A.I. The Future is Terrifying.

First off, let me say that the current batch of Artificial Intelligence models are not that exactly. 

They are a neural network with a large language model that is able to scan the internet at rapid speed and collate the whole of the human experience (on the internet, with all it's flaws).

So you're not getting true intelligence, just through training the model which of it's assumptions are correct you train the neural net to be more correct than not. Eventually.

But it's interesting that such a basic premise: sum up the whole human experience online and offer answers to questions posed based on that gives you such a powerful tool.

However, it's quite clear that where the online information is missing, the various AIs crash and burn.

I'm not telling which area I posed questions to AIs, but I know for a fact that there is scarce information online about it. Every AI failed miserably to respond with any sort of response. 

The fact that people are considering such flawed engines should be involved in informing government how to perform it's task is to me hugely concerning. 

It is in no way equipped to deal with the variations of life, especially the unknowns that require a very alternative thought process to resolve. 

Currently what is known as A.I. relies on the reserve of human knowledge in order to inform any questions put to it. If you start asking about abstract ideas, it gives abstract or vague responses, or almost directly quotes philosophers. It does not decide on it's own what the future may be like, it parrots to majority viewpoint gleaned from the net.

And if this can outthink the thinkers, I hate to think what sort of thinkers we have currently. Pretty shallow ones, it seems.

Disposable Barbeques: COVID Part Deux.

And so it starts. It has been reported that a man in Wales has been fined £200 for using a disposable BBQ. In his own garden. On a table, off the ground. 

He was grassed up by his neighbours. I suspect they are the type of people that gleefully grassed up Anne Frank to the Gestapo.

But here we go again, it's the pandemic part two. More draconian measures. A national message sent to all mobile phones on a system that is designed to inform us of national threats like nuclear attacks. 

A ban on disposable BBQs is overkill. A simple announcement to not use them would be sufficient. 

A ban on using them is just draconian. Especially when you are using them in a manner that isn't a fire risk. Especially when using a different type of BBQ in the same exact circumstances is legal. 

I smell another experiment from the ex-government, now independent Behavioural Insights Team or GCHQ's classified nudge unit the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG). I mean, let's ban an innocuous thing like a BBQ. Yes, there are fires around the country, not all started by disposable BBQs, but ooooh, it's a scary threat we can ramp up and do another one of our experiments on. 

We'll issue fines for people using them even when a normal BBQ used in the same circumstance is not a finable offence. 

I mean, how can a fine be justifiable when the charcoal from a disposable BBQ can be emptied into a non-disposable one and lit and the fine can be avoided. It's the same charcoal, the same location.

But that's the BIT/JTRIG experiment: issue fines for nonsensical scenarios and see if the public comply. Not only that, note how zealous the public are to dob in their neighbours.

And I bet the results will still come back the same as COVID: the working class are less liable to dob in a neighbour, but the middle class will relish the sense of power and pride in a job well done. Especially middle class women.  You know the type, the ones that would have been at the front of the crowds at Nazi rallies shouting "My Honour is Loyalty". 

Anyway, BIT and JTRIG can do one after this week. Thunderstorms and flash floods on the weather menu this week. Should dampen any enthusiasm for using the bloody BBQs anyway. 

Of course the weather would break just before I'm due to go camping with the extended family. 

5 tents including the wife's ex (we hold no grudges). 

Step-daughter gets to try out the canvas mansion I bought her to house her family. Lets hope it's waterproof.

I'm just hoping the weather cools off a bit, and doesn't turn into a humid heatwave.

Is The Disposable Barbeque Really a Desperate Enough Problem to Ban It?

Considering the headlines today, you'd think disposable barbeques are teh spawn of Satan and are quite literally causing hell on Earth.

But are they? Reports say they are the prime reason for wildfires. But I know of at least two major incidents that weren't caused by disposable barbeques (yet the BBC list them on their fire map).

This week's closure of the A31 was due to a fire caused by a van catching alight. 

There A couple of months ago there was a major fire at a festival. Caused not by a BBQ, but by someone lighting a camping cooker in deep brush without tamping down the brush first to create a break. I know, because I know an eyewitness who watched the girl light the cooker and the conflagration start.

But hey, lets blame the disposable BBQ, the devil incarnate. Sadly you won't be able to use one to have a quick BBQ in your garden now. Instead you're going to have to go to the whole rigmarole of buying an actual BBQ, then buying the charcoal, etc.

Of course those of us bemoaning the ban must hush our mouths for the greater good, as with COVID, because the Government has become our parent and tells us not to.

It does make you wonder how many Psychopathic people with Daddy issues there are in the country, that they would allow the Government of all people to become a surrogate parent to them. There must be millions of adults from broken homes just wishing for that parental-style intervention, to set those boundaries for them.

Instead of what they should do and tell the Government to righteously Fuck Off with their Draconian Ban, like we should have during COVID.

How about telling the government to stop borrowing money to pay off it's debts? That's a fucking important message. Nope, BBQs are the most important issue of the moment.

And it's going to rain torrentially within the next 14 days, so brace yourself for flooding. Maybe the government will ban swimming pools and rubber ducks then.