Robinson says he’s staying in NC governor’s race after bombshell CNN report
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4889150-north-carolina-lieutenant-governor-mark-robinson/ ..CNN’s story, which went up about a half-hour after Robinson’s video, revealed a wide range of inflammatory comments that he reportedly made on a pornography website’s message board more than 10 years ago, including calling himself a “black NAZI” and wishing for slavery to be reinstated. The outlet reported that Robinson made these comments between 2008 and 2012, before his political career began, on a website called “Nude Africa.” An account with the username “minisoldr” made the posts, and CNN identified the account as belonging to Robinson through his full name being listed on the account, an email address that Robinson used elsewhere and biographical details that line up with his background. CNN reported that Robinson often shared his thoughts on various issues like race, gender and abortion on the forum. He wrote while discussing Black Republicans in 2010 “I’m a Black Nazi” and on another occasion that he supported slavery coming back. “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it [slavery] back. I would certainly buy a few,” he said. Robinson also reportedly made posts in 2011 criticizing Martin Luther King Jr. as a “commie bastard” and “worse than a maggot” and in 2012 saying that he would prefer Adolf Hitler to be in charge over “any of the sh-t that’s in Washington.” CNN reported Robinson made various sexually graphic comments on the pornography website message board, including describing his pornography preferences…
Nooooooo......really....on a pron site he talked about sex.....Given all the other shit he has allegedly done, that is just laughable to mention that as part of the scandal.
Well. yes. But it’s not entirely on brand for an anti-trans MAGA Republican to be into transgender pron.
Robinson says he’s staying in NC governor’s race after bombshell CNN report
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4889150-north-carolina-lieutenant-governor-mark-robinson/ ..CNN’s story, which went up about a half-hour after Robinson’s video, revealed a wide range of inflammatory comments that he reportedly made on a pornography website’s message board more than 10 years ago, including calling himself a “black NAZI” and wishing for slavery to be reinstated. The outlet reported that Robinson made these comments between 2008 and 2012, before his political career began, on a website called “Nude Africa.” An account with the username “minisoldr” made the posts, and CNN identified the account as belonging to Robinson through his full name being listed on the account, an email address that Robinson used elsewhere and biographical details that line up with his background. CNN reported that Robinson often shared his thoughts on various issues like race, gender and abortion on the forum. He wrote while discussing Black Republicans in 2010 “I’m a Black Nazi” and on another occasion that he supported slavery coming back. “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it [slavery] back. I would certainly buy a few,” he said. Robinson also reportedly made posts in 2011 criticizing Martin Luther King Jr. as a “commie bastard” and “worse than a maggot” and in 2012 saying that he would prefer Adolf Hitler to be in charge over “any of the sh-t that’s in Washington.” CNN reported Robinson made various sexually graphic comments on the pornography website message board, including describing his pornography preferences…
The GOP want him off the ticket and want to replace him but ballots are going out tomorrow and even the corrupt NC Supreme Court surely couldn’t allow the GOP to replace him and force yet more re-prints after the Kennedy debacle .
Normally if he has to withdraw at this point with a replacement then the new candidate can’t be on the ballots , Robinson’s name stays on and the new candidate gets his votes .
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
Are we allowed to talk about AI here again, then?
In which case.
Those of us "golgafrincham b ark" types whose main grift in life has been to shuffle papers and produce reports are doomed.
I do a lot of strategy consultancy work for startups and I feed my meeting notes into Claude (as others have noted, the best of the current bunch) and it largely spits out what I would. Not as good, but probably 70-80% of the way there. So why pay me thousands for my time when you're on a tight budget and the chatbot gets you 70-80% of the way there?
Well, I like to think the extra 20% is the difference between the startups I work with that succeed, and the guys who use chatbot answers and don't. But this is not quite 2 years into the AI revolution, and at the current pace, I will be outclassed within the next few years. If I'm lucky. The next few months, if I'm not.
I consider myself fortunate to be financially secure. Because if I wasn't, I'm pretty sure I would be looking at the bread line in a few years, much as a coal miner in the 90s. A completely obsolescent skill set.
I've retired except for translation and chairing my constituency CLP. I've wondered whether the translation work (mostly for the European Commission) will go, since they send a 95% correct draft translation, but although the pay per word has gone down the pay per hour remains decent (about £50/hour, with a minimum of £17.50 even if it's a single sentence) for zipping through the drafts, filling in the 5% and spotting any errors. It's a nice little retirement earner and I think they reckon the human eye is still important as you do occasinally catch the system totally misunderstanding something.
Any news on the post retirement study ideas?
I remain awestruck by people who are competent in more than one language.
My 21 year old granddaughter speaks Welsh, English, French, Italian and Japanese
If you will excuse the immodesty for a moment, my brain rarely lets me down. I reckon myself adept at English: I may not have anything interesting to say, but if someone else does I can spot whuch words they are using wrong and select the right ones. I can proof read well. And it's not just words; I am good at maths and can remember facts. But I am awful at foreign languages. I have not the slightest ear for them; their lexica remain forever elusive. It seems the hardest thing in the world to achieve even a basic competence. And yet, go to Europe and almost everyone there is able to switch effortlessly switch between four languages. These aren't specialists who've spent years striving to master a language - it's everyone. Waiters, actors, shopkeepers, children, passers-by. How is this possible? Dura Ace recently suggested it was just hours of hard work. Where do these people - like your granddaughter - find the time?
My granddaughter has the gift for languages so much so she was offered a place at Kyoto University but chose Turin for the last year before returning to Leeds University
We all have different talents and certainly I can manage French and once delivered a speech in Belgium in French ( No - not EU related, it was an international charity event)
I am impressed. By both you and your granddaughter.
Especially her ability to choose to study at the finest university in the western world.
Robinson says he’s staying in NC governor’s race after bombshell CNN report
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4889150-north-carolina-lieutenant-governor-mark-robinson/ ..CNN’s story, which went up about a half-hour after Robinson’s video, revealed a wide range of inflammatory comments that he reportedly made on a pornography website’s message board more than 10 years ago, including calling himself a “black NAZI” and wishing for slavery to be reinstated. The outlet reported that Robinson made these comments between 2008 and 2012, before his political career began, on a website called “Nude Africa.” An account with the username “minisoldr” made the posts, and CNN identified the account as belonging to Robinson through his full name being listed on the account, an email address that Robinson used elsewhere and biographical details that line up with his background. CNN reported that Robinson often shared his thoughts on various issues like race, gender and abortion on the forum. He wrote while discussing Black Republicans in 2010 “I’m a Black Nazi” and on another occasion that he supported slavery coming back. “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it [slavery] back. I would certainly buy a few,” he said. Robinson also reportedly made posts in 2011 criticizing Martin Luther King Jr. as a “commie bastard” and “worse than a maggot” and in 2012 saying that he would prefer Adolf Hitler to be in charge over “any of the sh-t that’s in Washington.” CNN reported Robinson made various sexually graphic comments on the pornography website message board, including describing his pornography preferences…
The GOP want him off the ticket and want to replace him but ballots are going out tomorrow and even the corrupt NC Supreme Court surely couldn’t allow the GOP to replace him and force yet more re-prints after the Kennedy debacle .
Normally if he has to withdraw at this point with a replacement then the new candidate can’t be on the ballots , Robinson’s name stays on and the new candidate gets his votes .
Trump: We have to cherish Mark Robinson. You have to cherish him. He’s like a fine wine. He's an outstanding person. I've gotten to know him so well https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1836863694237528241
Robinson says he’s staying in NC governor’s race after bombshell CNN report
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4889150-north-carolina-lieutenant-governor-mark-robinson/ ..CNN’s story, which went up about a half-hour after Robinson’s video, revealed a wide range of inflammatory comments that he reportedly made on a pornography website’s message board more than 10 years ago, including calling himself a “black NAZI” and wishing for slavery to be reinstated. The outlet reported that Robinson made these comments between 2008 and 2012, before his political career began, on a website called “Nude Africa.” An account with the username “minisoldr” made the posts, and CNN identified the account as belonging to Robinson through his full name being listed on the account, an email address that Robinson used elsewhere and biographical details that line up with his background. CNN reported that Robinson often shared his thoughts on various issues like race, gender and abortion on the forum. He wrote while discussing Black Republicans in 2010 “I’m a Black Nazi” and on another occasion that he supported slavery coming back. “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it [slavery] back. I would certainly buy a few,” he said. Robinson also reportedly made posts in 2011 criticizing Martin Luther King Jr. as a “commie bastard” and “worse than a maggot” and in 2012 saying that he would prefer Adolf Hitler to be in charge over “any of the sh-t that’s in Washington.” CNN reported Robinson made various sexually graphic comments on the pornography website message board, including describing his pornography preferences…
Nooooooo......really....on a pron site he talked about sex.....Given all the other shit he has allegedly done, that is just laughable to mention that as part of the scandal.
Well. yes. But it’s not entirely on brand for an anti-trans MAGA Republican to be into transgender pron.
Hmm
Given that all anti-immigrant politicians turn out to employ lots of illegals as household staff, the anti-abortion ones have forced one of the illegal staff to have an abortion after an affair, the anti-gun pols have massive arsenals…
Robinson says he’s staying in NC governor’s race after bombshell CNN report
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4889150-north-carolina-lieutenant-governor-mark-robinson/ ..CNN’s story, which went up about a half-hour after Robinson’s video, revealed a wide range of inflammatory comments that he reportedly made on a pornography website’s message board more than 10 years ago, including calling himself a “black NAZI” and wishing for slavery to be reinstated. The outlet reported that Robinson made these comments between 2008 and 2012, before his political career began, on a website called “Nude Africa.” An account with the username “minisoldr” made the posts, and CNN identified the account as belonging to Robinson through his full name being listed on the account, an email address that Robinson used elsewhere and biographical details that line up with his background. CNN reported that Robinson often shared his thoughts on various issues like race, gender and abortion on the forum. He wrote while discussing Black Republicans in 2010 “I’m a Black Nazi” and on another occasion that he supported slavery coming back. “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it [slavery] back. I would certainly buy a few,” he said. Robinson also reportedly made posts in 2011 criticizing Martin Luther King Jr. as a “commie bastard” and “worse than a maggot” and in 2012 saying that he would prefer Adolf Hitler to be in charge over “any of the sh-t that’s in Washington.” CNN reported Robinson made various sexually graphic comments on the pornography website message board, including describing his pornography preferences…
Nooooooo......really....on a pron site he talked about sex.....Given all the other shit he has allegedly done, that is just laughable to mention that as part of the scandal.
Well. yes. But it’s not entirely on brand for an anti-trans MAGA Republican to be into transgender pron.
Hmm
Given that all anti-immigrant politicians turn out to employ lots of illegals as household staff, the anti-abortion ones have forced one of the illegal staff to have an abortion after an affair, the anti-gun pols have massive arsenals…
“My default position has been for 19 years, if somebody on Kendal Market asked me what I did this week and I felt any sense of shame about telling them - don’t do it in the first place”
“My default position has been for 19 years, if somebody on Kendal Market asked me what I did this week and I felt any sense of shame about telling them - don’t do it in the first place”
"This week I declined to say if I thought the gays were going to hell. I promised my reticence was due to liberal principles, and I would never vote against gay rights - and I wouldn't. But really it was because I knew that, if I told the truth, I'd have to resign as leader."
The Telegraph @Telegraph · 46m 🔴 Sir Keir Starmer has denied he has lost control of Downing Street despite civil war breaking out at the centre of his government
“My default position has been for 19 years, if somebody on Kendal Market asked me what I did this week and I felt any sense of shame about telling them - don’t do it in the first place”
"This week I declined to say if I thought the gays were going to hell. I promised my reticence was due to liberal principles, and I would never vote against gay rights - and I wouldn't. But really it was because I knew that, if I told the truth, I'd have to resign as leader."
Robinson says he’s staying in NC governor’s race after bombshell CNN report
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4889150-north-carolina-lieutenant-governor-mark-robinson/ ..CNN’s story, which went up about a half-hour after Robinson’s video, revealed a wide range of inflammatory comments that he reportedly made on a pornography website’s message board more than 10 years ago, including calling himself a “black NAZI” and wishing for slavery to be reinstated. The outlet reported that Robinson made these comments between 2008 and 2012, before his political career began, on a website called “Nude Africa.” An account with the username “minisoldr” made the posts, and CNN identified the account as belonging to Robinson through his full name being listed on the account, an email address that Robinson used elsewhere and biographical details that line up with his background. CNN reported that Robinson often shared his thoughts on various issues like race, gender and abortion on the forum. He wrote while discussing Black Republicans in 2010 “I’m a Black Nazi” and on another occasion that he supported slavery coming back. “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it [slavery] back. I would certainly buy a few,” he said. Robinson also reportedly made posts in 2011 criticizing Martin Luther King Jr. as a “commie bastard” and “worse than a maggot” and in 2012 saying that he would prefer Adolf Hitler to be in charge over “any of the sh-t that’s in Washington.” CNN reported Robinson made various sexually graphic comments on the pornography website message board, including describing his pornography preferences…
The GOP want him off the ticket and want to replace him but ballots are going out tomorrow and even the corrupt NC Supreme Court surely couldn’t allow the GOP to replace him and force yet more re-prints after the Kennedy debacle .
Normally if he has to withdraw at this point with a replacement then the new candidate can’t be on the ballots , Robinson’s name stays on and the new candidate gets his votes .
Trump: We have to cherish Mark Robinson. You have to cherish him. He’s like a fine wine. He's an outstanding person. I've gotten to know him so well https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1836863694237528241
Robinson fits in very well with the quality of most GOP candidates . The fact that around 40% to 45% of NC voters still seem happy to vote for him shows there’s no hope for the cult.
The Telegraph @Telegraph · 46m 🔴 Sir Keir Starmer has denied he has lost control of Downing Street despite civil war breaking out at the centre of his government
Clever attempt by the Telegraph to make it sound like the government is on the brink of collapsing.
Robinson says he’s staying in NC governor’s race after bombshell CNN report
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4889150-north-carolina-lieutenant-governor-mark-robinson/ ..CNN’s story, which went up about a half-hour after Robinson’s video, revealed a wide range of inflammatory comments that he reportedly made on a pornography website’s message board more than 10 years ago, including calling himself a “black NAZI” and wishing for slavery to be reinstated. The outlet reported that Robinson made these comments between 2008 and 2012, before his political career began, on a website called “Nude Africa.” An account with the username “minisoldr” made the posts, and CNN identified the account as belonging to Robinson through his full name being listed on the account, an email address that Robinson used elsewhere and biographical details that line up with his background. CNN reported that Robinson often shared his thoughts on various issues like race, gender and abortion on the forum. He wrote while discussing Black Republicans in 2010 “I’m a Black Nazi” and on another occasion that he supported slavery coming back. “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it [slavery] back. I would certainly buy a few,” he said. Robinson also reportedly made posts in 2011 criticizing Martin Luther King Jr. as a “commie bastard” and “worse than a maggot” and in 2012 saying that he would prefer Adolf Hitler to be in charge over “any of the sh-t that’s in Washington.” CNN reported Robinson made various sexually graphic comments on the pornography website message board, including describing his pornography preferences…
Nooooooo......really....on a pron site he talked about sex.....Given all the other shit he has allegedly done, that is just laughable to mention that as part of the scandal.
Well. yes. But it’s not entirely on brand for an anti-trans MAGA Republican to be into transgender pron.
Hmm
Given that all anti-immigrant politicians turn out to employ lots of illegals as household staff, the anti-abortion ones have forced one of the illegal staff to have an abortion after an affair, the anti-gun pols have massive arsenals…
The interesting thing is the way North Carolina is now almost as good for Harris as Pennsylvania, not just with this set of polls but with others recently.
“My default position has been for 19 years, if somebody on Kendal Market asked me what I did this week and I felt any sense of shame about telling them - don’t do it in the first place”
"This week I declined to say if I thought the gays were going to hell. I promised my reticence was due to liberal principles, and I would never vote against gay rights - and I wouldn't. But really it was because I knew that, if I told the truth, I'd have to resign as leader."
Honest Timmy.
That period was not his finest hour.
It was a difficult issue to navigate well. But to be honest he went up in my estimation. There's nothing particularly tolerant or liberal about tolerating things you don't disapprove of anyway. That's easy, and we all do that anyway. It takes a true liberal to say "I personally disapprove of that, but it is none of the state's business to get involved in it."
I’ve had problems in recent travels with Santander and Halifax and Barclay all questioning and stopping Visa and Mastercard payments. It’s because they can’t believe someone would travel this much - so they think it’s fraudulent. This despite me telling them my job involves frequent travel. Maddening
The one card that works every time? Often my last hope? Amex
“My default position has been for 19 years, if somebody on Kendal Market asked me what I did this week and I felt any sense of shame about telling them - don’t do it in the first place”
"This week I declined to say if I thought the gays were going to hell. I promised my reticence was due to liberal principles, and I would never vote against gay rights - and I wouldn't. But really it was because I knew that, if I told the truth, I'd have to resign as leader."
Honest Timmy.
That period was not his finest hour.
It was a difficult issue to navigate well. But to be honest he went up in my estimation. There's nothing particularly tolerant or liberal about tolerating things you don't disapprove of anyway. That's easy, and we all do that anyway. It takes a true liberal to say "I personally disapprove of that, but it is none of the state's business to get involved in it."
But he didn't do that. He refused to say that he disapproved. Only after he resigned did he admit it.
I understand why - and he should have been able to say it without being forced to resign - but he didn't do it.
The Telegraph @Telegraph · 46m 🔴 Sir Keir Starmer has denied he has lost control of Downing Street despite civil war breaking out at the centre of his government
Clever attempt by the Telegraph to make it sound like the government is on the brink of collapsing.
“My default position has been for 19 years, if somebody on Kendal Market asked me what I did this week and I felt any sense of shame about telling them - don’t do it in the first place”
"This week I declined to say if I thought the gays were going to hell. I promised my reticence was due to liberal principles, and I would never vote against gay rights - and I wouldn't. But really it was because I knew that, if I told the truth, I'd have to resign as leader."
Honest Timmy.
That period was not his finest hour.
It was a difficult issue to navigate well. But to be honest he went up in my estimation. There's nothing particularly tolerant or liberal about tolerating things you don't disapprove of anyway. That's easy, and we all do that anyway. It takes a true liberal to say "I personally disapprove of that, but it is none of the state's business to get involved in it."
That'd be fine but in attempting to navigate it he was untruthful, as whilst the position you raise, his actual position, is honourable, it would not have been politcally well received.
Robinson says he’s staying in NC governor’s race after bombshell CNN report
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4889150-north-carolina-lieutenant-governor-mark-robinson/ ..CNN’s story, which went up about a half-hour after Robinson’s video, revealed a wide range of inflammatory comments that he reportedly made on a pornography website’s message board more than 10 years ago, including calling himself a “black NAZI” and wishing for slavery to be reinstated. The outlet reported that Robinson made these comments between 2008 and 2012, before his political career began, on a website called “Nude Africa.” An account with the username “minisoldr” made the posts, and CNN identified the account as belonging to Robinson through his full name being listed on the account, an email address that Robinson used elsewhere and biographical details that line up with his background. CNN reported that Robinson often shared his thoughts on various issues like race, gender and abortion on the forum. He wrote while discussing Black Republicans in 2010 “I’m a Black Nazi” and on another occasion that he supported slavery coming back. “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it [slavery] back. I would certainly buy a few,” he said. Robinson also reportedly made posts in 2011 criticizing Martin Luther King Jr. as a “commie bastard” and “worse than a maggot” and in 2012 saying that he would prefer Adolf Hitler to be in charge over “any of the sh-t that’s in Washington.” CNN reported Robinson made various sexually graphic comments on the pornography website message board, including describing his pornography preferences…
The GOP want him off the ticket and want to replace him but ballots are going out tomorrow and even the corrupt NC Supreme Court surely couldn’t allow the GOP to replace him and force yet more re-prints after the Kennedy debacle .
Normally if he has to withdraw at this point with a replacement then the new candidate can’t be on the ballots , Robinson’s name stays on and the new candidate gets his votes .
Trump: We have to cherish Mark Robinson. You have to cherish him. He’s like a fine wine. He's an outstanding person. I've gotten to know him so well https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1836863694237528241
Robinson fits in very well with the quality of most GOP candidates . The fact that around 40% to 45% of NC voters still seem happy to vote for him shows there’s no hope for the cult.
Manners are not everything, but the normalisation of the absurdly rude, vulgar, and proudly ignorant in politics is depressing. Add in the normalisation of election denial and things are more dangerous there than people think, and now nutters are getting violent too.
Whilst I don't think the sides are equal, the whole political culture there is profoundly damaged.
I've retired except for translation and chairing my constituency CLP. I've wondered whether the translation work (mostly for the European Commission) will go, since they send a 95% correct draft translation, but although the pay per word has gone down the pay per hour remains decent (about £50/hour, with a minimum of £17.50 even if it's a single sentence) for zipping through the drafts, filling in the 5% and spotting any errors. It's a nice little retirement earner and I think they reckon the human eye is still important as you do occasinally catch the system totally misunderstanding something.
Any news on the post retirement study ideas?
I'm dipping into courses at nearby Oxford, out of interest without pursuing a particular degree. The first one comes up next month, basically on the idea that social disorder is inevitable because of climate change, so we should be thinking about what to rescue from the shambles. I suspect I'll be one of the more conservative ("What makes you so sure?") participants, but it's interesting.
The Telegraph @Telegraph · 46m 🔴 Sir Keir Starmer has denied he has lost control of Downing Street despite civil war breaking out at the centre of his government
Clever attempt by the Telegraph to make it sound like the government is on the brink of collapsing.
The first word was unnecessary.
Every word up to and including like is unnecessary. And we can lose "on the brink of" too. We knew Klouseau was a bit sub standard, but this is fucking hilarious. It's evens whether he survives to the end of the party conference.
I've retired except for translation and chairing my constituency CLP. I've wondered whether the translation work (mostly for the European Commission) will go, since they send a 95% correct draft translation, but although the pay per word has gone down the pay per hour remains decent (about £50/hour, with a minimum of £17.50 even if it's a single sentence) for zipping through the drafts, filling in the 5% and spotting any errors. It's a nice little retirement earner and I think they reckon the human eye is still important as you do occasinally catch the system totally misunderstanding something.
Any news on the post retirement study ideas?
I'm dipping into courses at nearby Oxford, out of interest without pursuing a particular degree. The first one comes up next month, basically on the idea that social disorder is inevitable because of climate change, so we should be thinking about what to rescue from the shambles. I suspect I'll be one of the more conservative ("What makes you so sure?") participants, but it's interesting.
Did you speak St Anthony’s? They have a rep as a bit of a think tank.
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
Are we allowed to talk about AI here again, then?
In which case.
Those of us "golgafrincham b ark" types whose main grift in life has been to shuffle papers and produce reports are doomed.
I do a lot of strategy consultancy work for startups and I feed my meeting notes into Claude (as others have noted, the best of the current bunch) and it largely spits out what I would. Not as good, but probably 70-80% of the way there. So why pay me thousands for my time when you're on a tight budget and the chatbot gets you 70-80% of the way there?
Well, I like to think the extra 20% is the difference between the startups I work with that succeed, and the guys who use chatbot answers and don't. But this is not quite 2 years into the AI revolution, and at the current pace, I will be outclassed within the next few years. If I'm lucky. The next few months, if I'm not.
I consider myself fortunate to be financially secure. Because if I wasn't, I'm pretty sure I would be looking at the bread line in a few years, much as a coal miner in the 90s. A completely obsolescent skill set.
I’ve been pitching ideas about the “end of universities” to my editors at the Knappers Gazette. They refuse to consider any of them, despite taking lots of other ideas
Intrigued, I’ve been asking them why they are so resistant. The main reason is because they think I’m wrong. Universities will be fine. On further investigation, their reason for thinking I’m wrong boils down to “we hope you’re wrong and we don’t want to think about a world where you’re right”
Trouble is, I’m right. AI is a mortal threat to the entire higher education system. No one will take on £50k of debt to be educated for jobs that no longer exist, and also when AI can deliver the same education for a fraction of the price
A small subset of rich kids will go to “uni” for the social skills they can learn, and for fun; most won’t, because they won’t want the debt
All my university education taught me was how to cite the right papers, i.e. regurgitate the course material, into essay format, so I could quote what other people thought about things.
My degrees look good on a CV and, if I'm feeling a bit vain, make me look vaguely intellectual. But it's mostly status signalling. And they were tuppence ha'penny in my day compared to what they cost now.
In terms of real world value, there's very little. I certainly wouldn't get into 50k of debt for one.
Yes quite
This doesn’t please me because Britain is good at Higher Education and I think universities are intrinsically a good thing - for kids and for wider society
I just don’t see how the business model works in the future. They are going to implode. A few prestigious ones will survive and maybe thrive, most of the average provincial ones will disappear
A bit like what happened to newspapers, in fact
We had it right when less than 10% went to University. Unfortunatly Major and Blair both saw increasing University numbers as a way of getting youth unemployment numbers down. They also failed to understand the principle of dilution. The more people who have a degree, the less intrinsicly valuable that qualification becomes.
Is less than 10% is the right number?
If you look at the really successful economies, places like Singapore, then they send a lot more people to University than that.
It depends on what you want University to do. Given that we have spent a lot of time cutting alternatives to University such as apprenticeships I would suggest it has done as much harm as good.
And we also fall back on the correlation/causation discussion. Just because Singapore sends a lot of young people to university does not mean that is why the country is successful. Any more than banning chewing gum is responsible for its economic miracle.
There are many worse places to be than the great Museum of Anthropology at UBC, with its totem poles and gyaaGangs, on a fine autumn day, by the water, in the wooded gardens, overlooking Vancouver Island
The interesting thing is the way North Carolina is now almost as good for Harris as Pennsylvania, not just with this set of polls but with others recently.
North Carolina effectively negates Trump winning Arizona and Nevada. Would be disastrous for him to lose it.
The interesting thing is the way North Carolina is now almost as good for Harris as Pennsylvania, not just with this set of polls but with others recently.
Harris losing PA and winning by a narrow margin in NC is the proper maximum ratfuckery route. Dem governor, Dem Secretary of State, but GOP super-majority legislature and feral GOP supreme court.
Angela Rayner enjoyed stunning views of Manhattan and the Empire State Building on new year’s eve from a $2.5 million flat lent by the Labour donor at the centre of the row over freebies, The Telegraph can reveal.
The Deputy Prime Minister spent five nights in the luxury Manhattan apartment, with views over New York from the 56th floor of a skyscraper.
The two-bedroom property – totalling 1,300 sq ft – was lent to Ms Rayner by Lord Alli, the Labour peer, from Dec 29 to Jan 2 last year.
According to the parliamentary register of interests, Ms Rayner was given a flat as accommodation for five nights to enjoy a “personal holiday”, which she said was worth an estimated £1,250 overall.
We talked about hotel prices in North America, don't get much for £250 / night these days.
5 nights in a 2 bed, high end apartment in New York, across New Years. For £1250?
Put her in charge of buying PPE for the NHS.
Yes, utterly ridiculous
More like £5-10,000, including flights (did she go Economy? I rather doubt it)
That’s a massive freebie, and I know a massive freebie when I see one. And she has totally lied about it. Bad
Could this have the media taking a closer look at the values people are estimating for the value of gifts received.....Seems like open to abuse, you still register something so within the rules, but you under cook it to make sure it seems unexceptional and doesn't garner any real interest.
This seems to me an open-and-shut case of outright lying
No way you get a five night NYE holiday in NYC in a 2 bed luxury 55th floor apartment in Manhattan skyscraper for £1250
It’s absurd and we can all see it is absurd. At that time of year you’d be hard pushed to get a luxe 2 bed cottage in NORFOLK for £1250 for 5 nights, especially if one includes travel there and back
Midtown Manhattan?? Several thousands
Eg here’s one that looks similar. Great views, high up a skyscraper. Manhattan
It is £1500 a night = £7500 for 5 nights, plus flights; include flights (esp Biz) and you’ve over £10k easily
So presumably someone can investigate this and prove that it is a lie. Then what?
Do we know that it included flights?
Also, time of year is going to make an enormous difference. If you want to go to New York and get an AirBnB in July, you will be paying a fifth of what you'd pay in November.
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
Are we allowed to talk about AI here again, then?
In which case.
Those of us "golgafrincham b ark" types whose main grift in life has been to shuffle papers and produce reports are doomed.
I do a lot of strategy consultancy work for startups and I feed my meeting notes into Claude (as others have noted, the best of the current bunch) and it largely spits out what I would. Not as good, but probably 70-80% of the way there. So why pay me thousands for my time when you're on a tight budget and the chatbot gets you 70-80% of the way there?
Well, I like to think the extra 20% is the difference between the startups I work with that succeed, and the guys who use chatbot answers and don't. But this is not quite 2 years into the AI revolution, and at the current pace, I will be outclassed within the next few years. If I'm lucky. The next few months, if I'm not.
I consider myself fortunate to be financially secure. Because if I wasn't, I'm pretty sure I would be looking at the bread line in a few years, much as a coal miner in the 90s. A completely obsolescent skill set.
I’ve been pitching ideas about the “end of universities” to my editors at the Knappers Gazette. They refuse to consider any of them, despite taking lots of other ideas
Intrigued, I’ve been asking them why they are so resistant. The main reason is because they think I’m wrong. Universities will be fine. On further investigation, their reason for thinking I’m wrong boils down to “we hope you’re wrong and we don’t want to think about a world where you’re right”
Trouble is, I’m right. AI is a mortal threat to the entire higher education system. No one will take on £50k of debt to be educated for jobs that no longer exist, and also when AI can deliver the same education for a fraction of the price
A small subset of rich kids will go to “uni” for the social skills they can learn, and for fun; most won’t, because they won’t want the debt
All my university education taught me was how to cite the right papers, i.e. regurgitate the course material, into essay format, so I could quote what other people thought about things.
My degrees look good on a CV and, if I'm feeling a bit vain, make me look vaguely intellectual. But it's mostly status signalling. And they were tuppence ha'penny in my day compared to what they cost now.
In terms of real world value, there's very little. I certainly wouldn't get into 50k of debt for one.
Yes quite
This doesn’t please me because Britain is good at Higher Education and I think universities are intrinsically a good thing - for kids and for wider society
I just don’t see how the business model works in the future. They are going to implode. A few prestigious ones will survive and maybe thrive, most of the average provincial ones will disappear
A bit like what happened to newspapers, in fact
We had it right when less than 10% went to University. Unfortunatly Major and Blair both saw increasing University numbers as a way of getting youth unemployment numbers down. They also failed to understand the principle of dilution. The more people who have a degree, the less intrinsicly valuable that qualification becomes.
Every other developed world country sends far more than 10% to university. Countries sending even more to universities than the UK include Canada, Japan, South Korea and… er… Russia. Countries at similar levels include the US, Israel, Norway, Ireland, Switzerland. Bit lower and you get Spain, Greece, Denmark, Austria,
A lot lower, but still above 10%, is Germany, China, Czechia, Mexico, Italy.
10% or below is sub-Saharan Africa.
And yet we have had 30 years of following a policy of attempting to send 50% to university and have seen no real tangible benefits in terms of increased economic growth nor happier, better developed and more successful graduates. We have loaded our young with vast amounts of debt and at the same time have created a workforce less suited to the needs of the economy because we have failed to invest in the apprenticeships and non university courses that do actually help people move ahead in careers.
Oh and most of the European countries do not expect their students to incur huge debts through tuition fees. So until you are willing for the taxpayer to soak up the huge costs involved I am afraid comparisons with places like Germany or Denmark are not really valid.
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
Are we allowed to talk about AI here again, then?
In which case.
Those of us "golgafrincham b ark" types whose main grift in life has been to shuffle papers and produce reports are doomed.
I do a lot of strategy consultancy work for startups and I feed my meeting notes into Claude (as others have noted, the best of the current bunch) and it largely spits out what I would. Not as good, but probably 70-80% of the way there. So why pay me thousands for my time when you're on a tight budget and the chatbot gets you 70-80% of the way there?
Well, I like to think the extra 20% is the difference between the startups I work with that succeed, and the guys who use chatbot answers and don't. But this is not quite 2 years into the AI revolution, and at the current pace, I will be outclassed within the next few years. If I'm lucky. The next few months, if I'm not.
I consider myself fortunate to be financially secure. Because if I wasn't, I'm pretty sure I would be looking at the bread line in a few years, much as a coal miner in the 90s. A completely obsolescent skill set.
I've retired except for translation and chairing my constituency CLP. I've wondered whether the translation work (mostly for the European Commission) will go, since they send a 95% correct draft translation, but although the pay per word has gone down the pay per hour remains decent (about £50/hour, with a minimum of £17.50 even if it's a single sentence) for zipping through the drafts, filling in the 5% and spotting any errors. It's a nice little retirement earner and I think they reckon the human eye is still important as you do occasinally catch the system totally misunderstanding something.
Any news on the post retirement study ideas?
I remain awestruck by people who are competent in more than one language.
My 21 year old granddaughter speaks Welsh, English, French, Italian and Japanese
If you will excuse the immodesty for a moment, my brain rarely lets me down. I reckon myself adept at English: I may not have anything interesting to say, but if someone else does I can spot whuch words they are using wrong and select the right ones. I can proof read well. And it's not just words; I am good at maths and can remember facts. But I am awful at foreign languages. I have not the slightest ear for them; their lexica remain forever elusive. It seems the hardest thing in the world to achieve even a basic competence. And yet, go to Europe and almost everyone there is able to switch effortlessly switch between four languages. These aren't specialists who've spent years striving to master a language - it's everyone. Waiters, actors, shopkeepers, children, passers-by. How is this possible? Dura Ace recently suggested it was just hours of hard work. Where do these people - like your granddaughter - find the time?
I am exactly the same: despite having done reasonably well academically in general, I got a C in GCSE French, and came bottom in the year at my comprehensive in German.
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
Are we allowed to talk about AI here again, then?
In which case.
Those of us "golgafrincham b ark" types whose main grift in life has been to shuffle papers and produce reports are doomed.
I do a lot of strategy consultancy work for startups and I feed my meeting notes into Claude (as others have noted, the best of the current bunch) and it largely spits out what I would. Not as good, but probably 70-80% of the way there. So why pay me thousands for my time when you're on a tight budget and the chatbot gets you 70-80% of the way there?
Well, I like to think the extra 20% is the difference between the startups I work with that succeed, and the guys who use chatbot answers and don't. But this is not quite 2 years into the AI revolution, and at the current pace, I will be outclassed within the next few years. If I'm lucky. The next few months, if I'm not.
I consider myself fortunate to be financially secure. Because if I wasn't, I'm pretty sure I would be looking at the bread line in a few years, much as a coal miner in the 90s. A completely obsolescent skill set.
I've retired except for translation and chairing my constituency CLP. I've wondered whether the translation work (mostly for the European Commission) will go, since they send a 95% correct draft translation, but although the pay per word has gone down the pay per hour remains decent (about £50/hour, with a minimum of £17.50 even if it's a single sentence) for zipping through the drafts, filling in the 5% and spotting any errors. It's a nice little retirement earner and I think they reckon the human eye is still important as you do occasinally catch the system totally misunderstanding something.
Any news on the post retirement study ideas?
I remain awestruck by people who are competent in more than one language.
My 21 year old granddaughter speaks Welsh, English, French, Italian and Japanese
If you will excuse the immodesty for a moment, my brain rarely lets me down. I reckon myself adept at English: I may not have anything interesting to say, but if someone else does I can spot whuch words they are using wrong and select the right ones. I can proof read well. And it's not just words; I am good at maths and can remember facts. But I am awful at foreign languages. I have not the slightest ear for them; their lexica remain forever elusive. It seems the hardest thing in the world to achieve even a basic competence. And yet, go to Europe and almost everyone there is able to switch effortlessly switch between four languages. These aren't specialists who've spent years striving to master a language - it's everyone. Waiters, actors, shopkeepers, children, passers-by. How is this possible? Dura Ace recently suggested it was just hours of hard work. Where do these people - like your granddaughter - find the time?
I am exactly the same: despite having done reasonably well academically in general, I got a C in GCSE French, and came bottom in the year at my comprehensive in German.
[swaggering] I have A-grades at GCSE level in both French AND German
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
Are we allowed to talk about AI here again, then?
In which case.
Those of us "golgafrincham b ark" types whose main grift in life has been to shuffle papers and produce reports are doomed.
I do a lot of strategy consultancy work for startups and I feed my meeting notes into Claude (as others have noted, the best of the current bunch) and it largely spits out what I would. Not as good, but probably 70-80% of the way there. So why pay me thousands for my time when you're on a tight budget and the chatbot gets you 70-80% of the way there?
Well, I like to think the extra 20% is the difference between the startups I work with that succeed, and the guys who use chatbot answers and don't. But this is not quite 2 years into the AI revolution, and at the current pace, I will be outclassed within the next few years. If I'm lucky. The next few months, if I'm not.
I consider myself fortunate to be financially secure. Because if I wasn't, I'm pretty sure I would be looking at the bread line in a few years, much as a coal miner in the 90s. A completely obsolescent skill set.
I've retired except for translation and chairing my constituency CLP. I've wondered whether the translation work (mostly for the European Commission) will go, since they send a 95% correct draft translation, but although the pay per word has gone down the pay per hour remains decent (about £50/hour, with a minimum of £17.50 even if it's a single sentence) for zipping through the drafts, filling in the 5% and spotting any errors. It's a nice little retirement earner and I think they reckon the human eye is still important as you do occasinally catch the system totally misunderstanding something.
Any news on the post retirement study ideas?
I remain awestruck by people who are competent in more than one language.
My 21 year old granddaughter speaks Welsh, English, French, Italian and Japanese
If you will excuse the immodesty for a moment, my brain rarely lets me down. I reckon myself adept at English: I may not have anything interesting to say, but if someone else does I can spot whuch words they are using wrong and select the right ones. I can proof read well. And it's not just words; I am good at maths and can remember facts. But I am awful at foreign languages. I have not the slightest ear for them; their lexica remain forever elusive. It seems the hardest thing in the world to achieve even a basic competence. And yet, go to Europe and almost everyone there is able to switch effortlessly switch between four languages. These aren't specialists who've spent years striving to master a language - it's everyone. Waiters, actors, shopkeepers, children, passers-by. How is this possible? Dura Ace recently suggested it was just hours of hard work. Where do these people - like your granddaughter - find the time?
I am exactly the same: despite having done reasonably well academically in general, I got a C in GCSE French, and came bottom in the year at my comprehensive in German.
A language teacher once assured me that my lack of talent for languages and my laziness were not interchangeable: she said students who are good at languages tend to work hard, and those who aren't tend not to. Perhaps she was just being kind.
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
Are we allowed to talk about AI here again, then?
In which case.
Those of us "golgafrincham b ark" types whose main grift in life has been to shuffle papers and produce reports are doomed.
I do a lot of strategy consultancy work for startups and I feed my meeting notes into Claude (as others have noted, the best of the current bunch) and it largely spits out what I would. Not as good, but probably 70-80% of the way there. So why pay me thousands for my time when you're on a tight budget and the chatbot gets you 70-80% of the way there?
Well, I like to think the extra 20% is the difference between the startups I work with that succeed, and the guys who use chatbot answers and don't. But this is not quite 2 years into the AI revolution, and at the current pace, I will be outclassed within the next few years. If I'm lucky. The next few months, if I'm not.
I consider myself fortunate to be financially secure. Because if I wasn't, I'm pretty sure I would be looking at the bread line in a few years, much as a coal miner in the 90s. A completely obsolescent skill set.
I've retired except for translation and chairing my constituency CLP. I've wondered whether the translation work (mostly for the European Commission) will go, since they send a 95% correct draft translation, but although the pay per word has gone down the pay per hour remains decent (about £50/hour, with a minimum of £17.50 even if it's a single sentence) for zipping through the drafts, filling in the 5% and spotting any errors. It's a nice little retirement earner and I think they reckon the human eye is still important as you do occasinally catch the system totally misunderstanding something.
Any news on the post retirement study ideas?
I remain awestruck by people who are competent in more than one language.
My 21 year old granddaughter speaks Welsh, English, French, Italian and Japanese
If you will excuse the immodesty for a moment, my brain rarely lets me down. I reckon myself adept at English: I may not have anything interesting to say, but if someone else does I can spot whuch words they are using wrong and select the right ones. I can proof read well. And it's not just words; I am good at maths and can remember facts. But I am awful at foreign languages. I have not the slightest ear for them; their lexica remain forever elusive. It seems the hardest thing in the world to achieve even a basic competence. And yet, go to Europe and almost everyone there is able to switch effortlessly switch between four languages. These aren't specialists who've spent years striving to master a language - it's everyone. Waiters, actors, shopkeepers, children, passers-by. How is this possible? Dura Ace recently suggested it was just hours of hard work. Where do these people - like your granddaughter - find the time?
I am exactly the same: despite having done reasonably well academically in general, I got a C in GCSE French, and came bottom in the year at my comprehensive in German.
[swaggering] I have A-grades at GCSE level in both French AND German
I have an A* in GCSE French, can't speak it and never could. Top teachers can shephard idiots through GCSE. Not A level, though.
Our teacher used to kick us under the table during the GCSE oral exams if we said something wrong or insufficient, for example.
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
Are we allowed to talk about AI here again, then?
In which case.
Those of us "golgafrincham b ark" types whose main grift in life has been to shuffle papers and produce reports are doomed.
I do a lot of strategy consultancy work for startups and I feed my meeting notes into Claude (as others have noted, the best of the current bunch) and it largely spits out what I would. Not as good, but probably 70-80% of the way there. So why pay me thousands for my time when you're on a tight budget and the chatbot gets you 70-80% of the way there?
Well, I like to think the extra 20% is the difference between the startups I work with that succeed, and the guys who use chatbot answers and don't. But this is not quite 2 years into the AI revolution, and at the current pace, I will be outclassed within the next few years. If I'm lucky. The next few months, if I'm not.
I consider myself fortunate to be financially secure. Because if I wasn't, I'm pretty sure I would be looking at the bread line in a few years, much as a coal miner in the 90s. A completely obsolescent skill set.
I've retired except for translation and chairing my constituency CLP. I've wondered whether the translation work (mostly for the European Commission) will go, since they send a 95% correct draft translation, but although the pay per word has gone down the pay per hour remains decent (about £50/hour, with a minimum of £17.50 even if it's a single sentence) for zipping through the drafts, filling in the 5% and spotting any errors. It's a nice little retirement earner and I think they reckon the human eye is still important as you do occasinally catch the system totally misunderstanding something.
Any news on the post retirement study ideas?
I remain awestruck by people who are competent in more than one language.
My 21 year old granddaughter speaks Welsh, English, French, Italian and Japanese
If you will excuse the immodesty for a moment, my brain rarely lets me down. I reckon myself adept at English: I may not have anything interesting to say, but if someone else does I can spot whuch words they are using wrong and select the right ones. I can proof read well. And it's not just words; I am good at maths and can remember facts. But I am awful at foreign languages. I have not the slightest ear for them; their lexica remain forever elusive. It seems the hardest thing in the world to achieve even a basic competence. And yet, go to Europe and almost everyone there is able to switch effortlessly switch between four languages. These aren't specialists who've spent years striving to master a language - it's everyone. Waiters, actors, shopkeepers, children, passers-by. How is this possible? Dura Ace recently suggested it was just hours of hard work. Where do these people - like your granddaughter - find the time?
I am exactly the same: despite having done reasonably well academically in general, I got a C in GCSE French, and came bottom in the year at my comprehensive in German.
[swaggering] I have A-grades at GCSE level in both French AND German
The interesting thing is the way North Carolina is now almost as good for Harris as Pennsylvania, not just with this set of polls but with others recently.
Harris losing PA and winning by a narrow margin in NC is the proper maximum ratfuckery route. Dem governor, Dem Secretary of State, but GOP super-majority legislature and feral GOP supreme court.
Harris as VP reads out the winner to the Senate and would declare herself having carried the state if she needed to even if certifying the result was deadlocked.
It is a totally different scenario from 2020 when Pence as VP could really have created chaos had he called Pennsylvania and Georgia for Trump
The Telegraph @Telegraph · 46m 🔴 Sir Keir Starmer has denied he has lost control of Downing Street despite civil war breaking out at the centre of his government
Lol. Did someone break the eggs at breakfast time?
The Telegraph @Telegraph · 46m 🔴 Sir Keir Starmer has denied he has lost control of Downing Street despite civil war breaking out at the centre of his government
Clever attempt by the Telegraph to make it sound like the government is on the brink of collapsing.
The Telegraph @Telegraph · 46m 🔴 Sir Keir Starmer has denied he has lost control of Downing Street despite civil war breaking out at the centre of his government
Clever attempt by the Telegraph to make it sound like the government is on the brink of collapsing.
“My default position has been for 19 years, if somebody on Kendal Market asked me what I did this week and I felt any sense of shame about telling them - don’t do it in the first place”
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
Are we allowed to talk about AI here again, then?
In which case.
Those of us "golgafrincham b ark" types whose main grift in life has been to shuffle papers and produce reports are doomed.
I do a lot of strategy consultancy work for startups and I feed my meeting notes into Claude (as others have noted, the best of the current bunch) and it largely spits out what I would. Not as good, but probably 70-80% of the way there. So why pay me thousands for my time when you're on a tight budget and the chatbot gets you 70-80% of the way there?
Well, I like to think the extra 20% is the difference between the startups I work with that succeed, and the guys who use chatbot answers and don't. But this is not quite 2 years into the AI revolution, and at the current pace, I will be outclassed within the next few years. If I'm lucky. The next few months, if I'm not.
I consider myself fortunate to be financially secure. Because if I wasn't, I'm pretty sure I would be looking at the bread line in a few years, much as a coal miner in the 90s. A completely obsolescent skill set.
I've retired except for translation and chairing my constituency CLP. I've wondered whether the translation work (mostly for the European Commission) will go, since they send a 95% correct draft translation, but although the pay per word has gone down the pay per hour remains decent (about £50/hour, with a minimum of £17.50 even if it's a single sentence) for zipping through the drafts, filling in the 5% and spotting any errors. It's a nice little retirement earner and I think they reckon the human eye is still important as you do occasinally catch the system totally misunderstanding something.
Any news on the post retirement study ideas?
I remain awestruck by people who are competent in more than one language.
My 21 year old granddaughter speaks Welsh, English, French, Italian and Japanese
If you will excuse the immodesty for a moment, my brain rarely lets me down. I reckon myself adept at English: I may not have anything interesting to say, but if someone else does I can spot whuch words they are using wrong and select the right ones. I can proof read well. And it's not just words; I am good at maths and can remember facts. But I am awful at foreign languages. I have not the slightest ear for them; their lexica remain forever elusive. It seems the hardest thing in the world to achieve even a basic competence. And yet, go to Europe and almost everyone there is able to switch effortlessly switch between four languages. These aren't specialists who've spent years striving to master a language - it's everyone. Waiters, actors, shopkeepers, children, passers-by. How is this possible? Dura Ace recently suggested it was just hours of hard work. Where do these people - like your granddaughter - find the time?
I am exactly the same: despite having done reasonably well academically in general, I got a C in GCSE French, and came bottom in the year at my comprehensive in German.
I got a CSE grade 2 in French - basically equivalent to a D or E at O level.
And yet I speak both French and Norwegian well enough to work in those countries - and in the case of France to teach specialist rig operations to trainees. For me school language lessons were a complete disaster and it was only when I started working in the countries concerned that I managed to get a reasonable grasp of the languages.
Lord Alli is a Labour peer, a major party donor, and a Labour strategist and fixer.
He is also a multimillionaire.
He is not the taxpayer. And his money and property don’t belong to the taxpayer.
Have we all got this?
Godsdammit, what kind of country have we become if a pervy multimillionaire can't make a married woman wear clothing he likes? "I'd like to see you in the...special dress. Look, I bought it just for you.". It's political correctness gone mad!
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
Are we allowed to talk about AI here again, then?
In which case.
Those of us "golgafrincham b ark" types whose main grift in life has been to shuffle papers and produce reports are doomed.
I do a lot of strategy consultancy work for startups and I feed my meeting notes into Claude (as others have noted, the best of the current bunch) and it largely spits out what I would. Not as good, but probably 70-80% of the way there. So why pay me thousands for my time when you're on a tight budget and the chatbot gets you 70-80% of the way there?
Well, I like to think the extra 20% is the difference between the startups I work with that succeed, and the guys who use chatbot answers and don't. But this is not quite 2 years into the AI revolution, and at the current pace, I will be outclassed within the next few years. If I'm lucky. The next few months, if I'm not.
I consider myself fortunate to be financially secure. Because if I wasn't, I'm pretty sure I would be looking at the bread line in a few years, much as a coal miner in the 90s. A completely obsolescent skill set.
I’ve been pitching ideas about the “end of universities” to my editors at the Knappers Gazette. They refuse to consider any of them, despite taking lots of other ideas
Intrigued, I’ve been asking them why they are so resistant. The main reason is because they think I’m wrong. Universities will be fine. On further investigation, their reason for thinking I’m wrong boils down to “we hope you’re wrong and we don’t want to think about a world where you’re right”
Trouble is, I’m right. AI is a mortal threat to the entire higher education system. No one will take on £50k of debt to be educated for jobs that no longer exist, and also when AI can deliver the same education for a fraction of the price
A small subset of rich kids will go to “uni” for the social skills they can learn, and for fun; most won’t, because they won’t want the debt
All my university education taught me was how to cite the right papers, i.e. regurgitate the course material, into essay format, so I could quote what other people thought about things.
My degrees look good on a CV and, if I'm feeling a bit vain, make me look vaguely intellectual. But it's mostly status signalling. And they were tuppence ha'penny in my day compared to what they cost now.
In terms of real world value, there's very little. I certainly wouldn't get into 50k of debt for one.
Yes quite
This doesn’t please me because Britain is good at Higher Education and I think universities are intrinsically a good thing - for kids and for wider society
I just don’t see how the business model works in the future. They are going to implode. A few prestigious ones will survive and maybe thrive, most of the average provincial ones will disappear
A bit like what happened to newspapers, in fact
We had it right when less than 10% went to University. Unfortunatly Major and Blair both saw increasing University numbers as a way of getting youth unemployment numbers down. They also failed to understand the principle of dilution. The more people who have a degree, the less intrinsicly valuable that qualification becomes.
Every other developed world country sends far more than 10% to university. Countries sending even more to universities than the UK include Canada, Japan, South Korea and… er… Russia. Countries at similar levels include the US, Israel, Norway, Ireland, Switzerland. Bit lower and you get Spain, Greece, Denmark, Austria,
A lot lower, but still above 10%, is Germany, China, Czechia, Mexico, Italy.
10% or below is sub-Saharan Africa.
And yet we have had 30 years of following a policy of attempting to send 50% to university and have seen no real tangible benefits in terms of increased economic growth nor happier, better developed and more successful graduates. We have loaded our young with vast amounts of debt and at the same time have created a workforce less suited to the needs of the economy because we have failed to invest in the apprenticeships and non university courses that do actually help people move ahead in careers.
Oh and most of the European countries do not expect their students to incur huge debts through tuition fees. So until you are willing for the taxpayer to soak up the huge costs involved I am afraid comparisons with places like Germany or Denmark are not really valid.
@Richard_Tyndall - I'm not sure that 50% is the right answer either; it just seems that 10% is pretty low considering we want to be a knowledge based economy.
It's interesting how they're doing this, it's basically an extended informercial but it's all about tackling her negatives: First question is about securing the border, second one was about the cost of living etc etc.
This is really different to the Hillary Clinton approach which was to try to play down the salience of the negatives and talk about the places she was strong.
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
Are we allowed to talk about AI here again, then?
In which case.
Those of us "golgafrincham b ark" types whose main grift in life has been to shuffle papers and produce reports are doomed.
I do a lot of strategy consultancy work for startups and I feed my meeting notes into Claude (as others have noted, the best of the current bunch) and it largely spits out what I would. Not as good, but probably 70-80% of the way there. So why pay me thousands for my time when you're on a tight budget and the chatbot gets you 70-80% of the way there?
Well, I like to think the extra 20% is the difference between the startups I work with that succeed, and the guys who use chatbot answers and don't. But this is not quite 2 years into the AI revolution, and at the current pace, I will be outclassed within the next few years. If I'm lucky. The next few months, if I'm not.
I consider myself fortunate to be financially secure. Because if I wasn't, I'm pretty sure I would be looking at the bread line in a few years, much as a coal miner in the 90s. A completely obsolescent skill set.
I’ve been pitching ideas about the “end of universities” to my editors at the Knappers Gazette. They refuse to consider any of them, despite taking lots of other ideas
Intrigued, I’ve been asking them why they are so resistant. The main reason is because they think I’m wrong. Universities will be fine. On further investigation, their reason for thinking I’m wrong boils down to “we hope you’re wrong and we don’t want to think about a world where you’re right”
Trouble is, I’m right. AI is a mortal threat to the entire higher education system. No one will take on £50k of debt to be educated for jobs that no longer exist, and also when AI can deliver the same education for a fraction of the price
A small subset of rich kids will go to “uni” for the social skills they can learn, and for fun; most won’t, because they won’t want the debt
All my university education taught me was how to cite the right papers, i.e. regurgitate the course material, into essay format, so I could quote what other people thought about things.
My degrees look good on a CV and, if I'm feeling a bit vain, make me look vaguely intellectual. But it's mostly status signalling. And they were tuppence ha'penny in my day compared to what they cost now.
In terms of real world value, there's very little. I certainly wouldn't get into 50k of debt for one.
Yes quite
This doesn’t please me because Britain is good at Higher Education and I think universities are intrinsically a good thing - for kids and for wider society
I just don’t see how the business model works in the future. They are going to implode. A few prestigious ones will survive and maybe thrive, most of the average provincial ones will disappear
A bit like what happened to newspapers, in fact
We had it right when less than 10% went to University. Unfortunatly Major and Blair both saw increasing University numbers as a way of getting youth unemployment numbers down. They also failed to understand the principle of dilution. The more people who have a degree, the less intrinsicly valuable that qualification becomes.
Every other developed world country sends far more than 10% to university. Countries sending even more to universities than the UK include Canada, Japan, South Korea and… er… Russia. Countries at similar levels include the US, Israel, Norway, Ireland, Switzerland. Bit lower and you get Spain, Greece, Denmark, Austria,
A lot lower, but still above 10%, is Germany, China, Czechia, Mexico, Italy.
10% or below is sub-Saharan Africa.
And yet we have had 30 years of following a policy of attempting to send 50% to university and have seen no real tangible benefits in terms of increased economic growth nor happier, better developed and more successful graduates. We have loaded our young with vast amounts of debt and at the same time have created a workforce less suited to the needs of the economy because we have failed to invest in the apprenticeships and non university courses that do actually help people move ahead in careers.
Oh and most of the European countries do not expect their students to incur huge debts through tuition fees. So until you are willing for the taxpayer to soak up the huge costs involved I am afraid comparisons with places like Germany or Denmark are not really valid.
@Richard_Tyndall - I'm not sure that 50% is the right answer either; it just seems that 10% is pretty low considering we want to be a knowledge based economy.
Somebody has to fix the plumbing, dig the ditches, lay the bricks and the tarmac, raise the children, tend the sick, sow the seed and reap the corn, and wipe the bottoms of children and the elderly. We can't all be multiple degree holders with speciality in statistics and catastrophic dentition, which is good because the money sucks. 👿
It's interesting how they're doing this, it's basically an extended informercial but it's all about tackling her negatives: First question is about securing the border, second one was about the cost of living etc etc.
This is really different to the Hillary Clinton approach which was to try to play down the salience of the negatives and talk about the places she was strong.
OK they've finished that part and now it's abortion, this is the proper Oprah shit
Terrific piece here by @willdunn.bsky.social on the new book about Musk’s takeover of Twitter. In awe of the last paragraph especially. A merciless shanking
Children’s lives in the UK are changing. They are becoming shorter in height. More of them are going hungry than they were a few years ago. Recently, more have died each year than they did a few years ago. Increased poverty, more destitution & the effects of ongoing austerity are the clear culprits.
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
Are we allowed to talk about AI here again, then?
In which case.
Those of us "golgafrincham b ark" types whose main grift in life has been to shuffle papers and produce reports are doomed.
I do a lot of strategy consultancy work for startups and I feed my meeting notes into Claude (as others have noted, the best of the current bunch) and it largely spits out what I would. Not as good, but probably 70-80% of the way there. So why pay me thousands for my time when you're on a tight budget and the chatbot gets you 70-80% of the way there?
Well, I like to think the extra 20% is the difference between the startups I work with that succeed, and the guys who use chatbot answers and don't. But this is not quite 2 years into the AI revolution, and at the current pace, I will be outclassed within the next few years. If I'm lucky. The next few months, if I'm not.
I consider myself fortunate to be financially secure. Because if I wasn't, I'm pretty sure I would be looking at the bread line in a few years, much as a coal miner in the 90s. A completely obsolescent skill set.
I've retired except for translation and chairing my constituency CLP. I've wondered whether the translation work (mostly for the European Commission) will go, since they send a 95% correct draft translation, but although the pay per word has gone down the pay per hour remains decent (about £50/hour, with a minimum of £17.50 even if it's a single sentence) for zipping through the drafts, filling in the 5% and spotting any errors. It's a nice little retirement earner and I think they reckon the human eye is still important as you do occasinally catch the system totally misunderstanding something.
Any news on the post retirement study ideas?
I remain awestruck by people who are competent in more than one language.
My 21 year old granddaughter speaks Welsh, English, French, Italian and Japanese
If you will excuse the immodesty for a moment, my brain rarely lets me down. I reckon myself adept at English: I may not have anything interesting to say, but if someone else does I can spot whuch words they are using wrong and select the right ones. I can proof read well. And it's not just words; I am good at maths and can remember facts. But I am awful at foreign languages. I have not the slightest ear for them; their lexica remain forever elusive. It seems the hardest thing in the world to achieve even a basic competence. And yet, go to Europe and almost everyone there is able to switch effortlessly switch between four languages. These aren't specialists who've spent years striving to master a language - it's everyone. Waiters, actors, shopkeepers, children, passers-by. How is this possible? Dura Ace recently suggested it was just hours of hard work. Where do these people - like your granddaughter - find the time?
I am exactly the same: despite having done reasonably well academically in general, I got a C in GCSE French, and came bottom in the year at my comprehensive in German.
I got a CSE grade 2 in French - basically equivalent to a D or E at O level.
And yet I speak both French and Norwegian well enough to work in those countries - and in the case of France to teach specialist rig operations to trainees. For me school language lessons were a complete disaster and it was only when I started working in the countries concerned that I managed to get a reasonable grasp of the languages.
The UK doesn't general start even one language until high school. Most other European countries start their kids at 8 or even younger. The earlier you are exposed to a second language, the easier it is to learn any language. It is not that the Brits have a poor aptitude for languages, it is simplybthat they are badly taught and too late in a child's development. As for those who suggest that it doesn't matter, because English is a predominant language, learn another language helps the brain stay younger throughout life. So it is time we stopped wasting time and taught languages, and indeed the grammar of English, properly.
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
Are we allowed to talk about AI here again, then?
In which case.
Those of us "golgafrincham b ark" types whose main grift in life has been to shuffle papers and produce reports are doomed.
I do a lot of strategy consultancy work for startups and I feed my meeting notes into Claude (as others have noted, the best of the current bunch) and it largely spits out what I would. Not as good, but probably 70-80% of the way there. So why pay me thousands for my time when you're on a tight budget and the chatbot gets you 70-80% of the way there?
Well, I like to think the extra 20% is the difference between the startups I work with that succeed, and the guys who use chatbot answers and don't. But this is not quite 2 years into the AI revolution, and at the current pace, I will be outclassed within the next few years. If I'm lucky. The next few months, if I'm not.
I consider myself fortunate to be financially secure. Because if I wasn't, I'm pretty sure I would be looking at the bread line in a few years, much as a coal miner in the 90s. A completely obsolescent skill set.
I've retired except for translation and chairing my constituency CLP. I've wondered whether the translation work (mostly for the European Commission) will go, since they send a 95% correct draft translation, but although the pay per word has gone down the pay per hour remains decent (about £50/hour, with a minimum of £17.50 even if it's a single sentence) for zipping through the drafts, filling in the 5% and spotting any errors. It's a nice little retirement earner and I think they reckon the human eye is still important as you do occasinally catch the system totally misunderstanding something.
Any news on the post retirement study ideas?
I remain awestruck by people who are competent in more than one language.
My 21 year old granddaughter speaks Welsh, English, French, Italian and Japanese
If you will excuse the immodesty for a moment, my brain rarely lets me down. I reckon myself adept at English: I may not have anything interesting to say, but if someone else does I can spot whuch words they are using wrong and select the right ones. I can proof read well. And it's not just words; I am good at maths and can remember facts. But I am awful at foreign languages. I have not the slightest ear for them; their lexica remain forever elusive. It seems the hardest thing in the world to achieve even a basic competence. And yet, go to Europe and almost everyone there is able to switch effortlessly switch between four languages. These aren't specialists who've spent years striving to master a language - it's everyone. Waiters, actors, shopkeepers, children, passers-by. How is this possible? Dura Ace recently suggested it was just hours of hard work. Where do these people - like your granddaughter - find the time?
I am exactly the same: despite having done reasonably well academically in general, I got a C in GCSE French, and came bottom in the year at my comprehensive in German.
I got a CSE grade 2 in French - basically equivalent to a D or E at O level.
And yet I speak both French and Norwegian well enough to work in those countries - and in the case of France to teach specialist rig operations to trainees. For me school language lessons were a complete disaster and it was only when I started working in the countries concerned that I managed to get a reasonable grasp of the languages.
The UK doesn't general start even one language until high school. Most other European countries start their kids at 8 or even younger. The earlier you are exposed to a second language, the easier it is to learn any language. It is not that the Brits have a poor aptitude for languages, it is simplybthat they are badly taught and too late in a child's development. As for those who suggest that it doesn't matter, because English is a predominant language, learn another language helps the brain stay younger throughout life. So it is time we stopped wasting time and taught languages, and indeed the grammar of English, properly.
That would be great, but we’d have to import a lot of language teachers.
The deadline for withdrawing candidacies for NC governor passed last night. Allegedly the Robinson story was based on vetting info, and leaked by Republicans who wanted him to quit.
FFS. How have they got into this mess before even reaching the autumn equinox?
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul · 2h “Why don’t you buy your own suits?” asked BBC Yorks. “The important thing in all of this is that we follow the rules”
What a change from the Corbyn era, when even the PM told him to go and get a suit, and eventually one of his aides managed to drag him through Saville Row for a single blue suit, which then got worn every week to PMQs.
I've retired except for translation and chairing my constituency CLP. I've wondered whether the translation work (mostly for the European Commission) will go, since they send a 95% correct draft translation, but although the pay per word has gone down the pay per hour remains decent (about £50/hour, with a minimum of £17.50 even if it's a single sentence) for zipping through the drafts, filling in the 5% and spotting any errors. It's a nice little retirement earner and I think they reckon the human eye is still important as you do occasinally catch the system totally misunderstanding something.
Any news on the post retirement study ideas?
I'm dipping into courses at nearby Oxford, out of interest without pursuing a particular degree. The first one comes up next month, basically on the idea that social disorder is inevitable because of climate change, so we should be thinking about what to rescue from the shambles. I suspect I'll be one of the more conservative ("What makes you so sure?") participants, but it's interesting.
Canadian academic, argues that as we have become more interconnected we have become more brittle and collapse has become more likely. But also has interesting ideas about what might come during and after collapse.
I’m amazed that he thinks he has some God-given right to watch the football.
My wife and I said this. There was a version where he just said “oh well, I can’t go every week any more, but you can’t expect to be able to do everything as PM”.
Starmer is reaction to this is keeping the story going. The lawyerly "I have been moved to other seats" so I can continue to keep going every match.
The amazing thing is that there’s other ways to do it.
He buys a seat and pays for it himself. A couple of policemen also need seats next to him, which are either charged to the security budget or paid by the club. A couple more policemen are close by but standing up, they have no need for tickets. He arrives right at the kickoff and leaves a couple of minutes early, hiding in a police room or other quiet place during half time. All perfectly doable with a little planning.
That he doesn’t see the optics of accepting a free £10k/match hospitality box, suggests that he’s very much putting the Champagne back into Champagne Socialism, which is going to go down like a cup of cold sick with the elctorate once everyone else’s taxes start going up while the upper echelons of the Party are living like kings.
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
Are we allowed to talk about AI here again, then?
In which case.
Those of us "golgafrincham b ark" types whose main grift in life has been to shuffle papers and produce reports are doomed.
I do a lot of strategy consultancy work for startups and I feed my meeting notes into Claude (as others have noted, the best of the current bunch) and it largely spits out what I would. Not as good, but probably 70-80% of the way there. So why pay me thousands for my time when you're on a tight budget and the chatbot gets you 70-80% of the way there?
Well, I like to think the extra 20% is the difference between the startups I work with that succeed, and the guys who use chatbot answers and don't. But this is not quite 2 years into the AI revolution, and at the current pace, I will be outclassed within the next few years. If I'm lucky. The next few months, if I'm not.
I consider myself fortunate to be financially secure. Because if I wasn't, I'm pretty sure I would be looking at the bread line in a few years, much as a coal miner in the 90s. A completely obsolescent skill set.
I've retired except for translation and chairing my constituency CLP. I've wondered whether the translation work (mostly for the European Commission) will go, since they send a 95% correct draft translation, but although the pay per word has gone down the pay per hour remains decent (about £50/hour, with a minimum of £17.50 even if it's a single sentence) for zipping through the drafts, filling in the 5% and spotting any errors. It's a nice little retirement earner and I think they reckon the human eye is still important as you do occasinally catch the system totally misunderstanding something.
Any news on the post retirement study ideas?
I remain awestruck by people who are competent in more than one language.
My 21 year old granddaughter speaks Welsh, English, French, Italian and Japanese
If you will excuse the immodesty for a moment, my brain rarely lets me down. I reckon myself adept at English: I may not have anything interesting to say, but if someone else does I can spot whuch words they are using wrong and select the right ones. I can proof read well. And it's not just words; I am good at maths and can remember facts. But I am awful at foreign languages. I have not the slightest ear for them; their lexica remain forever elusive. It seems the hardest thing in the world to achieve even a basic competence. And yet, go to Europe and almost everyone there is able to switch effortlessly switch between four languages. These aren't specialists who've spent years striving to master a language - it's everyone. Waiters, actors, shopkeepers, children, passers-by. How is this possible? Dura Ace recently suggested it was just hours of hard work. Where do these people - like your granddaughter - find the time?
I am exactly the same: despite having done reasonably well academically in general, I got a C in GCSE French, and came bottom in the year at my comprehensive in German.
I got a CSE grade 2 in French - basically equivalent to a D or E at O level.
And yet I speak both French and Norwegian well enough to work in those countries - and in the case of France to teach specialist rig operations to trainees. For me school language lessons were a complete disaster and it was only when I started working in the countries concerned that I managed to get a reasonable grasp of the languages.
The UK doesn't general start even one language until high school. Most other European countries start their kids at 8 or even younger. The earlier you are exposed to a second language, the easier it is to learn any language. It is not that the Brits have a poor aptitude for languages, it is simplybthat they are badly taught and too late in a child's development. As for those who suggest that it doesn't matter, because English is a predominant language, learn another language helps the brain stay younger throughout life. So it is time we stopped wasting time and taught languages, and indeed the grammar of English, properly.
Lord Alli is a Labour peer, a major party donor, and a Labour strategist and fixer.
He is also a multimillionaire.
He is not the taxpayer. And his money and property don’t belong to the taxpayer.
Have we all got this?
Godsdammit, what kind of country have we become if a pervy multimillionaire can't make a married woman wear clothing he likes? "I'd like to see you in the...special dress. Look, I bought it just for you.". It's political correctness gone mad!
I think you might need to check a few things before posting…!
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
Are we allowed to talk about AI here again, then?
In which case.
Those of us "golgafrincham b ark" types whose main grift in life has been to shuffle papers and produce reports are doomed.
I do a lot of strategy consultancy work for startups and I feed my meeting notes into Claude (as others have noted, the best of the current bunch) and it largely spits out what I would. Not as good, but probably 70-80% of the way there. So why pay me thousands for my time when you're on a tight budget and the chatbot gets you 70-80% of the way there?
Well, I like to think the extra 20% is the difference between the startups I work with that succeed, and the guys who use chatbot answers and don't. But this is not quite 2 years into the AI revolution, and at the current pace, I will be outclassed within the next few years. If I'm lucky. The next few months, if I'm not.
I consider myself fortunate to be financially secure. Because if I wasn't, I'm pretty sure I would be looking at the bread line in a few years, much as a coal miner in the 90s. A completely obsolescent skill set.
I've retired except for translation and chairing my constituency CLP. I've wondered whether the translation work (mostly for the European Commission) will go, since they send a 95% correct draft translation, but although the pay per word has gone down the pay per hour remains decent (about £50/hour, with a minimum of £17.50 even if it's a single sentence) for zipping through the drafts, filling in the 5% and spotting any errors. It's a nice little retirement earner and I think they reckon the human eye is still important as you do occasinally catch the system totally misunderstanding something.
Any news on the post retirement study ideas?
I remain awestruck by people who are competent in more than one language.
My 21 year old granddaughter speaks Welsh, English, French, Italian and Japanese
If you will excuse the immodesty for a moment, my brain rarely lets me down. I reckon myself adept at English: I may not have anything interesting to say, but if someone else does I can spot whuch words they are using wrong and select the right ones. I can proof read well. And it's not just words; I am good at maths and can remember facts. But I am awful at foreign languages. I have not the slightest ear for them; their lexica remain forever elusive. It seems the hardest thing in the world to achieve even a basic competence. And yet, go to Europe and almost everyone there is able to switch effortlessly switch between four languages. These aren't specialists who've spent years striving to master a language - it's everyone. Waiters, actors, shopkeepers, children, passers-by. How is this possible? Dura Ace recently suggested it was just hours of hard work. Where do these people - like your granddaughter - find the time?
I am exactly the same: despite having done reasonably well academically in general, I got a C in GCSE French, and came bottom in the year at my comprehensive in German.
I got a CSE grade 2 in French - basically equivalent to a D or E at O level.
And yet I speak both French and Norwegian well enough to work in those countries - and in the case of France to teach specialist rig operations to trainees. For me school language lessons were a complete disaster and it was only when I started working in the countries concerned that I managed to get a reasonable grasp of the languages.
The UK doesn't general start even one language until high school. Most other European countries start their kids at 8 or even younger. The earlier you are exposed to a second language, the easier it is to learn any language. It is not that the Brits have a poor aptitude for languages, it is simplybthat they are badly taught and too late in a child's development. As for those who suggest that it doesn't matter, because English is a predominant language, learn another language helps the brain stay younger throughout life. So it is time we stopped wasting time and taught languages, and indeed the grammar of English, properly.
In Finland my son entered school at age 7. He is taught 50% in Finnish, 50% in French; most of the children in the class did not know any French upon starting. He had to pass a test to get admitted in to this class. Perhaps we could try something similar in the UK?
I love this BBC article about COVID seeming to come from a market rather than lab leak.
"The samples were collected by Chinese officials in the early stages of Covid and are one of the most scientifically valuable sources of information on the origins of the pandemic."
Super trustworthy. Samples collected by officials from the regime that covered up a pandemic in its early stages. What could be more reliable and objective?
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
Are we allowed to talk about AI here again, then?
In which case.
Those of us "golgafrincham b ark" types whose main grift in life has been to shuffle papers and produce reports are doomed.
I do a lot of strategy consultancy work for startups and I feed my meeting notes into Claude (as others have noted, the best of the current bunch) and it largely spits out what I would. Not as good, but probably 70-80% of the way there. So why pay me thousands for my time when you're on a tight budget and the chatbot gets you 70-80% of the way there?
Well, I like to think the extra 20% is the difference between the startups I work with that succeed, and the guys who use chatbot answers and don't. But this is not quite 2 years into the AI revolution, and at the current pace, I will be outclassed within the next few years. If I'm lucky. The next few months, if I'm not.
I consider myself fortunate to be financially secure. Because if I wasn't, I'm pretty sure I would be looking at the bread line in a few years, much as a coal miner in the 90s. A completely obsolescent skill set.
I've retired except for translation and chairing my constituency CLP. I've wondered whether the translation work (mostly for the European Commission) will go, since they send a 95% correct draft translation, but although the pay per word has gone down the pay per hour remains decent (about £50/hour, with a minimum of £17.50 even if it's a single sentence) for zipping through the drafts, filling in the 5% and spotting any errors. It's a nice little retirement earner and I think they reckon the human eye is still important as you do occasinally catch the system totally misunderstanding something.
Any news on the post retirement study ideas?
I remain awestruck by people who are competent in more than one language.
My 21 year old granddaughter speaks Welsh, English, French, Italian and Japanese
If you will excuse the immodesty for a moment, my brain rarely lets me down. I reckon myself adept at English: I may not have anything interesting to say, but if someone else does I can spot whuch words they are using wrong and select the right ones. I can proof read well. And it's not just words; I am good at maths and can remember facts. But I am awful at foreign languages. I have not the slightest ear for them; their lexica remain forever elusive. It seems the hardest thing in the world to achieve even a basic competence. And yet, go to Europe and almost everyone there is able to switch effortlessly switch between four languages. These aren't specialists who've spent years striving to master a language - it's everyone. Waiters, actors, shopkeepers, children, passers-by. How is this possible? Dura Ace recently suggested it was just hours of hard work. Where do these people - like your granddaughter - find the time?
I am exactly the same: despite having done reasonably well academically in general, I got a C in GCSE French, and came bottom in the year at my comprehensive in German.
I got a CSE grade 2 in French - basically equivalent to a D or E at O level.
And yet I speak both French and Norwegian well enough to work in those countries - and in the case of France to teach specialist rig operations to trainees. For me school language lessons were a complete disaster and it was only when I started working in the countries concerned that I managed to get a reasonable grasp of the languages.
The UK doesn't general start even one language until high school. Most other European countries start their kids at 8 or even younger. The earlier you are exposed to a second language, the easier it is to learn any language. It is not that the Brits have a poor aptitude for languages, it is simplybthat they are badly taught and too late in a child's development. As for those who suggest that it doesn't matter, because English is a predominant language, learn another language helps the brain stay younger throughout life. So it is time we stopped wasting time and taught languages, and indeed the grammar of English, properly.
In Finland my son entered school at age 7. He is taught 50% in Finnish, 50% in French; most of the children in the class did not know any French upon starting. He had to pass a test to get admitted in to this class. Perhaps we could try something similar in the UK?
Very many educated people around the world speak three languages. - They speak their mother tongue - which in my case is English. - They speak the language of their dominant economic block - which in my case is English. - And they speak English.
She says it in that slightly drunk-sounding voice that makes it extra scary.
Anyone who breaks into the house of the Vice President of the United States and expects not to end being shot, possibly with a howitzer, is an idiot who knows nothing about the trigger-happy nature of the average Secret Service bodyguard.
To be fair to Keith, most people wouldn’t say no to a free private box
Imagine if journalists had to declare all the freebies they’d received when writing articles.
This is all phoney war stuff. Bring on the Budget! I want the UK political discourse here to move on to something more substantial.
Yes, that's the scam of travel journalists. They get freebies from tourism authorities, hotels etc and are expected to produce puff pieces passed off as journalism, when it's really just advertising.
Of course that isn't the contract, but slag off a place as dull and expensive and the commissions dry up very quickly.
Travel journalism is hard. Surprisingly hard
I mean, some people make it look easy - I guess they have a gift, I dunno - I knap flints as my main job and only do the travel stuff as hobby, really. But real pro travel journalism is extremely competitive - for obvious reasons - and it turns out that many are called and few are chosen. Every journalist has a go at it, but not many have the knack. And those few get the gigs
Not quite the toss-em-off “puff pieces” you describe
Try it for yourself. Try writing about a place that captures the spirit of it in a fresh and diverting way, that avoids cliche but ALSO avoids dipping into purple prose. Not as easy as it looks
I never said writing puff pieces was easy, just said that it was an implicit part of the deal.
It's why we never see pieces slagging off a city or destination in the travel section, though they may appear in other parts of a periodical, such as the recent articles on anti-tourism protests in Barcelona, Palma, Venice etc.
I wouldn’t argue with that. The economics of travel journalism means that the writers must accept free hospitality: that is the way it works. And would you rather a world where the only travel opinions come from inane, 19 year old, pretty blonde Tik Tok influencers?
Aren't most of them also just taking freebies (and going 'Woah, look at this stuff' in a vapid voice)?
Oh, sure. Social Media is full of people on freebies pushing products or place.
My brother was in a Sandpit hotel not so long ago, and the grounds were full of Instagram "influencers" doing photos, posing by the pool, then changing outfit and background for a different shot 30 min later. Only staying one night etc but having a long holidays worth of snaps to publish.
Presumably they are scraping a living, or trying to live the dream, but like all Social Media it is an illusion.
Some of those are hilarious to watch, and it’s true there’s loads of them.
They don’t even need to stay one night, some of the beach resorts will sell you a ‘day guest’ pass for £50 or £100, then as you say they’ll spend the day taking a week’s worth of photos, then come back in the evening with a week’s worth of dresses, with labels still attached as they’ll all be returned the next day.
Meanwhile, their actual holiday is three nights in the Ibis next to the mall.
The other trick is to come off-season (for the Sandpit in summer, for the Balearics in winter), when the fancy resorts are a lot cheaper, and take the holiday photos then to be posted in six months’ time.
Lord Alli is a Labour peer, a major party donor, and a Labour strategist and fixer.
He is also a multimillionaire.
He is not the taxpayer. And his money and property don’t belong to the taxpayer.
Have we all got this?
Lord Alli does not have a job in government, but was immediately given a No10 pass
And reportedly he is still attending No. 10 meetings despite his pass being revoked. His influence seems to be pervasive, and using his properties to 'put up' various Labour figures up to and including SKS on many occasions is extremely dodgy and like I said yesterday, straight out of the Lord Archer playbook.
Lord Alli is a Labour peer, a major party donor, and a Labour strategist and fixer.
He is also a multimillionaire.
He is not the taxpayer. And his money and property don’t belong to the taxpayer.
Have we all got this?
You are, as ever, a beacon of reason in the fog of politshits.
We need to go back to the glory days before the election where those who weren’t Tories rose above kicking the other side for every micro-failure. We need, like Sir Keir, to rise above political point scoring and trying to take the moral high ground over things.
Instead let’s go after the real criminals, grown fucking adults who cannot pronounce the word “Secretary” but say “seketery”. If I was to identify two such fuckwits, whether they be the Prime Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister I would mock them for being utter dunces rather than criticising free dresses, football tickets etc.
Comments
But it’s not entirely on brand for an anti-trans MAGA Republican to be into transgender pron.
Normally if he has to withdraw at this point with a replacement then the new candidate can’t be on the ballots , Robinson’s name stays on and the new candidate gets his votes .
REP. GLENN GROTHMAN: Democrats are so radical that they want migrants voting immediately
C-SPAN HOST: What's the evidence that's happening?
GROTHMAN: I haven't seen it, but you know it's happening, right?
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1836850088439685456
https://novaramedia.com/2024/09/18/the-guardian-is-basically-giving-the-observer-away-heres-why/
https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1836863694237528241
Given that all anti-immigrant politicians turn out to employ lots of illegals as household staff, the anti-abortion ones have forced one of the illegal staff to have an abortion after an affair, the anti-gun pols have massive arsenals…
I would say it would be totally on-brand.
BBC Question Time
@bbcquestiontime
“My default position has been for 19 years, if somebody on Kendal Market asked me what I did this week and I felt any sense of shame about telling them - don’t do it in the first place”
https://x.com/bbcquestiontime/status/1836859236560626085
"Turn these things down"
"It's an absolute privilege to serve as an MP"
Honest Timmy.
The Telegraph
@Telegraph
·
46m
🔴 Sir Keir Starmer has denied he has lost control of Downing Street despite civil war breaking out at the centre of his government
There's nothing particularly tolerant or liberal about tolerating things you don't disapprove of anyway. That's easy, and we all do that anyway. It takes a true liberal to say "I personally disapprove of that, but it is none of the state's business to get involved in it."
I understand why - and he should have been able to say it without being forced to resign - but he didn't do it.
Whilst I don't think the sides are equal, the whole political culture there is profoundly damaged.
Luckily,
https://youtu.be/hi4pzKvuEQM?si=BzBrBj5dEnl3Kub4
And we also fall back on the correlation/causation discussion. Just because Singapore sends a lot of young people to university does not mean that is why the country is successful. Any more than banning chewing gum is responsible for its economic miracle.
Also, time of year is going to make an enormous difference. If you want to go to New York and get an AirBnB in July, you will be paying a fifth of what you'd pay in November.
Oh and most of the European countries do not expect their students to incur huge debts through tuition fees. So until you are willing for the taxpayer to soak up the huge costs involved I am afraid comparisons with places like Germany or Denmark are not really valid.
Our teacher used to kick us under the table during the GCSE oral exams if we said something wrong or insufficient, for example.
Haida Gwaii
My heart will break if they keep me away
From Haida Gwaii
It is a totally different scenario from 2020 when Pence as VP could really have created chaos had he called Pennsylvania and Georgia for Trump
The Torygraph is a spoof paper these days.
Lord Alli is a Labour peer, a major party donor, and a Labour strategist and fixer.
He is also a multimillionaire.
He is not the taxpayer. And his money and property don’t belong to the taxpayer.
Have we all got this?
And yet I speak both French and Norwegian well enough to work in those countries - and in the case of France to teach specialist rig operations to trainees. For me school language lessons were a complete disaster and it was only when I started working in the countries concerned that I managed to get a reasonable grasp of the languages.
https://www.arealme.com/vocabulary-size-test/en/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZasBoVhuUA
LDM: 52.6% (+24.9)
CON: 26.9% (+3.1)
LAB: 16.6% (-29.2)
GRN: 4.0% (New)
No TUSC (-2.7) as previous.
Liberal Democrat GAIN from Labour.
This is really different to the Hillary Clinton approach which was to try to play down the salience of the negatives and talk about the places she was strong.
At 15 mins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsLMDYVfxzw
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/labour-given-4m-from-tax-haven-based-hedge-fund-with-shares-in-oil-and-arms/
https://bsky.app/profile/phillewis.bsky.social/post/3l4kgm53zvs2u
She says it in that slightly drunk-sounding voice that makes it extra scary.
@GoodwinMJ
45% of first-class degrees in the UK “cannot be explained”, says regulator
One quarter of students who get DDD at A-levels go on to get a first at university! (Times)
Read my piece on where unis going wrong from last weekend’s Sunday Times"
https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1836780782947377439
Allegedly the Robinson story was based on vetting info, and leaked by Republicans who wanted him to quit.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk informs Poles that German soldiers are arriving in Poland to help with the flooding disaster:
“If you see German soldiers, don’t panic. They are here to help”
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1836728910525894974
Canadian academic, argues that as we have become more interconnected we have become more brittle and collapse has become more likely. But also has interesting ideas about what might come during and after collapse.
He buys a seat and pays for it himself. A couple of policemen also need seats next to him, which are either charged to the security budget or paid by the club. A couple more policemen are close by but standing up, they have no need for tickets. He arrives right at the kickoff and leaves a couple of minutes early, hiding in a police room or other quiet place during half time. All perfectly doable with a little planning.
That he doesn’t see the optics of accepting a free £10k/match hospitality box, suggests that he’s very much putting the Champagne back into Champagne Socialism, which is going to go down like a cup of cold sick with the elctorate once everyone else’s taxes start going up while the upper echelons of the Party are living like kings.
Oh, and it’s syntax, not ‘grammar’.
It doesn’t matter if they are “within the rules”.
It’s just wrong, both in absolute terms and from a perception perspective.
I love this BBC article about COVID seeming to come from a market rather than lab leak.
"The samples were collected by Chinese officials in the early stages of Covid and are one of the most scientifically valuable sources of information on the origins of the pandemic."
Super trustworthy. Samples collected by officials from the regime that covered up a pandemic in its early stages. What could be more reliable and objective?
- They speak their mother tongue - which in my case is English.
- They speak the language of their dominant economic block - which in my case is English.
- And they speak English.
They don’t even need to stay one night, some of the beach resorts will sell you a ‘day guest’ pass for £50 or £100, then as you say they’ll spend the day taking a week’s worth of photos, then come back in the evening with a week’s worth of dresses, with labels still attached as they’ll all be returned the next day.
Meanwhile, their actual holiday is three nights in the Ibis next to the mall.
The other trick is to come off-season (for the Sandpit in summer, for the Balearics in winter), when the fancy resorts are a lot cheaper, and take the holiday photos then to be posted in six months’ time.
We need to go back to the glory days before the election where those who weren’t Tories rose above kicking the other side for every micro-failure. We need, like Sir Keir, to rise above political point scoring and trying to take the moral high ground over things.
Instead let’s go after the real criminals, grown fucking adults who cannot pronounce the word “Secretary” but say “seketery”. If I was to identify two such fuckwits, whether they be the Prime Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister I would mock them for being utter dunces rather than criticising free dresses, football tickets etc.