Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you.
Posted on 02/27/2026 7:41:07 PM PST by anthropocene_x
Industry boosters argue the U.S. is in a race with China for technological supremacy, and thus the sprint has existential stakes. But many Americans view AI through the lens of issues much closer to home: skyrocketing electricity bills, looming job displacement, teenage chatbot addiction. Last October, after 134,000 people signed a statement calling for a halt to the development of superintelligence, “I was thinking, why are we getting military people, faith leaders, and everyone signing?” says Max Tegmark, a physicist whose nonprofit organization, The Future of Life Institute, issued the statement. “And then it hit me: they’re all rooting for Team Human instead of Team Machine.”
Tech leaders, of course, say that they are on Team Human: that society’s productivity, happiness, and even health will be improved by ultrasmart, benevolent digital assistants. But many people don’t believe them—especially as some of these companies embrace tactics to juice revenue and usership, like erotica, deepfake generation, and in-chatbot ads. So AI’s critics are taking matters into their own hands. In the hopes of slowing the runaway hype train, they are staging rallies and packing town halls, delivering sermons, writing contract protections, filing lawsuits, and running for office. As physical manifestations of the industry’s heedlessness, the data centers powering AI systems have become the focus of protests. From Virginia to Indiana to Arizona, activists stalled $98 billion in data-center projects in the second quarter of 2025 alone, researchers at Data Center Watch found. “Every day I hear from someone with a different reason for fighting a data center,” says Saul Levin, a D.C.-based organizer.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
|
|
Click here: to donate by Credit Card Or here: to donate by PayPal Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794 Thank you very much and God bless you. |
The Chinese will have as many Ai data centers as they want. Coal electricity plants will provide power. American hydroelectric plants would be nice. Maybe some smaller nuke plants. USA needs lots of electricity. Long live lots of generation.
I did a little research the other day. Some of these Large Language Models (LLM) search engines use many different sources, including Wokepedia.
G.I.G.O is still in effect.
It is an assistant. Can feel like one when using it
I think in terms of programming it has revolutionized things. I’m not sure if it’ll apply to other industries like that though
If A.I. was so much of a threat to the USA why not go the cheaper route and put money into learning how to stop A.I. and kill it from other countries. But the truth is, the government wants A.I. for themselves.
As a somewhat mediocre computer hobbyist... AI apps have been mostly pleasant assistants to use when setting up servers both local and distant for various purposes, but in reality, using normal reference materials, consulting with forums, using search engines, and watching YouTube videos would actually have gotten the job done just as quickly, I would have learned more and my installations would have been cleaner. In my case I know just enough to catch errors that the AI apps have made much but not all of the time.
Quoting from a Study and an article about this... would seem to contradict your belief about this.
In mid 2025 “METR conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT) with 16 experienced open-source developers, asking them to complete real tasks both with and without AI tools (primarily Cursor Pro and Claude 3.5/3.7). Before starting, developers were asked to predict how much AI would help them. On average, they predicted AI would make them 24% faster. In reality, tasks took them 19% longer when using AI — a swing of more than 40 percentage points between perception and reality.”
“The Perception Gap:
The twist that made this study so striking is that even after completing the tasks and being objectively measured as slower, many developers still believed AI had saved them time. This has been attributed to what researchers call the illusion of velocity — AI provides an immediate dopamine-like reward from seeing code generated instantly, which the brain registers as productivity even when actual output suffers.”
“But the truth is, the government wants A.I. for themselves.”
Considering the organic intelligence of many government officials, I can understand why.
Only peripherally related... But....
Someone (not me) posted “Colossus; The Forbin Project” over at BitChute today:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/Cl7ZlHjFngkx
Quote-This has been attributed to what researchers call the illusion of velocity — AI provides an immediate dopamine-like reward from seeing code generated instantly, which the brain registers as productivity even when actual output suffers.”
Interesting....illusion of velocity
Relative velocity
Shocking to see cloth and wood airplane manufacturers CAPEX spending on metal airplanes! When Wall St. figures no way to fund the kind if engines with horsepower required.
The models have been getting incrementally better since I first was introduced to the tools. But I am aware of no developments that are revolutionary in any way. As a hobbyist I can use the tools to accomplish tasks that would take quite a bit of time, and part of the time they work, but usually it takes many attempts to get things working correctly. These are things that my next-door neighbor who is a software engineer could accomplish very quickly. AI is helpful to a professional and even a hobbyist for tedious and repetitive tasks.
Conversations on AI are typically based mostly on hype.
Here is an interview of interest to your post on Wokepedia :
https://youtube.com/watch?v=FEO1kw6K2R4
I have been using Grok4.1. Everything has to be checked, because it makes so many errors.
I ask questions and it gives me false answers. Not only are the answers false, it defends the false answers persuasively.
I hear this about other AI as well. It requires a level of checking which renders it almost useless for research purposes.
It was a helpful tutor on setting up a spreadsheet.
For my purposes, it has been barely cost efficient so far.
Oh hell yes it is. I'm a pure novice and just got my first AI Certification. There will be a demand for human gatekeepers and auditors who can help a company develop firewalls to protect its in-house data, while filtering out the noise that makes up a good portion of the external web.
Being a Prompt Engineer is like being a Sanitation Engineer. Fancy title for someone who removes garbage.
Perhaps this is the reason China is restricting silver exports. Silver is used in solar panels. Less silver, fewer solar panels.
China processes 60-70% of the world’s silver ore.
I’ve often thought decentralized home-based electricity generation is an issue of national security. Look at Ukraine, where Russia has taken out power plants. You can be CERTAIN such a strategy is in the Chinese war plans.
We’re all Luddites now.
.
Even without AI, our power generation & distribution needs to be updated. With AI, it apparently needs to be completely remodeled.
It is a tool, a very powerful tool, and perhaps the most impactful, powerful tool humanity has ever developed. Like any tool, it is only as good as the people using it, and like any tool, potentially dangerous in the hands of unskilled or malevolent operators.
It reminds me of the trust fund teen that buys a McLaren or a Lambo. It's only a matter of time before the car is wrapped around a telephone pole, with the only variable really being how many other people are killed or wounded in the process. People want the power and performance regardless of their ability to use it wisely.
AI is not a passing fad; it is here to stay and will become increasingly widespread. What is a fad is/will be business executives, policy makers and people in high level positions who feel the need to be on the cutting edge who begin incorporating AI in ever increasing roles and functions without a good understanding of its capabilities and limitations, much like the teen in the Lamborghini. There is nothing wrong with a Lamborghini. In the hands of a skilled driver it can do amazing things. In the hands of somebody who is driving a Lamborghini merely for the sake of being able to say they drive a Lamborghini, it is a disaster waiting to happen.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.