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mark-r-vickers.bsky.social
Not fond of fascism. Interested in AI at work, for both good and ill. Impatient with zealots, but compassion for all is the Buddhist way.
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Happy Easter!

When will most US men achieve general intelligence?

Commies

Large scale job displacements due to AI are likely to occur more slowly than a lot of people talking about AI and work might suspect. Translators were paid more and in more demand a year after GPT-4 than they were the year it launched. Change is likely to come, but the timing is hard to predict.

Headed here?

In his letter to the community explaining his decision to defy the Fed Gov't's demands, Harvard President Alan Garber included a link to the letter laying out those demands. Here it is: www.harvard.edu/research-fun...

No satire needed

Here's Trump saying to Bukele that "homegrown criminals are next" and talking about how El Salvador will need to build "about five more places."

Trump threatens to send US citizens to El Salvador hellholes nypost.com/2025/04/14/u...

Tomorrow’s going to be a good stress test of the press. El Salvadoran President Bukele will visit the White House. At the press availability, every Q ought to be about Abrego Garcia: where is he now? Did US ask you to return him? etc. WH will hate, maybe try to prevent, so all should band together.

The U.S. says it doesn’t have the power to return Abrego Garcia. El Salvador also says it doesn’t have the power to return Abrego Garcia. It’s obvious bullshit and depraved to the core.

Bring back Kilmar Abrego García... NOW. 🧵(1 of 6)

Return Garcia. Full stop. www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...

She Worked in a Harvard Lab to Reverse Aging, Until ICE Jailed Her www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/s...

Booker: "This isn't just about Mr. Garcia. This is about every American understanding that this president is making an assault on the due process rights that are afforded to people in our country ... you cannot disappear people off American streets."

Not even satire. Just straight up reporting

And then there are the pro-measles Nazis...

Make Americans Sheep Again

I do love "coin-operated presidency." Automated corruption with coin-plunging megacorps. It's such a dystopian cliche that it's almost funny. Almost.

Matt Mason was Director of the CMU Robotics Institute, and has worked on manipulation for his whole career. Here he highlights what (I say) is missing in current humanoid training approaches. Dealing with contact. It is tricky and dominates everything in manipulation. mtmason.com/the-unstable...

Stupid Saturday morning meanderings: In the screen play written for our particular timeline, Trump is clearly Kingpin and Musk is Lex Luthor. But who are the heroes playing opposite them?

No do-overs, America. Elections have consequences.

Are there any easily and freely accessible "AI agents" that do something other than research? If so, what are they?

On one hand, I'm glad that there are as many people annoyed with Adobe as I am. On the other hand, I kind of feel sorry for them. They're trying to do AI "the right way" (in terms of copyright) and yet get blasted by artists anyway. BS is becoming a pretty trollish place, the mirror image of X.

NEW VIDEO: The U.S. House of Representatives passed a major voter suppression bill that would disenfranchise millions of eligible voters and badly undermine democracy. Paige and I break it down. youtu.be/XS8aePRgFU4?...

“It’s the most extraordinary attack on voting rights in American history,” Wilentz said. “This is an attempt to destroy American democracy as we know it. www.democracydocket.com/analysis/the...

Wait, are we certain we're less certain under Trump? Why, yes, that may be the ONLY thing we can be certain of these days.

So, what is a 145% tariff on Chinese stuff going to cost us?

The Next Big Lie: "We're gonna cut taxes paid for by the new tariff $ flowing into government coffers. A win-win for everyone." Any tax cuts, which will go mostly to the wealthy, the middle class receives will be far less than the cost of the import taxes. Meanwhile, our ruinous debt will grow.

So far, my "irrational exuberance" comment from yesterday looks good, but time will tell

It always boggles my mind that I, a journalist, am expressly forbidden from trading stocks, but members of Congress, with vastly greater knowledge of market-moving news, are allowed to profit by front-running markets, and so may profit by in essence stealing from the public they represent.

A Florida high school teacher has been fired for using a student's chosen name instead of their deadname, a first under a 2023 law signed by Ron DeSantis. “She is a beloved teacher that changed her students’ lives” said one parent leading a petition with 7,400 signatures demanding her reinstatement

Need a little perspective today: A) Still have an across the board 10% tariff, which will be inflationary and so keep interest rates high. B) We still have massive tariffs on China, the world's largest manufacturer, which will cause even higher inflation as well as shortages and delays.

No, he didn't put the conflagration out. He just lost his nerve enough to pull out the garden hose and the markets were oh-so-grateful. Yay?

Morons who typically slither amid the gross and cruel stupidity of the era agree that the stupidity levels have gotten too thick even for them