Free Republic

Despite all the industry hype and genuine advances, generative AI models are still prone to odd, inexplicable, and downright worrisome quirks. There’s also a growing body of research suggesting that the overall performance of many large language models (LLMs) may degrade over time. According to recent evidence, the industry’s newer reasoning models may already possess the ability to manipulate and circumvent their human programmers’ goals. Some AI will even attempt to cheat their way out of losing in games of chess. This poor sportsmanship is documented in a preprint study from Palisade Research, an organization focused on risk assessments of...

The last hour or so, pages on FR are loading very irregularly -- sometimes normal, but more often than not they hang indefinitely, as if the connection was dropped. All other sites seem to be fine, so I don't think it's at my end, or my ISP (Spectrum in Upstate NY). Just figured I better get a sanity check.

@TuckerCarlson Sam Bankman-Fried is doing 25 years behind bars, and is now sharing a cell block with Diddy. He joins us from prison for an update on his new life.

Tesla’s Empire CRUMBLES: Sales Crash & Owners Run For Their Lives - (in Europe too) Rev Nation Tesla is in serious trouble. Sales are plummeting across the globe, with shocking declines in key markets like Europe, Canada, and the United States. Once the undisputed leader in the EV market, Tesla is now facing stiff competition, political backlash, and declining consumer confidence. Here’s the latest sales data: 🔹 United States: Tesla sales rose 14% in February 2025 to around 42,000 vehicles, but market share dropped to 44% in 2024, signaling major challenges. 🔹 Global Sales: Tesla delivered 495,600 vehicles in Q4...

NYC Hides Migrants from Trump… as ICE Raids Surge Cash Jordan 1.24M subscribers Subscribed Mar 6, 2025 As President Trump fulfills his promise to find and deport dangerous migrants with a criminal conviction, some of NYC's local leaders are so horrified, they've got a plan hide the locations of the city's asylum shelters... from everyone

It took just one post. One message of hope. One offer of help. I was banned from an abortion-focused Reddit forum for simply suggesting that a woman—who explicitly said she felt pressured into an abortion by her boyfriend—reach out to Option Line to find safe housing and support. The response I received was blunt: "We ban sharing of anti-abortion resources." There it was. No debate. No discussion. A clear and outright rejection of any alternative to abortion—even when a woman herself expressed hesitation and concern about her circumstances. I found my way to this particular Reddit forum after following links...

Repurposing government buildings

Image: Courtesy of Restored CDC A team of volunteer archivists has recreated the Centers for Disease Control website, called RestoredCDC.org, as it appeared the day President Trump was inaugurated. The big picture: A federal judge last month required the HHS to restore webpages and datasets that had been altered or taken offline to comply with executive orders that Trump issued on DEI and gender identity, but several links are broken and the pages are not easy to locate through web searches. Some restored health pages come with a note that states the "Trump Administration rejects gender ideology and condemns the...

After the Cold War, terrorism became the most pressing threat to national security. And social media became a major part of the battle. Benz told me in an interview that, during the war on terror, the U.S. military developed artificial intelligence tools to combat ISIS recruiters. AI reviewed ¬terrorists’ social media posts to determine “what kind of words they use, the dialect, the key words, the slang, the prefixes, the suffixes, sentiment analysis” and then restrict their online reach. However, in 2017, Benz was shocked to learn that a similar tool was being offered for sale to the private sector....

The video discusses Sesame AI, a highly realistic AI voice model with impressive emotional intelligence and expressiveness. I have used it and found it to be scary good. You'll need a mic to test it, of course, since it's a conversational AI. If you don't have a mic, the video will give you a good idea of what it is capable of. Its capabilities include roleplaying, responding to emotions, and deep conversations about self-awareness and AI existence. While it can’t yet handle multiple languages or accents well, it excels in conversational dynamics, emotional context, and maintaining a consistent personality. The...

Just a question. Is Medicare Constitutional? I don't question whether people want it or need it or not, just whether or not 3/4 or the states voted to give the federal government the power to give people Medicare or Medicaid?

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum are targets of choice for online criminals, who often exploit weaknesses in major trading platforms or individual users’ digital “wallets” to make major scores. A recent $1.5-billion heist of Ethereum from the Bybit platform — attributed by the FBI to North Korean hackers — is believed to be the largest yet in an ever-longer litany of thefts. How common is crypto theft? Cryptocurrencies are based on blockchain technology, which publicly records transactions between people holding and exchanging them. That has not kept a lid on theft, with an estimated $2.2 billion worth of the assets...

Has anyone any experience with the lower priced 3D printers out there ?Before China REALLY starts retaliating against our tariffs, I'd like to play around with something that could produce, I don't know . . . . something in the area of 10 inches square or thereabouts.

Previous thread HEREBACKGROUND: Mozilla, maker of Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail client, had long claimed that it "never has, never will sell" users' personal information In late February, Mozilla changed its policies to delete that assertion and made other confusing changes to its ToUs that tended to indicate going forward, Mozilla would "sell" its users' personal data that was entered in the Firefox browser. These murky changes ignited an uproar among Mozilla's user base NOW (condensed version): Mozilla asserts that it had to delete the assertion that it "never has, never will sell users' personal information" because of broad definitions...

President Donald Trump is expected to announce a $100 billion investment from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing to bolster chip manufacturing over the next four years in the U.S, NBC has learned. The Wall Street Journal first reported the news. TSMC, which supplies semiconductors to the likes of Nvidia and Apple for artificial intelligence use, would help support the Trump administration’s efforts to make the U.S. an artificial intelligence hub. Last month, Trump announced a multibillion-dollar AI infrastructure project with Oracle , OpenAI and Softbank. Trump has repeatedly called out and accused Taiwan of stealing the U.S. chip manufacturing business and touted...

As noted a few months ago, Mozilla -- maker of the Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail client -- is facing an 80% revenue drop due to investigations into its “revenue-sharing” deals with Google. That revenue drop is apparently prompting Mozilla's all-out search for alternate revenue streams. Mozilla's changes last week to the Firefox browser's privacy notice and usage terms indicate that users' privacy may be sold out. Specifically, Mozilla's new use terms provide: “When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and...

Google Chrome users have been warned to delete 16 “malicious” browser extensions that could lead to a security threat and “fraud” at the hands of a prolific “threat actor.” The extensions affect functionality involving screen capture, ad blocking, emoji keyboards and more, with a potential impact on at least 3.2 million users, according to GitLab Threat Intelligence, which first reported the threat. The extensions inject code and harmful scripts into browsers, allowing hackers to steal user data and engage in search-engine fraud involving ad revenue, according to Tom’s Guide. After users granted permission to use them, the extensions, while legitimate,...

Jimmy Page and Brian May have both warned about artificial intelligence's potential to destroy art and bankrupt artists financially and spiritually, echoing recent exhortations made by Paul McCartney, Bon Jovi and many more musicians. May voiced his concerns in support of the Daily Mail's campaign against the U.K. Labour Party's AI copyright proposal, which would allow tech companies to use existing copyrighted material to train AI unless the rights holders opt out. Although Page did not explicitly reference any such campaign, he shared a lengthy and impassioned statement on Facebook in which he stressed the importance of "defending the sanctity...

Gunshots fired at a Tesla dealership in Salem, Oregon A Tesla showroom in Oregon was struck by gunfire just weeks after an arson attack damaged the same dealership, according to local authorities. On Wednesday, just before 5 a.m., Salem police responded to reports of damage at a Tesla facility. Officers discovered that several showroom windows had been shattered by gunfire. No suspects have been identified, and no arrests have been made as of now. The FBI has joined the investigation alongside the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and local law enforcement. The same Tesla dealership, located in...

Opinions...every has one. I chatted with Grok3. Opening proposal> See new posts A number of things happened yesterday that not being actually here in the U.S. you likely missed at the time of this video. I also watched the 6:00pm post action interview of Z with Brett Beier. Listening very carefully to him in that interview Z is not looking for a ceasefire/peace. Even in that interview Z wants security guarantees upfront. He wants to be treated as a member of NATO, even though his country is not in NATO. Second, this is where the 'world' might be reading the...