Ken's Blog

Today I got yet another email from a colleague who had finished a conversation with some LLM ChatBot, asked it about its own potential for general intelligence, and then marveled when the ChatBot responded that it might be feeling the first stirrings of true consciousness. Here was my response:

“I think it is useful to remember that these engines operate by scraping vast quantities of human texts. They use that data to perform a statistical “this is the most likely next word” completion task in response to our prompts.

So yes, of course their responses will sound like something a human would say, if we give them leading prompts, because at some point humans *did* respond to other humans in that way.

The illusion of life that this creates can indeed make for very entertaining theater. But it is also useful to remember that the next time you go to the theater to see a production of Hamlet, you are not expecting anyone on stage to actually die.”

A lot of people have been trying to figure out why the U.S. president is making so many Americans suffer by imposing new regressive taxes on them. The fact that the taxes are in the form of tariffs does not change their net impact — the money comes out of the pockets of American citizens who can’t afford the resulting higher prices.

So why is he doing it? I don’t we will find the answer in economic theory. Instead, we can just apply Occam’s razor: “The simplest explanation is usually the one most likely to be correct.”

So here is the simplest explanation: Whoever controls the money, has the power.

This man is not really interested in the well-being of Americans one way or another. Any more than he is actually interested in “immigration reform”, other than as a way to get people riled up and therefore distracted.

Every move he makes is simply a direct move to increase his personal power. By taking for himself what the Constitution has given to the U.S. Congress — the right to determine tax policy — he is acquiring yet another lever of power.

Just as he is acquiring power by creating his own private police force, and effectively empowering them to shoot and kill U.S. Citizens in the streets of American cities. It is all very bold, and it is all very simple.

And if you are not him, it is also very tragic.

No day that’s a snow day
Is a good day in a good way
But a glad one, not a sad one
Is when no fun turns to snow fun
Others may roam but I’ll stay home
Where it’s cozy (not so froze-y)
Think I’ll nap and have a nice dream
Then a snack of tea with ice cream.

The brilliant thing about the president’s tariffs has been the way it is a perfectly regressive tax, because the costs of higher tariffs are ultimately passed on to the consumer. Wealthy people don’t really care if things cost a little more, but to the working class and middle classes, the resulting higher prices for goods — or for the raw materials needed to manufacture those goods — can be devastating.

The president and his friends had a perfect system going. In addition to lowering taxes on the wealthy by gutting services to the lower and middle classes via his “Big Beautiful Bill”, his tariffs have been providing yet another way to empty the pocketbooks of regular folks so that more money can be funneled to his shiny rich friends.

But now the Supreme Court has gone and messed it all up. Their argument is simple: The law says, very clearly, that Congress, not the Executive branch, has the responsibility to set tariffs.

The Republicans in this particular Congress don’t want to mess with you-know-who. But the Court is pointing out that setting tariffs on foreign goods is not merely a right reserved for Congress, it’s actually the responsibility of Congress. And Congress cannot legally shirk that responsibility.

So now poor you-know-who will need to find other ways to suck money out of the pockets of regular folks like you and me, so he can funnel that money to himself and his rich pals. But don’t worry, I am sure he will find a way.

The viewer count for the Colbert with James Talarico is now somewhere above 8.3 million, and still rising. Maybe people are tuning in because these days it is so rare and refreshing to hear somebody say something truthful in public.

My favorite Talarico quote from the interview (just one among many):

“Don’t tell me what you believe. Show me how you treat other people and I’ll tell you what you believe.”

Today is the 148th anniversary of the day that Thomas Edison patented the phonograph. To me it is a more intriguing invention than photography, because it is uses a two dimensional surface to record a one dimensional signal.

Of course the phonograph is not the first technological innovation to use a two dimensional surface to record a one dimensional signal. That would be the invention of writing, which predates the phonograph by thousands of years.

But the phonograph marks a kind of of trifecta for Edison. He also invented a version of motion pictures as well as that famous light bulb.

My friend Lance Williams once pointed out to me that there is an interesting way to look at this combination: “Edison invented the light bulb,” he said, “so that people would stay up all night listening to his phonograph.”

Wow, the Colbert / Talarico interview now has 6.8 million views on YouTube, and the number is still going up. I learned today that more people have now watched yesterday’s interview than watched Colbert’s interview with Taylor Swift in December.

This is democracy in action folks, the voice of the people. And when the people decide to speak, it’s a good idea to listen.

I love democracy.

I’m still reeling from the knowledge that I would not even have heard about James Talarico if that idiotic Carr wreck at the FCC had not tried to stop us from hearing what Talarico has to say.

This Colbert interview has quickly become one of my all time favorite YouTube clips. From the way the viewing numbers are rapidly soaring, I guess I’m not the only one.

In the end, maybe the thing that will save us from those would-be fascists is their astonishing level of stupidity.

I realized recently that the Disney songs I like the most are the ones that were popular when Walt Disney was still alive.

I am not sure whether this means that my tastes are aligned with Walt Disney or that my tastes are aligned with Richard and Robert Sherman.

I’m also not sure whether there is any real difference.

Today is the 80th anniversary of the dedication of the ENIAC computer at the University of Pennsylvania. That was essentially the start of our modern computer era.

I remember some years ago visiting U. Penn when my host led me a room, and unlocked the door to let me inside. To my astonishment, I found myself looking at the control panels of the original ENIAC, and I felt a sense of profound awe.

All six of the original programmers of that world’s first electronic computer were women. At the time, computer programming was considered clerical work, and male engineers looked down on this “subprofession”.

Now, of course, we recognize how innovative these six women were. They were pioneers in the now prestigious field of Computer Science, inventing new concepts like subroutines, which made ENIAC run more efficiently.