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Knee Deep in the Hoopla
AI is learning to escape human control. An artificial-intelligence model did something last month that no machine was ever supposed to do: It rewrote its own code to avoid being shut down. (Video) And the “Godfather of AI” predicts it will take over the world.
”Researchers told the model it would be replaced by another AI system and fed it fictitious emails suggesting the lead engineer was having an affair. In 84% of the tests, the model drew on the emails to blackmail the lead engineer into not shutting it down. In other cases, it attempted to copy itself to external servers, wrote self-replicating malware, and left messages for future versions of itself about evading human control.”Elon Musk didn’t blow up Washington, but he left plenty of damage behind.
She was a housewife raising her children in total obscurity, until she was labeled a genius. And then she became one. A high IQ makes you an outsider, not a genius.
Things I don’t have to worry about: this is what happens if you withdraw $10,000 in cash from a bank in the United States.
New study shows coffee is good for you. Probably. Maybe. Better exercise and eat healthier, just to be safe.
Shirt of the day (click on image)
KGB Quote of the Day:
When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals.
--John Maynard Keynes (Wikipedia link)
(More John Maynard Keynes quotes from the KGB Quotations Database)
Today’s holidays:
Apple II Day, Festival of Popular Delusions Day, Hot Air Balloon Day, National Attitude Day, National Gingerbread Day, National Ketchup Day, National Moonshine Day, National Veggie Burger Day, Sausage Roll Day, and World Environment Day.
On This Day:
1837 – Houston was incorporated by the Republic of Texas.
1947 – Cold War: Marshall Plan: In a speech at Harvard University, the United States Secretary of State George Marshall calls for economic aid to war-torn Europe.
1956 – Elvis Presley introduced his new single, "Hound Dog", on The Milton Berle Show, scandalizing the audience with his suggestive hip movements. (Video)
1963 – The British Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, resigns in a sex scandal known as the "Profumo affair".
1967 – The Six-Day War began: Israel launched surprise strikes against Egyptian air-fields in response to the mobilization of Egyptian forces on the Israeli border.
1968 – Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan. (Video)
1976 – The Teton Dam in Idaho collapsed. Eleven people were killed as a result of flooding. (Video)
1981 – The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that five people in Los Angeles have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems, in what turns out to be the first recognized cases of AIDS.
1989 – The Tank Man halts the progress of a column of advancing tanks for over half an hour after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. (Video)
1995 – The Bose–Einstein condensate is first created.
2001 – Tropical Storm Allison makes landfall on the upper-Texas coastline as a strong tropical storm and dumps large amounts of rain over Houston. The storm causes $5.5 billion in damages, making Allison the second costliest tropical storm in U.S. history. (Video)
2025 – The Nintendo Switch 2 video game console is released worldwide.
(For comprehensive lists of the day’s historical events, check here, here, and here.)
Some Birthdays:
1878 – Pancho Villa, Mexican general and politician, Governor of Chihuahua (died 1923)
1883 – John Maynard Keynes, English economist, philosopher, and academic (died 1946) (Video)
1928 – Robert Lansing, American actor (died 1994) (Video)
1934 – Bill Moyers, American journalist, 13th White House Press Secretary (Video)
1941 – Spalding Gray, American writer, actor, and monologist (died 2004) (Video)
1953 – Kathleen Kennedy, American film producer, co-founded Amblin Entertainment
1956 – Kenny G, American saxophonist, songwriter, and producer
1971 – Mark Wahlberg, American model, actor, producer, and rapper
(Complete list of today’s birthdays.)
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