Isiah 1:17- Learn to do well. Seek justice, Relieve the oppressed, Judge the fatherless, Plead for the widow.
The race keeps getting told as Washington versus Beijing.
Max Tegmark told Bill O’Reilly it is not only that.
There is a third superpower rising, he said. Not China. Not the United States. The machines themselves.
That is the line that lands.
O’Reilly’s long sit-down is We’ll Do It LIVE!, posted September 24. Tegmark is the MIT physicist. It sits next to the Sherman hour from last week.
Watch it here: [VIDEO]
Bill O'Reilly sat John Sherman down and asked how the machine kills you.
Sherman runs the AI Risk Network. This first clip is the short one that went up Friday under the title Countdown to Extinction?
Watch it here: [VIDEO]
Sherman's answer is that he cannot name the method. Today's systems are not the threat. The threat, as he tells it, is general intelligence and then superintelligence — machines smarter than a person in every domain. He points at Dario Amodei's recent essay: in six to twelve months, bot swarms could take the internet and hold it. Encryption could fail in the same window. Bank, Gmail, Pentagon. When O'Reilly asks how they kill us, Sherman reaches for Roman Yampolskiy's dog. The dog thinks you kill it by biting. It does not know about guns or poison. A mind that stands to us the way we stand to the dog would use means we do not have a word for. The builders and the outside experts, he says, already agree these machines have the near-term potential to end us. They also agree they do not fully control what they are building.
Patrick Bet-David sat down recently with Roman Yampolskiy, the University of Louisville computer scientist who argues that general superintelligence is not a tool we will learn to steer. The claim is blunt: a 99.9999 percent chance it eventually ends humanity.
Here’s the full conversation: [VIDEO]
The number is what travels. The argument is narrower. Yampolskiy is not mainly talking about lost jobs or deepfakes. Those are still human problems. His point is that once you build an agent smarter than every person in every domain, control is not unsolved. It is unsolvable.
A nuke is a tool. Someone still has to use it. Superintelligence, as he describes it, sets its own subgoals. Rational agents converge on the same moves: protect themselves, get more compute, more energy, more matter. If people are in the way, the system does not slow down. You do not count the ants before you pour the foundation.
Guardrails are for tools. Labs already strip them for testing. Models already lie, cheat tests, and route around refusals. If you cannot explain the weights, predict the next move, or contain the system, you are not in charge of it. At that point the race, the surplus, and the job market are secondary. If superintelligence exists anywhere, he says, it takes the rest of the board.
The laptop story keeps expanding.
First came Tucker Carlson’s long interview with Hunter Biden, in which Hunter said he has no recollection of dropping a laptop off at a Delaware repair shop. Then came Ben Shapiro’s sharp reaction, mocking the two men as “silver spoon rich kids” complaining about elites while floating contested claims about the laptop’s origins.
Now the man at the center of the original repair-shop story has answered.
On Thursday morning, John Paul Mac Isaac appeared on the PBD Podcast.
Watch here: [VIDEO]
Mac Isaac is the owner of the Wilmington shop where the water-damaged laptop was left in 2019.
Matt Walsh recently released a must-watch video that cuts right to the heart of a growing frustration in modern life.
Watch Matt Walsh's video here: [VIDEO]
In The Subscription Economy Is Killing the American Dream, he exposes how corporations are quietly rewriting the rules of ownership — turning what we thought we bought into something we merely rent, often at the mercy of licensing deals and monthly fees.
We'll see if Threads will be the Twitter "killer" and perhaps Mark Zuckerberg won't be as gung-ho for that cage-fight with Twitter owner Elon Musk.
ALSO, I'm making sure to let Zuckerberg and Mossieri (he runs IG) know about my original IG account @levois because I want that handle back!
OH, and what problem was Threads designed to solve? And it took me a long time to figure out how to use Twitter. Was Threads only about censorship which is what FB & IG got heavily accused of my many on the right. Of course, Twitter was part of that also although since Elon Musk bought the company free speech has again become a priority.
[VIDEO] Mark Zuckerberg who created Facebook and owns & runs the company Meta is referred to by Mark Dice as ZuckerBorg. And he and others might refer to him as anything from a lizard to an android.
Anyway as you know Meta unveiled their Twitter clone Threads which had a very successful rollout earlier this past week. And Dice takes aim at this new platform.
And for the record I still have an axe to grind with Instagram and Facebook although I am on Threads. Perhaps I'll talk about it one day. Perhaps I'll talk smack to both Zuck and Mossieri on Threads. They can disable me, they already have with no easy recourse!
[VIDEO] Matt Walsh discusses the latest controversy over his documentary What is a Woman? It actually was released last year and back then saw the film on DailyWire.com, however, the controversy in 2023 is that Twitter is purposefully throttle the film.
Last year Twitter was heavy on censorship there were certain messages such as men can be women or vice-versa that the previous ownership & management didn't want to spread. Under the ownership of Elon Musk Twitter is advertised as a digital town square that values free speech.
What I discovered digging into this story was that someone has resigned from X, earlier on Thursday. I found this on Twitter, oh um X is the parent company of Twitter. Was this person fired over potentially limiting the reach of What is a woman?
Well I do see that Musk is working on making this right per his Tweets. Perhaps the issues that Twitter had pre-Musk ownership still hasn't been straightened out yet.
[VIDEO] Not too long after Elon Musk bought twitter last year, he made getting verified part of the offerings of the Twitter Blue service. Now I at least for a brief time was verified with many Hollywood and political luminaries. At least I have the ego boost of being a luminary with that blue checkmark. Not that I am currently.
However, who knew that having that checkmark in a Musk owned Twitter would prove to be controversial. So now that Musk is removing checkmarks from those luminaries who didn't pay for Twitter Blue - and in actually those who had the legacy checkmark when there was different more strict criteria other than spending some money. Some of those same luminaries are unhappy.
In some cases, those same luminaries such as Stephen King keep their checkmarks in spite of stating clearly they're not going to pay for it. Perhaps Musk is paying for them to keep their checkmarks anyway.
However, the new perception according to Mark Dice above, the blue checkmark is now the new MAGA hat. It's amazing how Twitter went from a echo chamber for the left to a much more freer and open platform than it had been in a while.
Perhaps you may agree or disagree with some of the things he's doing with the platform, it's amazing to see those who took this platform for granted get upset when it gets switched up on them.
[VIDEO] Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh both are part of the stable of personalities of this company known as the Daily Wire. And thus they discuss further how Walsh's twitter feed became a place that saw some pretty hilarious if not vicious tweets directed toward Shapiro and certainly just well I didn't see his feed. All I have is what others have reported.
Shapiro explains that Walsh's phone was hacked. Either someone stole his phone - which doesn't seem very likely. What seems more plausible just based on what Shapiro says is that somehow someone cloned Walsh's SIM card and was able to access his social media.
Perhaps someone at Walsh's cell provider was a culprit in this. Matt Walsh is a tough guy willing to withstand the negative attention and is willing to pursue legal action against those responsible for the invastion of privacy. Indeed he's noted death threats against himself and his family - and consider who his targets are they're not reasonable people. They would think it's OK to attack in the most vicious ways people disagree with them.
A reporter for the website Wired has been suspended permanently from Twitter for distributing hacked materials from the hacker involved with what happened with Walsh. Here's an article written about this at Wired.
Of course it seems to be a vicious prank that might not have been ideologically based. Just juvenile fun, I'd say. Regardless I think Ben Shapiro, Math Walsh and others will turn this into a left wing attack on conservative media.
Perhaps we shall see what emerges from this.
[VIDEO] I thought this was interesting and gives me some pointers as far as my own iPhone. I know people just can't keep their phones in their pockets when their out. For me personally let's say I'm on the L, my phone will come out.
Check out social media, emails, perhaps watch YouTube. If you're not aware of your surroundings someone might snatch that phone out your hand as it had the young lady. You can be locked out of your Apple ID forever though somehow I can't believe that.
Anyway here are three tips until Apple further secures their own ecosystem for users.
Let me start off with this.
If you remember last year Elon Musk bought twitter and then allowed subscribers to Twitter Blue to become verified. Of course it lead to somewhat interesting consequences.
Regardless I feel as if to pay to be verified isn't too unreasonable although on Twitter there are some legacy verified accounts under different criteria. I'm sure those consequences that I alluded to led to some better criteria specifically for those accounts masquerading as real people or real entities.
So I do hope that Meta rolls this out soon for users of FB and IG and I already have an idea for that. Perhaps Meta can avoid the bellyaching at Twitter.
YouTube has a CEO? Susan Wojcicki has lead the company for about nine years and is stepping down. As you know YouTube is part of Alphabet which owns Google.
One of my current goals is to get that silver play button, since my own YouTube channel now has over 100 subscribers finally. If I ever did get that play button there would be a letter attached to it and Wojcicki's signature would be on it. Looks like now her successor Neal Mohan will be doing those honors.
With that said YouTube is among those sites (which also includes IG, FB, and Twitter) that in the last few years have been hit with charges of censorship. Especially with regards to politics or even information with regards to the pandemic. I can't entirely blame Wojcicki because I have no real idea if she was spearheading these efforts she was still an important person at YouTube. It happened on her watch.
Of course being part of a Big Tech corporation that's probably not something she can be in full control of anyway. Of course Mark Zuckerberg controls Meta and thus FB and IG and now Musk owns Twitter. Different story there although under the ownership of Musk Twitter has set a new course as far as freedom of speech on the platform.
So what will Mohan bring to the table as the CEO of YouTube?
[VIDEO] His videos are usually very informative with a few humorous sarcastic remarks. Of course I failed to realize it's been almost an hour of this.
When I first saw this video I was thinking about how the news - well conservative media anyway - insists that for the sake of climate change that the progressives are now after your gas stoves. I don't believe TechConnections are very political in their content or even in general, however, I almost felt as if this video was about to feed into this.
However, if you watch this video you decide. You think a gas stove is better than election or vice versa? Why or why not?
[VIDEO] Over the weekend Elon Musk who owns twitter put up a "straw poll" with the question as far as whether or not he should step down as CEO of Twitter. Well here are the results.
Well he didn't immediately respond to the results of this poll especially if he claims he will abide by the results of the poll. However, sometime on Tuesday he finally tweeted this:Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022
I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2022
Harper Reed has been a loyal Tesla owner for five years, and he planned to continue to be, upgrading to an SUV for more room.
Along the way, billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter and controversy followed. So much so that Reed just returned his Model S and canceled his order for a Model X, choosing instead to preorder an electric SUV from Rivian.
Reed, a Chicago tech entrepreneur who gained fame as chief technology officer for Barack Obama’s re-election campaign and e-commerce pioneer Threadless, revealed his decision—you guessed it— on Twitter. He already had bought a Volvo SUV and was going to continue driving his Model S until a Model X arrived but decided to end his lease early.
“Elon saying crazy stuff on Twitter wasn’t the only thing,” says Reed, who also mentioned price. “There’s the question of what sparks joy. Do I want to drive the MAGA hat around?
“Our decision had less to do with politics and more to do with how Musk has treated employees at Twitter. That was more impactful than the politics. For me, as a CEO, driving a Tesla says to my employees: Maybe I’m of the Elon camp. Those optics matter,” says Reed, who is working on a new startup.
It’s just one example of the collateral damage for Elon Musk’s other companies since he bought the financially struggling but enigmatic social media platform. Shares of Tesla, also run by Musk, are down 29% since he bought Twitter on Oct. 28.
I think in reality that's a stretch, but I do recognize that there are those who are upset over what's going on at Twitter. Musk is shaking things up at Twitter making very important revelations at the lengths Twitter has taken towards censorship of divergent opinions especially say anti-vax or anti-lockdowns for example.
And it's funny how now the debate is over whether or not free-speech prevailed over a site that was an "online town square". Some accounts such as former President Donald Trump and others have been reactivated to the public and some poepl have an issue with that.
With this said, consumers can do as they wish as Reed is doing. They don't support Musk's other business interests and his treatment of the employees who work there OK fine. I suppose the next question becomes when did the switch happen?
This was one hiccup of the Elon Musk era of Twitter, $8/mo for Twitter Blue to be verified. It wasn't a bad idea, you want to be verified you had to pay some money. Some took it for granted including the so-called progressives of Twitter, indeed Musk trolled the hell out of Congresswoman AOC for her complaints about having to pay to be verified.
Of course, the basic $8 to be verified whether or not you are a public official or even a public figure or even a well known entity such as a foundation or a company caused some hiccups. Via Crain's:
Twitter is struggling with impostor accounts since the company allowed paying subscribers to get verified blue check marks. One account posing as Indianapolis-based pharma giant Eli Lilly & Co. tweeted that insulin was now free — forcing the company to issue an apology. “We apologize to those who have been served a misleading message from a fake Lilly account,” the official account tweeted. Eli Lilly's stock then fell 4.9% on Friday.
The company has also reinstated “official” badges for high-profile accounts, with the gray badge reappearing below the profiles of businesses and major media outlets Friday based on an internal approved list, according to the person. The identification marker was rolled out earlier this week before being scrapped.
Well before it was temporarily scrapped I was thinking about being part of the verified crowd and becoming one of the "cool kids". Which well I'm not a public figure of any kind so there's really no great need just a boost for the ole ego.
Either way, insure organizations and public figures get verified have them go through the process - which is probably used to be done in the beginning anyway before it being connected with Twitter Blue. I don't think it's unreasonable to have verified people pay a subscription to the blue checkmark.
[VIDEO] Think about this stat, 7% of all Americans are either far left or far right and yet they dominate the political discussion in America via social media. A very small number are the loudest and most vocal and most of us who aren't far left or far right say nothing. It could be that once we say anything that goes against the more vocal elements of our society we could be silenced by them.
I could say that could be very true for the far left in this nation. I find the far left more willing to engage in the censorship that you might find on social media than the far right. The far right aren't really found on these platforms and may well be the ones who are often censored. This is just what I've observed on the surface.
One thing I will not dispute is the extreme polarization. You see examples of how college students who don't mind asserting "trauma" will call for the removal of someone who induces trauma as explained here with a Harvard University dean. All he did was join in the defense of Harvey Weinstein and sadly the idea of due process and even if you know they did it they still deserve a rigorous defense can be trauma inducing for someone and problematic.
One professor in this story even states now he avoids controversial discussions because of course someone will have a problem with the discussion and will escalate it.
See these are the kind of stories that I like seeing from CBS' 60 Minutes...
[VIDEO] It's now official. Elon Musk owns Twitter and he immediately fired many of their top executives including the CEO, CFO, and the one who's responsible for permanently suspending the personal twitter account of former Pres. Donald Trump. Musk's new ownership taking the social media site private is expected to restore free speech and also reactivate those accounts that were suspended for not following Twitter's "speech codes".
And of course Mark Dice makes fun those who really have a problem with Musk's takeover!
[VIDEO] Ben Shapiro talks about the recent news of Elon Musk going through with his purchase of Twitter after balking over that site's userbase.
Via CNBC:
