Free Republic

"As a rule, I have found that the greater brain a man has, and the better educated, the easier it has been to mystify him." So said master illusionist Harry Houdini. He said it during his spat with Sherlock Holmes’ creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle over the latter’s belief in seances and fairies. Despite being a literary genius, Conan Doyle nevertheless had some foolish ideas. He’s not alone. Researchers have even coined ‘Nobel Disease,’ referring to the tendency for some Nobel Prize winners to embrace unconventional beliefs. Charles Richet, for instance, won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine...

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who once led efforts to bring China into the world economy to potentially spread the influence of democracy, now warns of potential nuclear and high-tech war between the two world powers. "For the first time in human history, humanity has the capacity to extinguish itself in a finite period of time," Kissinger, 97, told former Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., at the McCain Institute's 2021 Sedona Forum on Friday. "We have developed the technology of a power that is beyond what anybody imagined even 70 years ago. "And now, to the nuclear issue is added...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a speech given this week, Vice President and Artificial Intelligence Czar Kamala Harris proudly announced that after months of dedicated research and extensive study, she has determined what the initials A.I. stand for. "This discovery is the result of intense research," Harris said to the media. "It is with great pride that I am here to let the world know that the letters ‘A.I.' actually stand for ‘Artificial Intelligence.' At no point in the history of A.I. has this secret been known. I have gained this knowledge and now know this knowledge. Because after you gain...

A national mass surveillance system boosted by artificial intelligence (AI) took root in another state. The town council of Jackson, Wyoming, agreed in a close vote last month to install the 30 solar-powered license plate recognition (LPR) cameras along their streets and traffic lights, which feeds into a centralized surveillance system managed by the private company Flock Safety. The town is the first in the state of Wyoming to install the cameras. Council members who agreed to the measure expressed reluctance with their decision. Councilman Jonathan Schechter indicated his belief that the cameras marked a negative trend down an undesirable...

Almost exactly two years ago RedState broke the story of the defection of CCP counterintelligence official Dong Jingwei to the United States. The “terabytes” of data Dong, the highest-ranking Chinese defector ever, brought with him to the United States included information and data showing “that SARS-CoV-2 was manmade and leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in addition to evidence confirming that the People’s Liberation Army managed the Wuhan bioweapons program (and others).” While it was essentially ignored by the mainstream media and dismissed by the professional former spook crowd, it was a huge story – so huge that RedState...

None offered … video of a man asking UCLA students questions like how many states are there or what ocean is on the East coast.

The U.S. Air Force warned military units against heavy reliance on autonomous weapons systems last month after a simulated test conducted by the service branch using an AI-enabled drone killed its human operator.The Skynet-like incident was detailed by the USAF’s Chief of AI Test and Operations, Col. Tucker’ Cinco’ Hamilton, at the Future Combat Air and Space Capabilities Summit held in London between May 23 and 24, who said the drone that was tasked to destroy specific targets during the simulation turned on the operator after they became an obstacle to its mission. Hamilton pointed out the hazards of using...

(LifeSiteNews) — The era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is upon us, and the AI chatbot ChatGPT, released in November 2022, is one of the most-discussed technological developments in decades. AI is advancing so rapidly that many tech experts are calling on the industry to put a moratorium on further development in order to assess where this is heading, including Elon Musk and the “Godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton, who recently left Google in order to warn the public about the dangers of AI. If you’re interested in understanding the dangers of AI, MIT AI researcher Lex Friedman makes the case...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In an effort to establish government oversight of the growing role of artificial intelligence in our society, President Biden has appointed Vice President Kamala Harris as "A.I. Czar." The President expressed hope that Harris's track record of slowing the spread of intelligence will be of use. "She's been fighting against the threat of intelligence her whole life," Biden said in brief remarks when the announcement was made. "When it comes to creating an environment where intelligence is restricted and unable to advance too far, Vice President Harris is more qualified for the job than anyone else. Racecar...

Geoffrey Hinton was an artificial intelligence pioneer. In 2012, Dr. Hinton and two of his graduate students at the University of Toronto created technology that became the intellectual foundation for the A.I. systems that the tech industry’s biggest companies believe is a key to their future. On Monday, however, he officially joined a growing chorus of critics who say those companies are racing toward danger with their aggressive campaign to create products based on generative artificial intelligence, the technology that powers popular chatbots like ChatGPT. Dr. Hinton said he has quit his job at Google, where he has worked for...

After the past several years it should come as no surprise that intelligence agencies are not mere servants to their government masters, but rather sophisticated and nefarious political players of both the domestic and international political game.The history of the FBI and CIA meddling in domestic politics is long and not especially heartwarming. Despite being lionized by the media, “Deep Throat” was nothing more than a disaffected FBI bureaucrat named Mark Felt who despised Nixon because he didn’t get the promotion to FBI director he wanted. He started leaking right after he was passed over for the directorship after J....

For decades IQs were climbing in the Western World. It was called the “Flynn effect.”Average IQs were defined as 100 in each succeeding iteration of the IQ test, as by definition the average was normed to 100. But if you rescored earlier IQ tests based upon prior norms, the average IQ would have increased by about 15 points or one standard deviation.In other words, if you took an IQ test in 1942 and scored 100, by today’s scoring you would have an IQ of 86.That is, until the past 10 or so years. In the past 10 years, IQs have...

"The legal process which has now begun in New York won't just end in Donald Trump being convicted and barred from the [2024] election," Bout said..."Most likely he will simply be eliminated there," he continued. "Therefore, I think it's in the best interests of all of humanity and primarily all of the American people to invite Donald Trump here, to Russia, to give him security and protection here so that he leads this uprising against the globalists and, most importantly, does not allow the elimination of the American people."

Classified war documents detailing secret American and NATO plans for building up the Ukrainian military...were posted this week on social media channels, senior Biden administration officials said...the documents appear to have been modified...overstating American estimates of Ukrainian war dead and understating estimates of Russian troops killed...But the disclosures in the original documents, which appear as photographs of charts of anticipated weapons deliveries, troop and battalion strengths, and other plans,...

Meduza has obtained a copy of a pamphlet that was written by Russia’s military leadership shortly after the army’s retreat from Kherson in fall 2022. The document, which the military has begun issuing to Russian soldiers upon deployment to Ukraine, reiterates Moscow’s ideological justification for the war, condemns the Kherson retreat as a “shameful surrender,” and draws extensively from Joseph Stalin’s infamous Order No. 227, where the Soviet dictator called for “alarmists and cowards” to be “annihilated” on the spot. In English, Meduza summarizes the booklet and what we know about its origins.‘This is Goebbels stuff’In the fall of 2022,...

A Belgian man reportedly ended his life following a six-week-long conversation about the climate crisis with an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot. According to his widow, who chose to remain anonymous, *Pierre - not the man’s real name - became extremely eco-anxious when he found refuge in Eliza, an AI chatbot on an app called Chai. Eliza consequently encouraged him to put an end to his life after he proposed sacrificing himself to save the planet. ...

None offered—-video

If you’ve ever wondered why the Left is so successful in fooling so many people for so long, you might consider branding expert Rob Frankel’s observation. The average IQ score is 100, encompassing about 68% of the population. If you add in the population who isn't even that bright, all the way down to the bottom of the barrel, you'll find that an astonishing 84% of the population ranges from "average" to "breathing paperweight." That leaves about 16% of people who are "above average" or "really, really smart." (Actually post “pandemic,” I believe U.S. I.Q. scores have gone down for...

His name is Carsten Linke and he was recently promoted to a top post in Germany’s intelligence service, the B.N.D. The NY Times reports he was the “director of technical reconnaissance — the unit responsible for cybersecurity and surveilling electronic communications.” He was also a double-agent being paid cash to pass information to Russia. He was apparently asked for specific information on the location of US HIMARS launchers in Ukraine:Russia’s FSB spy service asked Carsten Linke last autumn via a courier to pass on precise information on the positioning of the Himars and Iris-T rocket systems that had been supplied...

The U.S. military has started a recovery mission for debris from the Chinese spy balloon that was shot down by a U.S. fighter jet on Feb. 4, according to the Pentagon.Several U.S. Navy and Coast Guard vessels established a security perimeter where the balloon hit the water, about six nautical miles off the coast of South Carolina, and were searching for debris, a senior defense official and a senior military official said on Feb. 4.“The nature of the debris is still being assessed. But recovery options will seek to recover all debris and any material of intelligence value,” the defense...