Comment Re:Looking at it the other way. (Score 1) 47
Something IS different about they way interact with smart phone and related technologies.
Agreed, I think the hypothesis is that our connected devices is somehow meeting some of that innate desire for social interaction. Is the device provide the same or greater level of quality and benefit or is it just junk food for the soul? I dunno. However, it's clearly scratching the itch or is at least sufficiently addictive to numb the desire.
Comment Reasonable... for the most part (Score 1) 55
The ban also fits into China's airspace philosophy: China is unique in that airspace is by default owned by the military with corridors carved out for civilian and commercial use, a legacy of their Soviet heritage. This is different from most of the world where airspace is by default for civilian use with areas carved out for military purposes. Therefore, it's not surprising the government would quickly wrestle control in the name of national defense. The banning of sales, repair, and usage is a bit heavy handed however.
Comment China maybe intentionally bumping Starlink (Score 3, Informative) 92
Comment Re:Why Are We (the UK) Helping Ukraine? (Score 1) 347
Either give them unconditional support, and let them fight it however they see fit, or don't support them at all.
The problem was escalation. If the West just floods the Ukrainians with weapons, nations like China may use it as justification to do the same for the Russians. Or if the Russians feel like the West is too quickly tipping the scales, they could open a second front, say "little green men" in Estonia, or selling nuclear submarine technology to the North Koreans.
Comment Accountability is the Real Challenge (Score 2) 347
How is that different from the status quo? It isn't just autonomous weapons that can kill the wrong people. Just this morning I saw an article about a US missile that accidentally killed four Indian sailors in the Gulf.
I think the real challenge is accountability. When soldiers disobey orders or act recklessly and kill the wrong people, you have a military justice process that can hold people accountable. Who is accountable for an algorithm that kills the wrong people especially when we still struggle today to audit how an AI makes a decision? Is it on the programmers? A soldier who unknowingly gave a flawed prompt? Bad training data by the services? How do you apportion blame?
Comment What Could Possibly Go Wrong? (Score 1) 26
Comment Re:Not really. Reality is ... (Score 1) 99
Donald Trump is talking.
No, Donald Trump is talking about how he and his family can make a quick buck off of it.
Comment Re:Yes. And? (Score 1) 21
Comment Trump Wanted to Delink the US Economy, so... (Score 1) 205
Comment Re:To be clear (Score 1) 321
And we need to talk about the elephant in the room, China.
Agree completely. In addition to what you already mentioned on shell production (and I fully agree the Europeans will struggle to match Chinese production in terms of volume), we should note that the Chinese are already propping up Russia's war economy. While China is technically not selling the Russians any wartime material, they are providing them with a lot of dual use capabilities that have sustained their ability to produce weapons: industrial tooling, dual-use microelectronics, commercial drone components, ball bearings, navigation equipment, etc. Again, technically things you can squint at and claim are simply civilian use, but given Russia's shift into a wartime economy, are high probability feeding their war machine. China has started to tighten up some of those exports, particularly around machine tools, but it's not a stretch to say that the Russian war machine would have collapsed years ago without Chinese assistance. As I noted in another comment, China is finely calibrating their support - they don't want Putin's regime to collapse, but they don't want Putin further escalating tensions either.
Comment Re:The key is China (Score 5, Insightful) 321
Submission + - University of California Math Professors Push for Return of SAT/ACT Math Testing (kpbs.org)
Hundreds of University of California faculty members are calling on the university system to require standardized math test scores from applicants to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) majors.
Nearly 1,000 faculty members have signed the open letter. More than 200 of them are from UC San Diego.
The UC Board of Regents voted to eliminate the requirement in 2020. In their letter, the faculty call it “a temporary measure that has now become a permanent vulnerability...”
“We now observe preparation gaps so severe that instructors must reteach middle-school mathematics while simultaneously teaching the material students need for sciences, engineering, economics, and other quantitatively demanding fields,” the letter reads.
Faculty have reported that students being admitted are unprepared for even basic classes: one faculty report last year saying that the number of students placed in classes to remediate elementary and middle-school math before they could take precalculus increased to 8.5% from 0.5% between 2020 and 2025. Several universities which dropped testing requirements in 2020 have already reinstituted testing over the last several years including MIT, Dartmouth, and Yale.
Comment Automation has Been Eroding Journalism for Decades (Score 4, Insightful) 26
Comment Re:What is it with surveillance? (Score 1) 95
What is it with the addiction our governments have to mass surveillance?
It's pretty straight forward - it makes their jobs easier. However, the risk is, has always been, that even if they initially acquire and use the tool for the public good, it will abused whether by corrupt individual operators or corrupt government officials for their own personal gains. The temptation is great.