"The AI Big Bang" a/k/a The fall and rise of Sam Altman ... 26Nov23 TL;DR and podcast

 Last update: Sunday 11/26/23 

Welcome to our TL;DR summary of and podcast about the past week's top two AI stories on our "Useful AI News" page ...

(1) What happened? (2) Why did it happen?

... Click the "start" button in the audio control (below) to hear the podcast. 

 

TL;DR link ➡ HERE

Developing reliable specialized large language models (LLMs) for the multi billion dollar online/hybrid education market

Last update: Friday 5/12/23 

Why did OpenAI release ChatGPT with the GPT-3.5 model, then with GPT-4, even though both models were prone to factual errors, bias, and "hallucinations". Open AI claimed that it did so, even at the risk of being banned in some countries (e.g., Italy temporarily), in order to learn from widespread user experience with the flawed models. 

Ezra Klein: the public intellectual as AI critic

Last update: Sunday 4/23/23

 

According to Wikipedia, "The term public intellectual "describes the intellectual participating in the public-affairs discourse of society, in addition to an academic career." The editor of this blog frequently cites Wikipedia definitions of important concepts, but he was surprised and disappointed by the narrow academic focus of its definition in this case. Ezra Klein is not a tenured professor in a university and does not have a PhD, the union card usually required for admission to tenure. But neither did Walter Lippmann, one of this nation's first and most eminent public intellectuals 

"Pandemic Survivor" -- Does anybody still watch that show?

Last update: Tuesday 7/26/22 

Is that show still on? Does anybody really watch it anymore? I haven't watched since last Christmas. Who are the main characters now? Remember way back in 2020 when  "Masks" and "Other Mitigations" were the good guys and we all tuned in every week to watch them flatten the curves?... "Masks" and "Other Mitigations" were pushed out in early 2021 by "Vaccines" and "Herd Immunity". When ratings began to sag, CDC Productions replaced them with bad guys, "Delta" and "Breakthroughs". Nobody like them, so CDC tried to bring back "Masks"and "Other Mitigations", which didn't work out. After Christmas they replaced "Delta" with "Omicron". He was supposed to be a good guy because he was less lethal than Delta, yet somehow he killed more people. I remember feeling confused and bored and suddenly noticed that I had gained 15 pounds from watching too much TV; so I decided to go out more and get more exercise and fresh air. That's when I learned that Netflix announced that it would cancel its contract with CDC Productions before the fall 2022 season began. Meanwhile, is anybody still watching the show?

Biden says Americans should decide for themselves whether to wear masks or not

Last update: Wednesday 4/20/22 

Here's the first paragraph of an article in the NY Times on 4/19/22. "President Biden said on Tuesday that Americans should decide for themselves whether to wear masks, undercutting efforts by his administration to urge Americans to keep wearing face coverings on airplanes, trains and buses even after a federal judge struck down a nationwide mask mandate on public transport."