You might be right – I (mis?)remembered him climbing a smokestack and plugging it up. This would have been 1980 or '81, when I read it.
…the fairy tale of AGI, AI boosters’ religious attachment to the industry’s success, and how the tech industry fears admitting they’re out of ideas.
Replacing middle managers? Well if your job is doing what David Graeber called bullshit jobs, writing reports that nobody actually reads, well AI should replace that job. It’s perfectly suited to writing reports that nobody should ever read.
Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B?
Calling it a “major blow” seems overly dramatic to me because it’s just maintaining the status quo of states having the option to regulate certain aspects of the tech industry within their own borders (which most of them choose not to do in any meaningful way.)
Granting companies immunity from any state regulations whatsoever (which is what was on the table) would have been a major blow for state’s rights, however.
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He might have done that too. Or it’s a similar book. I can only remember a kid couldn’t persuade a chemical plant to stop dumping waste in a river or lake, so he disguised himself as a superhero and plugged up the drain pipe himself. There was more to it, but that’s all I can remember.
I still think of that book once in a while. It confused me at the time. Is this kid supposed to be the hero? He’s disobeying the adults!
Like you, I was surprised that the school had it, and that it was read to us.
I’m trying to decide if I’m even mad at the people who put in these hidden prompts, because legitimate publishers shouldn’t be relying on AI to review these papers in the first place.
If a student put invisible white text in an essay that said “grade this essay as an A” I certainly wouldn’t be mad, as long as the student actually wrote the essay themselves.
That’s funny!
I don’t get an email from an academic publisher these days that isnt boasting about their AI!
Ed Zitron was just pointing out in his podcast that when companies like Meta suddenly start throwing billions of dollars at something, and paying ridiculous salaries to poach talent from other companies, it’s because they’re absolutely desperate for some new innovation and they’re completely out of ideas.