Science/Techno Babble Random, Random

[Suliso]

Here Scott Manley with a lot more details about the Blue Origin flight

[ti-amie]

‪Anonymous‬
‪@youranoncentral.bsky.social‬
· 4m
Elon Musk's "Free Speech" for me, not for thee.





X being fined by the EU is not a free speech issue. It is a security issue. Musk’s opposition to regulation is driven by the fact that he is backed by authoritarian regimes and is protecting their influence ops, which erode our democratic discourse.

https://spookyconnections.com/2025/12/0 ... -meltdown/

[ti-amie]

‪Carl Quintanilla‬
‪@carlquintanilla.bsky.social‬
· 5h
Polish Foreign Minister replies to Musk:

[ti-amie]

If you've never seen a jaundiced baby who got that way due to Hep B here you are.

Terre-Strial
‪@terre-strial.bsky.social‬
In the early 1980s, I was exposed to Hepatitis B during a chaotic emergency department birth… the Hep B positive mother was seated in a wheelchair, being frantically pushed into the ED by her husband, when I caught the rapidly appearing baby in my ungloved hands.

The Hepatitis B vaccine saved me.

[ponchi101]

These are amazing times.
Arguably the greatest medical invention of all times, vaccines, are constantly questioned. Idiots with not idea of how science works, and are totally ignorant of historical facts, constantly claiming that your immune system will take care of those diseases. Ignoring that, for hundreds of thousands of years, it didn't.
It is so depressing.

[ashkor87]

I wonder how many leaders, political and otherwise, realize what AI is going to do - it is going to cause massive unemployment in every sector of the economy (except, perhaps, healthcare, for which the demand seems insatiable) - is any Democrat or Republican or whatever, even thinking about it? In the best case, it will call for Universal Basic Income coupled with massive increase in budgets for sports and entertainment (the masses have to be kept occupied, entertained, you see)- in the worst case, what is the best use of massive manpower surplus? To invade your neighbor, of course.. these are scenarios I can clearly see, not too far off.. who is preparing, thinking about them? Coupled with the drive towards Magafication of every country, from Russia to India, the possibilities are scary. An idle population who hates and fears 'the other'? ..

[ponchi101]

I have been saying for years now that Ai is too disruptive.
We don't understand this thing; it is as if we were using a tool which we really don't know what it does.
And there is another thing. The companies believe that you are getting AI and that it is SUPER intelligent. It is not; it is MODERATE intelligent and what it does is to find averages all the time. Because it learns from what is available online, its responses are based on averages, not brilliance.
I don't think it will lead to wars; the idle populations will not invade the neighbor just because they are bored. But, with fewer and fewer jobs, what you will get is the political call against immigrants, because it is easier to say that the jobs are being taken by immigrants than to explain that their inactions led to AI replacing huge percentages of the population.
For example.
Colombia had a very big "call center" industry, because it is well located within S. America and they started first. That is disappearing fast, being replaced by AI bots, especially from WhatsApp. Any company claims now you can talk to their bot and get proper service. Which is totally ridiculous, because the bots simply are not good enough.

As you say. AI without some form of basic income will create too many changes. And there is no way I am going to believe that, when the "productivity boom" goes off and companies can replace almost all their workers, they will pay the taxes needed to support that basic income needed.
I believe the balance will be: fire as many people as possible (replaced by AI), but not so many that nobody can buy your product. But that balance will leave hundreds of millions unemployed. And more hundreds of millions sub-employed.

[Suliso]

I'm working in R&D in a large corporation. Our managers are super keen on AI everywhere, but so far they're mostly believing their own hype. Actual AI (LLM really) can so far do realitively little in a lab based research setting. It can write summaries of meetings, come up with Python code (not my task anyway) etc. Gradual job loses I've seen in recent years are more outsourcing based. Hard to compete long term with Chinese and Indian prices...

Of course the past is not a perfect indicator of future. We'll see I suppose...

[ponchi101]

You work in a very specialized field. Plus, you are (it has always seemed to me) in a pioneering company that does research.
The jobs we are talking about are like the one I mentioned. A call center operator, who answers phone calls for customer support. The companies believe those people can be replaced, and will try it. We know the other lists: paralegal, proof readers, graphic design and generations.
Accounting? How complicated are in reality the tax forms for most people?
I also mentioned: music producers for jingles, sounds, a brief piano rift for an internet app, elevator muzak.
My area. How long before somebody decides that 20 well placed drones and cameras can do what I do? How about fleet management, in which we are already using internet-based vehicle management? Can that be analyzed by AI? I am sure some people will say yes, it can be.

And yes, it is mostly LLM. But the managers are buying that that system is more intelligent than their workers. And therefore, they will lay off people accordingly.

[Suliso]

You certainly have a point about certain classes of jobs. Call centers are dying already and I don't see much future for translators or web designers either.

As for us we indeed still do real research. In my large office everyone has a PhD...

[Suliso]

It's probably a bit safer if your job has some non computer element (for example engineer, doctor, chemist etc). Or it's a strongly gate keeping profession (lawyers).

[Owendonovan]

As a gymnastics coach, no computer is going to save a kid from flying off equipment like I can.

[Suliso]

Yes, but if everyone becomes very poor sports will diminish too. I'm not thar pessimistic, though.

[ti-amie]

Blackout in San Francisco Litters Streets with Traffic-Blocking, Deactivated Waymos
Robot chaos in the tech capital of the U.S.
By Mike Pearl
Published December 21, 2025

There was a power outage in San Francisco on Saturday, initially leaving 124,000 of 414,000 customers—about 30%—in the dark. It also caused a widespread Waymo meltdown, with apparently all active Waymo robotaxis in the affected parts of the city stuck in robotic comas, blocking intersections and choking traffic on some streets.

Waymo spokesperson Suzanne Philion issued a statement at approximately 7:00 p.m., saying service had been “temporarily suspended” due to the outage. “We are focused on keeping our riders safe and ensuring emergency personnel have the clear access they need to do their work,” Philion said.

As of Sunday morning there wasn’t yet an update from Waymo on whether the company’s robotaxis were still out of commission, nor on what had caused the problem in the first place.

Gizmodo asked Waymo if the vehicles had trouble traversing blacked-out stoplights, or if the issue had something to do with data reception or transmission. We also asked the company if any Waymo vehicles were still blocking the streets. We will update if we hear back. (Update: Waymo provided a statement, which has been appended to the end of this article)

Until there’s some kind of postmortem from the Alphabet-owned company, there’s no way to be absolutely sure that the problem wasn’t an Anakin Skywalker-type situation, in which the nerve center of the robot hive was destroyed by a 9-year-old, causing all the robots to drop dead.

Companies like Waymo hold themselves up as harbingers of a safer future on the roads, touting statistics like 82% fewer crashes in which an airbag deployed, and 92% fewer pedestrian collisions with injuries when compared to human drivers.

But, like when a San Francisco Waymo fatally ran over a locally famous cat named Kit Kat in October, the issue may be less about Waymos being better or worse than humans in aggregate than the fact that robots fail in unpredictable, alien ways. The actual footage of Kit Kat’s fatal injury shows one such example. A human driver probably wouldn’t do what seems to happen in the video: start from a dead stop while a person is actively trying to coax a cat out from under their car.

Similarly, human drivers tend not to suddenly go offline en masse when there’s a blackout.

Updated at 7:12 p.m. ET. A Waymo spokesperson provided the following statement:

“We are resuming ride-hailing service in the San Francisco Bay Area. Yesterday’s power outage was a widespread event that caused gridlock across San Francisco, with non-functioning traffic signals and transit disruptions. While the failure of the utility infrastructure was significant, we are committed to ensuring our technology adjusts to traffic flow during such events.

“Throughout the outage, we closely coordinated with San Francisco city officials. We are focused on rapidly integrating the lessons learned from this event, and are committed to earning and maintaining the trust of the communities we serve every day.”

A parenthetical has also been added above indicating that Waymo replied to Gizmodo.

https://gizmodo.com/blackout-in-san-fra ... 2000702290

[ashkor87]

Been watching Geoffrey Hinton, who is 'credited' with creating AI..he is very forthright.. even creativity, he points out is mostly ability to connect patterns, and AI will be better at it than humans...we may be deluding ourselves