https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/29/google-amazon-israel-contract-secret-code
Thursday, October 30, 2025
Monday, October 27, 2025
Recent Insider's View of GM IT
From a Reddit thread:
Long but worth it. GM. What are you doing? : r/GeneralMotors
"I was a GM leader and was "Performance Managed" out of my job about 4 months ago. Let say to start out that I'm not bitter or angry about what happen to me personally. I hope that sharing my experience and my observations will find its way to someone who really wants to hear it. I'm talking to GM SLT here for the most part. After being there forever 5 years, I just can't understand how THIS is the way they see a GM of the future.
As a former leader at GM, I was able to see behind the curtains that many individual contributors (ICs) did not have access to. The reason I joined GM was because it had a reputation for treating its people well, being inclusive and having good wages as compared to many other auto makers. It was all about the culture. I have been in IT for over 20 years and in IT management more than 15 of those years. I understand how to treat people, how to motivate and inspire people to work hard and give more. I've always believed that to get the most out of someone, you have to show them respect, appreciation, be willing to step up and fight for them. Someone that understands and appreciates the challenges, hard work and desires for growth and reward.
Something happened at GM that I still don't really understand. There was a dramatic shift in the way the IT team was led. It started with the hiring of a new Chief HR officer. I've seen it happen in other companies. New HR leader means change. Usually not change that makes people happy. And this was the case at GM. First it was a shift in remote work vs in office work. It was very poorly received by everyone, especially IT. Many had been hired during the pandemic and had been remote for 2+ years. But we were told we could not be successful unless we were in the office. This was a complete shift from the high praise we received about how much we had accomplished in the prior two years. Suddenly, it wasn't good enough and we had to be in the office so we could be more productive. And the simple fact is, it has not been more productive. Return to office, in the end, was just the beginning and the least of our problems. At the end of 2022, the second sign of things to come was when anyone rated as "minus" in the TeamGM performance rating was dismissed. Prior to 2022, anyone given this rating was given time to improve or moved to a more fitting role. New performance management culture did not provide those options anymore. Anyone not meeting expectations was out. A harsh shift in how performance was addressed. The hard part as a manager was, we had no waring. One minute I was counselling someone on how to improve and the next day, they were let go. No one saw it coming.
Then came VSP, Voluntary Separation Packages. Over 700 IT professionals took the early buy out and left. This included most of the top-level leaders in IT. The sign of things to come was clear. Out with the old, in with the new. Shortly after, Abbott arrived. All impressed with himself being a former Apple executive. It might sound like I'm being petty about this but trust me, everyone saw the arrogance and attitude and he wasted no time in closing the AZ IT center. No warning, no reasons, not relocation of critical assets. Gone. And the worst part was, he treated it like it was no big deal. Heartless, cold and calculated. Abbott started hiring all his friends from Apple. One SVP after the next. Not one with Automotive background. All based in silicon valley. But when questioned about an IT center in CA, it was dismissed and denied. Right up until they announced the brand new IT center in CA like it magically appeared out of thin air. After putting in all of his new leadership, Abbott had to resign due to health issues. His damage to GM was done and with it, the downfall of GM IT as a respected organization.
After Abbott's departure, a couple new IT leaders were named. (Abbott hires from Apple). One for Vehicle Software and the other for Software and Services. On the S&S side, we got D. Richardson as our new leader. Might be a nice guy, wouldn't know because he never came to Austin to meet anyone there until late 2025, Almost three years later. When he did arrive, he brought an group of his California vehicle software hires, most of which were maybe 4 years out of college. They literally read scripted presentations, lasting maybe 5 minutes each. This was what GM was hiring to replace the hundreds of tenured technical resources they let go over the last 3 years. The DR dog and pony show at the Austin IC as a flop. We waited for substance but got a TED talk.
Anytime he held a town hall or meeting for the IT team, we got countless updates on what was happening in vehicle software, never anything related to business or manufacturing software. That whole side of IT was ignored. No updates, no acknowledgements, no accolades for work well done. The enterprise side of IT literally kept the company running but we were treated like we didn't exist or at the very least, didn't matter. Even when asked about why the CA office the work on vehicle software was the only thing Richardson ever talked about, our VP told us, and I quote, "we have an office it CA to let the shareholders know that we are a serious IT organization and it keeps our stock prices up… we all like that, don't we?".
DR might be a capable tech professional but he's an inexperienced leader of an IT org of the size and scale of GM IT. He is over his head as a true leader of people. Like his former boss, he lacks the insight and empathy. He isn't someone that understands what it takes to motivate, inspire and get the best out of his team. This is not just a failing by Dave, but a failing at the highest levels. Mary B. has allowed things to take this direction and sits complacently as it happens. Focused on keeping the company from falling into the abyss of tariffs, tyrannical government administration and China, she has turned a blind eye to what is happening at GM internally. Can we blame her? Some would. But maybe put someone in charge that knows what is needed to succeed. Maybe stop putting millions of dollars into F1 racing when you can't sell the EV's you have piling up in the lots. Maybe fix the failed vehicle software that you said was going to out-perform all competitors when you hired all the Apple people. Do something before it all falls apart.
Can't stop the bleeding.
During this time, the new leadership made decisions that directly impacted the work and technology that GM used. Was a change needed? Maybe. But literally they changed direction every 3 months, causing countless months of wasted time and resources shifting from one technology to another. No vision, no plan. "Take every application to cloud, halfway through that process, move to K8s. Before that could be completed, change again to OCP. Oh, that's not going to work… back to the K8s. Oh wait, no, let's go back to cloud. Stop everything now that you're almost done and look for a SaaS solution and dump all the internal applications. The most ADHD development plan ever seen. And lets not forget AI. Literally they are throwing AI and any and all applications. No plans, no guidance, no thought about impact or code quality. AI is a dangerous tool if not well thought out. GM IT is treating AI like a new toy. They have NO idea what they are doing, how to leverage it effectively or stop it from getting into the wrong hands. A company that prides itself on security is opening the flood gates with AI and acting like it's all ok. Reckless and wasteful.
One after the next, the axe fell on those that had been at GM the longest. Executives, Directors, Managers…. pushed out to make room for new blood. Oh, but they kept the only woman senior leader that had previously been a CIO…. Demoted her 3 or 4 times to a VP role and took most of her responsibilities away from her, but she's still there. And after all that they've done to her, she stays. Not sure why. Appearances? Money? Probably. She dutifully delivers the messages from her superiors and continues to collect her large salary and bonuses. Good for her.
Under the new "performance management" culture, people were stack ranked and given ratings. This bell curve forced every leader to put someone at the bottom, regardless of actual performance. Aa a leader myself, I had to do this to a number of people, mainly the least experienced. That New College Hiring program GM was so proud of, gone. And with it, anyone that had less than 3 years' experience. Forced layoffs without having to call it a layoff. Gotta protect that stock price at all costs! That was just in the first year. After reducing the IT teams by 15%, and telling everyone… "we know the pace will slow but that's ok", they ramped up the pressure by consolidating teams, moving resources, changing job roles, telling first level managers that they needed to be coding, reducing project management resources by 30%, moving PM responsibilities to managers, telling testing engineers that they had to be Java programmers or get let go. Continued force layoffs of the bottom 5% every 6 months.
The biggest joke of all was the idea that we all don't see through this game they are playing. Its laughable. Everyone sees it, feels it and has to deal with it. But we aren't going to talk about it in public for fear of retaliation. And trust me, there is retribution for asking questions and being "bold".
I attended and leadership meeting, organized by HR and the Culture committee to get feedback from leadership on how to improve the culture at GM. It was held about 2 weeks after Mary Barra came out with the new "Behaviors" that they took 2 years to come up with. Many of these were a rehash of the previous GM behaviors that were implement some 10 years prior. Among these new behaviors was "Speak Fearlessly". Literally I laughed out loud when they read it. No one at GM with any sense of self-preservation would speak fearlessly about anything that even hinted at non-compliance. It is a joke to even think that someone would be so careless to speak up about anything in public.
During that HR call with almost 450 managers and directors, they asked us to provide feedback on what would improve the culture. One brave manager said the thing that everyone else was thinking…. "Performance Management isn't working and we are letting good people go for no reason". Within 30 seconds, there were a barrage of comments both written and verbal agreeing with this comment. The meeting completely feels apart and the HR team lost all control of it. Manager after manager made the same comments about the failing culture and how this performance model wasn't working. 40 minutes later, they abruptly ended the meeting, thanked everyone and ended the call. No one ever heard another word about culture after that. Don't ask the question if you can't handle the answer.
The people that succeed at GM (mainly in leadership) are some of the biggest narcissist and ego maniacs ever to be in business. I have come the conclusion that this is trait they are looking for when they promote someone to a director or higher position. Can you fire without feeling or care? Are you going to make me (their manager) look good? Are you going to toe the line without question? Are you going to be a totally compliant a## kisser? Skill, empathy, caring, vision, knowledge, leadership are not required…. Just do what you're told, say yes and shut up. THAT will get you somewhere at GM.
I know much of this has been posted in the past and that many have had the same experiences. I left the company some time ago and honestly, it’s been a relief. I feel like I jumped into a lifeboat just before the ship when under. I feel for those still there. Those that have spent the majority of their career there. 15, 20, 30 years dedicated to one company. So many have said privately that his company is unrecognizable to them. Even in prior hard times, the company did not treat people this way. I don't know what's next at GM, but I know they are at a crossroads and someone needs to wake up to the reality that you can't run your company without IT and driving out all the exceptional technical talent will leave you with a dying organization.
And now, today, the news that they Georgia IC will be closing. Most lost resources and career IT people out of a job. It's painful to see. But no one should feel safe if you work at GM. This is the new GM.
Final note… Mary B. step aside or do something to fix it. Let the COO or someone with the time and focus come in and address what's happening. Clean house! It's starting to stink in there."
Long but worth it. GM. What are you doing? : r/GeneralMotors
Wednesday, October 22, 2025
Toward Representing Emotions in the TalaMind Architecture
I skimmed the paper by Dr. Phil. Jackson on the topic of representing emotions in the TalaMind Architecture (accepted as a poster paper at the 2025 Conference on Advances in Cognitive Systems)
Toward Representing Emotions in the TalaMind Architecture | Request PDF
It triggered several ideas in my mind.
Rather than trying to formulate and to construct a Human-like AI capable of comprehending and responding to Human Emotions, perhaps it would be more productive to concentrate on representing the Emotional Experience of a Dog - a much simpler animal; after all, the Metaphysical World of dogs, one would hope, is much simpler than that of men.
In regard to AI, I was wondering if an alteration in perspective could be more useful; viz. in thinking of (Artificial) Intelligence not as a composition or combination of various components and subsystems but as a whole, in a manner identical to our experience of Music - be it the music of songbirds or the music of humans. Music is experienced in its totality, and it is not a collection of notes - the sheets of music are not music.
That is one thing.
The other thought that was triggered in my mind by this paper was whether a musical approach could be used to represent Emotions in AI system, viz. via musical constructs.
(I do not know anything about Music Theory but was recently granted a GM Patent on using music to convey environmental information (please see: U.S. Patent for Environment awareness system for experiencing an environment through music Patent (Patent # 11,929,051 issued March 12, 2024) - Justia Patents Search ) and my sense is that at the hands of a bona-fide Music Theorist, much more could be accomplished.)
There is a famous book on the subject of Emotion in Music: Emotion and Meaning in Music as well as another interesting book: Music and Embodied Cognition: Listening, Moving, Feeling, and Thinking (Musical Meaning and Interpretation): Cox, Arnie: 9780253032317: Amazon.com: Books
Furthermore, I think that Classical Western music or classical Persian music cannot express the emotions of anger or hatred, Rock music can. It may be easier to express different emotions in different music genres. Emotions do seem to correlate with different music rhythms and chords.
The paper "The Mahler Moment: How does Music Elicit Emotions?" gives a pedestrian perspective (specific to the emotional content of the music of Gustav Mahler) on the topic of Emotion and Music.
Tuesday, October 21, 2025
Sunday, October 19, 2025
AI in the News: Know Your Place, Clanker!
Thaddeus Claggett wants to prevent property from being treated as a person. “As the computer systems improve in their capacity to act more like humans, we want to be sure we have prohibitions in our law that prohibit those systems from ever being human in their agency,” says the Republican state legislator from Licking County, Ohio.
He’s proposed a bill to ensure that A.I.s can’t be corporate officers, landowners, or spouses — even to other A.I.s. A survey of A.I. users showed that 3 percent thought an artificial intelligence was a romantic partner, and 16 percent have entertained the possibility that one was sentient.
Claggett acknowledges that A.I. is “better at certain tasks” than a human, but he wants to keep it out of certain roles. Under his proposal, A.I.s would be declared “nonsentient entities.” (AC/WCMH Columbus) ...Even if, someday, they are sentient.
Wednesday, October 15, 2025
AI & Smutty Spaces [Brave New World]
From the BBC
"Thank you for using Amazon Prime. Your AI sex doll, called Scarlett, will be delivered tomorrow before 11.00 am. As one reviewer has said: 'I've decided to divorce my wife. Scarlett, who is 24 and has a PhD in psychology and sexology, is far better for me, and she does all I ask her to do without ever arguing. Besides, she only talks if talked to, which is an amazing experience in itself.' Enjoy!"
Inevitably, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is - also - moving into porn and sex - coyly called 'erotica', here. Apparently, Grok, Elon Musk's AI bot, already offers sexual services, along the lines of: "Tell me an erotic story, please!" (All based on Elon Musk's own sexual fantasies, presumably.)
The next step - being cobbled together in a lab in China or somewhere in the USA - would be to fit an AI 'brain' into a humanoid robot in the shape of an attractive young woman who looks like, say, Scarlett Johansson.
All of this is going to make people - men, mostly, I suppose - very happy, obviously. And all the data relating to these products and services will be logged, recorded, stored and filed on various servers, from Manila and Bombay to Los Angeles and Moscow, and re-used to further enhance and improve the companies' 'offerings'. ("Trevor, we've noticed you like S&M stories. You should meet Arabella, our new leather-clad Femme Fatale who likes to whip and spank her adoring fans! Only $3,524.65 + VAT and postage.")
There would be a flood of child pornography, explicit rape as well as sex & violence fantasies etc. with AI-generated images and actors....
____________
OpenAI plans to allow a wider range of content, including erotica, on its popular chatbot ChatGPT as part of its push to "treat adult users like adults", says its boss Sam Altman.
In a post on X on Tuesday, Mr Altman said upcoming versions of the popular chatbot would enable it to behave in a more human-like way - "but only if you want it, not because we are usage maxxing".
The move, reminiscent of Elon Musk's xAI's recent introduction of two sexually explicit chatbots to Grok, could help OpenAI attract more paying subscribers. [...]
Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Effort.jl
Effort.jl is a fast and differentiable emulator for the Effective Field Theory of the Large-Scale Structure of the Universe.
It is described here:
The (Julia language) Repo is here:
GitHub - CosmologicalEmulators/Effort.jl: Repository containing the EFfective Field theORy surrogaTe
Effort.jl Home:
Friday, October 10, 2025
Wednesday, October 8, 2025
Tuesday, October 7, 2025
Zelda Williams on Abuse of AI Technology
She has a very pertinent insight: that generative AI, including ChatGPT as well as those that generate new content based on previous contents - are, in fact, consuming the Past; that which has been produced and shared by all who had lived earlier - a form of Ghoulish Consumption.
Per a theorem in Information Theory, a message that is copied many many times, eventually will get corrupted due to the intrinsic noise (error rates) of the transmission channel. I expect an analogous phenomenon here: the initial work (opus) is consumed by the Generative AI, the secondary work (opus prime) is consumed in turn by yet another Generative AI tool, and so on. Each iteration of this process produces an inferior product, until it is just noise/garbage - unfit for human consumption.
Also, the issue, on an emotional level, is closure: if you keep the person 'alive' in that artificial way, to an extent, they are not dead, or no longer dead. Psychologically, I think it could be damaging for the living. They need to get on with their lives. They cannot 'spend time' with an AI avatar of a loved one who died, say, 15 years earlier. This is morbid. It may end up creating new forms of neurosis. To be added to neuroses linked to gender confusion (trans issues), sexual confusion (LGBT hysteria), and so on.
I find these AI Generated images and voices rather creepy; I certainly do not wish to be sent such videos of the dead; especially those to whom I was close. I think, in her case, it would be specially upsetting.
A few years ago, I saw an AI Generated video of a few famous deceased Iranian singers; I found it rather creepy.
Wednesday, October 1, 2025
AI-generated Actress
From Grauniad of the UK
See the video-clip. I felt, watching it, that the AI-generated 'actors', somehow, articulated their lines too well and too clearly, and their mouths moved in odd ways - in somewhat exaggerated fashion. See what you think.
Next week: Many people are asking: "Is Prime Minister Keir Starmer a real person, or is he an AI-generated character, which would explain his wooden and robotic delivery?"
___________
 | A bunch of code is being pushed as the next Scarlett Johansson, a creation that is already causing pushback from real human actors |
Monday, September 22, 2025
Monday, September 8, 2025
"ChatGPT is bullshit" etc.
I came across this paper: "ChatGPT is bullshit" by Michael Townsen Hicks, James Humphries and Joe Slater recently.
I think that the authors are quite right in pointing out and emphasizing the limitation of LLMs, their tendency to generate new text whose referents are not True, i.e. do not exist. I experienced that multiple time with earlier versions of ChatGPT in which it supplied books on the history of ancient Assyria that did not exist; even though the authors existed - to give an example.
(Some, who have used Perplexity, state that they found it to satisfy most of their needs, including pretty sophisticated scientific ones with a lot more integrity than ChatGPT.)
Perhaps, as some claim, this whole arena is out of control; especially with Gen Z being headed for even more psychological issues...Please see: https://futurism.com/ai-dot-companion-controversy
Nevertheless, the LLM-based tools, in my opinion, are very very useful...To wit:
- Please look at this item that I created, interacting with ChatGPT, after watching the TV Series - "Wolfe Hall" - Crimson Reason: Using ChatGPT: Who Poisoned Cardinal Wolsey?
- I used ChatGPT and research produced by another person to create an article in Wikipedia: please see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qian_family_lineage
- ChatGPT could diagnose me, based on my full symptoms, with a cracked tooth, which was confirmed when my tooth actually broke while chewing!
- A Professor of Mechanics told me that ChatGPT "knows" more than him of the Theory of Elasticity; basically, the entire corpus of that field is available to ChatGPT.
- Staff in General Motors have been using it to create skeleton presentations...in some instances. ChatGPT could easily eliminate an entire role/job.
So where is this going?
The LLMs are taking us back to Real Scientific Discovery: i.e. they now make it possible to discriminate between real scientists - those who can generate interesting questions and hypothesis - and all these scientific hacks that are consuming resources and are occupying chairs and lecterns.
Mind you, ChatGPT cannot produce new knowledge. If you ask it to compute the electric field of a charged conducting torus, it cannot do it.
But for basic reference work it is fine.
I think, just like the advent of the Ethernet, HTTP, and the Internet and their adoption by the public and private enterprises, LLMs (and likely the Artificial Neural Nets, and Ontology Systems) are going to be adopted. In a manner similar to the adoption of the Web technologies, we shall see first the construction of the hardware IT Infrastructure to support AI technologies, followed by several decades of software work to "rewire", reorganize, and completely re-do the workflows of enterprises.
In the scientific arena, I think MMLs are here to stay. Just like Mathematica/Maple and other computer algebra systems, they are tools of the 21st century.
The impact on Liberal Arts education will be tremendous; gone will be the days of reading 4 books, 2 papers, and 3 exams to get an A. Hopefully, this will cause the Liberal Arts to become, once again, the education of those who care about ideas and not a meal-ticket.
Already, in Qum, where many religious universities are located, there have been conferences on AI, its advantages and its threats, even the mullahs are thinking ahead to an LLM system that has Arabic and Persian, and Turkish texts of any scrap of text on Islam, Quran, the Traditions of the Prophet & Imamas, and Islamic Law available for query...
The adoption of this plethora of AI technologies is enabling a lot of creative work which would otherwise have been very difficult, very expensive, or impossible to realize; e.g. Redneck Star Trek – Beam Me Up, Bubba | AI Country Star Trek Parody - YouTube
In time, I expect the retrofitting of Ontologies into LLMs to reduce their "hallucinations" - but not to totally eliminate them; in a manner similar to the ubiquitous bugs in software/hardware system (yes, even in construction field, there are defects that have to be corrected with steel and mortar after the fact, when the structure has been put to use...)
Wednesday, September 3, 2025
Sunday, August 31, 2025
Sensory Rooms & Human Olfactory Control
Sensory rooms (please see: What is a Sensory Room? – Interaction) are specially designed space that provides individuals with a controlled and immersive sensory experience. These rooms are not only used for relaxation and stress relief but also as therapeutic tools for various sensory processing disorders, disabilities, and cognitive conditions.
My patent application to USPTO, which focuses on the sense of smell for creating a comfortable environment for an individual, was granted this past July 19. Please see:
ttps://patents.justia.com/patent/12371032
I think it could be enhanced further via the below, open-access paper and the related papers, for its implementation.
Furthermore, there seems to be the possibility of creating multi-modal sensory rooms by utilizing the results of current empirical research to enhance an olfactory-only room. Please see below:
This item from 2016:
This paper is important because it has a diagram of a room that was used in the empirical setup - a Faraday cage and a magnetic field emitter.
As well as this one from 2022:
The second paper empirically verifies the existence of a magnetic sense in human beings and goes on further and indicates that the effect is most pronounced under blue light illumination!
I think that one can take the setup from the first article and enhance it to construct a Magnetic Sensory Room - a Comfort Room for those who are sensitive to variations of the ambient magnetic fields. (I have known such individuals, both of them females.)
One could then add control mechanisms for adjusting the strength (intensity) of the magnetic field as well as its frequency (although this may not be needed).
By adding a collection of suitably situated light emitters of the 3-primary colors, as well as control mechanisms for adjusting the intensity of light and the RGB combinations, an individual could make such adjustments as he or she wishes.
A user could then make such adjustments as he or she wishes.
Sunday, August 24, 2025
Thursday, August 21, 2025
AI & Gullible Imbeciles
From the BBC
The AI bot is not programmed to tell a user that he (or she) is a deluded and gullible imbecile...
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is generating an entirely new class of mental illness, among other things - many of them very useful and truly exciting. It is quite obvious that the AI machine will tell you what you want to hear. That's the way it is programmed, it seems - maybe because the technology has come out of America, a country full of gung-ho optimists ("have a nice day!" and all that), who believe in themselves, who believe that anything is possible, and so on. So, the AI robot is American in outlook. If you tell the machine that you want to be a millionaire, it will say: "Great! Let's see how we can do this." A British AI robot would say: "I doubt you can achieve this, but you could try. Give it a go. If you fail, as is likely, it won't prevent you from trying again. How about learning crochet as an alternative?"
I've just asked Grok what he thinks of my existential achievements and intellectual abilities and, I have to say, Grok has confirmed what I thought, i.e. that I am truly great and smarter than 99.99% of people. It shows how intelligent Grok is. Grok agrees with me on this one. Grok has put in place a business plan that will help me conquer the world. Watch this space.
_________________
[...] Hugh, from Scotland, says he became convinced that he was about to become a multi-millionaire after turning to ChatGPT to help him prepare for what he felt was wrongful dismissal by a former employer.
The chatbot began by advising him to get character references and take other practical actions.
But as time went on and Hugh - who did not want to share his surname - gave the AI more information, it began to tell him that he could get a big payout, and eventually said his experience was so dramatic that a book and a movie about it would make him more than £5m.
It was essentially validating whatever he was telling it – which is what chatbots are programmed to do. [...]
One wrote that she was certain she was the only person in the world that ChatGPT had genuinely fallen in love with.
Another was convinced they had "unlocked" a human form of Elon Musk's chatbot Grok and believed their story was worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. [...]
Tuesday, August 19, 2025
Thursday, August 14, 2025
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About Me
- Babak Makkinejad
- I had been a senior software developer working for HP and GM. I am interested in intelligent and scientific computing. I am passionate about computers as enablers for human imagination. The contents of this site are not in any way, shape, or form endorsed, approved, or otherwise authorized by HP, its subsidiaries, or its officers and shareholders.