(ℹ) Join us now at the IRC channel | ䷉ Find the plain text version at this address (HTTP) or in Gemini (how to use Gemini) with a full GemText version.
| schestowitz-TR | Office for National Statistics (ONS) Entered Into Propaganda Business? https://schestowitz.com/Weblog/archives/2023/01/23/ons-propaganda-business/ | Jan 23 00:04 |
|---|---|---|
| -TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-schestowitz.com » Blog Archive » Office for National Statistics (ONS) Entered Into Propaganda Business? | Jan 23 00:04 | |
| *Despatche (~desp@u3xy9z2ifjzci.irc) has joined #boycottnovell | Jan 23 00:40 | |
| *u-amarsh04 has quit (Quit: Konversation terminated!) | Jan 23 00:55 | |
| *u-amarsh04 has quit (Quit: Konversation terminated!) | Jan 23 00:55 | |
| *u-amarsh04 (~amarsh04@freenode-rmogvn.g0d7.dtdf.mc4289.IP) has joined #boycottnovell | Jan 23 01:02 | |
| *u-amarsh04 (~amarsh04@fpfsqjchsbkme.irc) has joined #boycottnovell | Jan 23 01:02 | |
| *Noisytoot has quit (Ping timeout: 2m30s) | Jan 23 03:43 | |
| *Noisytoot (~noisytoot@tkbibjhmbkvb8.irc) has joined #boycottnovell | Jan 23 03:48 | |
| schestowitz | AI will replace academics unless our teaching challenges students again | Jan 23 05:47 |
| schestowitz | That means to say plagiarism. Hardly a new issue; the media panic is reinvigorated by PR from Microsoft | Jan 23 05:47 |
| schestowitz | Delivery of educational material chunked at the optimal grade for retention by passive student-consumers is ripe for automation, says Andy Farnell | Jan 23 05:47 |
| schestowitz | Right, but automation and "HEY HI" (hype) aren't the same thing. | Jan 23 05:47 |
| schestowitz | [Albert Einstein head in a humanoid prototype to illustrate AI will replace | Jan 23 05:47 |
| schestowitz | academics unless our teaching challenges students again] | Jan 23 05:47 |
| schestowitz | Source: Getty (edited) | Jan 23 05:47 |
| schestowitz | Einstein became a bit of a cult figure and mascot. Many of his theories did not turn out to be true. But that's me nitpicking. | Jan 23 05:47 |
| schestowitz | These past months have seen a wave of articles about a new kind of AI | Jan 23 05:47 |
| schestowitz | called large language models (LLMs), of which ChatGPT is the most | Jan 23 05:47 |
| schestowitz | prominent. The liberal progressives have embraced it, declaring that | Jan 23 05:47 |
| schestowitz | its ability to auto- generate plausible-sounding text in seconds | Jan 23 05:47 |
| schestowitz | strengthens_the_case for 'authenticity' in assessment. | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | This "wave of articles" is partly Microsoft spam. That helped distract from last October's layoffs and this month's layoffs. This is easily demonstrable. Microsoft keeps pretending to have "embraced" some future brands, such as "clown computing". | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | By contrast, the conservatives are doubling down on detection, proctoring and | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | reference-checking. But both camps are missing the bigger question: if | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | you cannot tell a machine from a genuine student, what makes you think | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | a student cares whether they're taught by you or a machine? Critics | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | are quick to seize on ChatGPT's limitations. By averaging a colossal | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | training set of 1TB of text, containing 175 billion word-association | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | parameters, it responds to question in the style of an overconfident | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | sixth-form essay, with a strident, repetitive tone. | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | It's large-scale brute-force plagiarism with some automation built in. Hardly new. SCIGen, for instance, is nearly 20 years old. But it didn't have Microsoft's PR budget to flood the media and brainwash hundreds of millions of people. The emperor is naked. | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | But truth is not a | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | reliable outcome of this process, as many examples have | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | highlighted. LLMs lack even the most basic epistemic position and any | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | understanding of causation or structure. Yet that doesn't matter, | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | advocates argue. This is just a start. LLMs, notable because they are | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | superficially human, have yet to integrate with other kinds of AI in | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | this rapidly maturing field. Once they do, they will be capable of | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | effective reasoning '“ or its useful simulation. The likely impact of | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | LLMs on labour markets is certainly underestimated. Application | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | researchers are already eyeing them for tasks such as retail, customer | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | assistance, query and decision support. And their impressive ability | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | to interactively deliver short, informative responses, more succinct | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | and focused than Google or Wikipedia, makes them strong candidates for | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | teaching, too. Using current technology, adding speech systems for | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | accurate listening and expressive voice synthesis is almost trivial. | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | Teaching can be done by just reading books. But teachers exist because books are not enough. | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | About £5 an hour currently buys computing power to service five to 10 | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | students simultaneously. Surely administrators will be falling over | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | themselves to replace teachers with bots trained in specific knowledge | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | areas '“ perhaps incorporating Douglas Adams-style 'personality' | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | add-ons, allowing students to be taught by simulated Einsteins or | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | Feynmans. | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | Economics and teaching should be put apart. | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | But as the cost falls, and as people become increasingly unable to | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | distinguish plausible-sounding nonsense from genuine wisdom, human | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | suppliers will compete with machines in a race to the bottom. And the | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | disastrous consequences will not be limited to academics' bank | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | balances. As a systems theorist, I predict that this market for | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | lemons, as economists call it, will run into the same problem that | Jan 23 05:48 |
| schestowitz | devastated banana production in the late 20th century: production of | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | sterile monocultures. | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | This isn't even a new problem. | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | Positive feedback loops of mediocrity will kill off intellectual | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | progress by failing to reproduce innovative experts with core | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | disciplinary skills. At best, we will be stuck in an endless recycling | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | of 'approved facts'. At worst, our ability to reason and assess | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | knowledge claims will collapse, leave us sitting ducks for recruitment | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | and brainwashing by malign forces. In fact, you could argue that we | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | are nearly there already. | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | Not even ML was needed for this. I'm not so old, but hype set aside, we had all this before. | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | Credential inflation means that a degree is now considered a | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | necessity, and many students are not so much thirsty for knowledge as | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | anxious about being left behind in the red queen's race to grow their | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | CVs. Profit-hungry universities' response to this market has, at the | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | extreme, reduced professors to poorly paid operators of degree | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | machines that chunk educational material at the optimal grade for | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | retention by passive student-consumers. Such a model is ripe for | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | automation and sublimation by LLMs, whose training data can be washed | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | of anything too marginal. | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | There's already a long but still-creeping threat of recruiters scanning for buzzwords like "IoT" because they have no grasp of technological substance. | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | To save both our jobs and society, academics must go back to the future. At our | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | best, we did not use to spoon-feed students, as we do today. Nor is that what | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | they wanted. They came for guidance, encouragement and socialisation into | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | collegiate life, already as full adults. We always had an implicit duty of | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | care, but we also had authority to direct and judge. | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | That sounds more like The Times than a hacker ;-) | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | I know, I know... language adapts to the platform/editors ;-) | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | In my tutorials in the 1990s, anyone who sat in meek, expectant | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | silence was ignored '“ by me as much as by their peers. Something | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | important I took from a psychoanalyst is that 'this doesn't begin | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | until you have the courage to speak first'. A good professor is a | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | sparring partner who aims to toughen up young minds through merciless | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | examination of purported knowledge, a process continuous with | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | research. And I believe many students still crave to be challenged '“ | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | even if they have lost the words to express it. There is | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | unquestionably a demand for passive inculcation, too. But in a world | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | bereft of benevolent intellects, trusted, respected human knowledge | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | curators will command a premium like never before '“ possibly in new | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | freelance roles akin to those of consultants or therapists. | Jan 23 05:49 |
| schestowitz | It's worth noting troll and misinformation farms online. They too pose overlapping threats. | Jan 23 05:50 |
| schestowitz | Jan 23 05:50 | |
| schestowitz | We will need courage to retake the ground freed by the | Jan 23 05:50 |
| schestowitz | machines. Begging bowls in hand for grants and accolades, we've | Jan 23 05:50 |
| schestowitz | allowed_ourselves to be bullied by MBAs with twice our salaries and | Jan 23 05:50 |
| schestowitz | half our IQs. But once we accept that AI will completely replace our | Jan 23 05:50 |
| schestowitz | current jobs as mouthpieces for statistically 'consensual truth', we | Jan 23 05:50 |
| schestowitz | can begin valuing ourselves again. By re-embracing our former status | Jan 23 05:50 |
| schestowitz | as authorities and role models, we will become real professors again. | Jan 23 05:50 |
| schestowitz | I saw "MBAs with twice our salaries and half our IQs" in another site the other day, maybe quoting or copying you. | Jan 23 05:50 |
| *Noisytoot has quit (Ping timeout: 2m30s) | Jan 23 05:50 | |
| *Noisytoot (~noisytoot@tkbibjhmbkvb8.irc) has joined #boycottnovell | Jan 23 05:51 | |
| schestowitz-TR | "So yesterday my blog was on the front page of Hacker News. Twice. The comments were brutal, however some people politely pointed out some issues that I've brushed off in the past because it's difficult to interpret comments like "ur website is gay furry trash because I can't tell what is a conversation snippet lol"" https://xeiaso.net/blog/site-update-better-css | Jan 23 06:57 |
| -TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-xeiaso.net | Site Update: CSS Fixes - Xe Iaso | Jan 23 06:57 | |
| schestowitz-TR | we are watching the above video ah the moment | Jan 23 08:33 |
| schestowitz-TR | it is long, but starts with a 2-minute roundup/overview | Jan 23 08:33 |
| schestowitz-TR | very concerning | Jan 23 08:33 |
| schestowitz-TR | even our "Transparency" orgs are lying now | Jan 23 08:33 |
| schestowitz-TR | so where can I turn to data? | Jan 23 08:33 |
| schestowitz-TR | 5-6 Days Later Still No Reply From ONS; Statistic Regulator Receives Formal Complaint https://schestowitz.com/Weblog/archives/2023/01/23/5-6-days-later-still-no-reply-from-ons-statistic-regulator-receives-formal-complaint/ | Jan 23 08:33 |
| -TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-schestowitz.com » Blog Archive » 5-6 Days Later Still No Reply From ONS; Statistic Regulator Receives Formal Complaint | Jan 23 08:33 | |
| techrigthssec | That's problematic. | Jan 23 08:34 |
| techrigthssec | They seem to hide the data in various ways, including through delays. | Jan 23 08:34 |
| schestowitz-TR | swap=mem/ramx2 | Jan 23 08:50 |
| schestowitz-TR | swapless servers can become a mess to manage | Jan 23 08:50 |
| schestowitz-TR | gnu/linux, recent builds | Jan 23 08:50 |
| schestowitz-TR | thi is not a weakness | Jan 23 08:50 |
| schestowitz-TR | disk space is not expensive and not volatile (it can be) | Jan 23 08:50 |
| schestowitz-TR | case: you run shit program, it asks for moar and moar ram | Jan 23 08:50 |
| schestowitz-TR | system slows down | Jan 23 08:50 |
| schestowitz-TR | you realise something is wrong | Jan 23 08:50 |
| schestowitz-TR | you can kill the process that's offending | Jan 23 08:50 |
| schestowitz-TR | while ie eats up ram oom might have guessed wrong | Jan 23 08:50 |
| schestowitz-TR | but it can take a lot of time to totally exhaust ram | Jan 23 08:50 |
| schestowitz-TR | and you can killlall from a remote terminal or machine | Jan 23 08:50 |
| schestowitz-TR | if xserver has been kicked to swap by then | Jan 23 08:50 |
| schestowitz-TR | then give things time to recover//rebalance | Jan 23 08:50 |
| schestowitz-TR | After More Than an Hour on the Phone, "Standard Life" Says Pension Was 'Transferred', Refuses to Give Any More Information (Money Gone 'Missing') https://schestowitz.com/Weblog/archives/2023/01/23/phone-your-pension-provider-before-too-late/ | Jan 23 10:01 |
| -TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-schestowitz.com » Blog Archive » After More Than an Hour on the Phone, “Standard Life” Says Pension Was ‘Transferred’, Refuses to Give Any More Information (Money Gone ‘Missing’) | Jan 23 10:01 | |
| schestowitz-TR | truly scandalous. And I've wasted so much time on this. | Jan 23 10:01 |
| techrigthssec | ack | Jan 23 10:04 |
| schestowitz-TR | ONS is Apparently Still Undercounting UK Deaths, Reality Likely a Lot Worse Than Stated https://schestowitz.com/Weblog/archives/2023/01/23/undercounting-uk-deaths/ | Jan 23 10:16 |
| -TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-schestowitz.com » Blog Archive » ONS is Apparently Still Undercounting UK Deaths, Reality Likely a Lot Worse Than Stated | Jan 23 10:16 | |
| *DaemonFC has quit (Quit: Leaving) | Jan 23 10:44 | |
| techrigthssec | ack | Jan 23 10:59 |
| *u-amarsh04 has quit (Quit: Konversation terminated!) | Jan 23 13:44 | |
| *u-amarsh04 has quit (Quit: Konversation terminated!) | Jan 23 13:44 | |
| *u-amarsh04 (~amarsh04@freenode-rmogvn.g0d7.dtdf.mc4289.IP) has joined #boycottnovell | Jan 23 13:46 | |
| *u-amarsh04 (~amarsh04@fpfsqjchsbkme.irc) has joined #boycottnovell | Jan 23 13:47 | |
| *u-amarsh04 has quit (Quit: Konversation terminated!) | Jan 23 15:58 | |
| *u-amarsh04 has quit (Quit: Konversation terminated!) | Jan 23 15:58 | |
| *u-amarsh04 (~amarsh04@freenode-rmogvn.g0d7.dtdf.mc4289.IP) has joined #boycottnovell | Jan 23 15:59 | |
| *u-amarsh04 (~amarsh04@fpfsqjchsbkme.irc) has joined #boycottnovell | Jan 23 15:59 | |
| *psydroid2 (~psydroid@cbcfptirpkfqa.irc) has joined #boycottnovell | Jan 23 17:00 | |
| *DaemonFC (~daemonfc@fsx95fd5tbn6s.irc) has joined #boycottnovell | Jan 23 19:51 | |
| schestowitz-TR | UK: 30% More Deaths Than Expected https://schestowitz.com/Weblog/archives/2023/01/23/more-deaths-than-expected/ | Jan 23 20:11 |
| -TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-schestowitz.com » Blog Archive » UK: 30% More Deaths Than Expected | Jan 23 20:11 | |
| *Despatche has quit (Quit: Read error: Connection reset by deer) | Jan 23 20:35 | |
| *psydroid2 has quit (connection closed) | Jan 23 22:42 | |
Generated by irclog2html.py 2.6 | ䷉ find the plain text version at this address (HTTP) or in Gemini (how to use Gemini) with a full GemText version.