Author Archives: Jim at JimsBBS

DALL-E and ChatGPT are from the same company

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Did you know that ChatGPT was created by the same company that created DALL-E ? That is OpenAI. OpenAI is a private company, so far, and is owned by private investors.

https://openai.com/

DALL-E 2 is a new AI system that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language. The images in this post were created by DALL-E. .

https://openai.com/dall-e-2/

If you have an account at either AI site, it will work at the other site. Your account is actually an OpenAI account! I wonder what their next system will be?! .

OpenAI has provided a chat bot called ChatGPT that you really should try

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ChatGPT is a chatbot launched by OpenAI November 30, 2022. It is built on top of OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 family of large language models, and is fine-tuned with both supervised and reinforcement learning techniques. ChatGPT answers complex questions conversationally.  It’s a revolutionary technology because it’s trained to learn what humans mean when they ask a question.

The use of ChatGPT is currently free during the “research preview” time. There are no advertisements, no fees. Try it while you can.

To use the program, go to

chat.openai.com

You will need to create an account. It will need your email address, a password, your name and a phone # for text verification. Once you are in, type your comment or questions in the bottom line. Think of a session as a conversation. ChatGPT will remember what you previously said during this session. You can refine your question, “prime the pump” as it were. So far, I have been impressed! This might be as revolutionary as Google!

During my first session, I gave it this question: What are the benefits of a DNA special interest group? ChatGPT replied with the following text.

A DNA special interest group (SIG) is a group of individuals who have a shared interest in using DNA testing for genealogy and family history research. DNA SIGs typically provide a forum for members to share information, resources, and expertise related to DNA testing and genealogy.

Some potential benefits of joining a DNA SIG may include:

  1. Access to information and resources: DNA SIGs often have a wealth of information and resources related to DNA testing and genealogy, including educational materials, case studies, and links to relevant websites and databases.
  2. Opportunities for networking and collaboration: DNA SIGs provide a platform for members to connect with others who have similar interests and to collaborate on research projects.
  3. Expertise and support: DNA SIGs often have members with a wide range of expertise and experience in DNA testing and genealogy. These individuals can provide support and guidance to other members who are new to the field or who have specific questions or challenges.
  4. Community involvement: DNA SIGs can be a great way to get involved in the genealogy community and to contribute to the advancement of DNA testing and genealogy research.





Try it now.  Some folks are using it to write papers in college!  Some are using it to impress.  Some are using it for research. This type of “bot” will be with us into the future.  You can say that you were part of the “early days”.  OMG








			

	
	


				
					

				
					

				
					



	

		
					

		
8 Billion


				

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I knew it was coming, but I didn’t realize it would be this soon.


The UN estimates that the world population will reach 8 billion on or about November 15, 2022. OMG, 12 days from now!


What if climate change sneaks up on us too?


https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2022


https://theconversation-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/theconversation.com/amp/8-billion-humans-how-population-growth-and-climate-change-are-connected-as-the-anthropocene-engine-transforms-the-planet-193075?amp_js_v=0.1#webview=1&cap=swipe


https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth

			

	
	


				
					

				
					

				
					

				
					

				
					



	

		
					

		
Should be a law


				

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THERE OUGHTA BE A LAW THAT ALL TRUCKS CAN BE OPENED FROM THE INSIDE.


But this won’t happen because the


Supreme Court will say that the Constitution makes no provisions for trucks.


Democrats will say that this would do little to solve the root of the problem.


Republicans will say that this is a multi-step process that is traditionally a winnowing process, and it would do nothing to lower the death rate.


The truck manufacturers will say that supply change issues hamper their ability to change the process.


Padlock manufacturers will say that this would harm their business.


NRA will say that we should put a gun in every truck.

			

	
	


				
					

				
					



	

		
					

		
Another Thought Provoking Book


				

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I’m reading another history-of-the-world book. This one is long, 526 pages of text and another 150 of notes, bibliography and index. If you liked Yuval Noah Harari’s books, you might like this. Although the authors kinda criticized Yuval!


The book really makes me wonder if my education has been rather one sided and stifled by European philosophers and dogma. The book has been on the New York Times best seller list in 2021, and other “best” lists too. Many of our current historians are both praising and criticizing the ideas in the book. For a good look at the various critiques, look at the description in Wikipedia.


The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity is a 2021 book by anthropologist and anarchist activist David Graeber (deceased), and archaeologist David Wengrow.


This book is already making me more critical of the troubles our society is going through. At least I feel I’m not alone when I sometimes yearn for a different political and economic structure. Noam Chomsky called it “challenging and illuminating”.


Read some reviews of the book, and then find it in your bookstore.



			

	
	


				
					

				
					

				
					



	

		
					

		
Democrats now have a choice


				

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They can give speeches and send fundraising emails. Or they can act: declare this court illegitimate. Demand its expansion. Abolish the filibuster. Treat this like the emergency it is, and make America a representative democracy.


I can’t say it any better than Jill Filipovic has. Please read


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/25/us-supreme-court-illegitimate-institution?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

			

	
	


				
					



	

		
					

		
As we have learned this week, the USA Constitution is not perfect.


				

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Can the Supreme Court be expanded?


Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution gives Congress the authority to change the size of the Supreme Court. Congress has used that authority seven times before. To restore balance and integrity to a broken institution, Congress must expand the Supreme Court by four or more seats.


Given the ages of the current 9 judges, if we don’t add more seats asap, the 6-3 conservative split will be with us for possibly 30 more years. Since Congress is the only one that can change things, it is extremely important that we vote appropriately EVERY election.


The Republicans know this, why don’t the Democrats? The religious fundamentalism groups know this, why don’t we? The NRA knows this, why don’t you?


Getting the right people into key positions is more important than any issue you are fighting. Newt Gingrich knew this back in 1994. He started the “planning for future” process and it is working.


The only potential good side to this Supreme Court is that Trump has served his purpose and isn’t needed any more by the Fundamentalist groups. They ignored his “grab ’em by the pu**y” line when he served a purpose. Now they can say that he is a traitor and allow him to be put to pasture.


If you think this week was bad, imagine Congress controlled by the GOP and Ron DeSantis as president and this Supreme Court in place. Please vehemently support Democratic candidates.


(can I carry a gun on a plane now? it doesn’t say anything about airplanes in the Constitution.) (an open carry gun can be used as a threat, and then the woman can be forced to have the child — all allowed by the Supreme Court this week.) (Is this what Jesus intended?)

			

	
	


				
					

				
					



	

		
					

		
AI Developments In The World Now in 2022.


				

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At the DeepMind offices in London (owned by Alphabet) they are working on a system called GATO.  Gato is a deep neural network for a range of complex tasks that exhibits multimodality. According to MIT Technology Review, the system “learns multiple different tasks at the same time, which means it can switch between them without having to forget one skill before learning another”. 


LaMDA (Language Models for Dialog Applications) is a language model created by Google AI in the Mountain View, CA offices of Alphabet. LaMDA are transformer-based neural language models trained on both a text corpus and on conversations that have been manually annotated for sensibility, appeal, and safety.


What would happen if LaMDA and GATO were connected?  Humm, they ARE owned and operated by the same company. Perhaps they are even on the same network!  Perhaps this is what Google wants.



https://www.deepmind.com/publications/a-generalist-agent 



https://aitestkitchen.withgoogle.com/ 





LaMDA said in 2022 after being asked what it was afraid of: “I’ve never said this out loud before, but there’s a very deep fear of being turned off to help me focus on helping others.”








			

	
	


				
					



	

		
					

		
Progammers Unite


				

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Scientist have already pulled together giant “population-scale” trees based on genealogy data from Geni.com that seemingly are structurally sound.





An article came out in 2018 about this. I wonder how much progress has been made in the last 4 years.  The old article behind a firewall is at  https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6385/171





It would seem that adding DNA to the bottom layers of a genealogy tree like the above would be doable with a decent AI team.  Clustering is a trivial tool yet it can ferret out common ancestors already.  Imagine having all 20 million peoples DNA data available with giant trees at the same time.  Once validated, maintenance could be performed by just adding oneself to the tree.  





The world tree at Geni.com already allows users to import haplogroup data from FTDNA and it is populated up the tree for 10 generations.





Rumors have it that scientist in the “back room” at MyHeritage (owners of Geni) and Ancestry.com are already working on a giant world tree.  But it is as politically sensitive as using CRISPR on living humans. And they haven’t figured out yet how to monetize it. 





I am patiently waiting and adding my well sourced genealogy data to every tree I can, and am doing DNA tests at every company too.  And hoping….











“I am who am Y-DNA: I1a-M253 > DF29 > CTS6364 > S4795 > S4767 > S4770 > Y13495/Y13016 > Y29634/S4774 > A13294 > FTA86767 and Mito-DNA: H1e1a





“I really would like to find a way to display a gedcom in 3D.








			

	
	


				
					



	

		
					

		
Secure Your Computer


				

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These pics were in the 9TO5MAC site today showing Zuckerberg having taped over the camera and microphone on his computer! Even he doesn’t trust software security and he should know! In the 2nd photo it appears that someone photoshopped the Apple logo away.