As far as I can determine, the following posting was the last posting on my old blog that addressed any item from Slashdot.org. It is given as a prelude to a new item from that website.
June 09, 2025
More from News for Nerds - AI as a scamBefore getting to the Slashdot.org posting on which I wish to comment, I'll share a puzzle. Normally, my page views run in the order of 10 per day. At times, however, I have noted a tremendous increase for one day or two. At times, I can explain the increase because I caused it, myself - researching past postings for I rarely remember where a nugget was dropped if it was more than a day or two ago - or a friend posted a link to my site - or I left a comment on a friend's blog. At other times, I cannot account for an increase. Last Wednesday, page views per day numbered over 100. Last Thursday and Friday, page views numbered over 300 each day. Strange.
For decades (that I recall) we of the great unwashed public were warned against anthropomorphizing animals and their actions. I have never been sure how much to heed that warning. I do, however, believe that such a warning should accompany discussions of Artificial Intelligence. I consider the above excerpt from Slashdot.org to be such a warning.
'AI Is Not Intelligent': The Atlantic Criticizes 'Scam' Underlying the AI Industry (msn.com)10
machine-language
The Atlantic makes that case that "the foundation of the AI industry is a scam" and that AI "is not what its developers are selling it as: a new class of thinking — and, soon, feeling — machines."[OpenAI CEO Sam] Altman brags about ChatGPT-4.5's improved "emotional intelligence," which he says makes users feel like they're "talking to a thoughtful person." Dario Amodei, the CEO of the AI company Anthropic, argued last year that the next generation of artificial intelligence will be "smarter than a Nobel Prize winner." Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google's DeepMind, said the goal is to create "models that are able to understand the world around us." These statements betray a conceptual error: Large language models do not, cannot, and will not "understand" anything at all. They are not emotionally intelligent or smart in any meaningful or recognizably human sense of the word. LLMs are impressive probability gadgets that have been fed nearly the entire internet, and produce writing not by thinking but by making statistically informed guesses about which lexical item is likely to follow another.
A sociologist and linguist even teamed up for a new book called The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want, the article points out: The authors observe that large language models take advantage of the brain's tendency to associate language with thinking: "We encounter text that looks just like something a person might have said and reflexively interpret it, through our usual process of imagining a mind behind the text. But there is no mind there, and we need to be conscientious to let go of that imaginary mind we have constructed."
Several other AI-related social problems, also springing from human misunderstanding of the technology, are looming. The uses of AI that Silicon Valley seems most eager to promote center on replacing human relationships with digital proxies. Consider the ever-expanding universe of AI therapists and AI-therapy adherents, who declare that "ChatGPT is my therapist — it's more qualified than any human could be." Witness, too, how seamlessly Mark Zuckerberg went from selling the idea that Facebook would lead to a flourishing of human friendship to, now, selling the notion that Meta will provide you with AI friends to replace the human pals you have lost in our alienated social-media age....
The good news is that nothing about this is inevitable: According to a study released in April by the Pew Research Center, although 56 percent of "AI experts" think artificial intelligence will make the United States better, only 17 percent of American adults think so. If many Americans don't quite understand how artificial "intelligence" works, they also certainly don't trust it. This suspicion, no doubt provoked by recent examples of Silicon Valley con artistry, is something to build on.... If people understand what large language models are and are not; what they can and cannot do; what work, interactions, and parts of life they should — and should not — replace, they may be spared its worst consequences.
From Out of the Present
More from News for Nerds - Losing Nutrition
Carbon Pollution Is Making Food Less Nutritious, Risking the Health of Billions (detroitnews.com)47
"The invisible culprit behind this damaging phenomenon? Carbon dioxide pollution."Surging concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere, caused largely by burning fossil fuels, have produced potent changes in the way plants grow — from increasing their sugar content to depleting essential nutrients like zinc... "The diets we eat today have less nutritional density than what our grandparents ate, even if we eat exactly the same thing," said Kristie Ebi, a professor at the University of Washington's Center for Health and the Global Environment.
People in wealthy countries with strong health care systems will have many tools to cope with the change, experts said. But for the world's poorest and most vulnerable, the consequences could be devastating. One study concluded that by the middle of the century the phenomenon could put more than a billion additional women and children at risk of iron-deficiency anemia — a condition that can cause pregnancy complications, developmental problems and even death. Meanwhile, some 2 billion people across the globe who already suffer from some form of nutrient shortage could see their health problems grow even worse. "The scale of the problem is huge," Ebi said.
Plants depend on carbon dioxide to perform photosynthesis — but that doesn't mean they grow better when there's more carbon in the air, scientists say. A sweeping survey of changes among 32 compounds in 43 crops found that nearly every plant that humans eat is harmed by rising CO2 levels... On average, they found, nutrients have already decreased by an average 3.2 percent across all plants since the late 1980s, when the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was about 350 parts per million.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader GameboyRMH for sharing the news.
That is way too many big words in the links to read on a Monday morning. I guess the moral of the story is grow your own vegetables or buy them locally as much as possible.
ReplyDeleteIf women are at risk of anemia, wouldn't red meat consumption help cure that? It contains high levels of heme iron, which is up to 30% more easily absorbed by the body compared to plant-based (non-heme) iron.
I do think the factory food production in this country is a problem. It is contributing to obesity and other issues with all the chemicals used in the production, storage and processing.
It does seem odd to me that CO2 that plants need and we exhale is now considered a pollutant. We need a giant algae bloom in the ocean to suck up the carbon or something.
Anemia: Of course red meat would help prevent anemia but I'm here to tell you that docs worry more about heart attacks than they do about anemia. According to the people who do my labs, normal hemoglobin for a female is 12-16. Going back as far as 1986, my highest reading (April 1986) was 13.4. From that point it dwindled until it hit 10.7 (March 2023 and May 2024) at which time my kidney doc said not to worry about it.
DeleteI chose to worry and started adding red meat at least once/week (when I could remember-lol). I hit a high of 11.9 (August 2025) at which point my kidney doc was impressed. I didn't tell him that I had added beef. He was pleased with all of my other labs, too, so I just shrugged to myself. The story on my Red Blood Cell Count is similar but not entirely in sync with the hemoglobin.
Factory Food: It is hard to find any of the "highly processed" foods that include impressive nutrition counts. I sometimes break down and purchase junk food. On my better days, I then throw them away. I don't even think of foisting them off on someone else by giving it to a food bank. On less good days, I may eat some of it before pitching the remainder. Gah!
Carbon Dioxide: I think the equivalent of too much carbon dioxide for plants is too much oxygen for humans, producing hyperoxia. We wouldn't want the oxygen in our air to reach too high a level, either.
I tend to think that nutrition of our food has dwindled the more we mess with the genetics and breeding for certain traits. Food stuffs are messed with to increase production, or decrease pests. I would just about bet no one goes and looks to see if the nutrition has decreased after such developments. They probably also don't go looking at other traits that have been changed/tweaked (Cop car can go do the research on that - I'm just giving my best guesses).
ReplyDeleteLike Roses that have been bred to LOOK good (petal count or shape, or colors, or length of time they last in a vase), but no longer have any aroma (or very little), when we breed for certain traits, other traits can suffer.
As you mentioned, Bogie, food crop genetic modifications tend to be for increasing production - partly, through discouraging/repelling pests - rather than for looks. Since my future lifespan is severely limited, I chose to ask AI for help. My first question, being poorly thought out, solicited very limited help.
ReplyDeleteQ1: Which has greater impact on nutrition, genetic modifications or land and air pollution? The summary of the answer is: In conclusion, while genetic modifications can improve the nutritional value of certain foods, land and air pollution poses a more substantial threat to overall nutrition by diminishing the quality and availability of food.
Regrouping, I asked, Q2: In breeding food crops for increased productivity, is the nutrition density decreased? The summary of the answer is: In summary, while breeding for higher yield has successfully increased food production, it has also led to a significant decrease in the nutrient density of many crops. This trade-off raises concerns about the nutritional quality of the food available today.
Nothing terribly startling. However, the long answer to Q2 included a table showing average declines in various nutrients.
I shall send you an email answer, but the big bit that I get from it is that someone is, indeed, looking at nutritional changes. I can publish the whole bit (and more?) in a new posting if it sounds like something that should be done?
Good points Cop Car and Bogie. I didn't think about the hyperoxia possibility. But I do know that some industrial greenhouses use CO2 generators to help the plants grow faster. More research is needed on my part.
ReplyDeleteI never really thought about it, but store bought ones do have very little scent now.
PS that is a good cartoon. One of my grand daughter's made a great Grumpy Cat face when she was little. I have a photo of her on our boat with the caption, This is my happy face.
ReplyDeleteIf you care to share the photo of your granddaughter, Ingineer, I should be happy to add it below the cartoon. I think you have my email. (I knew about hyperoxia, I just did not know the word. ☺)
ReplyDelete