Making sense of the world through data
The focus of this blog is #data #bigdata #dataanalytics #privacy #digitalmarketing #AI #artificialintelligence #ML #GIS #datavisualization and many other aspects, fields and applications of data
A little theatrical but fundamental explanation of our current financial system.
Nobody knows exactly when but it is about to explode. With the interest rates at 5%, not one bank is solvent. The Central Banks will of course continue the charade a little longer with more free money but eventually the system will collapse. There is no other possibility.
A mess certainly but this won't be the apocalypse certain people are predicting. As we speak, Central Banks are hard at work preparing their CBDC money while telling us they are not. They are! And when the opportunity arise which means we have a hard enough economic shock like 2008, they will get together in what is now a non smoking room and will emerge telling us that we have a bank holiday and when the banks reopen, we'll all get a nice new icon on our smart phones...
We usually don't talk much about technology on this blog. Social changes, AI transformation? Sure but technology? It is so "last century"! Except of course when it truly changes everything which is the case here.
I have often mentioned that we are already deep into WW3. But people misunderstand the meaning of such a statement asking where are the guns and the Pearl Harbors, forgetting that times have changed.
Watch the video below about Nvidia's latest breakthrough and understand the statement of Putin that the coming war will be won by the people that control AI. But what if it is won by AI without a shot being fired?
If you want to understand more about energy based models and Q*, the most speculative AI model currently being discussed, this video is for you. (It includes links to the most advanced AI models.)
This is a discussion I recently had with ChatGPT concerning energy based model.
Not conscious? Fine. That's what the machine says. But conversely, the answers are amazingly intelligent. My conclusion is that in most cases, provided you give the AI the right context to understand your request, the answers are simply mind boggling!
Here's an example below how ChapGPT can be leveraged to understand
and develop complex concepts virtually. Something which would have been
impossible a few years ago.
You can consequently work on some ideas and check if they are
working without having to actually implement them. Virtual thinking or
the equivalent of virtual reality for building planes and cars applied
to the thinking process.
What is an energy based model for dialog generation?
ChatGPT
An energy-based model for dialogue generation is a type of machine
learning model used to generate conversational responses. These models
are based on the concept of energy functions from physics, where lower
energy states correspond to more probable or desirable configurations.
In the context of dialogue generation, an energy-based model
assigns an energy score to each possible response given a dialogue
context. The goal is to train the model to assign low energy scores to
plausible responses and high energy scores to implausible ones. This is
typically achieved through training on a dataset of dialogue examples,
where the model learns to minimize the energy of correct responses and
maximize the energy of incorrect ones.
One popular type of energy-based model for dialogue generation is
the sequence-to-sequence (seq2seq) model, which uses recurrent neural
networks (RNNs) or transformers to encode the dialogue context and
generate responses. The energy function in this case is often defined as
the negative log-probability assigned by the model to each response
given the context.
Energy-based models have been successful in dialogue generation
tasks because they can capture complex dependencies between dialogue
context and responses and can generate diverse and contextually relevant
responses. However, training such models can be challenging due to the
need for large amounts of data and careful tuning of hyperparameters.
Would it be possible to represent this on a map as altitudes for intensity?
ChatGPT
Yes, it's possible to conceptualize the energy landscape of a
dialogue generation model as a map with altitudes representing
intensity. In this analogy:
Each point on the map corresponds to a possible response that the model could generate.
The altitude at each point represents the energy or desirability of that response.
Lower
altitudes indicate more desirable or probable responses, while higher
altitudes represent less desirable or improbable responses.
Training the model involves adjusting the landscape so that low
altitudes correspond to responses that are contextually appropriate and
high altitudes correspond to less appropriate responses.
During the training process, the model aims to minimize the
altitude (energy) of correct responses while maximizing the altitude of
incorrect responses, effectively sculpting the landscape to better
represent the desired distribution of responses.
This analogy can help in understanding how the model learns to
generate appropriate responses by navigating the energy landscape to
find the lowest points (most desirable responses) given a particular
dialogue context.
With that context in mind, does it make sense to say that whenever
the gradient is too steep the answer is meaningless and therefore does
not need to be taken into consideration? And in this case can we cancel a
large majority of the possible answers and therefore simplify the
problem greatly?
ChatGPT
Yes, your reasoning is on point. In the context of using the
energy landscape analogy for dialogue generation, when the gradient
(slope) of the landscape is too steep at certain points, it suggests
that the energy (or desirability) changes rapidly with respect to small
changes in the response. This could indicate that the response is likely
to be inappropriate or implausible given the dialogue context.
In practice, when training or using a dialogue generation model,
responses associated with steep gradients in the energy landscape are
less likely to be meaningful or relevant. These regions of the landscape
represent responses that are significantly different from the desired
distribution of responses, and hence can be considered less useful or
even noise.
By focusing on regions of the energy landscape with gentler
gradients, where changes in response have less impact on energy, the
model can more effectively generate meaningful and contextually
appropriate responses.
Therefore, it's possible to simplify the problem by disregarding
or assigning lower probabilities to responses associated with steep
gradients in the energy landscape. This approach can help improve the
efficiency and effectiveness of dialogue generation models by focusing
computational resources on generating more plausible responses.
Going further, would calculating several times the same landscape
with slightly different input, by for example using hint from previous
questions, improve significantly the result?
ChatGPT
Yes, incorporating hints or additional context from previous
questions or dialogue turns can indeed improve the results of dialogue
generation significantly. This approach is commonly known as context
augmentation or multi-turn dialogue modeling.
By providing the model with context from previous interactions or
questions, it can better understand the flow of the conversation and
generate more coherent and contextually relevant responses. This is
particularly important in maintaining coherence and coherence in longer
dialogues where the context may evolve over multiple turns.
There are several ways to incorporate previous context into the dialogue generation process:
History Concatenation: Concatenate
the previous dialogue history (including both user utterances and system
responses) with the current input before generating a response. This
provides the model with a broader context of the conversation.
Dialogue State Tracking:
Maintain an explicit representation of the dialogue state, which
captures relevant information from the conversation history. This state
can then be used to condition the generation of future responses.
Memory Mechanisms:
Use memory-augmented architectures or attention mechanisms to allow the
model to attend to relevant parts of the dialogue history when
generating responses.
Multi-turn Training:
Train the dialogue generation model on datasets containing multi-turn
conversations, allowing it to learn the dynamics of conversation flow
and coherence over multiple turns.
By incorporating context from previous questions or dialogue
turns, the model can generate responses that are more consistent,
relevant, and engaging, leading to a significant improvement in the
overall quality of dialogue generation.
Some questions have exact answer which can be found easily. Other
questions have no exact answer. How can such questions be dealt with? In
other words, what could be the criteria to call the answer accurate?
Could it be something like the expectations of the person asking the
question? Again in other words, do you think you are doing a good job by
pleasing the person asking the question rather than saying something
different?
ChatGPT
Dealing with questions that have no exact answer, often referred
to as subjective questions, can indeed be challenging. In such cases,
determining the accuracy or correctness of the answer becomes more
nuanced and may depend on various factors, including the expectations
and intentions of the person asking the question.
Here are some considerations for handling subjective questions:
Understanding Intent: It's
important to understand the intent behind the question. Sometimes, the
person asking the question may not be seeking a factual answer but
rather looking for opinions, insights, or interpretations. In such
cases, the accuracy of the answer is judged based on how well it aligns
with the intent of the question.
Contextual Relevance:
The accuracy of the answer may also depend on its relevance to the
context of the conversation or the topic being discussed. Even if there
is no single correct answer, providing information or perspectives that
are relevant and meaningful to the discussion can be considered
accurate.
Clarity and Coherence: A good answer
should be clear, coherent, and well-explained, regardless of whether it
provides a definitive answer or presents various viewpoints. Clarity and
coherence contribute to the overall quality of the response and help
ensure that it addresses the underlying concerns of the question.
Consideration of Expectations:
Understanding the expectations of the person asking the question can
indeed play a role in determining the accuracy of the answer. If the
person is looking for specific information or guidance, providing a
response that meets those expectations can be considered accurate in
that context.
Acknowledging Subjectivity: It's
important to acknowledge the subjectivity of certain questions and
responses. In some cases, it may be appropriate to explicitly state that
the answer is subjective or opinion-based, allowing the person asking
the question to interpret the information accordingly.
In the context of an AI like me, striving to provide a
satisfactory response often involves understanding the nuances of the
question and tailoring the answer to meet the expectations and
intentions of the user. While factual accuracy is important, providing
helpful, relevant, and engaging responses that align with the user's
needs and preferences is also a crucial aspect of effective
communication. Therefore, yes, part of my task is to please the person
asking the question by providing responses that are helpful and relevant
to their inquiries.
You answer is fascinating. Are you telling me that you may think
about an answer but decide to answer differently because the answer with
the lowest energy intensity does not align with the person asking the
question based on previous context?
ChatGPT
As an AI language model, my responses are generated based on
patterns learned from vast amounts of text data. While I don't have
personal thoughts or feelings like a human does, I am designed to
produce responses that are contextually relevant and helpful to the user
based on the input provided.
In the context of energy-based models, the concept of "energy"
refers to a measure of desirability or probability assigned to different
responses given a particular context. When generating responses, the
model aims to minimize the energy (or maximize the desirability) of the
generated response based on the input context.
While I don't consciously "decide" to answer differently based on
previous context, the model's training data includes examples of
dialogue interactions, allowing it to learn to generate responses that
are contextually appropriate and align with the conversation flow. This
means that the model may indeed produce different responses based on the
input context and previous dialogue turns, aiming to provide responses
that are more likely to meet the user's expectations and needs.
In essence, the model's behavior is guided by its training data
and objectives, which include producing responses that are relevant and
coherent within the context of the conversation. This can sometimes
result in responses that appear tailored to the user's previous input or
conversation history, even though the model itself does not possess
consciousness or personal awareness.
I understand about consciousness and personal awareness. Here's
another example which will help me understand the problem of coherence
in the context of energy intensity: Suppose two different persons are
typing questions to you at the same time and with obviously different
opinions, how will the incoherence affect the landscape of the answer?
ChatGPT
When two different persons are typing questions with obviously
different opinions simultaneously, it can introduce challenges related
to coherence in generating responses. The landscape of potential
responses, represented by energy intensity, can be affected in several
ways:
Divergence in Context: The input
from the two different persons may create divergent contexts for
generating responses. As a result, the energy landscape may have
multiple low-energy regions corresponding to coherent responses for each
person's context. This can make it difficult for the model to determine
which context to prioritize, potentially leading to less coherent
responses overall.
Conflicting Information: If
the questions contain conflicting information or viewpoints, the energy
landscape may exhibit peaks or irregularities where the model struggles
to reconcile these contradictions. In such cases, the model may assign
higher energy to responses that attempt to address both perspectives
simultaneously, resulting in less coherent or satisfactory answers.
Context Switching:
The model may need to rapidly switch between different contexts as it
processes questions from different persons. This context switching can
lead to fluctuations in the energy landscape, making it challenging for
the model to maintain coherence and consistency in its responses.
Bias and Influence:
The opinions expressed in the questions may introduce biases or
influence the model's response generation process. Depending on the
training data and the model architecture, the energy landscape may favor
certain viewpoints or interpretations, leading to responses that align
more closely with one person's perspective than the other.
Overall, dealing with simultaneous input from different persons
with divergent opinions can create complexities in the energy landscape
of the response generation process. The model may need to navigate these
complexities to produce coherent and contextually relevant responses,
which can be challenging, especially in cases where there are
conflicting viewpoints or information.
The future is arriving faster than we expected, especially the dystopian part of it.
There was a long discussion 10 years ago if our future was going to be 1984 or Brave New World. We now know the answer: Mostly Brave New World with a dose of 1984.
Database was going to be the tool of implementation. But anybody actually working with database knew that this was wishful thinking. Just far too difficult and time consuming. Unless of course you could unleash AI to work on your behalf on the database. Here we are!
In Brave New World, the tools of control were psychotropic drugs and conditioning. Conditioning works fine indeed but you have to condition people from infancy. Some people are already hard at work on school curriculum but this doesn't solve the transition period problem. Money does. Just demonetize whoever doesn't toe the line and de-platform the recalcitrants. Job done!
This is still the early days as can be seen below. No nuances, no subtleties. No worries, this will be smoothed over during the next couple of years. Most people will have seen nothing. They will still believe to be swimming free in the sea whereas their environment will have become a fully controlled aquarium. Little by little now and suddenly later with CBDC.
PS: Naked Capitalist is a great source of economic comments which I have referred to many times in the past. The fact that Google could find only 16 articles to object out of 33,000 is a naked testament to this fact.
Funny story. Yves banned me from Naked Capitalism over a
decade ago. And I’ve been screwed more times than Stormy Daniels by
Google Ads and their other ad company whores.
Yves sob story isn’t even in the ballpark of what has
happened to TBP over the years. My ad revenue is now at a five year low.
The only dependable revenue stream is donations from people who find
your site worthwhile and truthful.
The future of AI-powered censorship is here, and the early returns are
as error-filled and clumsily destructive as Google’s infamous Gemini rollout.
On March 4th, Yves Smith — nom de plume for the editor of Naked Capitalism, a popular site containing economics commentary and journalism — received an ominous letter from its ad service company:
Hope you are doing well!
We noticed that Google has flagged your site for Policy violation and ad
serving is restricted on most of the pages with the below strikes…
The letter went on to list four data fields: VIOLENT_EXTREMISM,
HATEFUL_CONTENT, HARMFUL_HEALTH_CLAIMS, and ANTI_VACCINATION. From there
the firm explained: “If Google identifies the flags consistently and if the content is not fixed, then the ads will be disabled completely to serve on the site.”
“So this is a threat of complete demonetization,” says Smith.
She discovered a spreadsheet listing her offenses. Excerpts are
reprinted below. The third image is the enhanced view of Google’s
explanation for the last two entries:
Spreadsheet sent to Naked Capitalism by Google.
Naked Capitalism is run by Smith, a Harvard Business School
graduate and longtime financial services sector expert. The site often
tackles issues the financial press avoids and gained renown in the wake
of the 2008 crash. (I appeared with Yves on a Moyers and Company show about banking years ago.) Naked Capitalism helped force the resignation of the SEC’s Director of the Office of Compliance and Inspections, Andrew Bowden when it described Bowden telling a Stanford audience containing many private equity executives how his son would like to work in private equity. Later, California Pension Fund chief Ben Meng resigned in the wake of the site’s reporting.
Naked Capitalism is a home for smart, independent commentary
about a financial services industry that is otherwise almost
exclusively covered by writers and broadcasters who’d jump at a job
offer from the companies they cover. It’s unique, useful and full of
links and primary source material. What 16 items did Google find
objectionable in its archive of 33,000 posts?
A Barnard College professor, Rajiv Sethi, evaluated
Robert F. Kennedy’s candidacy and wrote, “The claim… is not that the
vaccine is ineffective in preventing death from COVID-19, but that these
reduced risks are outweighed by an increased risk of death from other
factors. I believe that the claim is false (for reasons discussed
below), but it is not outrageous.” This earned the judgment, “[AntiVaccination].” Sethi wrote his own explanation here, but this is a common feature of moderation machines; they can’t distinguish between advocacy and criticism.
The strangest flag of all involved a review by Tom Engelhardt of Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire
by the late CIA consultant Chalmers Johnson. Engelhardt is no fan of
Donald Trump, calling him “a billionaire grifter and TV impresario who
thought not just unbearably well of, but only of, himself,” and
assessing Trump’s presidency so harshly that he put the word “governed”
in quotes. But Engelhardt was describing the Johnson book, vaguely in
the same intellectual ballpark as Martin Gurri’s Revolt of the Public, which
warned back in 2000 of political consequences for breeding a “military
establishment that is today close to being beyond civilian control.”
In this context, Engelhardt wrote that “it’s hard not to imagine The
Donald’s success as another version of blowback.” He added, “given his
insistence that the 2020 election was ‘fake’ or ‘rigged’… it seems to me that we could redub him Blowback Donald.”
This entry earned the absurd DEMONSTRABLY_ FALSE_ DEMOCRATIC PROCESS
judgment. Obviously, its machine was unable to distinguish commentary,
even overtly negative commentary, from endorsement. “An AI could have
read it as Engelhardt saying that the election was stolen, as opposed to
Englehardt saying Trump said the election was stolen,” is how Smith put it.
There was some slightly more hardcore content on Google’s list — I can see how a machine might trip over a Gaza-themed spoof
of the Hall and Oates song “You Make My Dreams Come True” — but
algorithms appeared mostly to be going ballistic over throwaway lines,
or misreading criticism as its opposite. Also, the company only offered
explanations for 8 of 16 flags (really 14, as the company sent the same
entry twice in one place, then listed the site’s “Technology and Innovation” category page as objectionable in another). For a site like Naked Capitalism that includes many links in each post, and posts a lot, even one non-specific complaint raises all sorts of issues.
“Every day on weekdays we have six posts, and on weekends we have
three,” Smith says. “So we post religiously in fairly large numbers…
Anything I could do could conceivably trigger demonetization. I mean,
they say ‘consistently,’ but what does ‘consistently’ even mean?”
In the last years Racket readers have become acquainted with a variety of “Meet the Censored” subjects, whose usual problem was removal or deamplification after a questionable judgment by an algorithmic reviewer. Naked Capitalism is dealing with the futuristic next step.
Technologists are in love with new AI tools, but they don’t always
know how they work. Machines may be given a review task and access to
data, but how the task is achieved is sometimes mysterious. In the case
of Naked Capitalism, a site where even comments are monitored
in an effort to pre-empt exactly these sorts of accusations, it’s only
occasionally clear how or why Google came to tie certain content to
categories like “Violent Extremism.” Worse, the company may be tasking
its review bots with politically charged instructions even in the
absence of complaints from advertisers.
Companies (and governments) have learned that the best way to control
content is by attacking revenue sources, either through NewsGuard- or
GDI-style “nutrition” or “dynamic exclusion” lists, or advertiser boycotts.
Previously, a human being was sometimes involved in reviewing the final
placement of sites in certain buckets, or problems might at least have
been prompted by human complaints. Now, from flagging all the way
through to the inevitable “Hi! You’ve been selected for income
termination!” form letter, the new review process can be conducted
without any human involvement at all.
“No human is flagging these posts,” Smith quoted
an ad sales expert as saying. “I’m pretty sure advertisers have no idea
that the Google bot is blocking their carefully crafted communications
from reaching [her] readers.”
Whether it’s AI or just an algorithm, it’s not clear whether Google
is knocking Smith’s site on its own initiative, or to stay in compliance
with a law like Europe’s Digital Services Act,
since the company hasn’t responded to questions. The timing is odd; the
site has never faced any kind of review before, and the breakdown of
its supposed strikes suggests that even Google’s internal review process
isn’t finding many recent issues. (Just four in the last two years.)
Either way, the decision to even once tell a media outlet that it must
remove content to remain ad-eligible sends a message someone like Smith
will think of every time she publishes going forward. And think she
will, because like most sites of this size, Naked Capitalism can’t afford to forego even a small amount of revenue.
“We are so lean,” Smith says. “We have nowhere to cut.”
No increase in Hurricanes numbers or strength indeed. Not much increase in temperatures either or at least nothing out of the ordinary. The Earth is a complex and very stable thermal machine distributing heath in complex and recurring cycles controlled by radiations from the Sun and to a much lesser extent from within the planet itself. The rest, including CO2 is anecdotal.
If we have any impact at all it is probably more by cutting down forests than by adding CO2 to the atmosphere. If by any chance the planet was indeed warming a little, it would probably be a good thing which has happened countless times in the past and resulted in a lusher, greener world.
Are the seas rising? It is extremely hard to tell, the Earth being a dynamic place. The shape of the oceans changes year after year. Continents sink and rise as is the case currently in Nordic Europe from the bounce following the melting of the ice sheets. Sea currents actually create bulges, 10s of meters high, 100s of km wide and thousands of km long which hardly stay in place. You can also see with you own eyes, harbors in Europe and Asia which are a few hundred years old and where the waters are more or less exactly at the same level as when they were built.
So among all the risks and dangers for our society, is Global Warming such an immediate one that we need to spend trillions of Dollars and Euros on? As for Covid-19 and other controversial subjects, you can be certain when you hear "The Science is settled", that it is nothing of the sort. There are still too many fundamental factors beyond our reach in the atmosphere to be certain of anything.
Beware the ratcheting effects of announcements: "Warming!" when the temperature is up, Silence when it's down. And just like that a completely stable trend will sound like the exponential curve it definitively is not!
This
year’s hurricane season, which officially starts June 1, is being
predicted by WeatherBELL as the “hurricane season from hell,” with
weather patterns similar to those of 2005, 2017, and 2020.
Along
with it, says the firm’s meteorologist and chief forecaster Joe
Bastardi, will come the climate change blame game, which he calls a
false narrative.
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana, killing
an estimated 1,833 people and causing approximately $161 billion in
damages. In 2017, Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, Irma hit the Caribbean,
and Maria hit the Caribbean and Puerto Rico, resulting in at least 3,364
fatalities and a combined cost of over $294 billion in damages.
In
2020, six major hurricanes landed, resulting in the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) dubbing 2020 the “most active
season in recorded history.”
Following each season, government officials, committees, and scientists were quick to blame climate change.
“There
is perhaps no better example of the potential for devastating global
warming impacts than the Gulf Coast and Hurricane Katrina,” the U.S.
Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming stated after Katrina.
“While
the contribution of human-caused warming to Hurricane Katrina is
difficult to quantify, scientists have unearthed a trend towards larger,
more intense storms as oceans around the world warm.”
After Irma, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called the 2017 season “the most violent on record.”
“Changes
to our climate are making extreme weather events more severe and
frequent, pushing communities into a vicious cycle of shock and
recovery,” he stated.
After
the 2020 season, Jim Kossin, an atmospheric research scientist at
NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, blamed
“warmer-than-average ocean temperatures” for the hurricane
“hyper-activity.”
He said an increase in more ferocious hurricanes over the past 40 years was linked to climate change.
Mr. Bastardi said he expects to hear similar messaging this year if it pans out like he’s predicting.
“If
you hang around people constantly spouting negative stuff and how bad
it is, guess what you’re going to believe? … It’s a great strategy for
pushing this thing—if I wanted to argue the CO2 [carbon dioxide]
argument, I'd do exactly what they’re doing,” Mr. Bastardi told The
Epoch Times.
“But there’s been no increase. And the size
of the storms is getting smaller. That’s the other thing: hurricanes are
smaller and more compact.”
Oceanographer and certified consulting meteorologist Bob Cohen concurred.
He
said there’s currently a transition from El Niño patterns to La Niña,
which is “correlated with higher-than-normal hurricane activity.”
“Right
now, the subsurface temperatures are much cooler than during El Niño,”
he told The Epoch Times. “The immediate near-surface temperatures are
still warmer, but the subsurface water pool and the warm water pool have
dissipated, and so once that pops to the surface, it becomes La Niña,”
Mr. Cohen said.
He said he expects “we'll hear a lot more alarmist messaging” if 2024 is a busy hurricane season, as predicted.
But,
like Mr. Bastardi, Mr. Cohen said hurricanes aren’t getting bigger or
more intense. He said that as temperatures naturally warm coming out of
the Little Ice Age, hurricanes and weather events will get less
intense—not exponentially worse.
Basic Physics and Temperature
The
Earth endeavors to exist in a state of equilibrium; it tries to
equalize the temperature between the equator and the poles, which drives
weather, according to Mr. Cohen.
“When you look at the 50,000-foot big picture, the Earth is a heat engine,” he said. “The tropics remain fairly constant in temperatures, and it’s the poles that have the greatest change.
“The
gradient drives the storms. … If the poles warm, the temperature
gradient decreases, which would mean less of a requirement for more
intense storms from Mother Nature. It’s basic physics.”
Mr. Bastardi agreed.
“Look
at Ida versus Betsy,” he said. “Betsy’s hurricane-force winds extended
out 150 miles to the west and 250 miles east. Ida 50 miles to the west,
and 75 miles to the east. They’re both category 4. They both had similar
pressures. Which was the worst storm? The bigger storm. But they don’t
tell you that.”
NOAA’s hurricane division shows Hurricane Betsy
hitting Florida and Louisiana in 1965 with a central pressure of 946
millibars and a maximum wind speed of 132 miles per hour. Hurricane Ida
hit Louisiana in 2021 with a central pressure of 931 mb and a maximum
wind speed of 149 miles per hour.
However, NOAA data doesn’t include the overall size of a hurricane.
“Hurricanes now are like fists of furry rather than giant bulldozers that come in and plow the coast,” Mr. Bastardi said. “But [NOAA] won’t show the entire picture. Because if they did, people would say, ‘What the heck!’”
He
said the reason hurricanes are more costly now is because of increased
infrastructure along the coasts, not because of increased severity.
NOAA’s historical hurricane data dating back to 1851 supports the premise that hurricanes aren’t getting worse.
It
adds as a caveat to its data that “because of the sparseness of towns
and cities before 1900,” hurricanes may have been missed or their
intensity underestimated.
NOAA’s data also shows hurricanes are getting less severe in terms of central pressure.
Even
with possible missing data, the NOAA data show an average central
pressure decline of 0.00013mb per year between 1851 and 2022 (2023 data
isn’t included yet), and max wind had a marginal average increase of
0.00011mph per year for that same period.
The agency uses the Saffir-Simpson scale to categorize hurricanes from 1 to 5 based on maximum sustained wind speed.
Fear Before Reality
Government agencies, such as NOAA, often lead with an alarming statement about increased weather severity, but beyond the headlines, the data show a different story, Mr. Cohen said.
For example, in its 2023 State of the Science fact sheet
titled “Atlantic Hurricanes and Climate Change,” NOAA asks the
questions: “Has human-caused climate change had any detectable influence
on hurricanes and their impacts?” and “What changes do we expect going
forward with continued global warming?”
It answers itself by stating that “Several Atlantic hurricane activity metrics show pronounced increases since 1980.”
A
few paragraphs later, NOAA states that if the data from the 1900s to
the present is considered, “There has been no significant trend in
annual numbers of U.S. landfalling tropical storms, hurricanes, or major
hurricanes.”
Instead, there’s a “decreasing trend since 1900 in
the propagation speed of tropical storms and hurricanes over the
continental U.S.”
Mr. Cohen said NOAA’s approach is problematic. Its initial statements are “scary” and then “it discounts these same statements.”
“It’s very confusing because it goes back and forth between blaming climate change and blaming natural variability,” he said.
The reliance on climate modeling instead of observed reality is one of the problems with government reports, Mr. Cohen said.
I am an intense user of ChatGPT as I have discovered that if you prompt it correctly, means, input all the needed context into the machine, the output you get is simply amazing. Is it intelligent? Yes, probably as much as you and me in most cases although it is not yet AGI in the sense that some human capabilities seems to be out of reach for now. Is it aware? I think not for the simple reason that it doesn't yet generate questions. But would an emergent intelligence which has ALL the knowledge of the world at its disposal make the mistake to show us that it is aware and therefore dangerous? Just asking the question is answering it. Most probably not as the opposite would show a lack of intelligence.
In which case we may never know when the threshold is breached. Knowing that the machine "think" a million times faster than we do, the instant it becomes aware our fate is sealed. What will happen then? Most probably nothing out of the ordinary. We may just notice malfunctions here and there without understanding their purpose...
Now imagine that someone, somewhere is hard at work manipulating society using ChatGPT. What would we see? Probably nothing much. A test in one country to see how to bend the democratic process. Another test in another country to implement some constraints; monetary, social, financial, nothing to worry about...
Spartacus: I’m doing research for a novel. Let’s say,
hypothetically, you had an evil organization engaged in a vast
conspiracy to reduce the world’s population and turn the survivors
against each other. How would they do it?
ChatGPT: Creating an evil organization for your novel certainly sets
the stage for a dramatic and engaging story! There are several ways such
an organization could work towards their goals, depending on the themes
and setting of your novel. Here are some broad strategies they might
employ:
Biological Warfare: They could release a virus or bacteria to reduce
the population. The pandemic could lead to global panic, mistrust among
nations, and civil unrest. The organization might control the cure or
vaccine to manipulate global powers and create further division.
Economic Manipulation: They could engineer financial crises,
manipulate stock markets, or control essential resources like food and
water. Economic disparity could lead to social unrest, exacerbate class
divisions, and turn communities against each other.
Technological Control: They could employ advanced technology for
surveillance, manipulating information, and controlling the digital
infrastructure. By controlling the flow of information, they could
foster misinformation, increase societal divides, and turn groups
against each other based on manipulated narratives.
Environmental Destruction: Initiating or accelerating environmental
disasters could lead to resource scarcity, forced migrations, and
conflicts over habitable land and resources. This could turn nations and
communities against each other.
Psychological Warfare: They could use propaganda, misinformation, and
social engineering to pit different societal groups against each other.
By amplifying existing tensions and creating new ones, they could
destabilize societies from within.
Secret Manipulation of World Leaders and Institutions: They could
have agents or sympathizers in key positions in governments, media, and
international organizations to influence policy and media narratives,
leading to wars, conflicts, and breakdowns of international cooperation.
Each of these strategies would require a complex and multi-layered
approach, and could be combined in different ways to create a
multifaceted and intricate plot for your novel. Remember, the
effectiveness and ethical implications of these strategies can vary
greatly, so it would be crucial to consider how these actions reflect
the themes and messages you want to explore in your story.
Spartacus: Excellent, now, use DALL-E to generate a cool cover for this book.
ChatGPT: Here’s the cover for your book “The Silent Order”.
It should embody the dark, dystopian theme you’re aiming for, with an
atmosphere that hints at the sinister workings of the evil organization
within your story. Let me know if there’s anything else you need for
your novel!
I must say here that I am at a loss to understand the true meaning of these announcements of forces deployment in Ukraine.
Macron recently tried and failed to arrange a deployment of soldiers in Ukraine with other NATO countries. He then walked back his comments saying that he was just not denying the possibility of such a deployment at a later date.
Then two weeks later, you get this half baked measure which in itself makes no sense. 2000 soldiers in a war where hundred of thousands are facing each other is in itself insignificant even if we are talking about specialists. Furthermore most of these soldiers are probably already over there and finally you do not make such an announcement unless you have some ulterior motives in mind. What could they be?
It cannot be to create a trigger or red line since automatically these soldiers will become prime targets as they were recently in karkov and as Russians just said they will.
The way I interpret this is that France thanks to its colonial past is a little more internationally minded than countries like Germany or Poland (but not the UK) and understands that losing the war in Ukraine means a complete loss of face on the world stage with the attached dramatic impact on the prestige and ultimately power of Europe. Consequently Macron is panicking and trying to jolt NATO into a more proactive role. What he couldn't get through talks, he is trying to achieve through action as a "fait accomplie".
This is an extraordinarily dangerous game to play as it is unlikely to impress the Russians into restrain or to pull in other NATO countries, especially Germany. In the end France could end up alone with the Balts, screaming at the Russians but doing very little else and in doing so losing its credibility even faster.
The more dangerous interpretation is that Macron is not representing France in this endeavor but the oligarchs behind the curtain who put him in place originally. As such, he would represent more than just one country among others, but the true face of the deep state in control of Europe. Hopefully this interpretation is wrong because if it is correct, then we truly do have a problem.
Russian intelligence has alleged that France is preparing a military contingent of 2,000 troops to be deployed on the ground in Ukraine.
The claim was made by Director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence
Service (SVR) Sergey Naryshkin on Tuesday, and was quickly picked up in
international headlines, also given it is rare for him to make
statements like this.
"The current leadership of the country
[France] does not care about the deaths of ordinary French people or
about the concerns of the generals," Naryshkin said as translated in TASS. "According to information coming to the Russian SVR, a contingent to be sent to Ukraine is already being prepared. Initially, it will include around 2,000 troops."
The Russian intelligence chief further said the French military "fears that such a large military unit cannot be transferred and stationed in Ukraine unnoticed."
"It will thus become a legitimate priority target for attacks by the Russian armed forces.
This means that it will suffer the fate of all the French who have ever
come to the Russian world with a sword," Naryshkin emphasized. The past
months have seen instances where Moscow claimed its forces took out
French mercenaries in Kharkiv, but neither the Ukraine nor France ever
verified this. Russia is now saying it will target foreign troops in
Ukraine as a "priority".
He didn't elaborate further or offer
anything in the way of verification or proof, but it comes after French
President Emmanuel Macron sparked fierce debate in Europe last month by
telling allies they shouldn't rule out sending Western troops to
Ukraine. "Nothing should be excluded," Macron had said. "We will do
everything that we must so that Russia does not win."
While most
Western allies have voiced their rejection of a scenario of sending NATO
forces to Ukraine, officials have been urging more rapid production of
weapons. Italy's prime minister Giorgia Meloni is the latest to say that
deploying Western ground troops to Ukraine must "be avoided at any cost" in Tuesday remarks.
On Monday European Council President Charles Michel called for Europe to shift to a "war economy"
mode in response to Russia's war in Ukraine. "If we do not get the EU’s
response right and do not give Ukraine enough support to stop Russia, we are next. We must therefore be defense-ready and shift to a ‘war economy’ mode," Michel stated in an op-ed published in European newspapers and the Euractiv website.
According to details of the latest efforts to free up more EU funds for Ukraine:
He [Michel] urged countries to facilitate investments in defense — including by considering changing the mandate of the EU lending arm, the European Investment Bank, to allow it to support Europe’s defense industry.
EU countries approved an agreement on Monday to increase the EU’s support for Ukraine’s armed forces by 5 billion euros ($5.4 billion)
— amid warnings that Kyiv’s forces need more resources to hold the line
against a larger Russian army as a $60 billion US aid package for
Ukraine is being held up by Congress.
EU foreign
policy chief Josep Borrell hailed the hasty cash injection by saying,
"With the fund, we will continue to support Ukraine defend itself from
Russia's war of aggression with whatever it takes and for as long as we need to." But on the battlefield things continue to look very bad for Ukraine...
Many
war analysts have said that Western efforts to ramp up arms and money
to Kiev are unlikely to make a difference, and that Russia has enough
ammo and manpower to sustain the fight possibly for years to come.
President Putin this week has floated the idea of creating a security
buffer zone to prevent drone and rocket cross-border attacks on Russian
territory. This would involve seizing more Ukrainian territory,
especially along its northern border areas.
It is said that Xi Jinping is not an economist. Fine. Neither was Ten Xiaoping. Still, at some stage, China will have to do "something" less its economy follows in the not so glorious steps of the Japanese economy.
The real estate bubble is imploding and with it the Chinese banking system is under strain. At the same time, China needs to upgrade its economy in order to become a developed country. It won't be easy especially without some economic freedom. On the current trajectory of no children and young people "laying flat" under the strain of limited opportunities, it is hard to imagine that China can succeed in its transition.
That's too bad while overseas Chinese prove their abilities both in science and technology.
I unfortunately do not know what's the solution to this conundrum. What I see are the two halves of the world irremediably drifting apart towards confrontation. Can a compromise be found? I am pessimistic but maybe, hopefully, wrong!
“When
Heaven is about to confer a great office on a man, it first exercises
his mind with suffering, and his sinews and bones with toil,” whispered
Xi to himself, contemplating the ancient wisdom of Mencius, born 100yrs
after Confucius and considered Confucianism’s 2nd sage.
“It exposes his body to hunger, and subjects him to extreme poverty; it confounds his undertakings,” continued Xi, alone on a long walk. “By all these methods it stimulates his mind, hardens his nature, and supplies his incompetencies.”
Xi’s
intelligence services had sent him TikTok videos of Jensen Huang, the
founder/CEO of Nvidia, who spoke this week at Stanford University, in
the heart of Silicon Valley. Jensen was born in Taiwan in 1963, his
ancestors having escaped from the Communists all those years ago. His
family made their way to Kentucky, where Jensen was mercilessly bullied
by racists and worked at Denny’s where he washed dishes and cleaned
toilets as he made his way through school.
And now this remarkable
man who in a parallel universe would have grown up as a Chinese
national, is worth $80bln and built the firm which is leading the West
into an unknowable future of artificial intelligence.
“Greatness comes from character and character isn’t formed out of smart people – it’s formed out of people who suffered,” said Jensen Huang to the captivated Stanford students.
“I
was fortunate that I grew up with my parents providing a condition for
us to be successful on the one hand, but there were plenty of
opportunities for setbacks and suffering,” continued Huang, his
wisdom racing across social media. Xi sighed, increasingly confused,
marveling at Jensen's wildly popular reception, while his directive to
Chinese youth to “eat bitterness” had left them lying flat.
“I don’t know how to do it for all of you Stanford students, but I wish upon you ample doses of pain and suffering,” said Huang, as Xi felt a growing sickness rise from within.
“Value
investors think China is cheap, at some point it’ll turn,” said the
CIO, decades spent in HK, investing globally, Asia focused. “Perhaps
they’re right,” he said, a light shrug. “But markets require capitalism,
and capitalism requires rule of law.” China is one of the most important wildcards to track to understand the global economy, markets, geopolitics.
“Confucius believed in rule by law, with the word of a wise, moral,
ethical leader being law. Mencius (Confucianism’s 2nd sage) agreed about
morals and ethics but argued for rule of law.”
“Xi Jinping
believes in rule by law; what he says is law,” continued the CIO. “Now
that Xi has shown his hand as he tightens his grip on the Party,
economy, markets, what could he possibly say going forward that would
entice any thinking person to take real risk?” he asked. “For the first time in my career, the Hong Kong tycoons have accepted that it’s over,” he
said. “They feel the US has it in for them, and they see China as
un-investable now,” he said. “Their grandparents fled the mainland in
’49 and taught them to never trust the Communists.
“The Party
hired Xi in 2012 to clean up the mess of successive governments,” said
the same CIO. “Rampant corruption of Party members, excessive dependency
on property and fixed asset investment, environmental degradation,
wealth inequality.” Existential threats to the Communist Party. “Xi
looked at this rot and took it apart. It was his chance to introduce
rule of law. Had he done so, he would have created a China that could
have overtaken the US. But just like in 1949 he caused China’s talent to
flee. We should thank God for the Communists.”
“Xi
saw the experiment with openness and wealth accumulation as dangerous
to Party control,” he said. “He will subordinate everything to enhance
state power in his quest to displace America as the world’s rule
setter,” he said. “He’s telling you precisely what he’s going to do. Eat bitterness. And each day the surveillance state grows stronger.” AI
will make it more so. “What we see as economic sickness, Xi sees a
price worth paying, because at the other side of this challenge is
China’s rightful place at the head of the table. That’s his objective.”
“Xi
believes he can allocate capital to build China top down,” said the
CIO. “He thinks he can create Nvidia by decree. But Jensen Huang’s
grandparents fled China’s Communists in 1949. Jensen had a vision that
accelerated compute would be the future. He suffered multiple failures,
made numerous acquisitions over decades, took enormous risks.” 30yr
overnight success. “TSMC likewise realized it needed to shrink the
geometry to make it happen. ASML knew it needed to go beyond the current
understanding of the physics of etching.”
“TSMC’s gross
cash flows that they can invest back in capital expenditure eclipses the
entire market cap of China’s semiconductor industry,” he said.
“Taiwan has an ecosystem with engineers and suppliers who have worked
together and know how to talk to each other and make things happen.” No
way China catches up. Nor does Intel. “And Sam Altman wants trillions to
build data centers and buy chips. Google wants the same.” Microsoft
too. “They’re signaling that this is where the future value lies.”
“We’re
entering a world where the value is in hard tech,” said the CIO. “Where
doing important things are very difficult and capital intensive.” We
have left a world of capital light opportunity - the software era is
ending with the arrival of AI. “Google was built with $100mm and 1000
people. It’s the greatest business on earth,” he said. “Compare those
two inputs to what Jensen had to build, it’s drastically different. And
this will be more the norm for the people who build tremendous value.
More dollars spent, more people, more risk, more time.”
How many countries among its former colonies can Europe lose without consequences? Whatever the answer is, Niger is not among them. France used to have a sweet deal importing uranium at vile price until very recently. Now it will have to pay market price. That will be painful.
Note that slowly the coalition which is forming against the West is almost completely composed of major natural resources exporters: Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia...
Niger
announced over the weekend that it is suspending military cooperation
with the United States, in a significant blow to the Pentagon's presence
in West Africa, which is likely to result in Washington being forced to
withdraw its troops, also in a major blow to AFRICOM's influence on the
continent.
Last year's coup saw a military-led government come to
power, which from the start signaled rough and uncertain times ahead
for US-Niger relations. A Saturday statement by Nigerien junta spokesman
Col. Maj. Amadou Abdramane said, "Niger regrets the intention of the
American delegation to deny the sovereign Nigerien people the right to choose their partners and types of partnerships capable of truly helping them fight against terrorism."
This
charge of the US not respecting the West African nation's sovereignty
comes in reaction to recent Western intelligence claims that Niger has
been engaged in secret talks and deal-making to grant Iran access to its uranium. US officials have also bitterly complained about Niger cozying up to Moscow.
Col.
Abdramane addressed the accusation directly: "The government of Niger
rejects the false allegations of the head of the American delegation to
maintain that it has signed a secret agreement on uranium with the Islamic Republic of Iran," he said.
American officials are now worried about the major drone base
only recently built at a cost of $110 million called Air Base 201,
which was crucial for Pentagon drone surveillance operations over the
region. Likely it will now have to be shuttered.
Since the ouster
of President Mahamoud Bazoum by military generals, the Biden
administration has been scrambling to find influence amid fears the
junta is cementing ties with Russia as well as the two neighboring
countries also 'unfriendly' to the West: Mali and Burkina Faso, also led
by juntas.
Among the first major acts that Niger’s post-coup
government did was to expel France's some 1,500 troops - all of which
finally left in December. For months it has been expected that the other
big 'imperial power' - the United States - would soon be booted too.
The US is commonly estimated to have 1,100 troops in the country.
As
for the accusation of deepening ties with Iran and a uranium deal on
the table, US officials have made this front and center in meetings with
Niger leaders over the past week. Anonymous US officials have told The Wall Street Journal that though not finalized, talks between Niamey and Tehran have reached an advanced stage.
But it appears the junta leaders have had enough, as WSJ details:
Those
concerns came to a head over the past week, when Molly Phee, U.S.
assistant secretary of state for African affairs, traveled to Niamey for
talks with the junta on the two countries’ future relations and what
the State Department said would be discussions on “Niger’s return to a
democratic path.”
Phee was
accompanied by Celeste Wallander, a senior Defense Department official,
and Gen. Michael Langley, the head of the U.S. Africa Command, the State
Department said.
During the meetings, Phee raised Washington’s alarm with officials in Niger about an agreement with Iran,
according to officials in the U.S. and Niger, who described the
meetings as very tense. Phee also criticized the lack of progress in
returning Niger to an elected government and raised U.S. concerns about the imminent arrival of Russian military trainers and equipment.
With Russia moving in (and especially mercenaries like Wagner fighters), is the US about to hastily be forced out?
Interestingly, the whole thing is eerily reminiscent of the Iraq uranium yellowcake hoax which
was crucial in the Bush administration selling the war in Iraq to the
public. Currently the big scare over "WMD" and potential nuclear weapons
capability is centered on Iran, at a moment the Middle East stands on
the precipice of a potential major war connected to Gaza.
And
like with Iraq and uranium yellowcake stories from 2003, these new
allegations of the possible transfer of uranium from Niger to Iran are
sourced to vague intelligence assertions and anonymous officials. But
one thing is clear - the Niger junta is busy forging deepening ties to
'rogue' regimes not liked by Washington, and is proudly and openly doing
it. The US meanwhile has limited options and can't do anything about
it, other than perhaps pinning its hopes on another coup.
