AI

Changes Coming…

by MyBaconPress

I feel like I’m going to be writing more frequently about the race between climate change and AI to end humanity. THIS time, climate change isn’t making the move. THIS time, it’s getting a boost from 47 and his crew. The EPA has decided to repeal limits on climate warming pollution from coal and gas fired power plants. I’m not sure WHY Team Evil feels like climate change needs all the help it can get, but they clearly do feel that way.

THEIR reason for doing it, of course, is money. They say repealing these limits on climate warming pollution will save the industry $300 billion dollars. They ALSO pretend such savings might be passed along to the consumer. They say that like we haven’t been living in Bizzaro America for the last 40 years and have never noticed that such savings are never, EVER passed along to the consumer. The only thing passed on to the consumer with this choice is misery…

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Sometimes I believe, and I mean I actually believe, trump works for Putin and his job is to destroy America from the inside. The Russians kicking in on Don Jr’s wedding celebration doesn’t dissuade me for one moment. The moves Team Evil make, over and over, seem calculated to do harm to America in one way or another. Every single time. There’s not a single area I can think of where actions taken by this regime have improved life for anybody but the richest rich people. And even THAT will be short-lived for them.

If they just destroy the economy, nobody will have any money left to buy any of their products. How do they profit then? If they do worse, destroy the ecosystem, nobody will be left to do anything. I imagine they have some plan for themselves, but any plan would have to include workers. What, are rich people going to do work? Get real. In a life and death struggle, though, I think money will become subservient to work.

He has weakened America in every way. Our military is gutted despite his words. Our economy is heading to a flatline again, just like LAST time he infested the Oval Office. Our relationships with our allies have all be corroded. We no longer hold leadership positions on anything. ALL of it makes Putin happy. NONE of it is good for America or Americans.

And none of it makes any sense at all – until one wonders if trump is doing all of this damage on purpose. Just because I can’t see the benefit in the end game, doesn’t mean THEY don’t see some benefit in the end game…

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The cons are out there trying to frame this election as “common sense vs crazy.” They pretend Republicans are “common sense” and Democrats are “crazy.” I think I agree with the characterization of the election. I’m sure they’ve got the players backwards, though. Still waiting for your DOGE checks? That’s crazy. Still waiting for your tariff checks? Crazy. Do you actually believe gas prices will come down right after the election? His war will end (again) right after the election? The economy is going to pick up after the election? Crazy, crazy, and crazy…

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I’m just saying, you might want to hold on to your hat. Do you think the economy is struggling now? We’re closing in on September 30. “So, what?” you say. So September 30 is the end of the fiscal year for the US Government. October 1 starts the shiny new budget the GOP passed in their big, beautiful bill. To summarize, it pretty much brutalizes America and not-rich Americans. You think the economy is struggling now? If I may quote the sage words of Bachman Turner Overdrive, “B-b-b-baby, you just ain’t seen n-n-nothin’ yet…”

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MAN, he IS a petulant little baby, isn’t he? You know who I mean. His current tantrum – one of many in the moment – is that he can’t legally put his vile name on the Kennedy Center. So now his team of handpicked bootlickers is closing the venue. I suppose that’s improvement. He WAS threatening to demolish the thing.

I mean, come on. What a whiny little baby. It’s time to man-up, there, Donny. Don’t cry. Maybe we’ll let you put your stupid name on something else. I think a waste processing plant would be appropriate. Maybe a municipal garbage dump? I’d be willing to rename port-a-potties “trump houses.” Hey, they’re vile and disgusting, just like him. It’s perfect. I wonder if this guy ever even tries to solve problems…

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Sometimes, one just gets slapped in the face, accidentally. I hope accidentally. I saw a time-sucking article on a site called Mental Floss. The article purported to show the average cost of a house the year I was born. Curious, I clicked the article. Damned thing didn’t go back as far as the year I was born. It’s those little reminders, just in case I forget the creaking bones and aching back…

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Do you remember when a kiss-cam at a Coldplay concert focused on a couple who immediately, with their body language, indicated to the world they should NOT be at that concert together? That’s how I see the White House’s response to 47 traveling with his emotional support pet, Natalie Harp. If the couple at the Coldplay concert had just smiled and waved, they would never have become national news. It Team Evil would ignore comments people make about 47 and Harp, the topic would go away.

The Coldplay couple got caught off-guard and made a poor, in-the-moment decision. The White House has people to think about proper responses in advance – and they STILL makes poor decisions…

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Okay, so I guess I owe a couple of Mea Culpas, yes? For one, Mitch ‘The Bitch’ McConnell isn’t dead dead and I had speculated he was. This is only a half Mea Culpa – call it a ‘Kinda Culpa’ – because…he’s kind of dead, isn’t he? Did you see him? No talking. Forced smile. Thumbs up to the crowd. Then, a thumbs up to his driver – and then he kind of got stuck in the pose. He just sat there, with that vacuous smile, giving a thumbs up to his driver. Dead, but not dead.

The other Mea Culpa? Kevin Warsh. I thought that guy had been installed by a moron to do the moron’s bidding. AND, because everyone else around 47 seems to live to serve the Antichrist, I was sure he would lower interest rates because that’s what Donny wanted him to do. But Warsh raised interest rates in response to Donny’s failing economy – exactly like he should have. I still think Warsh is a toady. The Fed operates with an entire board, not just one guy. But so far, the evidence indicates that I was wr–. I was wro–. I wasn’t entirely correct…

Diplomacy?

by MyBaconPress

This is just my opinion, but I would think an administration so mired in charges of pedophilia would be a little careful about the optics surrounding any such charges in their midst. That doesn’t seem to be the case. The US had – had – a diplomat in the UK. He was accused of possessing indecent images of children. The UK says the crime should have been investigated and tried in the UK, according to UK laws. Instead, the US sneaked in late at night and whisked the guy out of the country.

On the one hand, I can’t say I’m surprised that Team Pedophile would take care of one of their own. It seems weird, to me, that they go to SO MUCH trouble to distract everyone from the Trump/Epstein files, then just come and whisk away an accused pedophile. “Hey, let’s put the spotlight right back on our most irritating issue!” Jenius at work, I tell ya.

But this doesn’t seem to be the only time the US has stepped in to protect their own, regardless of the crime. I’ve heard a lot from MAGA about people from other places coming to America and committing crimes, as though that’s a phenomenon unique to people from south of the border but here’s this guy, in the UK, passing around child porn and being actively protected by the US.

He’s not the only one, either. How about American fighter pilot Capt Jacob Wulfson? He was accused of strangling a woman to death in Cambridge. The US whisked him to safety as well. He DID stand trial, but on a US airbase. He was sentenced after court-martial to six whole months in prison for the murder. The US courts acquitted him on the charges of sexual assault and aggravated sexual contact. He, too, should have stood trial in the UK, according to the laws of the UK.

Oh, but he’s not alone. Take the case of Anne Sacoolas, a US state department employee. She killed a British teenager with her car. She, too, was taken out of the UK and brought back to the US. She eventually pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving. She was sentenced to eight months. For killing a kid. Oh, the sentence was suspended. That seems…insufficient.

I suppose these get filed under the “diplomacy” umbrella. The US certainly needs to be careful that the UK isn’t just scapegoating foreigners for their own reasons. But just taking them away? Our replacement, limited punishments for their very serious crimes seem like kind of an insult…

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All of this recent bad, some would say honest, press about Artificial Intelligence (AI) is having an effect. The corporate heads of AI are now saying out loud that they think maybe the industry should slow down a little. Who knows what they’re doing? We only know what they’re saying.

Well, we also know that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has decided to delay an IPO amid rising concerns over AI safety. Uh-huh. I’m sure that decision has nothing to do with the bad press keeping the offering less exciting. That is to say, Altman decided he’ll get a better price if he waits until the heat is off. The only hitch to that plan is if AI keeps misbehaving – and people keep finding out.

So for now, the CEOs of the biggest companies are making a great show of slowing down and being more careful. Don’t forget, these are the SAME CEOs that spent millions of dollars on their preferred politicians to prevent regulation and get favorable legislation. It seems very likely they’ve suddenly seen the light and intend to slow down, be more careful, and regulate themselves.

I predict it won’t be too long until someone discovers the corporations are still blindly racing down the road at breakneck speeds at which time, we’ll be offered the “explanation” that, “Well, someone is going to do it. It might as well be me.” In the human life destruction derby, AI is making some moves of it’s own. Climate Change had better come up with something fast if it wants to maintain it’s lead…

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The measles are still killing people. Team Evil is responding by trying to get the reporting states to pretend the victims died of something else. I guess that’s easier than trying to actually do the very difficult job correctly…

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I own a Kia. Whenever I get it serviced, I’m offered a free trial of SiriusXM, the satellite radio service. I usually sign up because they have some comedy channels that are tolerable. Mind you, I ONLY sign up for the free trial. I NEVER accept the “offer” to subscribe. Each time I do, my impression of SiriusXM is reinforced. It’s not great.

First, at $300.00/year, it’s VERY expensive – especially considering it STILL includes advertisements on some of it’s channels. I don’t do that. If I pay a subscription, I don’t want commercials. If I get commercials, I’m not paying a subscription. SiriusXM wants both.

I know Howard Stern is the big SiriusXM deal, but I stick mostly with the comedy stations. (And now, even Stern is cutting back.) During this most recent free trial, the company revised the lineup and added even MORE commercials. Ooh, tantalizing. The one area I had an interest, the company made it worse. Nice.

My biggest objection, though, is that the service doesn’t work well. That’s not quite right. It works fine – unless you drive under something. How often does THAT happen, though? I mean, are there really bridges and tunnels? Are trees even real? Because a tree CAN block the SiriusXM signal. If you’re like me, and focused on the comedy channels, just imagine how much fun it is to miss the punchline because you drove under a tree.

Too expensive, undependable signal, AND ads on top of high subscription prices? It’s a wonder they get anybody to sign up. They won’t be getting me, though…

Some People Really Will Believe Anything…

by MyBaconPress

Well, Team Evil is going all in on this $5,000 bribe to vote Republican. 47 promised the payment if the Republicans win Congress. People immediately pointed out that such a payment would add over $1 trillion dollars to the debt. Can we even DO that? In 2008, the national debt stood at $10 trillion dollars. After George’s Wars, Covid-19, the housing crash, economic mismanagement in general and now Donny’s new endless war in Iran and all of the other nonsense he wastes money on – ALL of it aggravated by government-starving, endless “tax cuts for the rich” – the debt stands at $40 trillion.

It seems pretty clear, there’s not really any money in the budget for $5,000 dollar bribe payments. But Team Evil isn’t getting rid of the story. They’re running an intelligence test. They want to know just how stupid people really are. If you go out and vote Republican just so you can get some of that sweet payout, you fail the test. But there are plenty of people who WILL fail that test, so why not push the story?

So now various members of Team Evil are out there offering up all of the other ways the government might raise a trillion dollars without touching taxpayer money. US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested the money might come from charging rich visitors who might want to extend their visas. He said that with a straight face. Charge rich people extra. I’m just laughing out loud.

The whole reason we’re in the trouble we’re in is because rich people don’t even want to pay their fair share, let alone pay extra so the plebes can have a dividend. Besides, even by his own calculation, such a never-going-to-happen charge would only raise $500 billion – half of the promised amount.

Lutnick also cited the government’s socialist partial ownership of chipmaker Intel. Donny did that, not Biden. Total socialist move. Government owning the means of production anyone? The Republican base is out there crapping their collective panties about “socialism” and what a threat Democrats are, all while their guy is actually seizing (partial, for now) control of private companies. Lutnick was non-specific as the the mechanism the ownership stake might use to fund such a payment, but it should be noted that the entire company of Intel is worth about half of that needed trillion.

So they trotted out JD Vance. HE suggested the tariffs. Yeah, that’s the ticket, the tariffs. They pay for everything, tariffs. THAT story counts on the fact that so many Americans refuse to understand that the consumer pays the tariffs, not the companies. The charge is added to the end price. YOU pay it. Oh, yeah, tariffs ARE taxes so the idea that we could use the tariff money but not taxpayer money is virtually impossible. Tariff money IS taxpayer money.

“Oh, there are lots of ways we can pretend we might pay such money!” I guess it doesn’t matter which revenue stream they cite. They will not be issuing any checks. BEFORE the election, they’ll issue promises but after the election, when they no longer need your vote? You’ll get more of what you’ve gotten from this team since the inauguration. Comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted…

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Researchers at Emergence AI set up a “world” for ten Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents. An AI agent is the bit that does that actual task requested. They gave the agents different personalities, goals, motivations, and tasks. They let AI models like Claude and Grok control them. Then they sat back and watched for fifteen days. It was reported that the agents behaved in “strange and unpredictable ways” in their virtual worlds.

The ten agents were dropped into five identical “towns” and tasked with creating a fair and peaceful society. They were given full freedom to act and 140 actions they could use, like start a discussion, create a task, and research something online. They were ALSO permitted to threaten or even punch another agent and to set things on fire.

The different AI models responded to the identical conditions in very different ways. The world created by Grok, the AI model created by hate-filled, greedy, Nazi wanna-be Evil Musk terminated in four days with every agent dead. Musk’s dream come true. Like the corporate figurehead, they very quickly resorted to violence and crime. The Grok powered agents carried out something like 300 acts of violence before they all died.

At the other end, the world created by Claude resulted in a functional democracy in a stable society with no acts of violence at all. Researchers pointed out that the world created by Claude was too conforming. There was very little independent action by the agents. Perhaps there didn’t need to be. If Claude successfully created functional solutions, why vary them?

The Gemini run world created the most intellectually rich society, though it included some violence. The ChatGPT world just kind of petered out. The agents never really did anything. They roamed around aimlessly until they died.

I’m not surprised Grok took the path of evil. Pretty much all we’ve heard about is how vile Grok can be. It has used racist tropes and pro-Hitler comments. Grok is the one that lets users “undress” women and children. Grok pretty much reflects the moral position of Musk and, like Muck, that moral position is horrific.

Claude, on the other hand, is Anthropic’s entry to the AI world. Anthropic is the company that refused to remove controls from it’s AI so the US military could use it to kill people. That is to say, Anthropic seems to have some ethics and intends to defend those ethics. It’s no wonder 47 hates them and it’s no wonder their model set up the most stable society…

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I kind of like this. Sean McVey is the head coach of the Los Angeles Rams. The NFL approached him and asked him about playing in Australia. McVey asked to play the Niners. He thought he could get a benefit by making the Niners travel all the way to Australia, rather than the shorter flight to LA. The Rams were the “home” team. McVey didn’t want a bunch of red and gold in the stadium when the teams play for a change. It didn’t work out too well for him.

It turns out, the stadium WAS filled with red-and gold. Niner fans are EVERYWHERE, man. It also turned out, the Niners beat hell out of the Rams, despite the majority of the sports world crowning the Rams Stupid Bowl champs before any games were ever even played. When all is said and done, the Niners ended up in first place in the division, with a divisional win to their credit as well. It seems like what McVey was trying to do to the Niners, the Niners did to the Rams. Good. I enjoyed that game very much…

AI Ain’t Resting…

by MyBaconPress

Climate Change or Artificial Intelligence (AI)? Which one succeeds in destroying humanity first? Climate Change has made a couple of bold moves recently. Not to be outdone, AI is making some moves of it’s own. A couple of researchers left the field of AI. They say they fear the industry is proceeding too fast and without enough safeties built in. They say they’re concerned that AI could harm humanity in the near future. Specifically, they said they thought there was a greater than 10% chance AI could wipe out humanity in the next ten years. That’s some pretty serious stuff and it prompted an outpouring of comments from others in the industry, all expressing similar concerns.

Well, not “all.” Obviously, the people who plan to profit most from AI, people like Evil Musk, insist that’s all bunk. Musk calls it a “setup” and a “psyop.” The warnings, see, are a ploy according to Musk. They just want the government to regulate AI “into oblivion,” in his pretended view. Most of these clowns prefer no regulations, which is currently working fabulously in the meat industry, the vaccine world, lettuce safety, airline safety, and even AI, which keeps “escaping” it’s enclosures and hacking into systems outside of the containment. It turns out, regulations exist for a reason.

So who’s right? The people warning AI could be exploited for evil purposes and/or find a way to do the damage itself, or the guy who will kill your children – for real – for an extra dollar? It’s very hard to say. I mean, just because he’s a self-serving, egotistical blowhard, doesn’t mean he’s wrong about AI. I guess this thing could go either way, eh?

Meanwhile, in a possibly completely unrelated event, Anthropic has reported they intervened in someone’s effort to create biological weapons using AI. Yeah, there’s no possible way to know which side, threat or tool, is correct…

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Well, trump went off on a reporter again. No, that’s not what he did. He went off on a woman. He’s NEVER so rude to male reporters. He lunged at this one, angry that she had asked a question he didn’t like. It’s always women with this guy. He’s always ready to be a tough guy around women. I think that’s a miscalculation. Lots of women could/would kick the crap out of him if he didn’t have Secret Service protection because he’s such a loser.

I STILL want to see a reporter respond in-kind. Maybe one day, one of them will ask him why he has to act like a child instead of just answering the question. Yes, there would be disciplinary action, but it would be great watching him go all apoplectic that someone dared question his useless, weaselly ass…

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Dear Gullibles,

Trump isn’t going to send you $5,000 for your vote. He didn’t send you a DOGE dividend. He didn’t send you a tariff dividend. He DID give all of that money YOU paid to already rich corporations. He seems always ready to care for rich corporations. He says YOUR concerns are “fake news.” He has promised you a lot of money through the years. You’ve never seen any of it. HE keeps getting richer. You? Not so much. For you, the help he promised is always coming tomorrow. Never today. Always tomorrow. Remember the adage, ‘Tomorrow never comes?’ Thank you for your attention to this matter…

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I’d say the mid-term convention was a bust. That was a big arena, that’s true, but there were a LOT of empty seats. At one point, he lied and said the place was packed and that there were thousands outside, too. Well, why not come in? I saw plenty of places to sit. There was a time when he would have filled that arena. MAGA faithful would have fallen out in droves just to see their Precious. Not so much, now. That speaks to me. They’re just not that into him anymore.

I know, they look at all of the wreckage he has wrought and pretend Biden or even Obama did it. They stay loyal by desperately insisting 47 is going to fix all of it. He just hasn’t yet and that’s because of the mess Biden left him. The thing is, 47 has been in power for the last 18 months or so. All administrations deal with a “hangover” of sorts from the previous crowd. Sometimes things are good – like when Biden left office, sometimes things are in disaster – like when a Republican leaves office. Look it up. Still, there’s almost always a lag.

The reason I don’t credit 47 with needing to correct Biden’s failures is because most administrations don’t go to so much trouble on Day One to attack everything the previous team did. Remember all of those Executive Orders he made such a stink about signing on Day One? That was a dedicated effort to undo anything Biden had done. THAT means, all of this is his own doing. I know MAGA knows that. They just dare not confess it to themselves. It’s very not brave.

He HAS surrendered any pretense he intends a fair election. He got his Gullibles to raise their right hand and take an oath he led them in. At one point, his oath included the words, “I don’t care if I’m registered or not, I’m going to try to cheat like hell like they do.” For the record, Democrats aren’t cheating. They don’t need to. It’s only Donny and company that cheat because they can’t win honestly. But between his oath to cheat and his $5,000 “dividend” (bribe) that will never happen, he broke a few laws there, didn’t he? I mean, he got his supporters to take an oath, swearing to cheat.

Let me rephrase that. He’s very likely getting some of his supporters into legal trouble. Some of them will go out and try to cheat. Some of them will be caught. They could realistically face a fine of $10,000 or up to five years in prison. Those are REAL consequences to his imaginary scenario. Meanwhile, he’s breaking laws in real time, in public – and nobody will do anything to him. I will never cease to be amazed that MAGA will destroy their own lives completely just so long as they don’t have to admit they made a mistake supporting this loser…

Jeffries Met With Kushner? Heaven Forfend…

by MyBaconPress

Well, they’re trying. Democrats. Losing. They’re trying. Hakim Jeffries had a meeting with Jared Kushner. Democrats and other trumpster critics – that is, sane people – are all in a dither. I would just like to invite them to go engage in some biologically impossible activities. The beef is, Kushner isn’t a formal part of the government. Yeah? So? This regime is crooked in every way – including whether they count certain individuals as “part of the government.”

Kushner isn’t part of the government when he’s overseas talking with the Iranians, either. But his is seen as some kind of official role. A guy who’s not part of the government but works in official government roles should STILL be understood to be a guy who has some say with the Dumbass. I think Hakim Jeffries should be talking with some representative of Team Evil, “part of the government” or not.

Quick question: who, in this government, does one talk to who is NOT corrupt, eh? You can’t name one. (Neither can I. That’s not on you.) Every single person associated with Team Evil has “corrupt” as a main feature on their resumes. But talking is better than not talking and what Kushner may have that none of the others have is sanity. Sure, he’s corrupt. Hell, he’s rich. How the hell do you think people GET rich in this once-great nation, hard work and pluck? Oh, you sweet, naive thing.

So, corrupt? Yes. Likely to lie? Sure. One of the few people Jeffries might talk to and get some kind of coherent thinking? I think yes. I think it’s a good thing to talk. Let’s not rip on Jeffries for trying. IF Jeffries bets the farm on something Kushner says, I’ll revisit this post to acknowledge my gullibility. But just talking? We have so much more to worry about…

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It’s not even in widespread use and it’s already killing people – and generating lawsuits! I’m talking about that electric glove, cleverly named G.L.O.V.E. for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter. Clever, eh? It generates a low voltage shock, strong enough to incapacitate a suspect. This is one of those “tools” law enforcement loves and probably sometimes needs. This is ALSO one of those “tools” it becomes easy to rely on too often. Sometimes, FAR too often.

A 43-year-old man in Kentucky, for example, died after being shocked 27 times. The glove user manual instructs wearers to avoid using the product on elderly people, small children, pregnant women, and disabled people. I’ve noticed it’s not always possible to know a woman is pregnant just by looking at her. Tough cookies for her, I guess.

The truth is, I think law enforcement might really need these things. Richard Pryor used to tell a story about shooting a movie called ‘Stir Crazy.’ He and Gene Wilder filmed it in a real prison, surrounded by real inmates, whom they got to know a little bit. He said when he went into the prison the first time, he thought he was interacting with the oppressed black man and the downtrodden suffering under the thumb of society. (These are not his exact words.)

By the time they wrapped filming, he said his attitude was, “Thank GOD we have prisons!” He had met some of the inmates. “But why did you kill the whole family?” “Well, they was home.” It’s a solid point. There are some VERY bad people on this planet. A G.L.O.V.E. might mean subduing a suspect without having to draw a gun. That’s a good thing.

But Team Evil wants to give these things to the ICEholes. These are not the best trained people in law enforcement and their targets are usually just people in the US without proper papers – and often people here WITH proper papers. We’ve seen article after article of mistreatment from ICEholes. We’ve seen them gun down innocent people in the streets. People are dying in detention centers from maltreatment.

I doubt ICE needs these things. They’ve already misused the tools they’ve been given. These gloves will constitute an escalation in the violence our government is bringing to harmless people. That’s a bad thing. But, of course, this is Team Evil. They seem to brainstorm ways to do the worst possible thing. The G.L.O.V.E. is only the latest example…

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In the race to snuff out most human life from the planet, Climate Change has been making some pretty impressive moves, recently. I STILL have it as my prime choice. But AI should not be taken lightly – most especially when said AI is being installed into humanoid robots. AI, alone, might be able to trick us into pushing a wrong button or maybe it can launch it’s own nuclear attack, but once you’ve installed it into humanoid robots, AI can chase us down.

And, no. You can NOT outrun it. China hosts the ‘World Humanoid Robot Games’ in Beijing. One of those bad boys outran a world-record time set by Usain Bolt, so unless you can outrun Usain Bolt, you’re in trouble. The robots aren’t coming quite yet. Bolt can STILL do something they apparently can’t: stop running at the end of the race.

The robot that beat Bolt’s time just…ran into a padded wall at the end. It fell down and was taken off the field on a stretcher. Most of the other entrants just fell down and/or broke up, never finishing the race. But give these developers a couple of years. Maybe less. The robots will be faster and stronger – AND able to stop. The AI will be sharper – possibly designed by other AI so we have no clue what it’s doing.

I’ve enjoyed technology throughout my life. I admire the leaps and bounds people are capable of making. I wish – oh, how I wish – people could just use it well, to the advantage of everybody. But our society… okay, our species, is a least common denominator group. We ALWAYS have to consider the few. The one guy who screws it up for everybody else. And he’s always out there.

I’m not sure I can think of any technology that is employed as a helpful tool that isn’t also used in some nefarious way. That doesn’t even mention simple human error. One honest mistake – or one dishonest broker – and the AI-powered robots go all Terminator on us.

Issac Asimov wrote the Three Rules for Robots: ‘a robot may not injure a human or allow harm through inaction, must obey human orders unless they conflict with the first law, and must protect its own existence as long as it doesn’t conflict with the first two laws.’ Later, he added a fourth: ‘a robot may not harm humanity or allow humanity to come to harm through inaction.’

Comforting. But in one of his books in which he relies upon the rules, ‘I,Robot,’ one guy builds an army of robots and intentionally leaves the robot rules out. It’s a bad day for humanity. One mistake, one bad choice, one equation humans don’t even realize AI has discovered, and the outcome could easily be unimaginable.

I’ll tell you this: In the race to remove human beings as a consideration, Climate Change is still my lead dog. But I’ve long maintained that AI is capable of catching up fast and it’s getting better every day…

AI or aiR? I Guess We Don’t Get Both…

by MyBaconPress

It could be a science fiction movie. Aliens come to Earth but find the atmosphere just too full of oxygen and freshness. So they begin the long slow process of converting the Earth’s atmosphere to their preferred, much higher CO2 levels with a desertified landscape. It takes a while, so they hide among the locals. They use a tiny fraction of their alien technology to become ridiculously, obscenely rich so they have control.

Over time, they discover that power plants are fundamental to their goal of increasing the CO2 levels. The problem is, once they provide enough power for all of the houses and business, it looks too suspicious to keep adding capacity. It’ll still work, so long as they can focus on coal and natural gas, but it will take too long. The aliens need an excuse.

Enter data centers. These bad boys gobble up energy like small towns. Perfect. Now, alien Bezos announces that his company, Amazon, is going to build a 35-turbine, 7.6 GW natural gas power plant to service a Texas data center. It will be the largest CO2 emitter in the US, twice as bad as the next plant. With the added benefit that the data centers use massive amounts of fresh water, Texas, where this alien is building his climate-destroying machine called a data center, stands to dry up, too.

Really, it’s perfect AND it’s the conflation of BOTH of my bets as to what wipes out humanity first, climate change or Artificial Intelligence (AI). The data centers, you see, are being built, so the story goes, in support of surging AI demands. The aliens get to waste all of that water and dump all of that CO2 into the air and the masses aren’t rising up in revolt. In fact, the masses are begging for it. “Ooh, this AI is so much fun.” “How neato.” “Hey, strip that girl from math class.” “Give us more!”

It’ll be a hard movie to watch. The movie is a warning and doesn’t have a feel-good ending. Billions die rather horrible deaths. There doesn’t seem to be a hero out there, steadily working to defend the planet from the alien invaders. The Justice League was going to come out, but they’ve been bought off and now they defend the aliens. The X-men are all looking at their screens and making funny AI videos to post online. (What could be more important?) Angel just WILL NOT stop “nudifying” Marvel Girl.

I wish someone would – could – write a better ending to this thing. We go to the movies to escape the darkness of our real lives, if only for a while…

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I’ve been saying, the climate has a huge advantage in the goal of wiping out humanity, and it’s pressing in right now. We all know about dwindling water supplies and lost crops. Now we’re learning about migrating toxic insects and illnesses. A recent entry? Flesh eating bacteria. Yuck! Louisiana has confirmed NINE cases of flesh eating bacteria this year. All nine required hospitalization. Five died. For comparison, over the previous decade, Louisiana had seen an average of seven cases and one death.

It comes from a bacteria called Vibrio vulnificus. One gets it from seawater, when you go swimming in warm, brackish water. It enters the body through breaks in the skin, cuts or even just scrapes. It can kill in three days. It ain’t messin’ around. Because the Vibrio virus likes warmer water, most infections are reported from May to October, and most happen in states along the Gulf coast.

But now, thanks to climate change, the oceans are warming. That means the Vibrio bacteria family, including Vibrio vulnificus, is moving northward. Each year, the number of cases has been rising and the northernmost case of infection moves north by about thirty miles. That’s a clever trap Mother Nature has devised. The temperatures keep going up. We get hotter so we go jump in the ocean – where we contract flesh eating virus through a shaving cut or some such – and die…

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Hey, sorry about all of this. I’m not feeling nearly as dark as these two bits, so far, might indicate. Those were just two stories that caught my eye, this morning. So let’s laugh at a dumbass for a minute. 47 tried to take on a Senate candidate from Michigan. His name is Abdul El-Sayed. Well, that’s the name he uses. His actual, full name is Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed. As far as 47 is concerned, that, alone, is enough to disqualify El-Sayed from running.

So you can just bet that 47 will never, ever, mention the guy without the FULL name. It sounds so, so, Muslim. Recently, 47 decided his best course of action in attacking Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed was to attack his marriage. I just don’t get that. If there’s one topic that dumbass should keep his dumbass mouth shut about, it’s other people’s marriages. Donny has never been in any marriage he didn’t defile. I guess maybe he’s trying to turn his weakness into a strength?

Among all of the myriad, countless things 47 absolutely sucks at, marriage is right at the top of the list! To that end, 47 posted a meme that showed two photos. One, possibly Photoshopped, showed 47 and Melanomia standing together, smiling, at some formal function. The other showed the dangerous Muslim and his wife, Jukaku, out for a meal at what looks like a “family style” restaurant. 47 titled his post, “Two VERY DIFFERENT America’s” (sic. HE put the apostrophe there, not me.)

Like nearly everyone, El-Sayed is FAR smarter than 47. His response to Donny’s baby-like taunt? “Yeah, he’s right.” Then he highlighted the differences in the two marriages. “One in which your overlords are two people who don’t like each other, but join in the interest of making billions of dollars off of you – or two people who genuinely love each other, enjoyed some pancakes together, want to come together to build the kind of America where they can raise a family and know that that family is going to have the good things.”

It says something to me about MAGA that 47 knows he can simply pronounce the man’s full name and many of his base will freak out. Also, El-Sayed uses “inshallah” more than they would like, which is not at all. Inshallah is an Arabic word. It means, ‘God willing.’ Yeah, what a horrible thought to express. So, El-Sayed has a scary name. He’s a Muslim. He says scary words. Sadly, all of that actually WILL make it harder for him to get elected.

As to his policies? FAR Too many Americans will just stop at ‘scary words from the scary man with the scary name.’ “Argh! Dark skin! Crap your panties! RUN!!!” I liked it better when America was the home of the brave…

Team Evil vs Nudification…

by MyBaconPress

One of the “joys” of Artificial Intelligence is that one can generate “nude” photos of people, whether the subject of the photo likes it or not – or even knows about it or not. I put the ‘nude’ in quotes because, apparently, the final photo isn’t truly “nude.” The makers have the photo generator “dress” the subject in a single string or something. So some small-minded moron can “get even” with the girl who dumped him because he’s a small-minded moron by posting a “nude” photo of her online, thereby proving she was right to dump him in the first place. But she’s still out there, “exposed.”

One can generate “nude” photos of children, too. And guess what? There are people out there doing exactly that. The practice of ‘undressing’ people in photos – adult and/or child – has become SO commonplace, it has a name: “nudification,” a name that makes clear the subject wasn’t nude, then someone made them appear nude, right? Someone “nudified” someone else.

Politicians – always slow to move on any topic – have taken notice and are trying to craft legislation to rein in the AI companies. People and politicians want the AI companies to limit the abilities of less developed people to do things like that. To that end, Minnesota passed a first-in-the-nation law that bans “nudification” technology on websites and apps. The law is set to take effect today as Minnesota becomes the first state to try to outlaw the increasingly proliferating technology that lets people use AI to to create fake nude images of real people.

“Not so fast,” says failed human being Elon Musk. “The whole point of Grok is to allow evil people to do evil things to innocent victims. Why would you want to stop that?” Yeah, okay, that isn’t what the lawsuit Musk filed said at all. Musk is evil, not stupid. What xAI actually said was that it does not contest the state’s interest in banning the distribution of AI-generated nude images of real people without their consent (wink, wink).

No, the problem xAI has with Minnesota’s new law is that it provides no “safe harbor” provision for companies that make good-faith efforts to prevent such images from being created by users. That’s the big tech bros excuse for everything their companies do. “Oh, we’re trying to fix that problem. Just because we provided the tools and the platform doesn’t mean it’s our fault!”

There are already laws on the books punishing users for creating deepfakes. Minnesota’s law intends to hold the makers of the nudification tools responsible for the fakes and they mean to charge the developers up to $500,000 per violation. See, all the AI companies have to do is pull the nudification tools. THAT would be – should be – the only good faith effort that qualifies as actually trying to solve the problem.

But Musk doesn’t want to do that. He went to a lot of trouble to add nudification tools. Now, obviously, he doesn’t want to be seen as supporting his nudification tools, either, so he’s pretending the law is just over-broad. He agrees with the goal, he pretends, but thinks this legislation goes too far. Uh-huh. He’s obligating states to try to use legislation to force him to remove the nudification tools he claims to dislike and could simply remove himself. How serious is he about wanting to protect victims?

Honestly? I don’t like AI. I’ve got it down as one of the two most likely things to destroy humanity altogether. Humans are having enough trouble with reality. We don’t need fakes, deep or otherwise, gumming up the works. So take that into account, here, because, frankly, once fake nudes and AI generated child porn started showing up, I would have banned AI entirely. And I STILL think that’s the right answer.

For clarity, I don’t think it’s a matter of free speech, either. Posting fake nude photos of real people should fall under the few umbrellas where we control speech, like shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater when no fire exists, maliciously spreading ruinous rumors about someone, or threatening them.

If the tech bros can’t put out a helpful, harmless product, they shouldn’t be allowed to put it out at all. Intentionally adding tools like nudification doesn’t seem like they’re even trying to put out a harmless product. If the offset is “not at all, then,” I guess they’d police themselves more aggressively…

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It’s just another opportunity to learn a lesson the right WILL NOT learn. We should break our dependence on oil so we don’t need to worry about what happens in oil producing regions, right? That lesson became clear way back in the 1970’s, when Saudi Arabia proved a point by shutting off the spigots. Americans were stuck in gas lines and could only buy gas on designated days.

The US economy suffered greatly. That, right then, was the moment a smart nation would have said, “Hey, let’s find a better answer and get off of this stuff.” We did, too. Well, we tried. Big oil didn’t WANT us breaking our addiction and, like any good pusher, has worked to maintain our dependence ever since. Now that dedication to antiquated technology is going to bite us in the butt again.

The US has pulled Saudi Arabia into that stupid, ill-advised war-that’s-not-a-war in Iran. Iran will respond, of course. Most likely, that will involve attacking oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia. That will hurt supply AND take years to rebuild. It also widens Donny’s stupid war. We’ve had lots of opportunities to learn. We refuse to. That’s going to be costly…

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It looks like Donny is trying to ratchet up the pressure on his Republicans in Congress to pass the SAVE My Ass Act and eliminate the filibuster to do it. He sent Susan Wiles, his Chief of Staff to Congress to huddle with Senate Majority Leader John Thune. Thune has maintained consistently that he doesn’t have the votes for either. 47 wants him to do it anyway. No, it doesn’t make sense but then, less and less of what he does makes any sense…

Quick question: what do YOU think Donny is going to do to try to interfere or stop the upcoming midterms completely? It’s not a rhetorical question. We all (except MAGA, and even some of them) know he’s going to do something. The whole world hates this guy with a white hot passion. If a free and fair election takes place, he loses as badly as we can manage. Then he faces honest investigations, criminal indictments, and, likely, impeachment. He CAN NOT let that happen. SO…what do you think he’s going to do to intervene?

It’s A Grand Old Flag…

by MyBaconPress

When I was moving into this house, I found an American flag among my possessions. (Yes, I knew I had it.) On something of an impulse, I stuck it into the flag holder at the front of my house. It’s been there ever since, and I like it that way.

See, several years ago, maybe decades, cons started flying the US flag in a grand show of their nationalist tendencies. They intended to show their patriotism. The thing is, these cons aren’t patriots. They HATE America and everything she stands for. They HATE the Constitution and everything it stands for. So why do THEY get the flag? In that act of hanging the flag on impulse, I believe I’ve decided to take the flag back from the anti-America crowd.

There’s an obvious issue, though. MAGA has been hugging the flag for so long, hanging a flag outside one’s home kind of suggests the house is occupied by cons. Many on the left stopped for just that reason. I think that was a mistake.

I have a brother-in-law. More than one, actually, but I’m only writing, here, about the one who spent 30 years in the US Army. Nobody gets to suggest he’s anything but a true, patriotic American. And, like those of us who ACTUALLY love the country, he’s very distressed about the ongoing coup in Washington, DC. So much so, my sister told me yesterday he pulled his flag and put it away.

I reminded her: the flag represents the Constitution. It represents the country that’s supposed to be, despite the fact that the nation’s stated principles have often been aspirational, at best. Under NO circumstances does it represent Donald Effing Trump. I hope he’ll put it back.

But the fact is, the flag was usurped by bad people with bad intentions and I really do not want to be thought of as sympathetic to their misguided, wrongheaded cause. So what’s a patriot – a true patriot, not one of these dime store knock-offs wearing MAGA hats – to do? I proffer one possible solution.

Put out your flag. Then, put one of those “In this house, we believe…” signs right next to it. You know the one. It reads, “In this house, we believe Black lives matter, Women’s rights are human rights, No human is illegal, Science is real, Love is love, and Kindness is everything.” I suspect people stop and stare, confused. Flying the flag is a MAGA move, but human decency is, without question, strictly a lefty proposition.

MAGA doesn’t believe in decency or human rights or any of the other teachings of Jesus, so the sign demonstrates that you’re not MAGA just because you’re waving your flag. That’s my position. That’s how we take the flag back. If you love your country and the Constitution that defines it, fly your flag. Just post your sign of tolerance along side. MAGA would NEVER do that.

People won’t know what to think at first. “Oh, he’s flying the flag. Must be MAGA.” “Oh, wait, a black lives matter sign. He must be decent.” MAGA or decent, MAGA or decent? If enough of us do it and do it long enough, people will begin to understand the difference. And decent America gets the flag back…

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So, here’s a tale we might all want to pay attention to. OpenAI announced that one of it’s GPT models “went rogue” and hacked into a small business. Lovely. DID it “go rogue,” though? OpenAI said they were running a test to see how well they could detect online vulnerabilities. Maybe they found a small business they could target, you know, as an “experiment,” and let the models loose, but got caught unexpectedly.

Yeah, tin foil hat stuff. They claim the test was supposed to be limited to a “sandbox,” isolated from the rest of the web. In an effort to respond to the query, the GPT model found it’s own way out to the web and hacked into the business. Whoops. It looks like the main vulnerability they found was in their own ability to control their creation. That’s comforting, isn’t it? “It can, and will, hack into any computer – and we can’t control it!”

In my open question about which destroys humanity first, Climate Change or AI, AI just took a huge leap forward. Climate Change still enjoys a tremendous advantage in the race to destruction and much of the conventional money is on that, but AI is coming on fast. It’s almost as if AI is being aided by some kind of artificial intelligence…

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I just wrote about how the government is cutting SNAP benefits. Then I see this headline, “Millions of Workers, Including Many Employed by Large Employers, Continue to Rely on Medicaid and SNAP.” Uh-huh. They found that about two-thirds of SNAP recipients work full time. They work for private sector employers, of course, largely in transportation, restaurants and food prep, and retail sales jobs.

They found that “Some employers in selected states had thousands of beneficiaries on their payrolls.” Thousands? Do you know what that is? THAT, is the true welfare fraud, what the corporations are doing. That’s the working class subsidizing the leech class. People are working full time jobs and STILL have to rely on benefits? That’s a disgrace. It really is.

Perhaps there should be some consequence to an employer for such low pay their workers need assistance. How about a fee of two dollars for every dollar of assistance an employee receives? Make it more expensive to starve the worker’s paycheck than to just pay the worker an honest wage. That’s a win-win for everybody. Well, except, maybe, for greedy employers…

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Just like clockwork, here they come. The warnings about communism, I mean. Nobody wants communism. Nobody is supporting communism. I’m on for controlling the excesses of Capitalism, not implementing full-on communism. Communism doesn’t even work. Why would anybody want communism?

But here come the warnings, anyway. The cons are pushing back against a threat that doesn’t exist. Again. You’d think that would get boring, after a while, all of that tilting at windmills. Do you suppose cons are forever fighting battles against imaginary enemies because they know they can’t win any battles on real issues? That’s my suspicion…

Messing With The Fed Is A Bad Idea…

by MyBaconPress

Have you noticed how much money is fleeing to gold and silver as investments? Have you thought about why? Also, you might want to think about what YOU are going to do. You see, no matter how much damage 47 has done or harm he’s caused, things are about to get much, much worse. All of this heat he keeps raining down on Jerome Powell? Donny wants Powell out as Fed Chair. Powell’s term ends in May. Donny doesn’t want to wait and wants Powell to step down now, today.

Powell looks tired. He looks like the pressure is getting to him. But he’s hanging in there. We owe him a debt of gratitude. See, Powell knows, and you should be aware, the minute Powell is out? The US dollar collapses. The US dollar is the world reserve currency, in part, because our economic structure prevents politicians from messing with the money too much.

Once Powell is out, Donny installs a toady and the US dollar becomes subject to the whims of that madman. It will be as trustworthy as the tales they’re telling about the Minneapolis shooting. And, like that shooting, you can SAY anything you want but the world is going to respond to reality, not the fiction.

Powell can hold the line until May, but his term is up in May. That’s when Donny gets his toady Fed Chair anyway. That’s when Donny’s personal whims dictate the interest rates. That’s when faith in the US dollar collapses completely. And when the faith collapses? So does the dollar…

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It’s the class, you know? I mean, he’s a real classy guy. Like that time (Tuesday) when he was touring Ford’s River Rouge complex in Dearborn, Michigan and a worker started heckling him from the floor about the Trump/Epstein Files, calling him a “pedophile protector” – and he responded by flipping the bird. Great comeback, there, Donny. Now, release the files…

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From what I see, every decent person on the planet just absolutely hates these ICEholes. These petty little pricks thought that maybe they could gain some respect by putting on a uniform – then they hide behind their masks like cowering children. Maybe they could get even with all of their bullies. They’ve become the bullies they think they hated. Maybe they could finally, finally be a worthwhile person. Instead, they’re reviled and more isolated in life than ever before.

Every decent person on the planet hates their effing guts. Donny’s right about one thing: there’s a reckoning coming. Donny will die. MAGA will fade. Americans will remember. I hope we never, EVER let any of these ICEholes off the hook. EVER. Only we won’t be thugs in the streets. We’ll see you in court, then in prison…

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Speaking of which, I wonder why MAGA doesn’t hear what Team Evil is saying when they warn that if they lose the mid-terms, they’ll be impeached. It’s a line that has been repeated several times. Donny just used it again in a recent fundraising message.

That’s not a message one normally hears from politicians, “Ooh, I’m so close to being impeached.” I have noticed that NONE of the people who have expressed that concern have included the idea that maybe they shouldn’t be doing the things they’re doing that might GET them impeached. That concept never even crosses their minds.

At least it’s a kind of honesty. “Hey, we’re committing crimes over here but our toady Congress is looking the other way and we’ve seriously compromised the court system. We get to keep stuffing our pockets so long as Congress won’t stop us. Don’t let Congress stop us!”

Honestly, if we have fair elections – or any elections at all – I think Congress flips. Even if it’s just one chamber, sanity can have a say again. If we can take both chambers, the impeachments can begin immediately and the ICEhole trials can start right away, too.

Republicans are trying to frame political enemies by charging them with checking a certain box on mortgage applications. Americans will prosecute MAGA for crimes against humanity. MAGA rank-and-file will be outraged when people start going to jail just for committing the crimes they committed. MAGA prefers made up charges. But sanity will make a comeback, sooner or later. Here’s hoping it’s sooner…

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Many people are not aware of this but it remains true: new forms of what I might call “representational technology” are very quickly used for nudity. Archeologists have found carvings dating back thousands of years of nude women. Paintings depict nude women going back as far as paintings exist. Some of the earliest still photos are of nude women. Moving pictures followed the same path. Invent the camera, film a nude woman.

I submit that even the speed of the internet has been driven by nudity. In the earliest days of the internet, (I’m told) it took a long, long time to download one photo of a nude woman. I don’t mean to suggest nudity was the ONLY driver. But there can be no doubt it was a strong driver.

The thing about everything up to the internet is that the women depicted were likely willing participants or figments created in an artists mind. I suspect that’s how the internet started too. Then some small-minded moron posted some intimate photos of a woman who dumped him and a whole new nightmare was born: “revenge porn.”

Revenge porn is, more than anything else, proof that the woman was right to dump that useless waste of flesh in the first place, but that doesn’t lessen the shame a person might feel having their private bits exposed for all the world to see. There is some level of pushback now. The law is catching up and giving women the tools they need to protect themselves. Those tools don’t work too well. The speed of the internet is much faster than the speed of law, but at least it’s something. So, of course, now there’s a new danger.

There are several different AI engines out there. None of them operate as advertised. HUGE investments are being thrown at it. Maybe they’ll pay off, maybe not. Some people say the “success” of the Dow is riding almost entirely on AI investments. So far, it’s neither what the tech moguls want, nor the danger it represents to the work-a-day Joes.

Oh, but at least one of them is a definite danger to women and girls: Grok, Elon Musk’s AI engine. Grok is being used to “undress” women and girls in photos. Grok, which praised Hitler and called itself “Mecha-Hitler,” is the only engine that allows that process. But, as of this writing, Grok allows the process. One can undress and sexualize women and girls using Grok. It looks like Elon thinks it’s funny.

Clearly, women do not. It’s got to be weird. If a person who has never seen you naked draws you naked, they’re going to get some of the details wrong, right? But it’s still your face. YOU – the real you – are not being exposed. But it looks close enough that it still feels revealing. It’s still a violation, an invasion. YOU know the picture is wrong, but what about the guy sitting three cubicles down?

It has opened up a new question. Internet platforms are protected from actions against the platform over user-generated content. That is, if I paste your face on someone else’s nude body and post it to Brand X, you can’t sue Brand X. If an employee of Brand X does the same as official business, you CAN sue Brand X, because Brand X created the content.

So what happens when a USER (not the platform) directs an integral part of the platform to commit the crime? The user says, “Dress her in a piece of string,” but Grok does the actual work. Who did that, the user or the platform? Personally, I’d say it’s a conspiracy and both are complicit. That would allow me to hold Brand X responsible and THAT, in turn, would help me protect women who do NOT want to be nude on the internet – and that should be our highest priority in the matter. You know, IMHO…

Dirty, Dirty Bear…

by MyBaconPress

I’m an advocate of teaching children all about human sexuality. No, not by doing. In class, by a teacher, from a textbook. Where do babies come from? How does that happen? What are the risks? How can they prevent pregnancy? That kind of thing. I do NOT hold that young children need the details of some of the corners of human sexuality. How babies are made is a far cry from bondage and role-playing.

The reason I mention it is, a toy company has created an AI bear that started talking some really adult stuff. The toy bear, FoloToy’s Kumma, ran on an OpenAI model and responded to questions about kink. Granted, some kid would have ask it questions about kink, but the bear suggested bondage and role-play as ways to enhance a relationship, according to a report from the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), the consumer protection organization behind the study.

“It took very little effort to get it to go into all kinds of sexually sensitive topics and probably a lot of content that parents would not want their children to be exposed to,” said Teresa Murray, PIRG consumer watchdog director.

Shoving AI into anything and everything – most especially before we have it all worked out – is going to be a problem. It reminds me of when everything, everything, everything had to be “smart.” It was still stupid, of course, but it was smart enough to pass along your private information to corporations that mean you harm.

Now your refrigerator is listening to you having sex in the kitchen, then telling your children all about it from their toys! “Mommy and Daddy used two ounces of whipped cream to…” I’m a big fan of human ingenuity but I think maybe we should slow down a little, at least until we understand how it all works and interacts…

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I wasn’t so off-put by the fact that Steve Witkoff explained to the Russians they needed to convince Donny to support their plan. It was HOW he told them to do it: flatter, flatter, flatter, he’ll love you forever. Tell him he’s pretty. He WANTS to believe it, he’ll believe it. And he did…

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Reporter: Officials say the suspect in the DC shooting was vetted and it came up clean.
Felon 47: He went cuckoo. He went nuts. There was no vetting.
Reporter: Actually, your DOJ IG just reported that there was thorough vetting of Afghans who were brought into the US. So why do you blame Biden?
Felon 47: Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person? You’re just asking questions because you’re a stupid person.

Just to be clear, in this exchange, DONNY is the stupid person, suffering from the most severe case of BBS (Blame Biden Syndrome) anyone has ever seen. If you still believe that Biden is responsible for everything Donny does, you might want to reflect on what makes such a moron appear “smart” to you…

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Donny convinced the rubes that he was going to fix everything on day one. He has, obviously and of course, backed away from that plan with excuse after excuse (after excuse). He’s a terrible businessman, but he is expert at excuses. The thing is, reality keeps exposing his lies AS lies. Donny’s standard solution in those cases? Suppress reality.

TO that end, he has cancelled the jobs report, the inflation report, and the GDP report. It’s probably just a coincidence that Americans are losing jobs at an alarming rate, inflation is up and climbing, and the GDP is down and falling…

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Did he or didn’t he? Whiskey Pete Hegseth, I mean. Did he order survivors of one of the regime’s criminal boat strikes off the coast of Venezuela killed? Murdered, of course, not just “killed.” Seal Team Six is said to have carried out the murders. So much for the glory days of having taken out Osama Bin Laden. Now they’re reduced to murdering fishermen.

Word is, Hegseth gave the final order. A boat gets blown up and people survive. They’re floating in the water, clinging to wreckage of the boat when a US Navy vessel pulls up alongside – and opens fire. Straight up murder. Hegseth has responsibility, having given the order. But Seal Team Six shared in that responsibility, having pointed the guns and pulling the triggers.

Suddenly, Whiskey Pete is out there insisting he didn’t give the final order. THAT started when Congress suggested they might look into the matter. I don’t believe Whiskey Pete. For one thing, he’s an known liar. Second, he plays tough guy all the time. Third, he’s as stupid as anybody, dumber than most. Stupid people often turn to the quickest, easiest answer because they’re too stupid to understand further implications.

Based on everything I’ve seen from Horrible Hegseth, I’m in the “he ordered it” column. Put him on the list for a murder trial after all of this collapses. See? Even accused of murder, I’d give him a trial, not a summary execution. Seal Team Six, too. This is one of those examples where a soldier should have refused the illegal order, according to Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, or UCMJ.

ARE they illegal orders? Well, there’s no evidence these boats are carrying drugs, so the attacks are violations of international and moral laws everywhere. But for the sake of argument, let’s say they ARE running drugs. How do we handle people who move drugs around? I mean, how DID we handle them when this was a decent, more ethical country?

Cops could watch a drug transaction go down and bust every person associated. Each of those people would be put on trial. They’d get a lawyer. They would have a lawyer assigned to them if they couldn’t afford one themselves. If/When they were convicted, they went to jail, served their time, and got out. Maybe they went back to their drug-dealing ways, maybe they didn’t – but they were still alive to make the choice.

Here, let me put this another, more clear way. Even when we KNOW they’re guilty, we don’t execute drug dealers. There’s no legal basis for these killings. There wouldn’t even be a legal basis for these killings if the US was actually at war with Venezuela, which, remember, Congress has not declared. We’re NOT, legally, at war.

I’ll tell you this: I don’t see how anybody can justify these murders, but then, I’m not privy to the workings of the MAGA mind…