Sunday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Sunday, June 29, 2025
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43 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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Here is an interesting explanation of why generative AI comes up with such nonsensical claims, bogus legal citations etc.
“Link”
@charontwo: I agree with what Marcus is saying. Pretty much completely. In fact, that has been my thought, but I haven’t attempted to try to explain this (and even what a model is) to people, since it seems daunting. (And I’m not actually an AI guy, I’ve just listened to a lot of lectures by AI guys.)
Better get ready…
Nearly a trillion dollar cut to Medicaid.
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/medicaid-cuts-republicans-severing-lifeline-north-carolina
People will die. Hospitals will close. More people will die. Billionaires will get tax cuts and deficit will go up. And the poor will be blamed.
Are we REALLY sure that we were the country that won the space race through superior education and technology?
We have the data, hundreds of years worth. We know the real consequences on a grand scale.
This Administration’s selection of a delusional RFK Jr to wreak havoc on our health system, and a compliant Republican Party feeding off the support of conspiracy theory activists who are gaining traction in the national consciousness, is a measure of the degree that the Rightwing will inflict real human harm in pursuit of power. They are not fit to lead this nation.
Consciousness, Covid, and the rise of an American death cult – PMC
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8935966/#:~:text=Education%20and%20political%20affiliation,They%20found%3A
I’m considering Libro.fm to replace Audible.
I’m just not sure about the financial aspects. Both Libro and Audible give you a monthly credit, good for any book in the catalogue*, with a paid subscription at almost the same price ($14.95 at Audible, $14.99 at Libro). This makes sense only if most of the books you want cost as much or more than the monthly membership fee. If the books are cheaper, you’re wasting money using a credit, right?
This was the norm at Audible for most of the time since I first subscribed around August 2012, especially for long listens like the various Great Courses lecture series I’ve accumulated over the years.
The other thing is there’s a member price per book and a general public one. Say a book costs the public $30, but members $20 (or one credit) This was a good deal if you wanted additional books in a given month, or you could buy extra credits.
Lately, though, most books I’m interested in have a member price slightly below $14.95. This makes using a credit on them a waste. On the other hand, not using your credits is a different form of waste. So say there’s a book that sells for $25 to the public, but for $14 for members. Should you waste $0.95 and use a credit, or pay $14 and save the credit for later?
Thing is if most books I want cost less than a credit, and I pay money for each of them, then I’m effectively paying $28.95 for every such book, as the credits don’t get used.
In Audible credits expire after a year. So I can hold on to them to use in more expensive books later, if any turn up. Or I can use them in the frequent 2-for-1 credit sales. These consist of a limited number of books (say maybe 75 per genre), and you can pick any two and pay one credit.
The latter is a good deal, but often the books listed are not ones I’m interested in**. Some are, and I’ve gotten several great books I’d no idea even existed until I saw them listed on a sale.
So, like most things in life, it’s complicated… And I havent brought up Everand, which sometimes does have the books I want and has an entirely different pricing model.
*Libro has some titles not available to purchase by credit, for reasons that re not quite clear to me.
**At that, Audible stopped listing bios and self-help in the non-fiction category. I’ve limited interest in biography, and zero for self-help.
@Rob1: A partisan screed published on a government medical site. No wonder they lost the trust of half the country.
I read that the GOP is pushing Texas and Ohio to shore up their gerrymandering because of loss of support.
If sanity ever returns to America, we need to stack SCOTUS with anti-imperialists, overturn Citizens United, outlaw partisan gerrymandering and figure out a way to deal with disinformation and the first amendment. I hope beyond hope we get the chance.
@Fortune: Its clearly partisan oriented, but the numbers are largely correct. Pretty much every other first world country with a quality medical system provides universal care and its much cheaper than our care. In a few specific areas our quality is probably a bit better, but only if you have health insurance, which is why on overall quality measures we generally come off as pretty mediocre. Note when I say less it’s usually a lot less. Conservatives often like to respond with things like wait times while ignoring that the shortest wait times are actually in govt run systems in other countries, that wait times int he US are generally just better for specialist care (the expensive kinds) and that many countries consciously accept longer wait times for elective care so that they spend 30%-50% less than we do in the US. Of note, in almost every survey the people in the countries with the kind of nationalized care conservatives like to criticize show that people are happier with their care than are people in the US.
AS to covid, it’s been common knowledge for quite a while that red states overall had much higher death rates from covid than blue states. That comes from a combo of ignoring safety measures and not getting vaccinated. Some of that was conscious policy in an attempt to have a better economic outcome (economic outcomes were slightly better in some blue states) but most of it, like with vaccines, was just anti-vax beliefs.
Steve
@Fortune:
Tell us you don’t understand the purpose of the NLM (the L stands for library… as in an archive of publications) and NIH website or bothered to read the first thing on the page without telling us.
From the literal top of the page:
@Fortune:
Would you prefer to be described as vapid or vacuous? They are both accurate, but the least I can do is ask for your preferred descriptor.
You chose to respond to a long piece with quite a bit of data, not by challenging the statistical method used nor a criticism with the interpretation of the data, but with an accusation of bias.
In doing so, you provide evidence for one of the key points in the piece. (See the first chart.)
On top of that, you did it in the most cowardly manner possible—you have a pattern of couching your criticism as a comment about trust of government institutions.
Inducing “half the country” to perform autolobotomy is a far more effective means of control than force.
Trump approval tracker (The Economist)
Trump Approval Falls to Second-Term Low (Newsweek)
Trump approval rating: New poll released after Iran strikes (USA Today)
@DK:
Only one poll number matters: the steady 40-45% that back Trump. The polls won’t mean anything until that number drops. When we get from low forties to high 30’s, that will be progress. Get his approval down to say, 36% or so, and GOP pols may evolve into vertebrates.
@Fortune:
Really, we lost half the country? And yet our numbers are still better than yours. And if another pandemic comes along, our numbers will be better still. Death cults tend to be self-limiting.
@Liberal Capitalist: “Some of you will die, but that’s a price I’m willing to pay.”
@Michael Reynolds:
Wasn’t Trump’s poll number at 36% favorable at this point in his first term?
@Michael Reynolds:
I dunno, Catholicism still exists despite at least one extended period of institutional dominance by a death cult.
Then again, maybe that kind of proves your point.
@charontwo: I don’t use AI, except as it’s getting built into certain things, like Google search results. I haven’t paid much attention to it. I can hardly claim any expertise. But they are not, by any stretch, reasoning. Brad DeLong described LLMs as myna birds with huge memories. If we need a human analogy, it’s System 1, intuitive. thinking. Words are associated with other words, which are associated with other words, according to whatever material it’s been “taught” with. The words don’t mean anything to them in a System 2, rational, sense. They copy phrases saying first is better than second, so they’re prone to saying one is bigger than two. I don’t understand why anyone expects better of them. Is it just the word “intelligent”.
The good news is that Artificial Intelligence is in no way intelligent. (Although what happens as a huge collection of “neurons” evolves is another question.) The bad news is a lot of jobs don’t require much intelligence.
Music composer Lalo Schifrin has passed away at age 93. Schifrin was nominated for an Academy Award 6 times but he is best remembered for composing the score for the Mission Impossible television series. RIP.
@Michael Reynolds:
This week’s abrupt resignations of Don Bacon and Tom Thillis indicate the increasing unpopularity of Trump and his agenda of incompetence, extremism, and corruption do matter. MAGA really is determined to make life more dangerous, chaotic, and expensive for everyone — starting with healthcare, housing, food, and transportation costs. Not good.
Republicans promised to lower prices, deport criminals, and end the wars. Not raise inflation with tarrifs, bomb the Middle East, betray veterans, install drunks and druggies in government, deploy masked secret police against workers and US citizens, destroy Medicaid and Medicare, and let Putin run amock.
@gVOR10:
Serendipitously I wandered from here to Balloon Juice for a myna bird enjoying no hookers, just blow. “Bye bye”.
I am not an engineer, a developer, or a neuroscientist, so I’m happy to be informed by those who have the relevant expertise.
My suspicion:
From a practical perspective, transistor-based hardware cannot scale to the level of biology. A transistor cannot model a neuron with the resolution necessary to model the functions of an axon. And I don’t think increasing transistor-count per node can get there without exceeding the power budget. ETA: or generating too much heat.
I’m not sure that quantum computing fixes that issue either.
Well, thank God we’re not discussing toilet paper.
@Rob1:
The more anti-vaxers there are, the less anti-vaxers there are.
A few days ago LGM noted the passing of Bill Moyers.
@Mister Bluster: Does anyone know if this seat is “safe?” Quitting with the risk of losing the seat sounds out of the norm for what little I know about him. I know that he presents as a “moderate/centrist/good” Republican, but that, to me anyway, just means that he doesn’t say the important stuff out loud but just uses his dog whistle instead.
So, now the IAEA is disparaging the brave USAF pilots who totally obliterated Iran’s enrichment capability.
Meanwhile the nazi in chief is still trying to do self driving on the cheap.
@dazedandconfused:
I wish that were true.
Most antivaxxers probably got all the recommended childhood vaccinations growing up. True, dangerous diseases like the trump virus may affect them more, but the death rate for it was rather low. Lots of people died in the trump pandemic due to the effingly large number of infections, due to mismanagement of the risks presented by the pandemic.
Whether the children of antivaxxers grow up, it at all, to be antivaxxers themselves, is something I’ve no data on.
@Mister Bluster:
This, possibly can be a Dem pickup.
@gVOR10: From your link:
Me, too. 🙁
@CSK:
It’s a bit of a shit topic.
😉
@dazedandconfused: From your lips (or pixels in this case) to God’s ears. Unfortunately, there is a saying (that I’m undoubtedly misquoting) that goes “God protects babes, fools, and American Conservatives.” (Probably because they have so much in common.)
@dazedandconfused:
Which would be fine, apart from the problems of vaccination failure and “waning”, which is why a high vax rate is needed to achieve group immunity by breaking transmission chains.
@JohnSF:
Speaking of shit topics, for some reason I was thinking today of the ghastly old bitch who taught my first grade class. (That would be age 6-7, for you Brits.) For some reason she really hated me, and I was, at that age, a very polite, well-behaved child. When I had chicken pox, my mother kept me out of school an extra day. My greeting from Mrs. Flynn upon returning to class? “Only one week allowed for chicken pox, Susan.” Did she seriously think I kept myself out of school??? Another time the two boys sitting next to me got a little giggly over something, and Mrs. Flynn ordered all three of us to stand with our backs against the wall. “Now–hang your heads in shame!” All the while I was wondering what I had done, other than sit quietly?
No wonder I hated school, a place where stupid people made you do stupid things for no reason.
@Kathy: From the self driving on the cheap link…
I can understand having a limited pilot, but the hype for this doesn’t match the fizzle. So much for, “Looks like rain–let’s get a cab.” And the ride cost seems to reflect some unseriousness in this venture.
James Webb space telescope bags the first ever image of an ex0planet.
@DK: The Trump administration failed the day he imposed Tariffs and gave DOGE free reign to indiscriminately fire VA employees and other essential workers like Nuclear safety and FAA worker.
This affected millions of white men, who happen to largely support the GOP and/or Trump. The leaves of this felled tree take time to fully brown–but it is indeed effectively dead.
Most white men still can prioritize their own livelihoods over Trump’s but there are a noisy few, like our resident Apes Connor and Fortune, who will remain in the MAGA GloryHole box because being dominated is their lot in life.
We are 2-3 crisis’ away from sub 40 approval which I anticipate by this Fall.
This week came what is to me the most disturbing report yet from Gaza.
WTF is going on in there? Doctors Without Borders isn’t generally known for spreading BS. A disturbing report:
….
The international charity Doctors Without Borders added its voice on Friday to the list of non-governmental organizations decrying the GHF, calling the group a “Israeli-U.S. proxy” and a “slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid.”
“The four distribution sites, all located in areas under the full control of Israeli forces after people had been forcibly displaced from there, are the size of football fields surrounded by watch points, mounds of earth and barbed wire. The fenced entrance gives only one access point in or out,” MSF emergency coordinator in Gaza, Aitor Zabalgogeazkoa, said in the statement. “If people arrive early and approach the checkpoints, they get shot. If they arrive on time, but there is an overflow and they jump over the mounds and the wires, they get shot. If they arrive late, they shouldn’t be there because it is an ‘evacuated zone’, they get shot.”
….
The IDF’s non-denial denial:
After being pushed by multiple reporters on the accusations that the GHF hubs are “traps” for Israeli forces to fire on civilians, Pigott said it was “important to realize that Hamas bears sole responsibility for this conflict.”
@Kurtz:
I think the assumption is that the computing substrate is irrelevant if the software models the neuron networking.
I have a sneaking suspicion this may be a flawed assumption.
@gVOR10:
A “stochastic parrot” as they say.
The problem of LLM’s based on scraping the web is that the web is, to use a technical term, full of shit.
A recent student essay plan included an interesting citation to the work of a certain “Dr Buzzkill.”
Oh dear.
Also, recent AI assisted “research” on the topic of US companies links to Nazi Germany tends quite soon to turn up as “sources” one author who was convinced Erroll Flynn was a Nazi agent, and another who insisted that the Soviet Union under Lenin was financed by Wall Street.
*eyeroll*
GIGO, doncha’ know …
@gVOR10: You hit on a key distinction that our Tech Bro overlords and indeed, many in the computer engineering sciences don’t understand. LLMs do a higher-level version of what the basic computer does–Association. Association is the precursor to Thinking which is the precursor to Reasoning. They are not the same things.
Unfortunately, the fact that association can be conflated with thinking or reason is a indicator of where we are as a society and the systems we have for educating our future. Technology across daily life has taken most of the imperatives to solving real, unique problems (the things that trigger thinking and reason) away. A modern education system would artificially create these opportunities for kids so we can enjoy the benefits of the technology, without atrophying the human qualities that brought us the technology in the first place.
Human reasoning is the apex of MILLIONS OF YEARS of evolutionary pressure on humans to survive on an unforgiving planet. Computers, a tool built by humans, have no such pressures and therefore will always be limited to various levels of association (which still make them quite useful for the majority of modern living). Indeed, most humans live by association after they cross early adulthood. However, the uncertainties of the environment and life in general means that there are always opportunities on a individual and societal level to solve existential challenges and exercise our abilities to think and reason.
AI should be called AA–Artificial Association.
@dazedandconfused:
That sounds like a few people from here.
@JohnSF:
My current favorite bit of AI — a google query for “all you can eat buffet” with an AI overview:
It’s brilliant.
AI is clearly not only thinking, but conscious and doing performance art.
@Jim X 32:
If this particular form of AI is going to be around for any significant amount of time, school systems definitely need to educate kids about the weaknesses.
I’m thinking assignments like “create a series of prompts that will cause the LLM to generate a 500 word essay on Richard Nixon’s fursona.” (I suspect kids might cheat by writing a fake AI generated essay)
And maybe some reading comprehension and analysis of sources cited in N articles, half of which were written by people, half by AI.
Unfortunately, I have no hope for the adults who are encountering this stuff unprepared. It’s like lead paint, but in digital form.
I thought that my disgust and dismay at the culture that produces mass shootings was topped out, but I’m reading reports of shootings of firefighters at a brushfire in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, that shows that depravity has no bottom.