It's not, admittedly, an hilarious pun, either, but it is a play on words. I'm a little stuck trying to think what the "H" could be. "Harmful"? "Helpful"? Aha! "Hostile"! Thus "Hostile Artificial Intelligence" but NOT in the way you're thinking of. Art!
I can pretty much guarantee that this is the kind of HAI you were imagining, isn't it? The Big Bad Supercomputer; in the example of HAL 9000 above, he (none of that political correctness here, ta very much) is in total control of the 'Discovery' spaceship, which is bad news for the crew. If you want a larger-scale example, take "Person Of Interest", where the team's own AI, 'The Machine', is opposed by a very definitely HAI, 'Samaritan'. Art!
Unusually for a television series, this one got better as it went on. At one point The Machine is attempting to defeat Samaritan in a sand-box duel, and you can see the number of failed attempts ratchet up into the thousands.
ANYWAY that's not what this Intro is about, typically. Let us abruptly change track and invoke the spirit of the futurologist, who also happened to be a sci-fi author, Philip Kendred Dick. Art!
I've not seen this image before, it must be relatively new.
“There will come a time when it isn't 'They're spying on me through my phone' anymore. Eventually, it will be 'My phone is spying on me'.”
Ol' Phil also reckoned that the robot revolution wouldn't come with a ten-ton metal monster stamping it's way down Main Street, en route to City Hall (don't jib, he was South Canadian using South Canadian terms). Rather, it would be when you turned on your toaster of a morning and were told by it "Okay, this is how it's going to be -". In the year 2024 you might call it the death of a million cuts, as intrusive AI gets it's metaphorical fingers into everything. Art!
 |
| The shape of things to come |
Let us abruptly change tack again. Don't complain, it's good mental exercise and once again whose blog is it? Art!
You may recognise this chap as Joe Blogs, whose Youtube channel is - you may be ahead of me here - "Joe Blogs". Joe's on holiday in Spain at present, and has changed his format from a studio broadcast to doing a selfie on the beach. Very early in the morning so there's nobody about to interfere.
Conrad is also convinced that the cheerier Joe is with his opening greeting, the worse it is going to be for whomsoever is under the microscope. Like Modern-day Mordor in this vlog.
You see, the particular HAI in this instance is Ukrainian, and it's going to be applied to their drone technology. I have a saying, which I ought to patent, that the Ukrainians are brave, clever and good at improvising. Art!
You see, the particular HAI in this instance is Ukrainian, and it's going to be applied to their drone technology. I have a saying, which I ought to patent, that the Ukrainians are brave, clever and good at improvising. Art!
That image comes from "The Economist" and is 16 months old. Things have moved on apace to the next level. Joe listed 5 factors that an AI-driven drone attack brings.
1) Currently drones have a human operator, which is where the term "First Person View" or FPV comes from. This means operators have to be close to the borders, making them potentially vulnerable. AI would eliminate the need for a pilot. Art!
2) The strike rate of an FPV drone is only about 30% at present. Joe stated, without giving a source, that an AI-driven drone would boost this to 80%. If you eliminate human error with a much less fallible computer, it's reasonable to expect an increase in success rates. This one bears a bit of digging.
3) Going to an AI model would entirely eliminate the effect of electronic warfare and jamming, as the drones would be entirely self-sufficient and self-contained.
4) It would be possible for a loitering drone to go from reconnaissance to attack straight away, instead of requiring another drone to be deployed.
5) Drone swarms! This is possibly the thing that the Ruffians fear the most, rightly so. At the moment, having a swarm of 100 FPV drones means having 100 pilots, which is difficult to manage logistically alone, never mind avoiding collisions when flight patterns are unpredictable. With AI drones, this would be a cinch, and the prospect of having 100 drones attacking a refinery must have the more introspective Ruffian commanders reaching for the vodka bottle. Art!
It gets worse, if that's possible, since the entire EU is committed to getting ONE MILLION drones for Ukraine this year, and the prospect of 1,000,000 drones attacking Ruffian infrastructure must have the more introspective Ruffian politicians reaching for the vodka bottle.
Athabasca Tar Sands
We've covered this on the blog previously, but it was three years ago and concentrated more on the tailing ponds associated with the industry there, rather than the actual nature of the sands themselves. Art!
These sands are located in the north-west of British America, not the north-east as I incorrectly stated in 2021. The extraction of bitumen from these deposits is a major and lucrative industry, with the polar opposites of those who like the environment and those who like money coming into conflict about it. Art!
 |
| The sands, with puny truck for scale |
Now, why are we discussing bitumen extraction by the Canuckistanians?
No idea, it just popped up in my mind.
Deploy The Roy
Roy Cross, that is, the Airfix resident artist whose job it was to jazz up the boring old boxes that the plastic kits were sold in, thus to entice pocket money out of men's pockets. Art!
That's the original artwork. This is a Martin B-26 Marauder, of Second Unpleasantness vintage. Art!
Conrad did a bit of digging and found out that the aircraft depicted was a real B-26, from the 452nd Bombardment Squadron of the 322nd Bombardment Group. It flew 100 combat missions, never came back with it's bombs, never suffered engine damage or failure and none of the 166 crew who flew in her were so much as scratched. A fortunate bird indeed! Art?
The lucky lady was retired after that 100th mission, sent back to South Canada and raised money by promoting War Bonds.
We've Not Featured The Farting Felon For A While
Mostly out of good taste. The conspiracy theories about him being 'shot' - i.e. having his ear grazed - are in full excremental flow, with there now being three shooters. I confidently predict that the loonwaffles will reveal that one was Prez Zelensky and another was Joe Biden.
ANYWAY I noticed this on a browser news website. Art!
Pumpkinhead lost a case, then lost the appeal, and then ignored the order to pay up £300,000 back in March. One has to ask how rich he really is if he can't spare a fraction of what he's supposedly worth. Or - shock horror! - could he perhaps not be as wealthy as he claims? If he doesn't pay up he faces enforcement action should he ever visit This Sceptred Isle. Tee hee!
Finally -
Your Humble Scribe is continually looking out of the window whilst typing these words of wit, wisdom, wonder and whimsy, because although it's stiflingly hot, it's also completely overcast. If I take my constitutional stroll into Lesser Sodom shortly, do I take a coat? because I will melt if so. On the other hand if I don't it is guaranteed to rain heavily. The epitomy of our Great British Summer.
O hang on a moment - it's now up to FOUR shooters. Art!
I haven't seen raw stupidity like this loose in the wild since the heyday of the Truth Movement after 9/11. I'm going to need that gin later, conspiranoid loonwaffles always bring out the snifters with me. Plus I still have a lime and lemon to dice. Win win!
No comments:
Post a Comment