TechTakes

the purpose of a system is what it does

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cjXpYX-wfE&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20260814-turkey-asks-the-ai-are-you-a-terrorist - podcast

time: 3 min 41 sec

saying the quiet part out loud

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE4Ucw-zbpc&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20260813-amazons-ai-training-on-twitch-if-it-was-opt-in-nobody-would-opt-in - podcast

time: 4 min 25 sec

Elon still a drag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjYKFfzTcVo&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20260812-xai-data-centre-contractors-file-non-payment-liens - podcast

time: 4 min 37 sec

"It's very hard to collect data that trains the model to be better than humans, because there are very few humans who can create that data," Raj said. "You want to make it better than a Fields Medalist or a Nobel Prize winner. How do you collect that?"

...

While there, he worked alongside other researchers to understand the failure points of models hosted on cloud computing infrastructure and offer specific solutions, he said. He also created "synthetic" data that, unlike human-created writing or code, is generated artificially before being reused as training material for the LLMs, Raj said.

Creating synthetic data that matches the quality of human-created data is a tall task, Raj said. Computing power can be acquired relatively easily, but finding the data to support the project is uncharted territory, he added.

sigh

Garbage in garbage out, even if the garbage is synthetic that doesn't make it not garbage...?

pivot from AI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HldH51YwIBA&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20260810-robot-mall-cops-are-being-replaced-by-humans - podcast

time: 5 min 05 sec

Trust in Zuck’s vision

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX5HjqPDAMU&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20260811-meta-brings-the-superintelligent-ai-future-probably - podcast

time: 5 min 07 sec

“Maybe it’s more important to influence the agent than even the human, because with a human you influence one person,” Mobian cofounder and CEO Jonah Goodhart told Digiday. “When you influence ChatGPT, you’re influencing potentially all of ChatGPT. If ChatGPT changes what it says about [a brand], it’s massive and it’s more than any one campaign could ever do.”

If I was this dumb I surely would be smart enough to keep my mouth shut.

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/50015379

Beyond the fact that "superintelligence" is undefined, he overstates the importance of AI in the scheme of things. Centralization and access may be defining questions for AI policy, but AI policy exists in a global context that invites tougher inquiries.

Here are a few that come to mind: Who will have access to the world's wealth and to what portion of it? Who will have access to water, food, and healthcare? Where will human rights be respected? Where will democracy survive? Where will the rule of law thrive? Where will people have access to affordable justice? What will constrain technology from becoming a tool of tyranny? What will constrain public discourse that sows dissension and promotes harm?

Showcase payments were a response by Google to threat of being forced to pay for news in Australia and the EU, he said. The AI deals are an attempt to “buy some friends” as Google is accused by regulators in the UK and elsewhere of abusing its monopoly power to secure access to content to feed its AI models.

“I think what they were trying to do then, and they’re probably trying to do now, is to get what they need without putting a direct monetary value to the content licensing…

“They’re trying to bundle rights into larger deals because if they had to pay everybody for licensing their content, then that affects their margins in a material way.”

Asked what his advice is for publishers offered a Google AI deal, Kint said: “The results of a handful of publishers doing deals is still going to leave us with what Google is doing right now, which is abusing its market power and destroying the broader open web in the process by not creating real incentives for the content companies that it’s built much of its business off of over the last two decades.”

I have a lot of respect for Bernie Sanders, but he has a trash take on AI.

Headlines like this are exactly what AI companies and techbros want, they want us to be afraid, they want us to be against AI because "it is too powerful", it is an obvious grift, arguably the most basic form of mass advertisement and Bernie falls right for it while amplifying the advertising with his platform.

We should halt AI development because it is economic fraud and environmentally catastrophic, not because it works, it doesn't work for shit given the energy and time required to produce a result worth using.

“Go to your parents and ask them: hey, like every time I get a chance to talk to my boss, ask me if I can have more days off,” he said, per BI. “Ask your parents what they think of that as a career strategy.”

I do not support violence as retribution but I also reallllllllly want to slap this manbaby in the face, do his parents know he is behaving this way?

edit I would also like to note the evidence about employee efficiency being decreased from them being given vacations is simply not there, in the longterm vacations improve the performance of employees, thus taking them away and overworking employees is done out of spiritual and ideological belief not out of any actual pursuit of efficiency.

This ideology is deranged and unsupported by the science, even if you don't care about the dumpster ethics of it, which you also should too.

The Chinese modelers, for lack of unlimited venture capital, have had to find better ways to solve the problems. Their use of different algorithms allows them to deliver nearly similar results for much less money.

There is also a difference in attitude. Where U.S. financiers like Larry Ellison are striving for some god-like general artificial intelligence, the Chinese (and some European) developers and financiers are much more interested in solving real world (industry) problems.

...

An abundance of resources has allowed U.S. model developers to build huge, very capable, but enormously expensive general AI models. Those companies have yet to find use cases that will pay for the cost of running these models.

The US built a massive offroading luxury SUV when what peopld wanted was a scooter...

facepalm

Note: I am under no illusion about China being perfect, amazing or better, but this article makes some good points about the narrowness and groupthink of "Western" AI Companies.

OpenAI PACs in no-holds-barred combat with Anthropic PACs

https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20260807-molly-white-following-the-ai-and-crypto-money-in-us-politics - podcast

time: 32 min 15 sec

It is difficult to fathom how pathetic this is and it shows how these companies primarily rely on fear and FOMO to sell crap.

Come to our training camp! Not a cult!*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbZgAQD61xY&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20260806-ai-doomsday-cults-recruit-social-media-influencers - podcast

time: 9 min 05 sec

content warning: Aella

Shielding Children’s Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net (SCREEN)

the Children’s Health, Advancement, Trust, Boundaries, and Oversight in Technology (CHATBOT)

the Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS)

O.o.o.f.

how to tell if you’re in a bubble economy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usq1Nu5wqAk&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20260805-atomarine-nuclear-powered-ai-data-centres-at-sea - podcast

time: 5 min 14 sec

everyone’s a genius in a bubble

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA9xQT2cPhE&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20260804-aschenbrenner-bet-everything-on-ai-and-lost - podcast

time: 8 min 51 sec

"the worst kind of tech take" is a superlative crater that drops straight into the maw of hell

The CEO, who famously studied philosophy and earned a PhD in social theory, implied in Palantir’s quarterly shareholder letter that these were the kinds of capitalists who gave rise to Marxist socialism.

THATS A REAL THING

this damn country has found their minds and it is a threat to profts

dear Copilot: please send me your stuff. Pass it on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF6LcX7P7KA&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20260803-copilot-prompt-injection-virus-in-your-documents - podcast

time: 5 min 18 sec