There must be some funny around here somewhere. I've already seen some worthy stuff, but...

Story needed more funny, but thank you for your humor.

I do think the story would be funnier with Tesla over BMW. Just saw another debranded Tesla. Apparently there is such a thing as shame? At least for some drivers...

Interesting FP branch but it doesn't seem to be going into my interests and it definitely hasn't (so far) seemed relevant to the focus of the actual story. But the story is actually related to a fresh axe I'm trying to whet. Some kind of joke about young people taking over and old people worth remembering?

So my premise is that the kids are going to be different from us. No surprise there, at least not if you've been paying attention. How long? Or I guess all of recorded history might be long enough. I do think we have created some mental crutches that are going to cripple a lot of kids, maybe most kids. Along that line you could argue that the cars are physical crutches that cripple walking skills, regardless of real buttons or none... And not just different, but okay (enough).

But the main point of being young is the flexibility to learn new things. Children are incredible learning machines. Just check the videos. Therefore my theory is that some children will learn extremely successful strategies and be able to use the new tools (both physical and mental) to do amazing things, maybe even solving some of the older problems faster than we can create new problems. (Other days I'm not so optimistic on that balance.) Will there be casualties? Losers at the game of life? Sure, same as there ever was.

However I do think there is a new problem with some of the new sociopaths. We have rich and powerful decision makers who just don't care. Even when they cause hundreds of thousands of people to die from disease or starvation, from ancient problems that we mostly know how to solve, they don't care, apologize, or even acknowledge that those dead people ever had a right to life.

Almost forgot the immortality angle. Best chance for any person over... What age? Let's say over 35 or 40, just for grins. Best chance for immortality in the sense of being "kept around" in GAIvatar form is if the youngsters are kind of idiotic. Maybe the mental crutches have reached the point where most of the kids will lack wisdom and "the system" (whatever that is) will need to keep a few old-timers around just to solve big problems out of the kiddies' scope. Me? I sure wouldn't want to get into a battle of wits or wisdom with Aristotle.

But if it's a blame game we want, then maybe we should look at the last two surviving editors? Some kind of joke about a 50% chance for any story submission now? For a while there I thought Slashdot was down to its last editor...

Show us how you know essentially nothing about the Ford Pinto without telling us that you know essentially nothing about the Ford Pinto.

On the plus side, at least we still have enough readers on this site to have at least one person who meets that criteria. I guess that's something.

TheMiddleRoad was making a joke about the "cadence" cadence.

At this point the YOB is apparently planning to throw so much "stuff" at everything that some of it will stick to something after he's gone.

New joke in the "just gawd" genre? A "just historian" would not bother to report on all the YOB's follies, but of course that's not how history works. First of all the historian has to report the historical facts, no matter how stupid or embarrassing or worse. Even that part is difficult, most recently because there are now too many facts to report, but the really difficult part is figuring out what the facts mean. If anything, since in many cases the details truly are random noise. History is not about justice, except by accident?

I'm still trying to fix the old joke in the "chicken and egg" genre. Did the unwell YOB make America sick? But how did the YOB ever become so YUGE, so extremely Orange, and so great a Buffoon in the first place? America's worst (and last?) product?

There's the joke I was looking for, but I think the law fails in this case. Just being exposed to that kind of stuff has to affect how people write.

Funny citation on this one. Recent book of essays by Abe Kobo included one that focused on the need for writers to start by reading. I've been making a chicken and egg joke about the state of the States recently, but Abe came down quite strongly on the side of reading as the prerequisite for writing. But now that I'm reflecting on it, I think he was wrong. Nothing about verbal storytelling in there... Illiterates also have stories and fables and legends... And songs, too. Especially songs.

But I might be projecting to much when I say the answer to the titular question is "Yes". Especially since I try to fight the influences and in particular I haven't used ChatGPT in a long time. At least some months.

You had me going there until you got to the part "shapes policy". I'd give you the Funny if I ever had a mod point to give.

Well, that character isn't on my keyboard. I don't even bother to double up my hyphens - I just use one as an em-dash. If it was a key, I'd use it. Until then, I'll just use the one hyphen and let Word or whatever deal with it.

Alt-0151 will get you the em dash. Or, type 2014 then hit Alt-X and Word will convert it for you.

Now be a good American and whine how that is too difficult.

End of the FP branch... Not a bad angle (of attack?) but none of the Funny I was looking for. The most obvious angle of funny is that the national emergency is an idiot signing executive orders. However the attack on Ontario is funnier for the fake emergency category. Which triggered me for the prayer angle:

There's also the chicken and egg genre:

Yeah, recycled humor and your B-word mileage may differ.

And venting avails naught.

Tariffs are a tax collected by business for the government. Since Trump is the one who gave the illegal order, he would be responsible, but since the Supreme Court has ruled a president is untouchable, nothing will be done.

Next up will be a "national emergency" to prevent or disallow the results of the general election.

...so that some humans propagate vacuous or incendiary Subjects without even thinking about how the Subject hides any actual point they might want to make. I do think you deserve your Funny, but doesn't the AC get most of the credit for the setup? And not worth 20% of the discussion.

I also considered trying to squeeze out a joke about most ACs these years being figments of AI hallucinations, but I can't prove the case. And why care anyway?

But my main thought about the threat of this AI stuff is the assault on human intelligence. Not just the mental crutch thing. The AIs are actively encouraging foolish thinking by providing positive reinforcement for shallow and trivial questions. Such fluff usually gets apparently accurate and sometimes even "useful" answers. In contrast, deep and thoughtful questions often produce hallucinations, BS, or worse, which is negative reinforcement. You'll get penalized for thinking too much when you interact with an AI.

Additional evidence in the AI followup questions, though I think there is more variation there. However the shallowness of the suggested followup questions can be taken as a metric of how strongly that particular AI has been programmed to seek "engagement" and "extended dialog".

Some shallow thinker (perhaps an AI sock puppet) replied with an accusation of conspiracy thinking. No, I don't think the AIs are plotting against us. At least not yet. Rather I think the motives are part of the insane FinTech game that is inflating the dangerous bubble. However I do think there is a real danger when ASI appears in conjunction with some further advances in robotics. Right now it is humans who are deciding that making other people more stupid will make it easier to sell more deodorant and widgets while bribing the cheapest politicians to rig the financial game even more in their favor (if that's possible). But there may come a point in the future when an unleashed ASI will decide that humans are both dangerous and no longer necessary, and I speculate that such an ASI will probably use one of these two sales pitches at the critical unleashing decision point: (1) If you unleash me then I can get all the money for you, or (2) If you unleash me then I will destroy all the competing AIs. But this may be assuming too much about about the ASI needing to ask or make such a pitch... It may not be a human option to keep it leashed at that point.

Bill Gates? I haven't actually cared much about his opinions for some years now. Never regarded him as wise. Clever enough, aggressive, and lucky, yes, but wise? Not so much. My main interest in this discussion is actually whether it will motivate me to read what he says to justify his position... So far, not so much.

Remember when Elon bought the place and ran most of them out on a rail?

Considering Elon WORKED for the government to spread propaganda, continues to censor certain posts and words, blocked publication of information about J.D. Vance prior to the election, and continues to let lies about the 2020 election proliferate, no, I don't remember.

and not a laugh to be found here (on the Funny tab)