How intelligent is AI? Answer: Not at all. Despite the copyright page on this website explicitly denying consent for my content to be used as input or output of generative AI, my work and my words are now appearing in Google AI Overview responses.
Oh wait, maybe the “I” in AI doesn’t stand for “Intelligence” – maybe it stands for “Ignorance”, “Inconsideration”, or “Immorality”? More probably it stands for “Illegality”, as Google’s unauthorised use of my content is a clear breach of Australian copyright law.
In the latest episode of the Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 podcast, Emily M Bender makes the insightful observation that one aspect of the hype associated with AI chat systems is the promotion of a …
… worldview that a system that has no accountability for what’s being said is a good source of information.
Emily M Bender, Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000, Episode 63.
These AI systems are increasingly in our face, but with no guarantee of quality, and absolutely no accountability for when it’s wrong. I note that Google’s AI overview now comes with a public confession of ineptitude and disavowal of accountability.
This is akin to a restaurant putting a sign on their door …
Our servings may include excrement.
No one would be excited about eating at that restaurant, yet somehow we’re supposed to be excited about consuming AI.
Newcastle Basketball Association have submitted an amended development application for a stadium to be built on Wallarah and Blackley Ovals. The amendment is supposed to address objections raised in the previous public submissions period, but it is still the same pig, just with a different shade of lipstick.
I object to the basketball stadium being erected on Wallarah and Blackley ovals. The proponent’s response to submissions and their amendments does nothing to mitigate the three objections I raised in my previous submission.
1. Loss of green space. The amended proposal moves the building footprint 19.5 metres to provide a grassed swale. Seriously?! The community loses two whole sporting ovals and get a patch of unusable lawn on a busy road in return! With the Broadmeadow Place Strategy planning to house an additional 40,000 residents, this area will need more sporting fields and open space, not less. It is extremely short-term thinking to remove actively used green space. We need to be making decisions today that are mindful of the impact on future generations.
2. Significant negative impacts on traffic and parking. The amended proposal moves a driveway by 3m. Seriously?! That is a delusional response to the objections of parking and traffic chaos that will occur when multiple sporting events coincide in the Turton Road precinct.
3. Unfairness. Building the stadium in this location is unfair to the current users of the sporting fields. While the state government makes millions of dollars selling the current stadium site to property developers and basketball association gets a new stadium, mums and dads and kids lose their local sporting fields and have to drive miles to use alternative facilities. If the State Government is to evict Newcastle Basketball from their current location, they should do the honourable thing and provide an alternative location that does not deprive innocent third parties of their amenities.
I have a HP EliteBook laptop that caused me a bit of head-scratching today. The inbuilt display had become quite bright, with low contrast, and was difficult to see unless I was directly in front of the display. Adjusting the brightness down made things worse as the contrast became very low. Looking at the screen, it was as though my glasses had fogged over.
I started trawling through all the possible Windows settings for the display, color profile settings, color calibration wizard, as well as the Intel graphics control panel settings. None of this improved matters. Googling for an answer didn’t help as it only suggested things I’d already tried. I was just about to conclude that the display had some kind of hardware failure, when I noticed an icon on the F2 key (next to the brightness down/up keys) that I didn’t recognise. What does that key do??
On clicking the button, the display is back to normal. Hurray!
Unknown to me before now, that button toggles the HP Sure View feature, which is supposed to be a privacy guard feature that makes the display hard to read by someone sitting beside you. (I say ‘supposed to be’ because it makes the screen so irritating to look at that users will quickly switch it off again.)
It was somewhat annoying to discover that what is supposed to be a feature, when activated accidentally is indistinguishable from a hardware failure. What would have been better if HP had done something like what Microsoft does with their Sticky Keys feature, where if you accidentally try to activate it (by pressing the Shift Key 5 times) it
Explains the feature.
Gives you the option to enable it, or cancel.
Tells you how to disable the warning in future, if that’s what you’d like to do.
A good example of how to handle accidental activation of a hidden feature.
I was heavily involved in the campaign in 2016 to preserve a separated shared pathway across the new inner city bypass at Jesmond, in particular by setting up the Kiss Your Path Goodbye website.
It was very gratifying to see today the very visible physical evidence that the campaign was a success, with the overhead pedestrian bridge put in place over the weekend.
The new shared path bridge, looking from Newcastle Rd to the south.
