Who is cheating, lying to and manipulating us, and how? I don't see any of that. I see normal market dynamics: Demand has dramatically outstripped supply, so prices have gone up. This will prompt suppliers to build out capacity to meet supply -- and the massive profits they're receiving from the high prices will fund that buildout. But of course it will take time, so stuff's going to be very expensive for a while.

That's what I see. What "cheating, lying and manipulation" do you see?

The Gulf War had a lot of friendly fire deaths from the US ignoring any beacon signal and just killing anything they saw.

Do you seriously think their automated systems (built by people of precisely this mentality) will be any better?

They really didn't. I don't have to look it up because I was a Google employee at the time and had access to the employee handbook and other documentation.

The problem is that you're looking for a kind of solution that doesn't exist. There probably isn't now any undergraduate math problem that AI can't do, and if there is, there soon won't be. Trying to find kinds of problems that students can do but AI can't is fruitless.

The only answer is to get students to understand why they really need to do the work themselves -- and it's the same reason that they need to learn integration by parts even though the CAS can do it far faster and more accurately -- because learning develops their minds. And, for the students who are unwilling to understand, test them on it in a context where they can't rely on AI: Pencil and paper tests in a room free of any sort of electronics.

They didn't flip flop. They changed their position on one aspect of AI security, while holding the line on a different aspect. It's like if you decided that you were willing to leave your car doors unlocked, but refused to leave your house unlocked. Different things, different risk calculations.

I'd like to be more optimistic; but I'm not sure that would be the outcome. It's not like we actually expect operating under actual legal guidance (indeed, we come up with insulting nonsense like standards for 'qualified immunity' that basically let you off unless it's exceptionally obvious that you are operating against well established practice; and commonly just substitute things like 'acted according to policy and training' for questions of whether the policy and training reflect legal practice or not when it comes to even the excessive force cases that actually make it to trial.

And, if there's anything LLMs seem to be good at, it's generating results that look pretty plausible; so if you combine high plausibility narrative generation, a veneer of technological objectivity, and the downright servile deference to the official narrative, it would probably be even easier to beat the rap than it is now; when you can at least sometimes put the spotlight on someone clearly and distastefully letting their motives show or acting irrationally.

Common sense is neither common, nor sense.

Back your assertions up with data.

I don't think so. Today's LLMs can actually solve stuff like this.

Seriously, come up with a problem it can't have seen.

Just for fun I grabbed my old calculus book, flipped to a chapter, looked at the exercises and grabbed one that was a word problem. I then fed it to Claude. Here's the result: https://claude.ai/share/5909de...

That isn't a great example because it's too "canned". You could probably find exactly this problem online. But that doesn't actually matter. Come up with a more creative, unique one that the LLM won't have seen verbatim but is within the capabilities of an average (or even above average) freshman taking a college calculus course, and the LLM will solve it handily.

I don't think there is any homework that is AI proof. If the kids can do it, the AI can do it. Hell, the AI can probably do it better than the teacher.

Yeah, good luck writing a basic calculus word problem that frontier AI models can't do today.

Seriously, give it a shot and I'll feed it to a few models.

They lost the package in transit, in one of their warehouses, and then billed me £400. I am -not- happy with eBay.

True, but so is gold.

Why? Reading the text, it seemed to me that they were trying to make the admonition the parting words, so they would stick. What makes you say that's evil?

Personally, I see Trump as a symptom, no much cause.

In the same sense Bush II was the result of Clinton, and Obama was the result of Bush II, Trump I was the normal backlash against Obama's overreach. Think about what it means that Trump - a pretty poor president the FIRST time - was selected a SECOND time by a majority of Americans?
Biden's admin was seen as so grossly partisan, so sclerotic that every single demographic except white women swung rightward.

(Some of us might suggest that the vote was ultimately cultural, not political; an instinctive revulsion at the Left's very Gramsci-an post-covid victorylap/overreach into even redefining reality - what is a woman, indeed?)

The result is militant ossification on the left in turn. The centrists have no voice. I'm not sure there are many actual centrists left.

Corporate media is no longer an oppositional 4th estate; they've picked a side. (They're oppositional NOW because their side is out of power. That's contextual not fundamental.) I *much* prefer a media that tears apart everything a president does than the craven lickspittles running cover for the wealthy and powerful.

I saw an anti-ICE post the other day "Eisenhower deported 1.3 million illegal immigrants with only 750 agents"
Yes that's because in 1950, the statement "Illegals should be deported" would rank up there with "The sun rises in the East" and "Water is wet" as so obvious NOBODY would have disagreed.

Yet - many of the tactics Trump's floating today about countering the Supremes' ruling against his tariff were first employed by Mr Obama. His administration had one of the lowest Supreme Court win rates for a modern presidency (~50%) - the lowest since Zachary Taylor with a notably high number of 9-0 losses, totaling nearly 50 over his two terms.

(taps foot)

(taps foot)

(taps foot)

Me? I'm just standing around waiting for all the scolds who INSISTED nobody could ever call places shithole countries to come back out of the woodwork.

(Yeah, I guess I'll be waiting a while)