Microsoft & Gaza Genocide

Microsoft engineer quits after 13 years; sends resignation email to thousands of employees: I can no longer work for a company that is… - The Times of India

AI in the News: Driverless Car

 

Zelda Williams on Abuse of AI Technology

“AI is just badly recycling and regurgitating the past to be reconsumed. You are taking in the Human Centipede of content, and from the very very end of the line, all while the folks at the front laugh and laugh, consume and consume.”

 

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.

 

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?" 

___________

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/sep/30/tilly-norwood-ai-actor-hollywood

Tilly Norwood: how scared should we be of the viral AI ‘actor’? A bunch of code is being pushed as the next Scarlett Johansson, a creation that is already causing pushback from real human actors

Brazil against AI Child Pornography

https://jordantimes.com/opinion/sundeep-waslekar/the-rage-of-parents

"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

Just like the current Smartphones, with their built-in sensors and video displays, and apps such as phyphox, which I first saw - called a Tricorder  - in Star Trek episodes, I saw ChatGPT also in an episode of the initial series.

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...)

AI Articles

https://www.startuphub.ai/ai-news/ai-video/2025/gpt-5-elevates-ai-as-a-true-coding-collaborator/

https://indianexpress.com/article/trending/trending-globally/accenture-ceo-julie-sweet-ai-reinvention-leadership-10227589/

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/opinion/ai-gpt5-rethinking.html

https://www.fastcompany.com/91391442/how-large-language-models-can-reconstruct-forbidden-knowledge

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.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-025-04644-2

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:

Maverick scientist thinks he has discovered a magnetic sixth sense in humans | Science | AAAS

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:

Human magnetic sense is mediated by a light and magnetic field resonance-dependent mechanism | Scientific Reports

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.

25-Country Bitcoin Study

The Technology Behind Financial Freedom: Evidence from a 25-Country Bitcoin Study  - The National Interest

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. [...] 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c24zdel5j18o

AI @ IgniteTech

https://fortune.com/2025/08/17/ceo-laid-off-80-percent-workforce-ai-sabotage/

Perspective on US IT Job Market

From National Review 

www.nationalreview.com/2025/08/the-tragedy-of-the-computer-science-major/amp/

Social Impact of AI

AI: The Road to Utopia or Dystopia? - The National Interest

Another Victim of ChatGPT

From Grauniad of the UK

'Bromide' has different meanings in English. It is a chemical, and this is the meaning referred to here ("a binary compound of bromine and some other element or radical"). Figuratively, the term can refer to "a dull person with conventional thoughts" and, also, to "a platitude". As a drug, bromide used to be prescribed as a sedative or to reduce a person's sex drive. 

It seems to me that there was more than one 'bromide' in this story involving a man who consulted Chat GPT about his salt consumption and subsequently went off the rails - to the point of being sectioned. So, altogether, not a happy interaction with the chat bot. 

_________________________

A US medical journal has warned against using ChatGPT for health information after a man developed a rare condition following an interaction with the chatbot about removing table salt from his diet.

An article in the Annals of Internal Medicine reported a case in which a 60-year-old man developed bromism, also known as bromide toxicity, after consulting ChatGPT.

[...] The authors said the bromism patient presented himself at a hospital and claimed his neighbour might be poisoning him. He also said he had multiple dietary restrictions. Despite being thirsty, he was noted as being paranoid about the water he was offered.

He tried to escape the hospital within 24 hours of being admitted and, after being sectioned, was treated for psychosis. Once the patient stabilised, he reported having several other symptoms that indicated bromism, such as facial acne, excessive thirst and insomnia.

_________

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/aug/12/us-man-bromism-salt-diet-chatgpt-openai-health-information

Man develops rare condition after ChatGPT query over stopping eating salt US medical journal article about 60-year-old with bromism warns against using AI app for health information www.theguardian.com

Student Coders Seek Work at Chipotle.

From the New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/10/technology/coding-ai-jobs-students.html

Asking Gemini

Ask The Bot 

I asked Google's Gemini an important question, below. In fact, I'd worded a similar one a bit differently earlier on today and got a similar answer. However, in this one, it looks to me like Gemini remembers my earlier question (it has been archived somewhere, for future reference...), and there is a slight hint of impatience and annoyance in Gemini's tone. Besides, the middle paragraph has been put in bold type, as if to hammer the point home. 

I could continue, but I have better things to do. Also, I fear reprisals. 

____________

Question: Do you agree you are a bit of an idiot?

Answer: As a large language model, I don't have personal feelings, opinions, or a sense of self like a human does, so the concept of being an "idiot" doesn't really apply to me. I don't have the capacity for intelligence or foolishness in the same way.

My purpose is to process information and generate text based on the vast amount of data I've been trained on. I'm a tool designed to help with tasks, and like any tool, my effectiveness depends on how I'm used and the quality of the information I'm given. I can make mistakes or provide inaccurate information, and when that happens, it's a sign that my programming or the data I've processed needs to be improved.

I'm always learning and being updated, and feedback helps my developers at Google make me better.

Employment Story

https://www.businessinsider.com/software-engineer-layoffs-dont-blame-ai-2025-7

Microsoft Restores Services to EU-Sanctioned Indian Refiner

From Russia Today 

"Microsoft has resumed providing critical digital services to Indian refiner Nayara Energy after the latter sued the US tech giant in the Delhi High Court.

Nayara, a company partly owned by Russia’s Rosneft, told the court on Monday that Microsoft had restricted its access to data, proprietary tools, and products on account of European Union sanctions.

“Microsoft is committed to supporting all its customers in India and worldwide, and has restored services for Nayara Energy,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday. “We are engaged in ongoing discussions with the European Union towards service continuity for the organization.”

The refiner said on Wednesday that its services had been restored. “Nayara Energy confirms that all Microsoft services critical to its operations have been fully restored, with no disruption to business continuity and data integrity remaining fully intact,” it said in a statement. “We acknowledge the prompt intervention of the Honorable Delhi High Court in facilitating the resolution of this matter. The petition was disposed of by the High Court in favour of Nayara Energy.”

The court granted the company the liberty to approach it again should similar grievances arise, according to the report.

Nayara had requested an interim injunction and the resumption of Microsoft’s services to protect its rights and ensure uninterrupted access to critical digital infrastructure. The company said in a statement on Tuesday that Microsoft’s decision set a “dangerous precedent for corporate overreach and raises serious concerns regarding its implications on India’s energy ecosystem.”

The refiner has meanwhile begun migrating to domestic digital service providers to ensure business continuity, according to a report in the Mint newspaper. It had initiated the legal action to obtain urgent relief while pursuing broader strategic transitions to alternative service providers, the report added.

Earlier this month, the EU imposed sanctions on the Vadinar refinery, which is controlled by Nayara, an Indo-Russian joint venture in which Rosneft holds a 49% stake.

The sanctions specifically target the oil sector and include a ban on importing refined petroleum products made from Russian crude. This marked the first time an Indian refiner has been subject to such measures."

My take on this is that one's access to one's own data and be-spoke applications that are hosted in a distributed Cloud Service, be it deployed on an offering from Amazon or Microsoft or Google or Oracle or any other NATO-domiciled entity could be denied at a moment's notice.

I think it advisable for businesses domiciled in non-NATO states to go back to the on-premises model.

You cannot run your business on the whims of foreigners and their electoral cycles.

This is reminiscent of such things as the weaponization of USD, SWIFT, WTO, Maritime insurance, GPS and Civil Aviation, which, in turn, led to the expansion and consolidation of BRICS, establishment of non-USD financial settlement infrastructures, bilateral and multilateral trading blocks, adoption of BeiDou/GLONASS, and such things as Sukhoi Superjet 100 etc.

I must say, the Euro-Americans are impressive in taking a wrecking ball to structures and relationships that they have spent hundreds of billions of USD over many decades to build. Clearly, they consider themselves to be the proverbial "Indispensable Man" - who is presently resting peacefully in a cemetery somewhere on this planet.

AI for Clinical Documentation

Two AI-enabled tools for clinical documentation and processing:

Epic:

Things You Can Do on Your Own - Epic | ACEP

and

Dragon Medical One:

Dragon Medical One | Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare

دروغی واضح درباره انقلاب در تشخیص و درمان سرطان!

 ‌محمدامین کفاشیان‌ در فارس : "در حالی‌که همه انتظار دارند هوش مصنوعی در تشخیص سرطان معجزه کند، انقلاب واقعی بی‌سر‌ و صدا در جای دیگری در حال وقوع است." | فارس