●● IRC: #boycottnovell @ Techrights IRC Network: Monday, January 23, 2023 ●●
● Jan 23
[00:04]	schestowitz-TR	Office for National Statistics (ONS) Entered Into Propaganda Business? https://schestowitz.com/Weblog/archives/2023/01/23/ons-propaganda-business/
[00:04]		-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-schestowitz.com Blog Archive Office for National Statistics (ONS) Entered Into Propaganda Business?
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● Jan 23
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● Jan 23
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● Jan 23
[05:47]	schestowitz	AI will replace academics unless our teaching challenges students again
[05:47]	schestowitz	That means to say plagiarism. Hardly a new issue; the media panic is reinvigorated by PR from Microsoft
[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
[05:47]	schestowitz	Right, but automation and "HEY HI" (hype) aren't the same thing.
[05:47]	schestowitz	[Albert Einstein head in a  humanoid prototype to illustrate AI will replace
[05:47]	schestowitz	academics unless our teaching challenges students again]
[05:47]	schestowitz	Source: Getty (edited)
[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.
[05:47]	schestowitz	These past months have seen a wave of articles about a new kind of AI
[05:47]	schestowitz	called large language models (LLMs), of which ChatGPT is the most
[05:47]	schestowitz	prominent.  The liberal progressives have embraced it, declaring that
[05:47]	schestowitz	its ability to auto- generate plausible-sounding text in seconds
[05:48]	schestowitz	strengthens_the_case for 'authenticity' in assessment.
[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".
[05:48]	schestowitz	 By contrast, the conservatives are doubling down on detection, proctoring and
[05:48]	schestowitz	reference-checking. But both camps are missing the bigger question: if
[05:48]	schestowitz	you cannot tell a machine from a genuine student, what makes you think
[05:48]	schestowitz	a student cares whether they're taught by you or a machine?  Critics
[05:48]	schestowitz	are quick to seize on ChatGPT's limitations. By averaging a colossal
[05:48]	schestowitz	training set of 1TB of text, containing 175 billion word-association
[05:48]	schestowitz	parameters, it responds to question in the style of an overconfident
[05:48]	schestowitz	sixth-form essay, with a strident, repetitive tone. 
[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.
[05:48]	schestowitz	But truth is not a
[05:48]	schestowitz	reliable outcome of this process, as many examples have
[05:48]	schestowitz	highlighted. LLMs lack even the most basic epistemic position and any
[05:48]	schestowitz	understanding of causation or structure.  Yet that doesn't matter,
[05:48]	schestowitz	advocates argue. This is just a start. LLMs, notable because they are
[05:48]	schestowitz	superficially human, have yet to integrate with other kinds of AI in
[05:48]	schestowitz	this rapidly maturing field. Once they do, they will be capable of
[05:48]	schestowitz	effective reasoning ' or its useful simulation.  The likely impact of
[05:48]	schestowitz	LLMs on labour markets is certainly underestimated.  Application
[05:48]	schestowitz	researchers are already eyeing them for tasks such as retail, customer
[05:48]	schestowitz	assistance, query and decision support. And their impressive ability
[05:48]	schestowitz	to interactively deliver short, informative responses, more succinct
[05:48]	schestowitz	and focused than Google or Wikipedia, makes them strong candidates for
[05:48]	schestowitz	teaching, too. Using current technology, adding speech systems for
[05:48]	schestowitz	accurate listening and expressive voice synthesis is almost trivial.
[05:48]	schestowitz	Teaching can be done by just reading books. But teachers exist because books are not enough.
[05:48]	schestowitz	About 5 an hour currently buys computing power to service five to 10
[05:48]	schestowitz	students simultaneously. Surely administrators will be falling over
[05:48]	schestowitz	themselves to replace teachers with bots trained in specific knowledge
[05:48]	schestowitz	areas ' perhaps incorporating Douglas Adams-style 'personality'
[05:48]	schestowitz	add-ons, allowing students to be taught by simulated Einsteins or
[05:48]	schestowitz	Feynmans.
[05:48]	schestowitz	Economics and teaching should be put apart.
[05:48]	schestowitz	But as the cost falls, and as people become increasingly unable to
[05:48]	schestowitz	distinguish plausible-sounding nonsense from genuine wisdom, human
[05:48]	schestowitz	suppliers will compete with machines in a race to the bottom. And the
[05:48]	schestowitz	disastrous consequences will not be limited to academics' bank
[05:48]	schestowitz	balances. As a systems theorist, I predict that this market for
[05:48]	schestowitz	lemons, as economists call it, will run into the same problem that
[05:49]	schestowitz	devastated banana production in the late 20th century: production of
[05:49]	schestowitz	sterile monocultures.
[05:49]	schestowitz	This isn't even a new problem.
[05:49]	schestowitz	Positive feedback loops of mediocrity will kill off intellectual
[05:49]	schestowitz	progress by failing to reproduce innovative experts with core
[05:49]	schestowitz	disciplinary skills. At best, we will be stuck in an endless recycling
[05:49]	schestowitz	of 'approved facts'. At worst, our ability to reason and assess
[05:49]	schestowitz	knowledge claims will collapse, leave us sitting ducks for recruitment
[05:49]	schestowitz	and brainwashing by malign forces.  In fact, you could argue that we
[05:49]	schestowitz	are nearly there already.
[05:49]	schestowitz	Not even ML was needed for this. I'm not so old, but hype set aside, we had all this before.
[05:49]	schestowitz	Credential inflation means that a degree is now considered a
[05:49]	schestowitz	necessity, and many students are not so much thirsty for knowledge as
[05:49]	schestowitz	anxious about being left behind in the red queen's race to grow their
[05:49]	schestowitz	CVs. Profit-hungry universities' response to this market has, at the
[05:49]	schestowitz	extreme, reduced professors to poorly paid operators of degree
[05:49]	schestowitz	machines that chunk educational material at the optimal grade for
[05:49]	schestowitz	retention by passive student-consumers. Such a model is ripe for
[05:49]	schestowitz	automation and sublimation by LLMs, whose training data can be washed
[05:49]	schestowitz	of anything too marginal.
[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.
[05:49]	schestowitz	To save both our jobs and society, academics must go back to the future. At our
[05:49]	schestowitz	best, we did not use to spoon-feed students, as we do today. Nor is that what
[05:49]	schestowitz	they wanted. They came for guidance, encouragement and socialisation into
[05:49]	schestowitz	collegiate life, already as full adults. We always had an implicit duty of
[05:49]	schestowitz	care, but we also had authority to direct and judge.
[05:49]	schestowitz	That sounds more like The Times than a hacker ;-)
[05:49]	schestowitz	I know, I know... language adapts to the platform/editors ;-)
[05:49]	schestowitz	In my tutorials in the 1990s, anyone who sat in meek, expectant
[05:49]	schestowitz	silence was ignored ' by me as much as by their peers. Something
[05:49]	schestowitz	important I took from a psychoanalyst is that 'this doesn't begin
[05:49]	schestowitz	until you have the courage to speak first'. A good professor is a
[05:49]	schestowitz	sparring partner who aims to toughen up young minds through merciless
[05:49]	schestowitz	examination of purported knowledge, a process continuous with
[05:49]	schestowitz	research. And I believe many students still crave to be challenged '
[05:49]	schestowitz	even if they have lost the words to express it.  There is
[05:49]	schestowitz	unquestionably a demand for passive inculcation, too. But in a world
[05:49]	schestowitz	bereft of benevolent intellects, trusted, respected human knowledge
[05:49]	schestowitz	curators will command a premium like never before ' possibly in new
[05:49]	schestowitz	freelance roles akin to those of consultants or therapists.
[05:50]	schestowitz	It's worth noting troll and misinformation farms online. They too pose overlapping threats.
[05:50]	schestowitz	
[05:50]	schestowitz	We will need courage to retake the ground freed by the
[05:50]	schestowitz	machines. Begging bowls in hand for grants and accolades, we've
[05:50]	schestowitz	allowed_ourselves to be bullied by MBAs with twice our salaries and
[05:50]	schestowitz	half our IQs. But once we accept that AI will completely replace our
[05:50]	schestowitz	current jobs as mouthpieces for statistically 'consensual truth', we
[05:50]	schestowitz	can begin valuing ourselves again.  By re-embracing our former status
[05:50]	schestowitz	as authorities and role models, we will become real professors again.
[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.
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● Jan 23
[06:57]	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
[06:57]		-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-xeiaso.net | Site Update: CSS Fixes - Xe Iaso
● Jan 23
[08:33]	schestowitz-TR	we are watching the above video ah the moment
[08:33]	schestowitz-TR	it is long, but starts with a 2-minute roundup/overview
[08:33]	schestowitz-TR	very concerning
[08:33]	schestowitz-TR	even our "Transparency" orgs are lying now
[08:33]	schestowitz-TR	so where can I turn to data?
[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/
[08:33]		-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-schestowitz.com Blog Archive 5-6 Days Later Still No Reply From ONS; Statistic Regulator Receives Formal Complaint
[08:34]	techrigthssec	That's problematic.
[08:34]	techrigthssec	They seem to hide the data in various ways, including through delays.
[08:50]	schestowitz-TR	swap=mem/ramx2
[08:50]	schestowitz-TR	swapless servers can become a mess to manage
[08:50]	schestowitz-TR	gnu/linux, recent builds
[08:50]	schestowitz-TR	thi is not a weakness
[08:50]	schestowitz-TR	disk space is not expensive and not volatile (it can be)
[08:50]	schestowitz-TR	case: you run shit program, it asks for moar and moar ram
[08:50]	schestowitz-TR	system slows down
[08:50]	schestowitz-TR	you realise something is wrong
[08:50]	schestowitz-TR	you can kill the process that's offending
[08:50]	schestowitz-TR	while ie eats up ram oom might have guessed wrong
[08:50]	schestowitz-TR	but it can take a lot of time to totally exhaust ram
[08:50]	schestowitz-TR	and you can killlall from a remote terminal or machine
[08:50]	schestowitz-TR	if xserver has been kicked to swap by then
[08:50]	schestowitz-TR	then give things time to recover//rebalance
● Jan 23
[10:01]	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/
[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)
[10:01]	schestowitz-TR	truly scandalous. And I've wasted so much time on this.
[10:04]	techrigthssec	ack
[10:16]	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/
[10:16]		-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-schestowitz.com Blog Archive ONS is Apparently Still Undercounting UK Deaths, Reality Likely a Lot Worse Than Stated
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● Jan 23
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● Jan 23
[20:11]	schestowitz-TR	UK: 30% More Deaths Than Expected https://schestowitz.com/Weblog/archives/2023/01/23/more-deaths-than-expected/
[20:11]		-TechrightsBN/#boycottnovell-schestowitz.com Blog Archive UK: 30% More Deaths Than Expected
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● Jan 23
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