since any poll did not have a double-digit Labour lead (22-26/9/22, Kantar), pre-Truss/Kwarteng 'budget').
No party since Blair's Labour, pre-Iraq, has recorded such consistent and enduring dominance in the polls as Labour is currently doing, based on that last stat. The last calendar year in which any one party recorded double-digit leads throughout was 1999.
I definitely would have guessed Cameron pre-expenses scandal.
The Conservatives had some huge leads in 2008/09, but Labour had a mini-rally at the end of 2008, and swing back started at the end of 2009.
Labour did considerably worse in local elections in 2008/09 than the Conservatives did, this year.
The dynamics were different because Labour was losing votes to both Tory and Lib Dem. The latter were regularly in the low 20s in the polls.
So the Lab-Con gap was similar or bigger than now, but LLG:ConKip was closer to 50:45 at best.
Does anyone else find the following really frustrating.
So the Guardian puts out an interesting article about the fact that Leeds has the highest paid advertised jobs outside of London (I'd have expected Edinburgh).
Yet you read the article, and nowhere in it is a link to the study or the actual data. Neither has a google search helped discover the data, just other news articles without links.
Yeah, it always annoys me - but this isn't just the Guardian, loads of places do this.
It's so common even with easily accessible data it must be some kind of industry standard. Christ, outlets like Guido are even better for actually linking to things.
May I ask an ignorant question about AI and its future. I was doing bits and pieces on the new AI thingy recently with someone who is a cutting edge enthusiast to see how it responded, including to stuff I was actually interested in.
My sense was that despite its amazing speed, it gave the strong sense of being a rapid but lazy student who had read the reviews but hadn't read the book or evaluated the argument.
So, for example, on law case X, it could summarise the issues but could not evaluate the weaknesses of the submissions on one particular side (even though they had been live streamed on the internet); on academic subject Y it had obviously read the major website and couldn't respond to a specific detailed question going beyond it.
This, I understand, is because if a source does not exist digitally then AI doesn't know it. This limitation is immense.
Most important modern books (there are millions) don't exist in that digital space SFAICS.
Will AI get beyond that limitation?
Chat GPT is a large language model, or LLM. Simplifying… LLMs can’t get beyond this limitation, no. That doesn’t mean LLMs aren’t potentially very useful, but they’re not really intelligent. It’s not even clear if they represent a significant step towards real general artificial intelligence. Of course, different AI systems probably will, at some point, go beyond that limitation.
The history of AI is the history of hype followed by disappointment, and also the history of discovering you can build computers to be very good at doing some things much better than people, but that doesn’t mean they do those things like people do them.
I think there is a strong future for LLMs in the Performative Bullshit jobs - the ones where people exist entirely to summarise others work in badly prepared powerpoint decks.
The LLMs can do the slide decks. And sit through the presentations. And give the presentations.
Hey, that's my performative bullshit job you are casually seeing taken over!
Argentina: I was going to say a 1970s era Les Dawson but, yes, it's more Bernard Manning actually. In fact it's VERY Bernard Manning. Not sure if that's a good or a bad thing. Probably bad.
A gringo, a gaucho and a lesbian nun walked into a bar...
Add the Tory and Reform totals and the Conservatives would be on 30%+ in most of those polls. So the key to get them back to 30% is to squeeze ReformUK
Move to the right, get some Reform voters, but lose Lab and LibDem voters. Which amount is the greater?
There is near zero chance most of those Lab and LD voters are going Tory next time, there is a strong chance most of those Reform voters could go back to Conservative with the right policies
Ok, I may have cast aspersions on Leon’s acuity previously but he’s spot on about the Bernard Manning thing. Am I being a sap to worry about a politician being called el Loco before they’ve even started?
'In their final televised debate ahead of the elections, Mr Massa questioned Mr Milei’s views of Margaret Thatcher and the Falklands, which Argentina refers to as Las Islas Malvinas.
Mr Milei called Thatcher one of the “great leaders,” to which Mr Massa retorted, “Thatcher is an enemy of Argentina yesterday, today and always.”'
Milei’s victory was celebrated by other big beasts of the global far-right including Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro, who had championed his campaign and has promised to attend his inauguration. “Hope is sparkling in South America once again,” Bolsonaro wrote on X, hailing what he called a victory for “honesty, progress and freedom”.
Add the Tory and Reform totals and the Conservatives would be on 30%+ in most of those polls. So the key to get them back to 30% is to squeeze ReformUK
Move to the right, get some Reform voters, but lose Lab and LibDem voters. Which amount is the greater?
From their current polling position possibly the former. And in terms of voters who are susceptible to voting Tory again it may still be the case there's more to be gained on the right even though there are more voters in the other direction.
Does anyone else find the following really frustrating.
So the Guardian puts out an interesting article about the fact that Leeds has the highest paid advertised jobs outside of London (I'd have expected Edinburgh).
Yet you read the article, and nowhere in it is a link to the study or the actual data. Neither has a google search helped discover the data, just other news articles without links.
Yeah, it always annoys me - but this isn't just the Guardian, loads of places do this.
It's so common even with easily accessible data it must be some kind of industry standard. Christ, outlets like Guido are even better for actually linking to things.
I suspect it's because quite a few news stories are taken straight from someone's PR. The Guardian is hardly alone in this. But agreed, there's no good excuse for reporting data without a source these days.
Ok, I may have cast aspersions on Leon’s acuity previously but he’s spot on about the Bernard Manning thing. Am I being a sap to worry about a politician being called el Loco before they’ve even started?
'In their final televised debate ahead of the elections, Mr Massa questioned Mr Milei’s views of Margaret Thatcher and the Falklands, which Argentina refers to as Las Islas Malvinas.
Mr Milei called Thatcher one of the “great leaders,” to which Mr Massa retorted, “Thatcher is an enemy of Argentina yesterday, today and always.”'
Milei’s victory was celebrated by other big beasts of the global far-right including Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro, who had championed his campaign and has promised to attend his inauguration. “Hope is sparkling in South America once again,” Bolsonaro wrote on X, hailing what he called a victory for “honesty, progress and freedom”.
The other train of thought, which could be dubbed the techno-pessimist (which I would count myself as), sees AI at its least (but still pretty) harmful as a tool of capital to displace middle income earners in skilled jobs, where it is acceptable for the output to have a small amount of nonsense in it. To me this would be a lot of the suggestions of "enhancing healthcare with AI" or such - you turn 111 into an AI chat instead of a real person, you accept that maybe 5% of the time it just spouts gibberish, but because that is only going to hurt poor sick people anyway and to be fair human error is probably around that anyway, so who cares?
The CEO of Newsquest, one of the four horseshit-men of the local newspocalypse* (with Reach, National World, and DC Thomson), admits that they're basically getting ChatGPT to write one of their lesser known local papers.
Thing is - it makes perfect sense. One might regret the loss of insightful writing and local connection, but that happened 5/10 years ago when they laid off the long-standing hacks and replaced them with keen 21-year olds fresh out of university. ChatGPT's writing is no worse than the 21-year olds. In fact, it's almost certainly better than a couple of writers for our local Newsquest paper.
* apologies for coming over a bit Chris Morris... I couldn't resist
The other train of thought, which could be dubbed the techno-pessimist (which I would count myself as), sees AI at its least (but still pretty) harmful as a tool of capital to displace middle income earners in skilled jobs, where it is acceptable for the output to have a small amount of nonsense in it. To me this would be a lot of the suggestions of "enhancing healthcare with AI" or such - you turn 111 into an AI chat instead of a real person, you accept that maybe 5% of the time it just spouts gibberish, but because that is only going to hurt poor sick people anyway and to be fair human error is probably around that anyway, so who cares?
The CEO of Newsquest, one of the four horseshit-men of the local newspocalypse* (with Reach, National World, and DC Thomson), admits that they're basically getting ChatGPT to write one of their lesser known local papers.
Thing is - it makes perfect sense. One might regret the loss of insightful writing and local connection, but that happened 5/10 years ago when they laid off the long-standing hacks and replaced them with keen 21-year olds fresh out of university. ChatGPT's writing is no worse than the 21-year olds. In fact, it's almost certainly better than a couple of writers for our local Newsquest paper.
* apologies for coming over a bit Chris Morris... I couldn't resist
Will it be more profitable to fire a lot of people, replace them with AI, and then deal with increases in complaints? If so - that's what they'll do.
Does anyone else find the following really frustrating.
So the Guardian puts out an interesting article about the fact that Leeds has the highest paid advertised jobs outside of London (I'd have expected Edinburgh).
Yet you read the article, and nowhere in it is a link to the study or the actual data. Neither has a google search helped discover the data, just other news articles without links.
Yeah, it always annoys me - but this isn't just the Guardian, loads of places do this.
It's so common even with easily accessible data it must be some kind of industry standard. Christ, outlets like Guido are even better for actually linking to things.
I suspect it's because quite a few news stories are taken straight from someone's PR.
Or "comments on x, formerly known as twitter, are saying..."
Sometimes that's the actual story, that twitter is arguing, not even simply taking the story solely from twitter.
May I ask an ignorant question about AI and its future. I was doing bits and pieces on the new AI thingy recently with someone who is a cutting edge enthusiast to see how it responded, including to stuff I was actually interested in.
My sense was that despite its amazing speed, it gave the strong sense of being a rapid but lazy student who had read the reviews but hadn't read the book or evaluated the argument.
So, for example, on law case X, it could summarise the issues but could not evaluate the weaknesses of the submissions on one particular side (even though they had been live streamed on the internet); on academic subject Y it had obviously read the major website and couldn't respond to a specific detailed question going beyond it.
This, I understand, is because if a source does not exist digitally then AI doesn't know it. This limitation is immense.
Most important modern books (there are millions) don't exist in that digital space SFAICS.
Will AI get beyond that limitation?
That’s where the “G”’ in AGI comes in. The ability to make links. You’re right that, at the minute, you’re looking at a more complex version of autocorrect.
Despite the breathless hopes of our AI fan boy member, current “AI” is misnamed. There is no real “I”. What you get out is entirely based on the prompt you give it, and given that prompt could only ever have been that output.
One could argue the same for people - though the prompts and their responses are for now rather more complicated.
Thought I’d be braving the waves in a kind of ferry. Or maybe a speedboat. Not a fucking long tail squid boat with just me an old guy who speaks Khmer and laughs manically when I fall over as the boat violently yaws
Start worrying when you lose mobile reception. That's when you rendezvous with the boat of organ traffickers who have heard the tales of the English knapper's legendary liver.
May I ask an ignorant question about AI and its future. I was doing bits and pieces on the new AI thingy recently with someone who is a cutting edge enthusiast to see how it responded, including to stuff I was actually interested in.
My sense was that despite its amazing speed, it gave the strong sense of being a rapid but lazy student who had read the reviews but hadn't read the book or evaluated the argument.
So, for example, on law case X, it could summarise the issues but could not evaluate the weaknesses of the submissions on one particular side (even though they had been live streamed on the internet); on academic subject Y it had obviously read the major website and couldn't respond to a specific detailed question going beyond it.
This, I understand, is because if a source does not exist digitally then AI doesn't know it. This limitation is immense.
Most important modern books (there are millions) don't exist in that digital space SFAICS.
Will AI get beyond that limitation?
Chat GPT is a large language model, or LLM. Simplifying… LLMs can’t get beyond this limitation, no. That doesn’t mean LLMs aren’t potentially very useful, but they’re not really intelligent. It’s not even clear if they represent a significant step towards real general artificial intelligence. Of course, different AI systems probably will, at some point, go beyond that limitation.
The history of AI is the history of hype followed by disappointment, and also the history of discovering you can build computers to be very good at doing some things much better than people, but that doesn’t mean they do those things like people do them.
I think there is a strong future for LLMs in the Performative Bullshit jobs - the ones where people exist entirely to summarise others work in badly prepared powerpoint decks.
The LLMs can do the slide decks. And sit through the presentations. And give the presentations.
I work in digital health, including health AI. (Most of my past work in this area was on image analysis systems.) I’m seeing some interesting, practical uses for LLMs. Not the fantasies of the techno-utopian enthusiasts who don’t actually work in health (or sometimes don’t even work in computing), but just lots of solutions to help with practical problems. There’s real promise here (if you dig beneath the technobro bullshit).
The other train of thought, which could be dubbed the techno-pessimist (which I would count myself as), sees AI at its least (but still pretty) harmful as a tool of capital to displace middle income earners in skilled jobs, where it is acceptable for the output to have a small amount of nonsense in it. To me this would be a lot of the suggestions of "enhancing healthcare with AI" or such - you turn 111 into an AI chat instead of a real person, you accept that maybe 5% of the time it just spouts gibberish, but because that is only going to hurt poor sick people anyway and to be fair human error is probably around that anyway, so who cares?
The CEO of Newsquest, one of the four horseshit-men of the local newspocalypse* (with Reach, National World, and DC Thomson), admits that they're basically getting ChatGPT to write one of their lesser known local papers.
Thing is - it makes perfect sense. One might regret the loss of insightful writing and local connection, but that happened 5/10 years ago when they laid off the long-standing hacks and replaced them with keen 21-year olds fresh out of university. ChatGPT's writing is no worse than the 21-year olds. In fact, it's almost certainly better than a couple of writers for our local Newsquest paper.
* apologies for coming over a bit Chris Morris... I couldn't resist
Never apologise for Chris Morris!
Interesting. Maybe we can go one further and create a new national with a purely AI driven news front end, that just states objectively what has been proven to have happened, and reports what different people said about it…
Looks like they are going to do it. Cut benefits for poorest to fund tax cuts.
Just incredible.
Sunak has totally lost the plot.
Steve Webb @stevewebb1 · 56m Benefit cuts alert - DWP just issued a notice (see below) of an 'ad hoc' publication on benefit upratings on Wednesday - in years where they simply pay inflation, they don't do this. Looks like this will be their defensive doc, justifying using the more recent inflation figure.
Add the Tory and Reform totals and the Conservatives would be on 30%+ in most of those polls. So the key to get them back to 30% is to squeeze ReformUK
Move to the right, get some Reform voters, but lose Lab and LibDem voters. Which amount is the greater?
I think @HYUFD argument is they have lost any and all voters they are going to lose to Lab/LD by now. Anyone still voting Con is not moving to Lab/LD. He has a point. If you haven't moved by now, what on earth is going to make you?
Full translation of Giora Eiland's genocidal column in Yediot Ahronot.
I expect all relevant parties to start issuing arrest warrants and writing up prosecution files.
If Gaza is / were a state, as Giora Eiland suggests in this article, then the actions of Israel prior to October 7th (the blockade of Gaza, for example) would be an act of war. Whilst that still wouldn't make what Hamas did a legitimate retaliation (because the kidnapping / targeting of civilians is a breach of international law) it still would be clear that Gaza and Hamas (as their nominally elected government) would have a legitimate casus belli to declare war on Israel. In that instance Israel would be the obvious aggressor - and even if they weren't it still wouldn't justify breaches of international law in retaliation.
As the conflict slowly moves down the headlines (in part because it is old news, in part because it becomes increasingly harder to defend the actions of the Israeli state), will people here concede that maybe officials in Israel mean what they are saying and are saying what they mean, and that a genocide of Palestinians (whether by mass killing or mass displacement) is the intended outcome. Israel is taking over the Gaza strip, and the West Bank, and mean to settle it via conquest after occupying those lands for decades.
Looks like they are going to do it. Cut benefits for poorest to fund tax cuts.
Just incredible.
Sunak has totally lost the plot.
Steve Webb @stevewebb1 · 56m Benefit cuts alert - DWP just issued a notice (see below) of an 'ad hoc' publication on benefit upratings on Wednesday - in years where they simply pay inflation, they don't do this. Looks like this will be their defensive doc, justifying using the more recent inflation figure.
This is not only class war and wealth redistribution - it is going to bad for growth. Why? Because poor people spend their money, so money circulates in the economy, and rich people don't, so it will sit in an account and not get spent.
The other train of thought, which could be dubbed the techno-pessimist (which I would count myself as), sees AI at its least (but still pretty) harmful as a tool of capital to displace middle income earners in skilled jobs, where it is acceptable for the output to have a small amount of nonsense in it. To me this would be a lot of the suggestions of "enhancing healthcare with AI" or such - you turn 111 into an AI chat instead of a real person, you accept that maybe 5% of the time it just spouts gibberish, but because that is only going to hurt poor sick people anyway and to be fair human error is probably around that anyway, so who cares?
The CEO of Newsquest, one of the four horseshit-men of the local newspocalypse* (with Reach, National World, and DC Thomson), admits that they're basically getting ChatGPT to write one of their lesser known local papers.
Thing is - it makes perfect sense. One might regret the loss of insightful writing and local connection, but that happened 5/10 years ago when they laid off the long-standing hacks and replaced them with keen 21-year olds fresh out of university. ChatGPT's writing is no worse than the 21-year olds. In fact, it's almost certainly better than a couple of writers for our local Newsquest paper.
* apologies for coming over a bit Chris Morris... I couldn't resist
Even longer ago than that when local papers started to depend on agency feeds from the courts, which is why most of their readers are terrified of being shot or stabbed when they open the front door. Sports reports are generally written and submitted by the teams themselves.
Looks like they are going to do it. Cut benefits for poorest to fund tax cuts.
Just incredible.
Sunak has totally lost the plot.
Steve Webb @stevewebb1 · 56m Benefit cuts alert - DWP just issued a notice (see below) of an 'ad hoc' publication on benefit upratings on Wednesday - in years where they simply pay inflation, they don't do this. Looks like this will be their defensive doc, justifying using the more recent inflation figure.
This is not only class war and wealth redistribution - it is going to bad for growth. Why? Because poor people spend their money, so money circulates in the economy, and rich people don't, so it will sit in an account and not get spent.
A pedant notes: lowering taxes implies LESS wealth redistribution.
Another pedant notes: money doesn't just sit in an account. If I have £100 in the bank with Barclays, it's not just sat in cash in a box. Barclays lend it to other people, or invest it, to do things with.
Another pedant queries whether saving is a bad thing.
And another pedant queries the suggestion that the rich are famously parsimonious and the poor spend-happy.
Thought I’d be braving the waves in a kind of ferry. Or maybe a speedboat. Not a fucking long tail squid boat with just me an old guy who speaks Khmer and laughs manically when I fall over as the boat violently yaws
Start worrying when you lose mobile reception. That's when you rendezvous with the boat of organ traffickers who have heard the tales of the English knapper's legendary liver.
I don't think they will want it for a transplant. Pate maybe.
The other train of thought, which could be dubbed the techno-pessimist (which I would count myself as), sees AI at its least (but still pretty) harmful as a tool of capital to displace middle income earners in skilled jobs, where it is acceptable for the output to have a small amount of nonsense in it. To me this would be a lot of the suggestions of "enhancing healthcare with AI" or such - you turn 111 into an AI chat instead of a real person, you accept that maybe 5% of the time it just spouts gibberish, but because that is only going to hurt poor sick people anyway and to be fair human error is probably around that anyway, so who cares?
The CEO of Newsquest, one of the four horseshit-men of the local newspocalypse* (with Reach, National World, and DC Thomson), admits that they're basically getting ChatGPT to write one of their lesser known local papers.
Thing is - it makes perfect sense. One might regret the loss of insightful writing and local connection, but that happened 5/10 years ago when they laid off the long-standing hacks and replaced them with keen 21-year olds fresh out of university. ChatGPT's writing is no worse than the 21-year olds. In fact, it's almost certainly better than a couple of writers for our local Newsquest paper.
* apologies for coming over a bit Chris Morris... I couldn't resist
Even longer ago than that when local papers started to depend on agency feeds from the courts, which is why most of their readers are terrified of being shot or stabbed when they open the front door. Sports reports are generally written and submitted by the teams themselves.
I used to do that for the Old Streetonians RFC reports to the High & I and Islington Gazette in the early noughties. We had a tradition of making up names but the only time I got pulled up on it was when we had two actual players whose real names were Jonny Walker and Max Beer. Only then did they require photo ID.
Looks like they are going to do it. Cut benefits for poorest to fund tax cuts.
Just incredible.
Sunak has totally lost the plot.
Steve Webb @stevewebb1 · 56m Benefit cuts alert - DWP just issued a notice (see below) of an 'ad hoc' publication on benefit upratings on Wednesday - in years where they simply pay inflation, they don't do this. Looks like this will be their defensive doc, justifying using the more recent inflation figure.
This is not only class war and wealth redistribution - it is going to bad for growth. Why? Because poor people spend their money, so money circulates in the economy, and rich people don't, so it will sit in an account and not get spent.
A pedant notes: lowering taxes implies LESS wealth redistribution.
Another pedant notes: money doesn't just sit in an account. If I have £100 in the bank with Barclays, it's not just sat in cash in a box. Barclays lend it to other people, or invest it, to do things with.
Another pedant queries whether saving is a bad thing.
And another pedant queries the suggestion that the rich are famously parsimonious and the poor spend-happy.
It depends what forms of taxation are being reduced. Cutting NI, and/or raising personal allowances would stimulate the economy.
Looks like they are going to do it. Cut benefits for poorest to fund tax cuts.
Just incredible.
Sunak has totally lost the plot.
Steve Webb @stevewebb1 · 56m Benefit cuts alert - DWP just issued a notice (see below) of an 'ad hoc' publication on benefit upratings on Wednesday - in years where they simply pay inflation, they don't do this. Looks like this will be their defensive doc, justifying using the more recent inflation figure.
This is not only class war and wealth redistribution - it is going to bad for growth. Why? Because poor people spend their money, so money circulates in the economy, and rich people don't, so it will sit in an account and not get spent.
A pedant notes: lowering taxes implies LESS wealth redistribution.
Another pedant notes: money doesn't just sit in an account. If I have £100 in the bank with Barclays, it's not just sat in cash in a box. Barclays lend it to other people, or invest it, to do things with.
Nope - it is redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich. Poor people pay taxes too - VAT as well as income tax. You may argue cutting taxes is not redistributive - you are not taking something you previously did - but I believe in a society and in a society we should fund minimal conditions for all people. If we are lowering the conditions for the poorest to the benefit of the richest - that is redistributive.
It isn't that the poor are "spend happy" it is that they have to spend money on food and living and such, so the money moves more.
Money that banks invest on behalf of their clients does not move as much as money spent by the poor - if I go to my corner shop and buy goods, that corner shop owner (as someone also relatively poor) will spent that money relatively soon to whoever they buy goods from, and the money will keep moving. If a portfolio management company is doing investments it will go into property, most likely, and then wait for that property price to just inflate over time. The money stays still.
Looks like they are going to do it. Cut benefits for poorest to fund tax cuts.
Just incredible.
Sunak has totally lost the plot.
Steve Webb @stevewebb1 · 56m Benefit cuts alert - DWP just issued a notice (see below) of an 'ad hoc' publication on benefit upratings on Wednesday - in years where they simply pay inflation, they don't do this. Looks like this will be their defensive doc, justifying using the more recent inflation figure.
This is not only class war and wealth redistribution - it is going to bad for growth. Why? Because poor people spend their money, so money circulates in the economy, and rich people don't, so it will sit in an account and not get spent.
A pedant notes: lowering taxes implies LESS wealth redistribution.
Another pedant notes: money doesn't just sit in an account. If I have £100 in the bank with Barclays, it's not just sat in cash in a box. Barclays lend it to other people, or invest it, to do things with.
Another pedant queries whether saving is a bad thing.
And another pedant queries the suggestion that the rich are famously parsimonious and the poor spend-happy.
Add the Tory and Reform totals and the Conservatives would be on 30%+ in most of those polls. So the key to get them back to 30% is to squeeze ReformUK
Move to the right, get some Reform voters, but lose Lab and LibDem voters. Which amount is the greater?
I think @HYUFD argument is they have lost any and all voters they are going to lose to Lab/LD by now. Anyone still voting Con is not moving to Lab/LD. He has a point. If you haven't moved by now, what on earth is going to make you?
Not difficult to see. The continued attack on local government funding. Pot holes. The handing over of our medical data to be exploited by the US medical industry. The continuing disregard for the environment, especially sewerage. The schools scandal, buildings and OFSTED and staffing shortages. Everything is getting worse, and people are noticing, though it takes a long time for the penny to drop properly.
And I have the impression that the Lib Dems are exploiting these issues, especially in seats where they are in contention. Labour are excessively feak and weeble, and afraid to say anything much, despite their greater opportunities.. The Conservative vote has fallen a great deal, but I am an optimist. They still have a long way to fall yet.
May I ask an ignorant question about AI and its future. I was doing bits and pieces on the new AI thingy recently with someone who is a cutting edge enthusiast to see how it responded, including to stuff I was actually interested in.
My sense was that despite its amazing speed, it gave the strong sense of being a rapid but lazy student who had read the reviews but hadn't read the book or evaluated the argument.
So, for example, on law case X, it could summarise the issues but could not evaluate the weaknesses of the submissions on one particular side (even though they had been live streamed on the internet); on academic subject Y it had obviously read the major website and couldn't respond to a specific detailed question going beyond it.
This, I understand, is because if a source does not exist digitally then AI doesn't know it. This limitation is immense.
Most important modern books (there are millions) don't exist in that digital space SFAICS.
Will AI get beyond that limitation?
Chat GPT is a large language model, or LLM. Simplifying… LLMs can’t get beyond this limitation, no. That doesn’t mean LLMs aren’t potentially very useful, but they’re not really intelligent. It’s not even clear if they represent a significant step towards real general artificial intelligence. Of course, different AI systems probably will, at some point, go beyond that limitation.
The history of AI is the history of hype followed by disappointment, and also the history of discovering you can build computers to be very good at doing some things much better than people, but that doesn’t mean they do those things like people do them.
I think there is a strong future for LLMs in the Performative Bullshit jobs - the ones where people exist entirely to summarise others work in badly prepared powerpoint decks.
The LLMs can do the slide decks. And sit through the presentations. And give the presentations.
I work in digital health, including health AI. (Most of my past work in this area was on image analysis systems.) I’m seeing some interesting, practical uses for LLMs. Not the fantasies of the techno-utopian enthusiasts who don’t actually work in health (or sometimes don’t even work in computing), but just lots of solutions to help with practical problems. There’s real promise here (if you dig beneath the technobro bullshit).
Yep. And this stuff is far from the hype of AGI etc, but very useful (potentially) for teasing out patterns that more traditional methods can't get to.
May I ask an ignorant question about AI and its future. I was doing bits and pieces on the new AI thingy recently with someone who is a cutting edge enthusiast to see how it responded, including to stuff I was actually interested in.
My sense was that despite its amazing speed, it gave the strong sense of being a rapid but lazy student who had read the reviews but hadn't read the book or evaluated the argument.
So, for example, on law case X, it could summarise the issues but could not evaluate the weaknesses of the submissions on one particular side (even though they had been live streamed on the internet); on academic subject Y it had obviously read the major website and couldn't respond to a specific detailed question going beyond it.
This, I understand, is because if a source does not exist digitally then AI doesn't know it. This limitation is immense.
Most important modern books (there are millions) don't exist in that digital space SFAICS.
Will AI get beyond that limitation?
Chat GPT is a large language model, or LLM. Simplifying… LLMs can’t get beyond this limitation, no. That doesn’t mean LLMs aren’t potentially very useful, but they’re not really intelligent. It’s not even clear if they represent a significant step towards real general artificial intelligence. Of course, different AI systems probably will, at some point, go beyond that limitation.
The history of AI is the history of hype followed by disappointment, and also the history of discovering you can build computers to be very good at doing some things much better than people, but that doesn’t mean they do those things like people do them.
I think there is a strong future for LLMs in the Performative Bullshit jobs - the ones where people exist entirely to summarise others work in badly prepared powerpoint decks.
The LLMs can do the slide decks. And sit through the presentations. And give the presentations.
I work in digital health, including health AI. (Most of my past work in this area was on image analysis systems.) I’m seeing some interesting, practical uses for LLMs. Not the fantasies of the techno-utopian enthusiasts who don’t actually work in health (or sometimes don’t even work in computing), but just lots of solutions to help with practical problems. There’s real promise here (if you dig beneath the technobro bullshit).
When you say that, are you talking about how these things can augment our ability to design new medicines and such - which wouldn't be new, as such, as just a more powerful version of things we already have - or are you talking about how AI can be used as a suped up 111 and potentially do diagnostic work with symptoms typed in and medical records, etc? I've heard a desire to use AI in both, and I'm more sceptical of the latter than the former.
There’s a heavy swell between the islands. I’m in this
Alone
Why, did the guy at the helm jump overboard ?
This reminds me of when Leon was alone on a Maldivian island, while being served a five course breakfast by his personal Sri Lankan chef.
Cackling squid boat guy dropped me at the wrong pier. So I had to get to my new digs. There are no roads on this island. So you can only go by water
I found a guy with a little speedboat. Only problem was that the solitary other passenger was a Khmer dude so drunk he kept slumping towards the water - where he would have drowned
Sir Patrick turns to the “science capability review”, an exercise conducted with Jeremy Heywood, the then Cabinet Secretary, to see if science capability was “adequate” in Government.
He said the exercise also found that the just ten per cent of the Civil Service fast-stream intake had STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) degrees which he felt “destined the civil service to stay in roughly the same position that it has been for some time”.
For a knowledge led economy this is a disastrous situation. No wonder government knows f##k all about science and technology.
Looks like they are going to do it. Cut benefits for poorest to fund tax cuts.
Just incredible.
Sunak has totally lost the plot.
Steve Webb @stevewebb1 · 56m Benefit cuts alert - DWP just issued a notice (see below) of an 'ad hoc' publication on benefit upratings on Wednesday - in years where they simply pay inflation, they don't do this. Looks like this will be their defensive doc, justifying using the more recent inflation figure.
This is not only class war and wealth redistribution - it is going to bad for growth. Why? Because poor people spend their money, so money circulates in the economy, and rich people don't, so it will sit in an account and not get spent.
A pedant notes: lowering taxes implies LESS wealth redistribution.
Another pedant notes: money doesn't just sit in an account. If I have £100 in the bank with Barclays, it's not just sat in cash in a box. Barclays lend it to other people, or invest it, to do things with.
Nope - it is redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich. Poor people pay taxes too - VAT as well as income tax. You may argue cutting taxes is not redistributive - you are not taking something you previously did - but I believe in a society and in a society we should fund minimal conditions for all people. If we are lowering the conditions for the poorest to the benefit of the richest - that is redistributive.
It isn't that the poor are "spend happy" it is that they have to spend money on food and living and such, so the money moves more.
Money that banks invest on behalf of their clients does not move as much as money spent by the poor - if I go to my corner shop and buy goods, that corner shop owner (as someone also relatively poor) will spent that money relatively soon to whoever they buy goods from, and the money will keep moving. If a portfolio management company is doing investments it will go into property, most likely, and then wait for that property price to just inflate over time. The money stays still.
Well I think the thought that 'investment' goes into property is a little simplistic. I think investment goes to a lot more places than that. And even money invested in property doesn't just sit there; it is an asset which allows other borrowing to be made. It no more 'just sits there' than the wealth I invest in a child's toy 'just sits there' once it is turned from cash to plastic tat. But it's a linguistic point I really take issue with here. Cutting benefits and taxes is not wealth redistribution; it is the opposite. If you have £100 and the government takes ten of those pounds and gives it to me, that is wealth redistribution. If the government then decides only to take £5 from you and give it to me, that is less wealth redistribution.
On topic - who knows? When the Tories do pop back into the 30s - probably briefly - it will likely either be a statistical outlier (and probably by a firm with house effects that benefits the Tories inter-elections), or be in response to some momentary political effect, whether a govt initiative, Labour screwing something up, or externally.
However, on other polling counters:
- it is nearly 2 years since the Tories last recorded a lead (6/12/21, Red&Wilt, following the initial breaking of Partygate, and hot on the heels of the Paterson vote); - it is 20 months since any poll did not have Labour in the lead (17-21/3/22, Kantar) - it is nearly 14 months since any poll did not have a double-digit Labour lead (22-26/9/22, Kantar), pre-Truss/Kwarteng 'budget').
No party since Blair's Labour, pre-Iraq, has recorded such consistent and enduring dominance in the polls as Labour is currently doing, based on that last stat. The last calendar year in which any one party recorded double-digit leads throughout was 1999.
I suspect the Tories will get a permanent boost from the IHT abolition. So it affects virtually no one, but it triggers everyone. It is clever politics by the rejuvenated Rishi.
Is Slow Horses the perfect TV drama? I think it might be, you know. It’s clever. It’s fun. It combines the action scenes of a spy thriller with the joy of seeing a marvellously greasy Gary Oldman contemplating washing his armpits with Fairy Liquid.
I think the comment about BBC is interesting...not only is this a great show, they don't mess about, this is the 3rd season in 18 months. BBC would still be talking about how we might get the 2nd season by 2025.
On topic - who knows? When the Tories do pop back into the 30s - probably briefly - it will likely either be a statistical outlier (and probably by a firm with house effects that benefits the Tories inter-elections), or be in response to some momentary political effect, whether a govt initiative, Labour screwing something up, or externally.
However, on other polling counters:
- it is nearly 2 years since the Tories last recorded a lead (6/12/21, Red&Wilt, following the initial breaking of Partygate, and hot on the heels of the Paterson vote); - it is 20 months since any poll did not have Labour in the lead (17-21/3/22, Kantar) - it is nearly 14 months since any poll did not have a double-digit Labour lead (22-26/9/22, Kantar), pre-Truss/Kwarteng 'budget').
No party since Blair's Labour, pre-Iraq, has recorded such consistent and enduring dominance in the polls as Labour is currently doing, based on that last stat. The last calendar year in which any one party recorded double-digit leads throughout was 1999.
I suspect the Tories will get a permanent boost from the IHT abolition. So it affects virtually no one, but it triggers everyone. It is clever politics by the rejuvenated Rishi.
Looks like they are going to do it. Cut benefits for poorest to fund tax cuts.
Just incredible.
Sunak has totally lost the plot.
Steve Webb @stevewebb1 · 56m Benefit cuts alert - DWP just issued a notice (see below) of an 'ad hoc' publication on benefit upratings on Wednesday - in years where they simply pay inflation, they don't do this. Looks like this will be their defensive doc, justifying using the more recent inflation figure.
This is not only class war and wealth redistribution - it is going to bad for growth. Why? Because poor people spend their money, so money circulates in the economy, and rich people don't, so it will sit in an account and not get spent.
A pedant notes: lowering taxes implies LESS wealth redistribution.
Another pedant notes: money doesn't just sit in an account. If I have £100 in the bank with Barclays, it's not just sat in cash in a box. Barclays lend it to other people, or invest it, to do things with.
Nope - it is redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich. Poor people pay taxes too - VAT as well as income tax. You may argue cutting taxes is not redistributive - you are not taking something you previously did - but I believe in a society and in a society we should fund minimal conditions for all people. If we are lowering the conditions for the poorest to the benefit of the richest - that is redistributive.
It isn't that the poor are "spend happy" it is that they have to spend money on food and living and such, so the money moves more.
Money that banks invest on behalf of their clients does not move as much as money spent by the poor - if I go to my corner shop and buy goods, that corner shop owner (as someone also relatively poor) will spent that money relatively soon to whoever they buy goods from, and the money will keep moving. If a portfolio management company is doing investments it will go into property, most likely, and then wait for that property price to just inflate over time. The money stays still.
Well I think the thought that 'investment' goes into property is a little simplistic. I think investment goes to a lot more places than that. And even money invested in property doesn't just sit there; it is an asset which allows other borrowing to be made. It no more 'just sits there' than the wealth I invest in a child's toy 'just sits there' once it is turned from cash to plastic tat. But it's a linguistic point I really take issue with here. Cutting benefits and taxes is not wealth redistribution; it is the opposite. If you have £100 and the government takes ten of those pounds and gives it to me, that is wealth redistribution. If the government then decides only to take £5 from you and give it to me, that is less wealth redistribution.
I fundamentally disagree. Again - I believe that society should provide a minimum standard of life. Government welfare exists to have that. If you reduce that minimum standard to allow rich people to have more money, that is redistributive - whether you like it or not. You are balancing the books of giving more to the rich by taking away from the poor.
Am I LITERALLY commenting from the worst road any on PB has ever commented from?
Gotta be up there
And here’s my boat. To the next island
Superb
Where are you?
I’m now on the island of Koh Rong Samloev, in the Bay of Kampong, Cambodia - about 20km from the quasi abandoned Chinese hooker-drug-casino resort of Sihanoukville
Is Slow Horses the perfect TV drama? I think it might be, you know. It’s clever. It’s fun. It combines the action scenes of a spy thriller with the joy of seeing a marvellously greasy Gary Oldman contemplating washing his armpits with Fairy Liquid.
I think the comment about BBC is interesting...not only is this a great show, they don't mess about, this is the 3rd season in 18 months. BBC would still be talking about how we might get the 2nd season by 2025.
It is, quite simply, brilliant. Worth paying for Apple TV for.
Is Slow Horses the perfect TV drama? I think it might be, you know. It’s clever. It’s fun. It combines the action scenes of a spy thriller with the joy of seeing a marvellously greasy Gary Oldman contemplating washing his armpits with Fairy Liquid.
I think the comment about BBC is interesting...not only is this a great show, they don't mess about, this is the 3rd season in 18 months. BBC would still be talking about how we might get the 2nd season by 2025.
It is, quite simply, brilliant. Worth paying for Apple TV for.
I thought the ending to the first season was weak (which was a shame as the build up was great), but second season was great throughout. The show is worth watching just for Gary Oldman character put-down lines.
Looks like they are going to do it. Cut benefits for poorest to fund tax cuts.
Just incredible.
Sunak has totally lost the plot.
Steve Webb @stevewebb1 · 56m Benefit cuts alert - DWP just issued a notice (see below) of an 'ad hoc' publication on benefit upratings on Wednesday - in years where they simply pay inflation, they don't do this. Looks like this will be their defensive doc, justifying using the more recent inflation figure.
This is not only class war and wealth redistribution - it is going to bad for growth. Why? Because poor people spend their money, so money circulates in the economy, and rich people don't, so it will sit in an account and not get spent.
A pedant notes: lowering taxes implies LESS wealth redistribution.
Another pedant notes: money doesn't just sit in an account. If I have £100 in the bank with Barclays, it's not just sat in cash in a box. Barclays lend it to other people, or invest it, to do things with.
Nope - it is redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich. Poor people pay taxes too - VAT as well as income tax. You may argue cutting taxes is not redistributive - you are not taking something you previously did - but I believe in a society and in a society we should fund minimal conditions for all people. If we are lowering the conditions for the poorest to the benefit of the richest - that is redistributive.
It isn't that the poor are "spend happy" it is that they have to spend money on food and living and such, so the money moves more.
Money that banks invest on behalf of their clients does not move as much as money spent by the poor - if I go to my corner shop and buy goods, that corner shop owner (as someone also relatively poor) will spent that money relatively soon to whoever they buy goods from, and the money will keep moving. If a portfolio management company is doing investments it will go into property, most likely, and then wait for that property price to just inflate over time. The money stays still.
Well I think the thought that 'investment' goes into property is a little simplistic. I think investment goes to a lot more places than that. And even money invested in property doesn't just sit there; it is an asset which allows other borrowing to be made. It no more 'just sits there' than the wealth I invest in a child's toy 'just sits there' once it is turned from cash to plastic tat. But it's a linguistic point I really take issue with here. Cutting benefits and taxes is not wealth redistribution; it is the opposite. If you have £100 and the government takes ten of those pounds and gives it to me, that is wealth redistribution. If the government then decides only to take £5 from you and give it to me, that is less wealth redistribution.
I fundamentally disagree. Again - I believe that society should provide a minimum standard of life. Government welfare exists to have that. If you reduce that minimum standard to allow rich people to have more money, that is redistributive - whether you like it or not. You are balancing the books of giving more to the rich by taking away from the poor.
That might be what society should do, but that is done BY redistribution. It isn't a question of whether I like it or not, it's a question of what redistribution means. If you want to be more Sweden and less USA, you do that by redistributing wealth. Sweden is more redistributive than the USA. No-one says the USA is a highly redistributive society because the rich have more than the poor, because that's the opposite of what redistribution means. This may seem a minor semantic point, but using words to mean what they mean and what people expect them to mean is important.
Looks like they are going to do it. Cut benefits for poorest to fund tax cuts.
Just incredible.
Sunak has totally lost the plot.
Steve Webb @stevewebb1 · 56m Benefit cuts alert - DWP just issued a notice (see below) of an 'ad hoc' publication on benefit upratings on Wednesday - in years where they simply pay inflation, they don't do this. Looks like this will be their defensive doc, justifying using the more recent inflation figure.
This is not only class war and wealth redistribution - it is going to bad for growth. Why? Because poor people spend their money, so money circulates in the economy, and rich people don't, so it will sit in an account and not get spent.
A pedant notes: lowering taxes implies LESS wealth redistribution.
Another pedant notes: money doesn't just sit in an account. If I have £100 in the bank with Barclays, it's not just sat in cash in a box. Barclays lend it to other people, or invest it, to do things with.
Nope - it is redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich. Poor people pay taxes too - VAT as well as income tax. You may argue cutting taxes is not redistributive - you are not taking something you previously did - but I believe in a society and in a society we should fund minimal conditions for all people. If we are lowering the conditions for the poorest to the benefit of the richest - that is redistributive.
It isn't that the poor are "spend happy" it is that they have to spend money on food and living and such, so the money moves more.
Money that banks invest on behalf of their clients does not move as much as money spent by the poor - if I go to my corner shop and buy goods, that corner shop owner (as someone also relatively poor) will spent that money relatively soon to whoever they buy goods from, and the money will keep moving. If a portfolio management company is doing investments it will go into property, most likely, and then wait for that property price to just inflate over time. The money stays still.
Well I think the thought that 'investment' goes into property is a little simplistic. I think investment goes to a lot more places than that. And even money invested in property doesn't just sit there; it is an asset which allows other borrowing to be made. It no more 'just sits there' than the wealth I invest in a child's toy 'just sits there' once it is turned from cash to plastic tat. But it's a linguistic point I really take issue with here. Cutting benefits and taxes is not wealth redistribution; it is the opposite. If you have £100 and the government takes ten of those pounds and gives it to me, that is wealth redistribution. If the government then decides only to take £5 from you and give it to me, that is less wealth redistribution.
I fundamentally disagree. Again - I believe that society should provide a minimum standard of life. Government welfare exists to have that. If you reduce that minimum standard to allow rich people to have more money, that is redistributive - whether you like it or not. You are balancing the books of giving more to the rich by taking away from the poor.
That might be what society should do, but that is done BY redistribution. It isn't a question of whether I like it or not, it's a question of what redistribution means. If you want to be more Sweden and less USA, you do that by redistributing wealth. Sweden is more redistributive than the USA. No-one says the USA is a highly redistributive society because the rich have more than the poor, because that's the opposite of what redistribution means. This may seem a minor semantic point, but using words to mean what they mean and what people expect them to mean is important.
I also fundamentally don't think that the government's job is to featherbed.
The moral difference between cutting taxation (which is in effect confiscation from the self sufficient, aspirational and productive) and cutting handouts (which should be a spur to creating more productive, self sufficient and aspirational individuals) needs to be made by a Tory government.
Looks like they are going to do it. Cut benefits for poorest to fund tax cuts.
Just incredible.
Sunak has totally lost the plot.
Steve Webb @stevewebb1 · 56m Benefit cuts alert - DWP just issued a notice (see below) of an 'ad hoc' publication on benefit upratings on Wednesday - in years where they simply pay inflation, they don't do this. Looks like this will be their defensive doc, justifying using the more recent inflation figure.
This is not only class war and wealth redistribution - it is going to bad for growth. Why? Because poor people spend their money, so money circulates in the economy, and rich people don't, so it will sit in an account and not get spent.
A pedant notes: lowering taxes implies LESS wealth redistribution.
Another pedant notes: money doesn't just sit in an account. If I have £100 in the bank with Barclays, it's not just sat in cash in a box. Barclays lend it to other people, or invest it, to do things with.
Nope - it is redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich. Poor people pay taxes too - VAT as well as income tax. You may argue cutting taxes is not redistributive - you are not taking something you previously did - but I believe in a society and in a society we should fund minimal conditions for all people. If we are lowering the conditions for the poorest to the benefit of the richest - that is redistributive.
It isn't that the poor are "spend happy" it is that they have to spend money on food and living and such, so the money moves more.
Money that banks invest on behalf of their clients does not move as much as money spent by the poor - if I go to my corner shop and buy goods, that corner shop owner (as someone also relatively poor) will spent that money relatively soon to whoever they buy goods from, and the money will keep moving. If a portfolio management company is doing investments it will go into property, most likely, and then wait for that property price to just inflate over time. The money stays still.
Well I think the thought that 'investment' goes into property is a little simplistic. I think investment goes to a lot more places than that. And even money invested in property doesn't just sit there; it is an asset which allows other borrowing to be made. It no more 'just sits there' than the wealth I invest in a child's toy 'just sits there' once it is turned from cash to plastic tat. But it's a linguistic point I really take issue with here. Cutting benefits and taxes is not wealth redistribution; it is the opposite. If you have £100 and the government takes ten of those pounds and gives it to me, that is wealth redistribution. If the government then decides only to take £5 from you and give it to me, that is less wealth redistribution.
I fundamentally disagree. Again - I believe that society should provide a minimum standard of life. Government welfare exists to have that. If you reduce that minimum standard to allow rich people to have more money, that is redistributive - whether you like it or not. You are balancing the books of giving more to the rich by taking away from the poor.
That might be what society should do, but that is done BY redistribution. It isn't a question of whether I like it or not, it's a question of what redistribution means. If you want to be more Sweden and less USA, you do that by redistributing wealth. Sweden is more redistributive than the USA. No-one says the USA is a highly redistributive society because the rich have more than the poor, because that's the opposite of what redistribution means. This may seem a minor semantic point, but using words to mean what they mean and what people expect them to mean is important.
Actually this is always a bit incorrect. The US tax system is highly redistributive of the riches taxes, the difference between a Sweden and US, is everybody in places like Sweden pay high taxes, historically in the US the middle to upper middle class had lower federal taxes (these days with all the local, state and federal taxes, US isn't low tax to anybody).
The the "dirty little secret" that the likes of Polly back in the day didn't really like to talk too much about when saying every week we need to be like Sweden, if you want a Swedish system, we all going to pay a lot more tax, not just the rich.
The other little secret is a lot of "free stuff" you get entitled to in Sweden is actually provided by private companies.
Comments
Another issue, as mentioned below, is systematic biases in the input data sets. As MS found, it's quite easy for an 'AI' to turn racist...
https://spectrum.ieee.org/in-2016-microsofts-racist-chatbot-revealed-the-dangers-of-online-conversation
However, on other polling counters:
- it is nearly 2 years since the Tories last recorded a lead (6/12/21, Red&Wilt, following the initial breaking of Partygate, and hot on the heels of the Paterson vote);
- it is 20 months since any poll did not have Labour in the lead (17-21/3/22, Kantar)
- it is nearly 14 months since any poll did not have a double-digit Labour lead (22-26/9/22, Kantar), pre-Truss/Kwarteng 'budget').
No party since Blair's Labour, pre-Iraq, has recorded such consistent and enduring dominance in the polls as Labour is currently doing, based on that last stat. The last calendar year in which any one party recorded double-digit leads throughout was 1999.
The history of AI is the history of hype followed by disappointment, and also the history of discovering you can build computers to be very good at doing some things much better than people, but that doesn’t mean they do those things like people do them.
Gotta be up there
And here’s my boat. To the next island
Superb
Alone
The LLMs can do the slide decks. And sit through the presentations. And give the presentations.
Which amount is the greater?
So the tories will probably get over 30% in that campaign in Dec 24/Jan 25.
There is a stark difference between the last 3 polls which have LLG-RefCon gaps in the mid 20s, and the previous 5 which all have a gap in the 30s (36 being the highest).
Either something momentous happened around the 15th to boost Tory and Ref fortunes, or this is a house effect. More polls needed.
If on the other hand you want to point to small boat numbers successfully coming down, without the help of Rwanda, then it somewhat nullifies your argument that you’re being stymied by lefty lawyers.
Best bet for the government is to make the next election about nothing much. Call it while nobody’s watching. Perhaps season with a couple of irresponsible tax cuts. Encourage low turnout through boredom. Their own client vote will still faithfully turn up.
Labour did considerably worse in local elections in 2008/09 than the Conservatives did, this year.
Thought I’d be braving the waves in a kind of ferry. Or maybe a speedboat. Not a fucking long tail squid boat with just me an old guy who speaks Khmer and laughs manically when I fall over as the boat violently yaws
His foreign policy assessments appear to go no further than that, other than admiring the power of brutal dictators.
I had a somewhat similar teacher-pupil experience (though I was 17 and it didn’t last as long). This shared experience always warmed me a bit to Macron.
in the polls.
So the Lab-Con gap was similar or bigger
than now, but LLG:ConKip was closer to 50:45 at best.
Mr Milei called Thatcher one of the “great leaders,” to which Mr Massa retorted, “Thatcher is an enemy of Argentina yesterday, today and always.”'
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/11/19/argentina-election-result-javier-milei-president/
Milei’s victory was celebrated by other big beasts of the global far-right including Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro, who had championed his campaign and has promised to attend his inauguration. “Hope is sparkling in South America once again,” Bolsonaro wrote on X, hailing what he called a victory for “honesty, progress and freedom”.
The former US president Donald Trump wrote: “The whole world was watching! I am very proud of you. You will turn your country around and truly Make Argentina Great Again.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/20/argentina-presidential-election-far-right-libertarian-javier-milei-wins-after-rival-concedes
The markets know 😉
The Guardian is hardly alone in this. But agreed, there's no good excuse for reporting data without a source these days.
https://pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/regional-newspapers/newsquest-ceo-henry-faure-walker-on-bucking-the-trend-of-regional-press-decline/
The CEO of Newsquest, one of the four horseshit-men of the local newspocalypse* (with Reach, National World, and DC Thomson), admits that they're basically getting ChatGPT to write one of their lesser known local papers.
Thing is - it makes perfect sense. One might regret the loss of insightful writing and local connection, but that happened 5/10 years ago when they laid off the long-standing hacks and replaced them with keen 21-year olds fresh out of university. ChatGPT's writing is no worse than the 21-year olds. In fact, it's almost certainly better than a couple of writers for our local Newsquest paper.
* apologies for coming over a bit Chris Morris... I couldn't resist
Sometimes that's the actual story, that twitter is arguing, not even simply taking the story solely from twitter.
That's when you rendezvous with the boat of organ traffickers who have heard the tales of the English knapper's legendary liver.
Interesting. Maybe we can go one further and create a new national with a purely AI driven news front end, that just states objectively what has been proven to have happened, and reports what different people said about it…
Just incredible.
Sunak has totally lost the plot.
Steve Webb
@stevewebb1
·
56m
Benefit cuts alert - DWP just issued a notice (see below) of an 'ad hoc' publication on benefit upratings on Wednesday - in years where they simply pay inflation, they don't do this. Looks like this will be their defensive doc, justifying using the more recent inflation figure.
https://twitter.com/stevewebb1/status/1726534625470935072
Last night a G&T cost me $2. On the beach. Cambodia is THE place right now
Full translation of Giora Eiland's genocidal column in Yediot Ahronot.
I expect all relevant parties to start issuing arrest warrants and writing up prosecution files.
If Gaza is / were a state, as Giora Eiland suggests in this article, then the actions of Israel prior to October 7th (the blockade of Gaza, for example) would be an act of war. Whilst that still wouldn't make what Hamas did a legitimate retaliation (because the kidnapping / targeting of civilians is a breach of international law) it still would be clear that Gaza and Hamas (as their nominally elected government) would have a legitimate casus belli to declare war on Israel. In that instance Israel would be the obvious aggressor - and even if they weren't it still wouldn't justify breaches of international law in retaliation.
As the conflict slowly moves down the headlines (in part because it is old news, in part because it becomes increasingly harder to defend the actions of the Israeli state), will people here concede that maybe officials in Israel mean what they are saying and are saying what they mean, and that a genocide of Palestinians (whether by mass killing or mass displacement) is the intended outcome. Israel is taking over the Gaza strip, and the West Bank, and mean to settle it via conquest after occupying those lands for decades.
Another pedant notes: money doesn't just sit in an account. If I have £100 in the bank with Barclays, it's not just sat in cash in a box. Barclays lend it to other people, or invest it, to do things with.
Another pedant queries whether saving is a bad thing.
And another pedant queries the suggestion that the rich are famously parsimonious and the poor spend-happy.
As for where money makes growth:
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/science-blog/evidence-behind-putting-money-directly-pockets-poor
https://www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-news-from-LSE/2020/L-December/Tax-cuts-for-the-rich
It isn't that the poor are "spend happy" it is that they have to spend money on food and living and such, so the money moves more.
Money that banks invest on behalf of their clients does not move as much as money spent by the poor - if I go to my corner shop and buy goods, that corner shop owner (as someone also relatively poor) will spent that money relatively soon to whoever they buy goods from, and the money will keep moving. If a portfolio management company is doing investments it will go into property, most likely, and then wait for that property price to just inflate over time. The money stays still.
And I have the impression that the Lib Dems are exploiting these issues, especially in seats where they are in contention. Labour are excessively feak and weeble, and afraid to say anything much, despite their greater opportunities.. The Conservative vote has fallen a great deal, but I am an optimist. They still have a long way to fall yet.
I found a guy with a little speedboat. Only problem was that the solitary other passenger was a Khmer dude so drunk he kept slumping towards the water - where he would have drowned
An adventure. Now for gin
Sir Patrick turns to the “science capability review”, an exercise conducted with Jeremy Heywood, the then Cabinet Secretary, to see if science capability was “adequate” in Government.
He said the exercise also found that the just ten per cent of the Civil Service fast-stream intake had STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) degrees which he felt “destined the civil service to stay in roughly the same position that it has been for some time”.
For a knowledge led economy this is a disastrous situation. No wonder government knows f##k all about science and technology.
But it's a linguistic point I really take issue with here. Cutting benefits and taxes is not wealth redistribution; it is the opposite.
If you have £100 and the government takes ten of those pounds and gives it to me, that is wealth redistribution.
If the government then decides only to take £5 from you and give it to me, that is less wealth redistribution.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2023/11/20/slow-horses-season-3-apple-tv-review-gary-oldman/
I think the comment about BBC is interesting...not only is this a great show, they don't mess about, this is the 3rd season in 18 months. BBC would still be talking about how we might get the 2nd season by 2025.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVdzApg7cjI
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/20/argentina-presidential-election-far-right-libertarian-javier-milei-wins-after-rival-concedes
What is a far right libertarian?
Its brilliant. Quite wild and untamed
This may seem a minor semantic point, but using words to mean what they mean and what people expect them to mean is important.
The moral difference between cutting taxation (which is in effect confiscation from the self sufficient, aspirational and productive) and cutting handouts (which should be a spur to creating more productive, self sufficient and aspirational individuals) needs to be made by a Tory government.
The the "dirty little secret" that the likes of Polly back in the day didn't really like to talk too much about when saying every week we need to be like Sweden, if you want a Swedish system, we all going to pay a lot more tax, not just the rich.
The other little secret is a lot of "free stuff" you get entitled to in Sweden is actually provided by private companies.
Also: why??? Can it really be true that they’re close to or have closed upon AGI? That would trigger weird and chaotic behaviour