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Comment Alexa already "does whatever it wants" ... (Score 1) 44

I have a set of 5 Echo Dots around the house and ever since I "upgraded to Alexa+" -- it's a train-wreck. Sure, the AI gives much smarter answers to questions. But they continuously forget my preferences for the voice I chose for them to use. (My wife and I both prefer their "female 2, relaxed" voice, as most similar to the original and more "professional" sounding than the others.) But no, it keeps going back to a voice that sounds like a bubbly, annoying teenage girl. Worse yet, there's no way to set a voice as default for all devices. You have to go around changing it for each one independently.

And that's before all the creepy, info-stealing behavior it has. EG. Someone will come over and ask it a few questions. Next thing you know, it's asking them to share their name since it's a voice they don't recognize.

Comment Re:Maybe It's Unreasonable Public Records Requests (Score 1) 51

The private sector has a solution to all of this that "just works". You acknowledge the supply and demand. Swamped with public record requests? Great! Hire more people to handle them as their job description/title, and charge enough for them to cover their salaries or hourly contractor rates.

IMO, asking one group to pay $2.3 million for a records request is unreasonable. But why can't you ask all of them to pay a fair share so the process works smoothly and effectively for everyone involved? A qualified govt. contractor hired to fulfill FOIA requests is typically paid a midpoint salary of about $88K per year.

Comment re: TX as "The Republican state" (Score 1) 51

Fact of the matter is, TX has been more the extreme, modern Facist-Republican governed state than "traditional Republican" for decades now. It took a lot of people some time to come to that realization. But definitely by the 1990's, watching what was happening in Texas made me solidify my views as more Independent/Libertarian than Republican.

As just a couple of examples?

- TX passed a law requiring people get a permit to legally possess Pyrex glassware. (Thought was, if you weren't a research lab or a school, you probably only had it around your residence if you were making illegal drugs.)
- TX was well known for their "Vampire cops" who were legally allowed to hold a person down after they were pulled over, and draw their blood to check for alcohol.

The general populace of Texas doesn't necessarily reflect this at all, especially with so many liberal-minded people who moved there from places like California in recent years. But the people in political power there operate with a lot of support from those who like the traditional ideals Texas claims to stand for, while acting in ways contrary to some of those ideals.

Comment Re:Well, will my brain become younger (Score 1) 64

Well, it would lose all sensory and motor connections. Sometimes some of them reconnect over a period of several months...but many never do.

I think you die of various neural problems before the reconnection has a chance to get started. (And, of course, you've got a horrendous case of "bubble boy" syndrome for the rest of your life.)

Comment Re:Aaand as usual.. (Score 2) 64

IIUC, there are cells in the body that retain the "true copy". (I.e., they've duplicated VERY few times.) However, they therefore aren't widely distributed. This means no "local process" in most of the body has access to them. It's why women produce only a limited number of ova. S.a. Hayflick limit.

Comment Re:GHK-Cu (Score 1) 64

I'm pretty sure that's too simple an answer. There are several lines of evidence that suggest much of aging depends on the blood (at least in mice). Which doesn't imply that there aren't other parts.

(One experiment I read about grafted together the blood steams of a young mouse and an old mouse. The old mouse appeared to get younger.,)

Comment Re:No one should be surprised (Score 2) 51

"They" is any group exercising unmonitored power. It's not just the Republicans. Democrats to it too. And it's not just political groups. Police is one common example, but that's because lots of people notice it's affecting them.

EVERY center of power needs to be transparent, or this problem will occur. Unfortunately, for some centers of power, transparency itself leads to other problems.

Comment Re:Directionally Right, Specifically Wrong. (Score 1) 162

Understanding cost in the external world requires having a good model of the external world. The current LLMs, IIUC, don't have such a model. They have models of interacting words. It's truly amazing that they can do as much with that as they can, but don't over-read it.

OTOH, other AIs *do* have a world model. Most of those aren't full LLMs though. But even those don't really have a good model of other non-electronic entities. Think of self-driving cars, or robots practicing dance routines. These have a world model, but don't really have lots of other info that LLMs typically have. And even those don't have good models of people or dogs, and how they feel when something happens to them. But for LLMs, the real world *is* their electronic sensations. Words are patterns associated with those sensations. But no "body in the world" is involved in the model.

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