Cannot thank you enough for covering this on a weekend, Annađ
Cannot thank you enough for covering this on a weekend, Annađ
Okay, the clip cuts off before Johnson finished his response. Would love to know if he outright lied and denied Newsomâs statistics, which can be verified with a Google search.
My Bluesky post from 4 months ago: bsky.app/profile/kmkr...
@govwesmoore.bsky.social Why isnât Maryland part of this multi-state effort to create vaccine guidance independent from RFK jr. and, like @govpritzker.illinois.gov, attempt to independently procure the COVID vaccine to create broad access to it within the state? Please take action, Governor Moore!
Yes!
Yikesâthank you. This is information we all need to have.
Andor, The Last of Us, The Pitt, and Severance.
Umm, can someone explain the âchangeâ part?! Like, how do you âchangeâ the studies if theyâre published? This is incredibly ominous, but Iâm struggling to figure out what it means exactly.
Can anyone provide a gift link? Thanks in advance!
Mark, I am so grateful for the work you do!
Itâs like the sycophancy at the cabinet meetings. I truly wonder if sheâs received strong indications that if she is publicly obsequious, Trump will end the deployment after 30 days rather than maintain it indefinitely.
Also: does Chris have the same political leanings as his parents? Pew Research has found that most parents pass along their political affiliation (and their religion) to their children. Always interesting, though, when children politically diverge from their parents.
I would love to understand his political autobiography. For example, at what age did he begin to develop a political consciousness? I was very late in that regard (early 30s), while my husband was far more precocious, becoming an activist at 9 years old in the wake of the 3 mile island disaster.
when Chris Christie went after Rubio on the presidential debate stage, mocking and calling attention in real time to Rubioâs canned, rehearsed lines. Rubio got so flustered he repeated the same lines again.
The part I most appreciated, from a rhetorical standpoint, is when Pritzker went meta and addressed the press and its coverage directly. Meta discourse is wildly under-utilized in politics. I have to grudgingly admit that one of the most effective uses of it Iâve witnessed is
But weâve still got a long way to go. I guess my point is that we need to invest in independent media doing investigative reporting at least as much as those doing opinion and commentary.
Supporting independent media is incredibly important. But it will take years for them to develop the resources & contacts to do investigative journalism on the scale of a WP or the NYT. Itâs really encouraging to see outlets like @marisakabas.bsky.social & @talkingpointsmemo.com getting big scoops.
That seems like a pretty accurate term!
It is, I guess, some sort of perversion of capitalism involving extortion. Authoritarian capitalism?
I actually would really love for @justinwolfers.bsky.social or another economist to weigh in on the appropriate economic terminology for what is happening to Intel and other companies. It is not socialismâworkers wonât benefit, and the money will likely flow upward.
@justinwolfers.bsky.social Can you please help out w/economic terminology that captures what Trump is doing with Intel & other companies? Authoritarian capitalism? Kleptocracy? A mafia-style shakedown? No checks and balances are left that wld ensure proper use of those funds to benefit the public.
Could you please provide a link to the new data? Thank you.
Do we know what the felony charge is?
This thread is a good example of why education in general is such a threat to autocrats. Educators are their kryptonite.
@aclu.org From this video, it appears a man is being arrested for filming ICE.
Oh, Alabamaâit is so truly depressing watching your politics.
So I wear my âcomputer glassesâ nearly all the time. But not for driving.
And they were sort of life -changing for me because after I wore them I realized that as an academic this âmiddle distanceâ is where I basically live my life. I can read and use the computer with them, but I can also see all my students in a small seminar with them, I can read in them, etc.
Okay, this is what I meant by âmiddle distance lensesâ when I responded previously to this post. I have a fabulous optician in Washington DC who introduced me to the concept of âcomputer glassesâ, which I call âmiddle distance.â I previously had no idea such a thing as âcomputer glassesâ existed.
Would need to double check to verify, but arenât the top three states with the worst per capita murder rate Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama? Two of which have now been deployed (or are on the cusp of being deployed) to DC?
Have you reached out to @talkingpointsmemo.com?
All eyes on the University of California system right now. Please, please hold the line. Thinking of all of you. (Iâm at U of Maryland. The Eye of Sauron will eventually turn our way too).
Thank you so much!
Iâm not a lawyer, but doesnât this panel of three rotate out at some point? Isnât that how this works? When will it happen?
Doesnât the sitting panel of three hopefully rotate at some point?
Honestly Iâd say it eliminates more than half the party. But your point is well taken.
Yes, this! Nails it.
Exactly, Pritzer, AOC, and Crockett too. But there aren't many. Or at least not enough.
I actually think thatâs a brilliant idea to include the entirety of the exchange. Thank you for the important work you do.
Oh god, thatâs right. I hadnât sort of mentally put the two things in an adjacent space.
What do you think the outcome would be if it went before a DC jury?
I could never get used to them. I now wear medium distance glasses nearly all the time, except when driving, which is not very often. I also have a separate pair of reading glasses that Iâll sometimes put on, but usually the medium distance lenses are sufficient.
You still get to vicariously enjoy them on Blueskyâminus the hives and watery eyes đž
Hopefully this news will help phase out the still ongoing trend for aioli
Have you talked about specific people you think would be up to the job? Iâd be really curious to know. I do think rhetorical chops are incredibly important and often under-rated, especially in this moment. We have a few in the party who have those chops, but not many.
Thatâs truly wonderful news, but actual statistics and real numbers wonât stop Trump from trying to deploy Marylandâs National Guard on the streets of Baltimore. Could you please let us know what youâll do if that happens?
Yes, fully agree.
What Iâm trying to do is maintain civility in the face of cruelty: resolutely keeping the convo focused on evidence, concrete examples, and chatbot rhetoric (which I called âinsidiousâ). If you prefer trolling to civility, youâre not going to get it from me. Cheers!
Thank you again for engaging with me at an intellectual level, even if you donât agree with something I said. I so genuinely appreciate it!
by fundamentally misrepresenting how the technology works.â I donât think the excerpt I quoted from Gemini bears that out. What do you think?
But the original quoted post I responded to claims that âllms constantly lie to the user about the capabilities of llms as part of its whole obsequious fawning style of interaction that oversells its abilities and obscures its obvious limitations
I guess that to really understand LLMs, you need to go back to the original 2017 article âAttention is All you Needâ on the Transformer architecture and work your way up from there. I have yet to identify a good explainer for undergrads to pair with a basic primer on human language use for contrast.
I work with patterns and probabilities. When you give me a prompt, I break it down into smaller pieces, or tokens. Tokens are like words or parts of words. My goal is to predict the next most probable token in a sequence, building on the ones that came before it.â
Composing a prompt along those lines, I got the following from Gemini (this is just a small excerpt): âInstead of understanding language like a human does,
will talk a little bit about machine learning and statistical probabilities, use some metaphors and analogies (the âsophisticated autocompleteâ analogy is okay but inadequate), and generally do about as good a job as a science journalist.
The prompt might ask to explain how the bot works in laypersonâs language, but not to dilute technical details, and to address inherent limitations. In my experience, ChatGPT and Gemini acknowledge the premise that they donât understand language the way a human does,
Thatâs a great reply! Again, I was trying to take the convo in a different direction, regarding chatbot rhetoric, but your question is a really good one. Iâd be curious to hear your thoughts too. Iâd say it all begins with the prompt.
What an awful thing to say to another human being.
Okay, this one made me laugh! Love the karate dog example. Thank you.
Sigh. Did you read my whole thread? I pointed to a chatbot that was not obsequious or sycophantic, one that frequently asserts its limitations as an AI, but discussed how that was still highly problematic: âinsidiousâ is the word I used. Thatâs not a conclusion a clanker lover would reach.
âVery goodâ I obviously meant to say.
That is actually a very suggestion. Iâm thanking anyone who is not being outright cruel. So thank you.
I do at least appreciate your being civil. I really doâwanted to thank you for that. Maybe the only person who has answered neutrally, in good faith.
Sorry about the lack of avatar. Joined as soon as Trump was elected in a state of absolute panic and fear. Will take care of that soon. Totally legit to call that out.
How a chatbot deflects, distorts, or censors reality matters, especially in a political context. Gemini is an interesting exception to the sycophancy trendâfrequently asserting its inhuman status and limitationsâbut with equally insidious implications, especially given our current political moment.
Conversation doesnât generally move in a strictly linear path. As Iâve said, I was picking up on the language of sycophancy, an invitation to think more critically about the rhetoric of chatbots.
I fully agree, but have never quite been able to articulate for myself why that is. Maybe itâs the scary combo of charlatanism and hubris. The way they interact.
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I know itâs intended to be a signature NYT euphemistic headline, but itâs actually hilariously incriminating!
Some of those decisions (as to when to invoke that type of demurring language) is triggered by specific phrasing, some is more probabilistically determined, and some hard-coded.
information deemed too partisan. About a year ago, it used one of these rhetorical cop-outs to avoid answering the question of who won the 2020 election. It's now eased up, but it will be interesting to see what happens in the wake of Trump's executive orders on AI.
So on the surface, this might seem like a form of ethical AI--it's never letting you forget it's just a machine. But in practice it uses this device to circumvent political, fact-based
or that such and such isn't part of its training data. Or that it's "just an AI" and can't answer that. It's continually reminding the user of its limitations, but specifically *within the context of political discourse*.
I think part of what's so disappointing to me is that I think this could have been a really interesting conversation. Part of what interests me about Gemini, for instance, is the way it will constantly remind the user that it's merely a lowly AI without beliefs, emotions, or preferences
I was merely picking up on the rhetorical argument, asking for any research, and then the recipient of ad hominem attacks.
even as the argument is about their artifice and inability to comprehend language (which is indeed trueâthey canât!) So the post itself perhaps inadvertently front loads rhetoric and heavily relies on a rhetorical critique of LLMs.
Thank you so much for your grace & civilityâmuch appreciated. WRT to the semantics: even the word âlieâ is a form of (perhaps unavoidable but striking) personification, attributing human-like characteristics & intentionality to a machine
Perhaps I should have more carefully distinguished between them. Apologies for any confusion.
From the original post: âits whole obsequious fawning style of interaction that oversells its abilities.â Thatâs rhetoric my friend.
Having said that, thereâs plenty of continental philosophyâIâm thinking of, e.g., post-structuralist Derridean linguistic theoryâthat posits a view of human language use that overlaps in interesting ways with LLMs. That doesnât mean I subscribe to itâ just noting its existence and lasting influence.
The original post and the one it retweeted seemed to emphasize the rhetorical style of the output, which is indeed something that can varyâwasnât at all clear that actual semantics were under consideration.
Hi! Academic here. I teach and study LLMs and am genuinely curious about any available scientific studies. Anecdotally, I'd note that Gemini is almost comically cautious in stating its limitations and capabilities, while ChatGPT is more sycophantic. But that's merely anecdotal and impressionistic.
Hi there! Specifically which LLMs are you talking about? All of them? Have you tested all of them? What data are you drawing on when you make this assertion? What scientific evidence? Thank you!
Oh my goodness, that sweet little face! I would go adopt her immediately if I lived anywhere near San Francisco.
Thank you! Stay safe!
Can you please let us know where this is? LA? DC?
I have no words. I grieve with all of you.
As a fellow humanities PhD, I have always taken delight and a certain vicarious pride in the way your training makes you such an extraordinary reader of legal texts and intelligence reports, almost always catching details and patterns that escape expert attention.
Whereâs the link please?
That seems like a fair assessment.
In other words, he uses his own personal story of addiction to advance dangerous and unscientific treatments.
Does he think addicts just need to go to wellness farms? Again, we canât talk about his charlatanism without simultaneously discussing his bizarre beliefs around a whole host of medical conditions, including viral illnesses, psychiatric disorders, and addiction.
are more addictive than heroin and that people should just get better on wellness farms. His whole history of addiction and the way he thinks about life-saving prescription drugs are inextricably linked. His addiction is absolutely fair game in any comprehensive critique of his charlatanism.
My personal opinion: RFK jr. is profoundly against anti-depressants and other psychiatric drugs that have saved peopleâs lives. He is in a position of power to deny access to those drugs. His own history as an addict is relevant to his stance: he has made claims that antidepressants
I hear you, but I do think thereâs a difference between punching up to those in power who are deeply corrupt and punching down to those who struggle and face tremendous hardship.
As always, Mark, thank you so much for the work you do.
Wasnât advocating the practice, just noting the likely consequence of it not being formally FDA approved for years. Same thing happened with Metformin. Your point is well-taken.
But it will take decades for FDA approval. Since lithium orotate is available as an OTC supplement, it will quickly be used and prescribed off-label.
Thank you so much!
Chris and any other lawyers: if an en bank review is requested and granted, could the new whistleblower testimony (from three whistleblowers) who made complaints against Bove that is clearly relevant to this case be introduced and considered?