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I wrote the post below for Your Angry Pediatrician after a recent sit down to watch “Goodfellas,” one of my favorite mob movies (the first two Godfathers, and Casino are on the short list as well). Listening to Henry Hill’s monologues, it was too perfect a fit for today’s lunatic, depraved criminality in and around…
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This essay is the fourth in a series that examines and explains the mechanics of AI, the challenges in discussing it with clarity, and the harms it presents. This concluding essay uses recent public communication from an AI researcher to examine in detail how the misuse of language contributes to fear and misunderstanding of AI.…
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This essay is the third in a series exploring issues around AI. The first is a high-level explainer of how AI works; the second about the challenges of accurately discussing AI given the linguistic challenges of describing software without anthropomorphizing. This essay explores the risks of AI, which ones are real, and which ones are self-serving…
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The prior article on AI I posted provides a very high-level look at the mathematics that drives the software in an attempt to demystify the workings with some basic technical detail. The present essay comes at the subject from a different direction, examining the concepts around math and language, and our (human) blind spots wrestling…
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This is the first of four essays attempting to demystify the basic workings of AI programs and explain what we should be concerned about and why. Hopefully we can cut through the sloppy media hype to help people focus on the real risks we face, not apocalyptic fantasies. Bottom line up front: the real problems…
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You’ve heard me vent about disinformation and how science is easily misrepresented and misunderstood, not because it’s hard, but because of the channels we receive information through. We also have a challenge with our own human limits dealing with ambiguity, complexity, and some counterintuitive aspects of reality that science illuminates. Examining and evaluating the “how”…
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This is a difficult time to be a health care professional dedicated to improving our systems. Along with all the problems inherent to the peculiar American way of providing care, we now have an Administration openly promoting health disinformation from the MAHA movement through the actions of the Secretary Health and Human Services, Robert F.…
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Things get messy when fat stacks hit the table This is more a speculative essay than a good old angry rant. You know my opinions about the adverse effects of social media in the hands of the grifting “influencers”. We’ve always had frauds and charlatans peddling snake oil and potions, but the powerful manipulation of…
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I haven’t posted much here lately due to some competing priorities: Your Angry Pediatrician over on Substack; The serialization of Grendels, also over on Substack; Continuing edits to Synderesis, the sequel to Grendels; Continued work on the first draft of Apotheosis, the third book in the Grendels trilogy; Along these lines, I’m making some renovations…
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How worried should we be and why? This is a meandering essay about language, intelligence, and the claims of AI enthusiasts and catastrophists. Although I’m no expert, given how little we really know about human cognition relative to its infinite complexity, I am skeptical about both apocalyptic and utopian predictions AI and our future. What…
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