The billionaire sex pests pushing generative AI keep spinning up badly remembered science fiction scenarios of apocalypse, as both advertisement ("we are literally creating a god... it might be too powerful!") and as a way of shifting the conversation from its actual real world harms it already does

The image is “doctored”… as opposed to what?… that it’s a photo of dude actually being Jesus?!

Teaching Strawson. “Suppose a professor gave u a bad grade for an earlier assignment. You might hold a grudge against this professor at the time. But once u learn that there is no ill-will… you probably should… u know… let go of the grudge? 😁”

Hall of fame FT correction

In what world is it okay for the Defense Secretary to make multi-million dollar investments in defense companies:
a) Ever;
b) In the run-up to starting a war in the Middle East

FT has the scoop: www.ft.com/content/744e...

In a functional democracy, he would offer his resignation tonight.

‘Succulent Chinese meal’ speech added to Australia’s National Film and Sound Archive Jack Karlson’s rallying cry of ‘democracy manifest’ added to national collection of sound recordings that hold historical, cultural and aesthetic significance * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Thirty-five years ago, when Jack Karlson was hauled into a police car outside a Chinese restaurant in Queensland, he couldn’t have known his bombastic speech would be watched by millions around the world, become a meme and now, be preserved for ever in Australia’s National Film and Sound Archive. Karlson’s declaration – “Gentlemen, this is democracy manifest! … What is the charge? Eating a meal? A succulent Chinese meal?” – is one of nine pieces of audio that have been added to the NFSA’s Sounds of Australia collection this year, along with a pedestrian crossing signal and Missy Higgins’ 2004 hit Scar. Continue reading...

‘Succulent Chinese meal’ speech added to Australia’s National Film and Sound Archive

So I was waiting for Bautista to show up in the entire movie coz I heard a lot of praise for his performance… part of the reason I bought the ticket…

The NYT purposefully mischaracterized the position of the AMA to make it seem like they changed policy and opposed gender affirming care on trans youth. It appears they have rejected efforts by the AMA to correct the record.

Another Trump Policy won't much change US Foreign Policy, by Stephen Walt

The United States has become a rogue state. By Stephen Walt

Realism vs. Reality

Judge ends asylum claims for Liam Conejo Ramos and his family, orders family's removal The family’s lawyers plan to appeal the judge’s decision to deport the family to Ecuador.

Outrageous.

Stripping Liam Conejo Ramos and his family of asylum is beyond cruel and indefensible.

This decision must be overturned. Shame.

I think the call for political messages in art is self-defeating for this reason. political art is likeliest to work if the underlying artistic work is successful as art, which is only likely if the artists focus (heavily if not exclusively) on the art itself as art.

simultaneously my most and least egghead academic opinion is that we have actual political treatises at home and we should simply let art be art

Dark money group offers influencers $1,500 for posts attacking Chicago Democratic primary candidate Progressive House candidate Kat Abughazaleh told MS NOW the secretive campaign is “filled with false and defamatory claims.”

All this week I've written about how here in IL, dark money and MAGA aligned PACs are spending absurd sums of money to prop up establishment corporate Dems while attacking progressive Dems who are actually willing to fight.

MSNOW has the scoop on just how deep this goes:
www.ms.now/news/kat-abu...

Remember the mystery a few weeks ago, about how and why xAI was spitting out people's government names, even people who have only *ever* used a pseudonym professionally?

It’s insane this is legal. People around Trump are profiting off war and death. I’m introducing legislation ASAP to ban this.

Any dem that votes against the war powers resolution should be primaried and their career should be ended asap.

love when democrats talk about kitchen table issues as if trans people and immigrants don’t have kitchen tables 🙃

My bottom line, minimum expectation for any candidate is rapidly shifting from "Abolish ICE" to "Nuremberg-style trials for all involved."

Mia Valentina Paz Faria A 7-year-old from Venezuela who was living in Austin, Texas Detained for 70 days “I don’t want to be in this place I want to go to my school.”

UPDATE: Staff at the ICE concentration camp in Dilley, Texas have begun raiding the dormitories of kids and their parents to confiscate and destroy letters from the children. This is in response to the ace reporting by @micarosenberg et al for ProPublica:

“I don’t want to be in this place I want to go to my school.”

- 7 year old imprisoned by ICE for 70 days in a concentration camp in Texas.

Today, after @propublica.org published this story, the camp was raided to confiscate letters from the children.

www.propublica.org/article/ice-...

white people work so hard. even their restaurants are open on chinese new year

OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limi...

OpenAI ”acknowledged in its own research that LLMs will always produce hallucinations due to fundamental mathematical constraints that cannot be solved through better engineering, marking a significant admission from one of the AI industry’s leading companies.”

You can’t trust chatbots.

Real convo behind me in line for Rocky Horror yesterday —

Staff: r u a virgin?
👴🏻: No
S: (turned to 👴🏻’s company) r u a virgin?
👴🏻: yes… she is my daughter, she is 15 😮
S: that’s not what I meant… 🥀💀

[P.S. 👴🏻 was a virgin]

I did not know what a cabaret is when I bought the ticket, I googled what it is just now… and now I’m panicking… seems super weird to go solo 😐

As someone who learn English as second language lang, many things I was taught to be rules are not followed by native speakers. E.g., I was taught that a nonrestrictive subordinate clause must be set off by commas.

That which is for me through the medium of money - that for which I can pay (i.e., which money can buy) - that am I myself, the possessor of the money. The extent of the power of money is the extent of my power. Money's properties are my - the possessor's - properties and essential powers. Thus, what I am and am capable of is by no means determined by my individuality. I am ugly, but I can buy for myself the most beautiful of women. Therefore I am not ugly, for the effect of ugliness - its deterrent power - is nullified by money. I, according to my individual characteristics, am lame, but money furnishes me with twenty-four feet. Therefore I am not lame. I am bad, dishonest, unscrupulous, stupid; but money is honoured, and hence its possessor. Money is the supreme good, therefore its possessor is good. Money, besides, saves me the trouble of being dishonest: I am therefore presumed honest. I am brainless, but money is the real brain of all things and how then should its possessor be brainless? Besides, he can buy clever people for himself, and is he who has [In the manuscript: "is. - Ed.] power over the clever not more clever than the clever? Do not I, who thanks to money am capable of all that the human heart longs for, possess all human capacities? Does not my money, therefore, transform all my incapacities into their contrary?

A bit long but here’s Marx from the 1844 manuscripts providing an exposition of Goethe and Shakespeare on the power of money that all happens to sum up exactly where we are right now. (Reminded of this passage by Epstein’s capture of prominent academics.)

When you read the letters written by children who the United States government has decided to incarcerate indefinitely, I don't know how anyone can not think: surely, there are better alternatives.

www.propublica.org/article/ice-...

Federal employee who did background checks for ICE arrested in Bloomington sex sting A federal employee who police say conducted background checks for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other government agencies was arrested last week in a Bloomington prostitution sting.

Police in Bloomington, MN announce that that they broke up an underage sex-trafficking ring which was being run by a DHS agent who works as a background checker for newly recruited ICE agents. DHS had given him a high security clearance kstp.com/kstp-news/lo...

When u think about it, isn’t “kid rock” just another way to say “pedo island”? Are we surprised that they attract the same crowd?

Immigration Court Drops Case Against Tufts Student Rumeysa Ozturk The Turkish national had been arrested by plainclothes federal officers outside her apartment.

An immigration court dropped its case against Turkish graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk, a little less than a year after federal agents arrested her on a street near Tufts University