There's something to be said for the days of the Apple 2E with dual 5 1/4" floppy drives and 128k of memory.  I think AI will take us to new heights in some very positive ways, but beware Skynet!  What a venue for predators and evil.

To the kids out there, go out in the woods and build a fort out of sticks and leaves then camp out in it.  You'll treasure that time the rest of your lives. 

Edited July 16, 2025Jul 16 by tdflightsim

Another funny AI story.  I was browsing Facebook (I know, had to look up an old friend).  There was an article from The Onion, joking about how we spend 97% of our day getting 6 digit codes.  

Below there's an AI prompt "Find out more about this study".  Granted, I clicked and the AI did seem to suggest that this might be satirical, but it was not sure.  It did suggest that The Onion tends to have satirical content.

There were countless examples of it trying to understand things and just not.  

Heaven forbid people start to use this for actual research.  How do you think it will handle actual misinformation?  

https://theonion.com/study-97-of-average-americans-day-spent-retrieving-6-digit-codes/

Maybe tech companies have better AI stashed away from public use, but so far, I am not impressed.  

On 6/19/2025 at 8:43 AM, kerosene31 said:

An AI writer tried to create a list of books to read over the summer.  A fairly simple thing to write I would think?  Not exactly deep journalism, just list some popular books.

The AI picked 100% real authors, but 66% of the book titles were hallucinated.  

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/05/chicago-sun-times-prints-summer-reading-list-full-of-fake-books/

Darn!!  Did you read that book list?  There are a few fake titles on there I'd love to read! 😄  It's not just the titles, the published list gives short blurbs on what the book is about, too.

On 6/19/2025 at 8:43 AM, kerosene31 said:

Now, will AI improve?  Of course, but this "AI will steal jobs in the next year" seems like a bit of a stretch, in my opinion

Now for the real question:  How many of those articles were written by AI?  😄 

That book list, though.  Maybe the AI was using quantum computing and instead of hallucinating it was reaching into alternate universe Earths where these titles actually exist.  Do you think we could convince it to retrieve the actual books?  I'm not sure how we could get royalties back to the original actual author, though.  Does bitcoin transfer across universes?

Hook

PS.  Note:  to make it easier, only the last five books on that list are real.

H.

Edited July 17, 2025Jul 17 by LHookins

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/tsmc-to-build-over-15-new-fabs-in-the-coming-years-as-quarterly-sales-hit-usd30-billion-on-ai-demand

4 hours ago, G-RFRY said:

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/tsmc-to-build-over-15-new-fabs-in-the-coming-years-as-quarterly-sales-hit-usd30-billion-on-ai-demand

TSMC is stupid to build more plants in Taiwan, as within the next 10 years they will either be taken over by the CCP, or Taiwan will have to destroy them to deny the CCP's possession of them.

Dave

2 hours ago, dave2013 said:

TSMC is stupid to build more plants in Taiwan, as within the next 10 years they will either be taken over by the CCP, or Taiwan will have to destroy them to deny the CCP's possession of them.

One of the reasons we were trying to get them over here......

On 7/18/2025 at 8:59 AM, dave2013 said:

TSMC is stupid to build more plants in Taiwan, as within the next 10 years they will either be taken over by the CCP, or Taiwan will have to destroy them to deny the CCP's possession of them.

Dave

There's another way of looking at it. It's Taiwan's insurance to make sure the West (specifically the US) pay attention to them so that it is not taken over by China.

2 hours ago, bofhlusr said:

There's another way of looking at it. It's Taiwan's insurance to make sure the West (specifically the US) pay attention to them so that it is not taken over by China.

True, but one can also see it as them making themselves an even more desirable conquest, as whoever takes over Taiwan will control over half of the world's electronics hardware production.

Unfortunately, I don't think we can stop a takeover of Taiwan by their neighbor, which has vast resources, the second largest military, and is only 100 miles away.  If we try, which it looks like we might, I fear we may not succeed, and the war will hurt us as well.

The best thing we can do is try to get as much of that production as possible moved elsewhere.

Dave

 

Chip manufacturing is being built in the US since 2020, the problem is it takes many, many years and billions of dollars to build these manufacturing plants.  Some of them should be coming online as early as this year.  

(It is hard to find good info on this, since our media hides any good news)

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/13/inside-tsmcs-new-chip-fab-where-apple-will-make-chips-in-the-us-.html

On 7/16/2025 at 4:58 PM, kerosene31 said:

Quick update on my phone drama.  I was finally able to get some control over my phone back from AI.  I tried searching google, but no luck, as that's all AI, and AI has no idea that I don't want AI on my phone.  

I spent two hours randomly in settings.  I finally figured out that if I swipe down, then swipe left, I can get my old buttons.  Inside there was a setting that I could finally get them back!  

My point is: AI is supposed to replace us in our jobs?  The technology is nowhere near being ready (or at least the parts of it we see).  Maybe there's some high end AI that businesses keep to themselves that actually does something useful?

 

Sorry, just for my own culture: which phone do you have ?

I'm currently using a regular Android smartphone from Samsung (A52) and didn't get any AI update, but I guess other makers or higher-end smartphones might be the target ?

Here’s an interesting take on the danger of AI:
 

A Prominent OpenAI Investor Appears to Be Suffering a ChatGPT-Related Mental Health Crisis, His Peers Say "I find it kind of disturbing even to watch it."

AI therapy bots fuel delusions and give dangerous advice, Stanford study finds

Edited July 21, 2025Jul 21 by Mike A
Add link

I don't see the issue.

 

 

55 minutes ago, Mike A said:

Here’s an interesting take on the danger of AI:

A quote from the first link:

Quote

As numerous psychiatrists have told us, the mental health issues suffered by ChatGPT users likely have to do with AI's tendency to affirm users' beliefs, even when they start to sound increasingly unbalanced in a way that would make human friends or loved ones deeply concerned.

Ouch.

Hook

1 hour ago, Mike A said:

AI therapy bots fuel delusions and give dangerous advice, Stanford study finds

Go check this one out.  You can ignore the original article and just read the comments if you wish.  The comments are much better than the original article.

One commenter said that AI chatbots are "a dolled up autocorrect."  This seems accurate.

Hook

Edited July 21, 2025Jul 21 by LHookins

Heh!!

Quote

For better or worse, I find my best non-professional option for therapeutic guidance to be my dog.

He listens, lets him rub his head and belly, never tells me to do anything stupid, declines to co-sign my BS, and is effusively happy to see me, even if my absence was only to take out the trash. He has never complained about my cooking, and sometimes even cleans up things I drop on the kitchen floor without me asking.

It may help that I know his only agenda is food and body warmth.

... from the comments in the second link.

Hook

Edited July 21, 2025Jul 21 by LHookins