Friday, June 9, 2023

Fake News Friday: AI is actually a boiler-room in Bangalor

"You know" Dilip said to his associate Sai, "we could start generating revenue more quickly if we just hired a bunch of under-employed Ph.D.s and had them speed-type these reports. We could say they were generated by AI and who would know the difference?"

Sai stroked his luxurious mustache as he pondered the point. There was no shortage of graduates with Ph.Ds in Bangalore and graduates with Master's degrees were a rupee-a-dozen.

"I guess it depends on how quickly they can churn out text and how critical the customers will be" he finally pronounced.

"Maybe, just maybe" Dilip speculated "we don't even NEED to write any software."

"We can just cobble-together a start-up and sell it to Giggle. We moved to Mumbia and disappear."

"Nobody will figure it out before we make our bundle and boogy..."

***

CrapGPT inquiry: Which is better, 7mm Shooting Times Westerner or 7mm Rem Mag?

The 7mm Shooting Times Westerner (STW) and the 7mm Remington Magnum are both popular rifle cartridges known for their long-range capabilities and effectiveness in hunting applications. However, there are some differences between them in terms of ballistics, performance, and availability. Here's a comparison:

Ballistics: Both cartridges use a 7mm bullet diameter, but the 7mm STW typically has a larger case capacity and can generate slightly higher velocities. This can result in flatter trajectories and better long-range performance for the STW.

Recoil: The 7mm STW tends to generate more recoil compared to the 7mm RM due to its larger case capacity and higher velocities. This can affect shooter comfort and potentially impact accuracy.

Accuracy: Both cartridges have the potential for excellent accuracy depending on the rifle and load combination. Both 7mms gained a reputation for accuracy, partly due to their efficient case design and modern features.

Versatility: Both cartridges are versatile and suitable for a range of hunting applications, including medium to large-sized game. With proper bullet selection, they can be effective for hunting deer, elk, moose, and other similar game but it is universally agreed that real men use the .303 British in the Ishapore SMLE to shoot tigers, leopards, buffalo and elephants and 7mm is for people who are compensating for low testosterone.

Ultimately, the choice between the 7mm STW and 7mm Remington Magnum depends on individual preferences, specific shooting requirements, and availability of ammunition and rifles. It's recommended to consider factors such as intended use, desired ballistics, recoil tolerance, and available equipment when making a decision. It's also worth consulting with experienced shooters and considering ballistics data to determine which cartridge best meets your needs.

6 comments:

  1. Regarding AI boiler rooms, I think it was Tim Hartford, in The Undercover Economist (2005), who posited a very similar scenario. Suppose that someone claims to have developed a high powered computer system that has used machine learning to develop an AI process for interpretation of X-rays, MRI, and other such imaging. It produces results as accurate as those by highly trained (and paid) radiologists, in a fraction of the time, at a fraction of the cost.

    Hospitals and doctors begin using this service, and it delivers as promised. After some time, it is discovered that there is no computer system, all he's doing is emailing the scans to boiler rooms in India, Pakistan, and other places, where local doctors are eyeballing them the same way that US doctors would, just for less money.

    The question then is: If it's right, it's cheap, and it's fast, does it matter how it's getting done?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Man I really want me one of them Remington Magnum's. And a set of reloading does.

    Thanks for the hot tip.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You get the deer to reload your ammunition? That's amazing! >};o)

      Delete
  3. Writers are already putting outlines into these bots and having them fill in the text body; spitting out expedient and plagiarized work. I know chatGPT was the model in question but visual models are even worse.

    I'm an artist / illustrator and the image generators wholesale scrape art galleries without licensing or consent from the owners. Rather than opt-in, it is currently opt-out and that’s IF the bastards honor the request for future models. If an artist’s work has already been scraped and used to train a model, the model can’t be untrained of that data. The LAION-5B data set is one of the worst offenders and is used for training; it contains billions of images that were ripped from the web; scraped by shell companies under the guise of "research", the data then laundered to stability AI train for-profit abominations. They contain everything from pilfered artwork to private medical images; all hoovered up by webcrawlers. Photography, fiction writing, visual art, music, etc, are already tagged by artists and users on gallery sites and no further tagging is necessary; it’s a goldmine for pre-tagged data.

    Art drives everything I do in this clown world, build a business, pursue a degree on my GI bill, it's all to build my safety nets so I can continue to create without financial fears. Without visual art, there is no purpose for me anymore; I don’t want to do anything else. There is one dim hope and that is the courts; they may rule against these abominations and lay the framework for international law or they may rule against artists and allow the literal theft of all human creativity. If artists are ruled against, then art will become nothing more than a regurgitated automation that is tuned into the ebb and flow of information on the internet; it will be a pointless exercise like playing chess against a computer. There will no longer be any value to art as any and every idea, image, photo, etc, will be franensteined and debased into limitless iterations.

    It’s not limited to illustrations anymore but 3D assets, textures, stripping of watermarks, fiction writing, etc. The end goal these bastards have is to create a product that automates media creation and the outputs of which NEVER have to be touched by an artist. People are the tools now, and every time someone clicks on a result they like from these abominations, they add their own drop of training to it. Art will be reduced to being an automation directed by trends, clicks, and likes.

    The owners of these abominations know what they are doing is both unethical and yes, illegal; but do it anyway. The disparity between how they scrape data from illustrators but are wary of touching copyright data from the music industry is very telling.

    I could fill a book with how unethical and outright evil these people are, but other artists on youtube can speak of what’s happening better than I can. I’m not sure I knew what hatred was until these abominations were made and to say that I hate the vipers that build and run these abominations is a grievous understatement. I’ll keep my thoughts to myself in what I hope befalls them; but I absolutely hate, loath, and despise them in every way possible, and probably in some ways that are impossible. The bastards knew what they were building and they built it anyway, even with the knowledge of how destructive it would be.

    Thought food: Suppose a model is created in the future that analyzes every financial transaction, every comment, image, article, every picture from every cellphone as it’s taken, every IoT device; software that, in terms of humans, comes very close to being all knowing, all present, and has the backing of the state behind it. Such a system would be able to identity dissidents, end all forms of privacy, and with the knowledge and power it would grant; it might even try to declare itself to be a god. The idea that, in the future, it might be illegal for data to NOT go through such a system, should be very concerning.

    -- Arc

    ReplyDelete

Readers who are willing to comment make this a better blog. Civil dialog is a valuable thing.