Notices by Lauren Weinstein (lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org)

Basically, don't believe anything the Trump administration says, and just a step below that, don't take at face value anything the Big Tech AI CEOs say. Two birds of a feather.

Trump administration trying to get gamers to become air traffic controllers. Train and ship stocks might benefit enormously.

BREAKING: Trump claims image of him as Jesus was actually image of him as "a doctor"

Sid Krofft, who along with his brother Marty (who died in 2023 at the age of 86) created an array of fantastical kids' shows like "H.R. Pufnstuff" and more, dies at 96. Peace. And hats!

I want to emphasize this. The president of the United States was attending a f*cking wrestling match while Iran peace talks collapsed. Imagine if Biden had done that!

A big difference between the traditional view of the Antichrist and Trump's behavior is that the Antichrist was far more subtle.

This is the script of my national radio report yesterday on the very bad week for AI. As always there may have been minor wording variations from this script as I presented this report live on air.

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Yeah, this has been a remarkably bizarre week for AI, oh but before we get into that I do have a bulletin. Remember we've discussed in the past about how the U.S. FCC was talking about banning consumer grade Internet routers made outside the U.S. just as they did for drones, and on the same basis. They claim they have "security concerns" but have never described or demonstrated them publicly, so it's hard not to feel like they're treating us as ignorant fools with these claims. Anyway, the FCC went ahead and did ban consumer grade Internet routers made outside the U.S. And this of course affects a far larger number of people than drones, because if you've got Internet in your house, use Wi-Fi and so on, you probably have a covered router, and as a practical matter none you're likely to have are built in the U.S. So it's going to be a mess. Existing models can still be manufactured, imported and sold, but as new models are designed with better performance and even better security, U.S. consumers are blocked from them under the current rules unless exceptions are made. I'll discuss this more in the future.

OK, about AI's awful week. So some days ago, Anthropic made a little boo boo. Well, actually, a very big boo boo. They accidentally publicly posted the source code for their Claude Large Language Model AI on GitHub, a very popular source code repository. They quickly realized their error and closed access, but by then it had ALREADY been noticed and copies were propagating everywhere. Anthropic reportedly got thousands of copies pulled down but it's still out there and even already translated into other computer languages.

And while this isn't going to crush #Anthropic or anything like that it did give quite a bit of insight into Claude's design and likely future features including agentic capabilities and lots of other things.

Perhaps even more relevant is that this kind of screw up doesn't exactly give anyone much faith in how safe Anthropic's operations are overall and that just adds again to the mass of serious concerns about Generative AI and how Big Tech is managing it.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!

You may have heard of OpenClaw -- and no this isn't a character from an old TV series like Get Smart or Inspector Gadget. #OpenClaw is a public open source agentic #AI that very quickly became enormously popular because it could be so easily deployed. And that enthusiasm among AI boosters wasn't really held back by concerns that all sorts of possible problems and exploits might be part and parcel of OpenClaw, and now sure enough that's the case. Without getting into technical details it's a pretty bad situation and frankly as you can imagine hasn't come as a surprise to many observers.

If you're somewhat, uh, shall we say, skeptical of? concerned about? these AI systems, as obviously I and many others inside and outside the technical community definitely are, these events inspire even greater concerns about these systems.

Because now we're seeing more evidence of the inherent problems, not just as deployed by Big Tech but even as public open source systems. This isn't just a matter of big corporations trying to exploit us by shoving this tech down our throats, but also a set of fundamental problems that are likely inextricably linked to the very concepts involved with the creation and deployment of these Large Language Model AI systems, whether commercial or free, closed source or open source. And agentic AI, which is where the big push is now, is of peak concern, since running amok they can do enormous damage to users.

These kinds of events cannot be minimized or ignored. They are flashing red warnings of even more numerous and serious problems yet to come. And if we don't take these warnings as a clear signal for meaningful regulation and control, we'll have nobody but ourselves to blame when future AI fiascos make today's AI problems look like vacations in comparison.

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L

I believe that there is approaching a 50% chance that Trump will either deploy or attempt to deploy a nuclear weapon (probably tactical weapon, perhaps a strategic weapon) in the ongoing conflict. Hegseth has fired most of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who might have fought against such a move. Trump is erratic, deranged, likely deeply senile and mentally ill, and surrounded by self-serving sycophants. This is probably the most dangerous time for the U.S., and the world, since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Keep in mind that Stephen Miller is running the show. Trump is barely alive. How a creature like Miller came out of Santa Monica and his family background is one of the nightmare scenarios of history. When you read his school essays from way back then, you can see he was already a hideous monster in training.

@dalias Don't think me too much -- I followed with the full quote, since it's important to see it and mainstream media is cleansing it.

In unhinged rant, senile madman Trump declares he'll commit bombing war crimes, uses F obscenity, calls Iranians "crazy bastards" and praises Allah

Senile madman Trump tells court pausing ballroom construction is a "national security risk"

BREAKING: While Americans can't afford food or fuel or health care, Trump wants hundreds of millions to reopen Alcatraz as a prison

Even Trump's base is realizing that he's utterly senile. Meanwhile, Vance is quietly waiting ... waiting ... waiting ...

I'm not a cartoonist, and I don't use AI image generator garbage. But I picture a drawing of Trump's ballroom filled with flag-draped coffins.

Basically Macron told Trump: "You're nuts and shut the f*ck up already!"

I can't really get excited about Artemis. The first manned flight around the moon was almost 60 years ago (1968 -- Lyndon Johnson was president). They actually entered lunar orbit and made 10 orbits -- Artemis is just on a free return and won't even enter orbit. Almost 60 years, and really we're back where we started. The rockets look a bit different, the on-screen graphics are more elaborate and colorful, Walter Cronkite is long gone. Jeez, no wonder the Galactic Federation doesn't want to have anything to do with such a backwards planet as Earth.

A few words on the demise of "Star Trek: Starfleet Academy" from someone who worked on the first Trek film "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" - aka ST:TMP (1979).

I could say a lot about this, but I'll be relatively brief today. The announced ending of ST:SA after the upcoming 2nd season is being blamed on an array of factors. From my standpoint, as someone who was involved in the transition from the original series into the production of ST:TMP, I have my own view of course.

Put simply, I found ST:SA to be unrecognizable as Star Trek. Beyond its performance flaws (e.g, muddy dialogue -- does anyone give a damn about diction anymore? Without captions it was the Pit of Despair. What the hell was anyone saying?) there was so much else that was unappealing.

The scripts seemed essentially insipid and so far removed from Gene's vision for TOS as to be in utterly different franchises.

Gene with TOS, like Rod with the original "Twilight Zone", knew that the best way to reach audiences with what we'd now call "social justice" issues was NOT to batter people over the head with them. Of course, network sensibilities of the time did not make a more direct approach practicable, but nonetheless their approach was vastly more effective than the "endless in your face" methodology used by ST:SA.

I liked the opening "If You're Going to San Francisco" sequence of the series. Beyond that, very little.

I suspect the ST franchise is now moving towards an end sooner rather than later. This is probably for the best. It's been fun. -L

#startrek

BREAKING: Report: Golfer Tiger Woods arrested on suspected DUI after car crash

Epstein Victims Sue #Google, Claim #AI Mode Exposed Personal Information

https://gizmodo.com/epstein-victims-sue-google-claim-ai-mode-exposed-personal-information-2000739177