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Good Taste Cannot Be Coded

On the Media is a superb program, one of very few programs whose analysis is always constructive, pithy and correct, to the extent that the correct conclusion is drawn based on all available facts. The superb interview linked below is one of very few instances where OTM gets so close to the heart of the matter but fails to state it or examine it:

Algorithms do not have taste. Algorithms cannot mimic taste. No guise of algorithm–AI, machine learning, etc.–will ever serve as the purveyor of good taste.

Let’s take, for example, KCRW.com. KCRW’s rise to the most powerful radio station in the world was founded on good taste. Since its founding in the 70s, its mission has been the opposite of that of commercial radio stations. As commercial radio consolidated and converged on a seemingly singular playlist of “hits”, legendary KCRW djs like Tom Schnabel and Chris Douridas scoured the planet to find music that was as rich in cultural expression as it was pleasant to hear. (This was not limited to highly refined acts. During Spaceland’s hayday in the mid 1990s, Douridas obtained rough cuts of Beck’s first album and played them on the air.) In the same manner that the purveyor of good taste provides the chef with ingredients that represent the best of the cumulative science and art of agriculture, the calling of a true dj is to find and to promote music that captures the best of the craft, culture and art of musical composition and performance. This essence of good taste can not be encoded by algorithms, especially by what is termed Artificial Intelligence, AI.

The widespread lamentation that Chris Chayka documents in Filterworld (link below) is captured wholly in this single word: taste. The only thing that algorithms can capture is the shared ignorance of the masses and impose them upon the individual. This is the complete opposite of what Schnabel and Douridas do in countering the ignorance of the masses by exposing individuals to new and foreign expressions that place the listener’s life in a different context by creating momentary awareness of the different ways people exist and think in the world.

AI can only guess the user’s taste by comparing its analysis of the user’s music to that of the cohort in which it places the user. Thus, the cohort never really grows because AI merely amplifies and imposes the cohort’s predispositions on the cohort ad infinitum. AI has no awareness of what the music conveys and whether the user wants to have his or her boundaries expanded. AI seeks only to keep the user “engaged”, glued to the device in order to take in more of what the algorithm can serve up to keep the user engaged. Schnabel and Douridas had fixed two-hour sets. They had a limited time every day within which to present an argument to their listeners that there are more expressions of beauty outside the listeners’ limited sphere of cultural awareness. Algorithms work 24 hours a day to keep the user confined to the cohort in which the algorithm has placed the user.

Thus, fundamentally, KCRW fulfills a value proposition and AI does not. KCRW’s value proposition is grow rich in awareness and knowledge through new music. The AI model offers no value proposition to the user because it only promises stagnation in exchange for the user’s time. AI’s value proposition is only to the corporation that uses it in the corpus of a captive audience.

Clearly, taste is not a simple matter. It is the fulcrum on which the value proposition in a bargain hinges. It is not limited to the music domain. In every financial transaction, there is no bargain if one is not aware of the value of the purchase. AI cocoons users in ignorance and thus convinces them that the dross it presents to them has value. AI mediated transactions go far beyond a bad bargain. They represent no bargain at all. Amazon users are ripped off because they think that an Amazon search presents them with a realistic account of the choices they have. In truth, the Amazon search is just as much of a sham as the Spotify playlist: both of them are payola, perfected and shrouded by AI.

Caveat emptor must be heeded more now than ever before.

Algorithms cannot mimic human taste. They trap the user for the sake of payola.

Recommendation algorithms don’t know you.

Source: Micah Speaks To Kyle Chayka About The Filter World | On the Media | WNYC Studios

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Brain-Computer Interface is Arriving

With every email or text message I type on the soft keyboard of my smart phone (which happens to be an iPhone), I desire more and more to have an interface that instantly transcribes my thoughts into the message that I want to send. Dictating the message to Siri is welcomed relief, but the myriad and random errors that this Apple speech-to-text algorithm makes only partially eliminate the need to correct bizarre typing errors.

Advances toward such a brain-computer-interface, or BCI, are not coming from the company touted by the pasty South African solar reflector, but from Synchron, an Australian company that reports remarkable success in enabling severely disabled subjects to perform basic tasks on a smartphone or tablet, two devices that will confer substantial ability and independence to people who can not move any limbs. The IEEE Fixing the Future podcast features an incisive and insightful interview with the founder of the company. This episode is a very worthwhile listen because of the clarity with which the problem and the neurological reasoning behind the solution are presented. These insights enable one to navigate the space and to separate the hype from real progress. Furthermore, there is a beautiful delineation of the ethical ways in which one must approach an admirable and inspiring path that is loaded with innumerable ethical and moral landmines. These are the subtleties that are assuredly omitted by the hype machine.

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No Accountability = No Currency

The fact that cryptocurrencies are the vehicles of choice for predators, white supremacists and terrorists (article below) has now garnered jail time for the CEO of Binance, the largest exchange in the world. Cryptocurrency is as perniciously persistent as “social media”: with so many people invested, governments are hesitant to intervene, especially while it generates tax revenue. Cryptocurrency is the oxycontin of the financial world, but there will not be one manufacturer to hold to account once the carnage accumulates.

A new front has emerged in Israel’s fight against the funding of Iran-backed militant groups from Hamas to Hezbollah: A fast-growing crypto network called Tron.

Source: Focus: New crypto front emerges in Israel’s militant financing fight

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Generating Subjects for Neuralink

Elon Musk’s Neuralink is soliciting volunteers for its inaugural human trials. Is Musk’s SpaceX generating these volunteers through poor workplace safety?

www.reuters.com/world/spacex-worker-injuries-soar-elon-musks-rush-mars-2023-11-10/

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First Eunuch Sighting in the US Perhaps Ever

The expression on the face of the man in the picture below screams emasculation. He has lost not just control but any and all possession of whatever remnants of masculinity–physical or otherwise–he may have possessed yesterday. Dispossessed of his own gonads, he succumbed to the mob threatening to burn them and announced the start of the most useless inquiry in the history of political witch hunts. This man is proof enough–indeed, the embodiment thereof–that it takes balls to do the right thing.

The White House plans to send a letter to top US news executives on Wednesday, urging them to intensify their scrutiny of House Republicans after Speaker Kevin McCarthy launched an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, despite having found no evidence of a crime.

Source: White House to send letter to news execs urging outlets to ‘ramp up’ scrutiny of GOP’s Biden impeachment inquiry ‘based on lies’ | CNN Business

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David Frum Redefines then Embodies the Self-Hating Jew

“Self-hating Jew” has been the epithet of choice for self-identifying “conservative” American Jews to hurl at any Jew who dares to mention or to defend human rights in Israeli occupied territories because, the perverse argument goes, these Jews care more about the minorities in these territories than the Israeli populace. This is, of course, the classic ad hominem attack instigated by those who have lost the argument based on principles, and the devoted support that the same “conservative” Jews throw behind some of the most racist politicians in the US is not, therefore, surprising. The pride with which David Frum displays it on the radio and the pages of The Atlantic is, however, novel. In his pathetic attempt to debunk the validity of the 14th Amendment clause that prohibits an insurrectionist from pursuing public office, Frum states:

Continue reading “David Frum Redefines then Embodies the Self-Hating Jew”
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The Most Hollow Celebration of All

Phoenix’s staggering 31 days of temperatures hotter than 110 F has been broken, and the development has been much celebrated in the media, but it’s hard to imagine anyone celebrating the new high of a mere 107 F. As of 21:50 on July 31st, weather.gov reports a temperature of 100 F at Sky Harbor. This is no relief, no matter how many monsoon rains the city receives.

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There Will Be Beer in the Apocalypse

As global warming threatens agriculture, one German farm provided relief from heat for its harvest of hops by providing shade with a massive array of solar panels. It is no cold comfort to know that of the many things the climate apocalypse will deprive us, beer will not be one of them

Solar panels over hops farm.
Solar panels over a hops farm in Germany.

A farm in Bavaria is covering its hops with solar panels, providing electricity to 250 households and shading the plants from the increasingly scorching summer heat in the process.

Source: Hops for beer flourish under solar panels. They’re not the only crop thriving in the shade.

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The Proper Context for Oppenheimer

If you plan to watch Oppenheimer, then be sure to watch this absolute gem of a documentary, which features many interviews with the Nobel Laureates who worked under Oppenheimer during The Manhattan Project, to have the proper context. For my money, there is nothing more valuable than the original source, even it is a bunch of really lovable old men.

Pay close attention to the fact that Leslie Groves ignored all the gossip around Oppenheimer and fought to assign him as the leader of the project. This critical decision by a legendary general and even more legendary manager is a beacon for our time: the character and capabilities of people are infinitely more important than their perceived politics. Groves was perhaps the greatest judge of character.

Peripherally, the documentarty revives the ultimate debate between which is harder, science or engineering. All the scientists interviewed in this film agree that the atomic bomb was conceptually simple, and its realization was a matter of mere engineering. Who wants to dive in?

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Merchandizing: the Pinnacle, Apogee and Zenith of Cynicism

The objective behind government regulations is preventing the breaches of trust that can annihilate entire economies. In addition to the financial devastation they cause, such breaches breed cynicism at large and discourage people from participating in society and the marketplace because “what’s the point” comes to describe the prevailing attitudes. Equally nourishing to cynicism are smaller breaches–more like insults–like the sale of Wagner Group merchandising, described in the article linked below, and the application of cryptocurrency and Youtube to funding hate groups and misinformation. Though they will not make entire economies collapse, these breaches undermine optimism, trust and good will arguably in a much more harmful way.

We should not have to “take the bad with the good”. Progress means that we have figured out to how to maximize the good and to minimize the bad. The hijacking of new commodities and old marketing methods for the purpose of aiding and abetting the malfeasance of ignoble people undermines the perception and the reality of progress. And, if we don’t feel as if we have progress, then, indeed, what is the point?

Online prices for merchandise bearing the insignia of Russia’s Wagner group – a human skull against a black and red backdrop – have shot up since its abortive armed mutiny, with buyers posting five-star reviews and support for the mercenaries.

Source: Wagner merch soars in price after abortive mutiny