Manny > Recent Status Updates

Autonomous vehicles won't just disrupt the jobs of people who sit physically behind the wheel. As truck drivers lose their jobs to automation, there will be less need for people to do truckers' payroll and for retail workers in roadside convenience stores and motels. There'll be less need for people to clean truck stop bathrooms, and lower demand for sex workers in the places truckers frequent today.

A crucial challenge over the coming decades will be helping countries that fall into the grey area between autocracy and democracy make the transition to fully democratic governance. Part of this will depend on careful use of AI to promote openness and transparency while minimising its potential to be abused for authoritarian surveillance or to spread disinformation.

As technology advances, a replicant (as well as those of us who have not died) will have a variety of bodies and types of bodies to choose from.

The book's first two words, Dramatis Oves, are a great start.

I wondered if the author's name was a pseudonym chosen by a Proust fan. ChatGPT-5.5 immediately confirmed the pseudonym. It can't find solid evidence for the Proust part, but agrees that it's hard to write off as a coincidence. I shall look out for further evidence in the text.

Skjelvende på hånden legger Alberte boken fra sig, tar den ikke op igjen. Noen ord i den gjorde ont i henne, sved som salt i sår. Harde, ubarmhjertige, traff de blink og skånte ikke. Mannsord. Tenkt av en mann, skrevet ned av en mann.

Dontcha just hate it when your butch lesbian friend virtually tries to rape you, and then you receive an unexpected proposal of marriage from a nice male acquaintance you aren't the least bit attracted to but feel rather sorry for, both on the same afternoon and moreover when it's stiflingly hot and you have a headache?

Vokt Dem for Deres hjerte, sier Alphonsine.

I den lille pausen, mens Alphonsine påny overveier, bøier Potter sig frem over bordet og sier lavt til Alberte: Men are like hungry dogs, I always told you ---

Og hun slår over i sitt langsomme, omstendelige og oforbederlige amerikanerfransk og sier høit, til hele selskapet: Det er kvinnens ulykke at hun tenker med hjertet. Mannen, han tenker med noe som sitter lavere.

Ord kastes fra tid til annen mot henne, imellem morsomme, undertiden pene, aldri grove og rå som hjemme. Det verste er det korte, lave: Tu viens? nakent som en ordre til en slave. Men går en fort og later som ingenting, faller det hele bort av sig selv. Det hender det gjøres godt igjen med en undskyldning, Pardon madame.

Dokker, småpian te storkaran, sier Cedolf uten å svare og uten all sammenhang, likesom til sig selv. Ka Dokker tror, vi vil Dokker, sier han og drar plutselig ubestemmelige menneskemasser inn i spørsmålet, gjør det kollektivt: Ka farken? Tror Dokker, vi estimerer å renne efter Dokker bare for -

De renner jo efter mig, sier Alberte med krenkt verdighet.

Ja! Æ så mig så nødsaget til det, sier Cedolf.

Samme syn møter henne på alle kanter, sørgelige fremtoninger i etslags slapt og opgitt på stedet hvil, med brystet inn og maven ut, hengende skuldrer og et utstyr av kraftigt betonte detaljer, så en ikke tror sine øine. Istedenfor føtter og hender har de noe som ligner våtter og svømmeføtter. Ansiktene er bare en klatt.

Dette er altså kunst, tenker hun forvirret.

A bit less than halfway through the book, the sun has just risen for the first time.

Well, that's what it's like living inside the Arctic Circle.

Ou ap gen tan rive nan dispanse-a. Mwen-menm, m'ap sot lekel a katre. Ou ap vin jwenn mwen?

Tu [verbe] a temps arriver à dispensaire-là. Moi-même, moi [verbe] sortir l'ècole à quatre-heures. Tu [verbe] venir joindre moi?

You have time to get to the pharmacy. Me, I'm getting out of school at four o'clock. You coming to meet me?

So far, it's kind of like a Norwegian version of Memoires d'une jeune fille rangée, though written about thirty years earlier. I wonder if she'll later meet a Norwegian version of Sartre? (Don't tell me if you know, like everyone else I hate spoilers).

It also turns out that I can discuss the Krèyol sentences with the AI in French using Voice Mode. It says not to trust its pronunciation too much, but given that I have no idea where to find a native speaker who'd be interested in helping me it's a whole lot better than nothing.

So the Singularity can't happen cuz stuff. I may be oversummarising the argument, but I think only by a little.

Now up to Leson Kat.

ChatGPT-5.5 turns out to know Krèyol well and is a very helpful teacher. If there's a sentence I don't understand, I just ask it to create an image and I get one a minute later.

So the person who coded the Apollo 11 landing module's computer was a woman. How strange that she isn't famous!

LWI: Bonjou, ti dam. Ki jan ou ye?

MARI: M' byen, wi.

LWI: Se pitit-ou?

MARI: Wi se pitit-mwen.

LWI: Ki jan li rele?

MARI: Li rele Sadrak.

LWI: M' rele Lwi. E ou-menm, ki jan ou rele?

MARI: M' rele Mari.

Few today would challenge the notion that the Haitian Creole is a language in its own right, and although its vocabulary is indeed about 90% French-based, that it is neither a pidginized nor a derivative form of French.

Vet du hur många hjälporganisationer det finns i Haiti? Flera tusen, som åstadkommer just ingenting. Men en sak är dom helvetes bra på: att tala om för oss haitier vad vi ska ha för tro! Luther lärjungar förökar sig som råttor här, och deras främsta hatobjekt är vodoun. Inte orättvisa eller vår kära lilla överklass som har allt och gärna vill ha mer, utan vår tro, människornas tro.

- Bonswa mam, beswen de chanm yo pou you nui, sople.

Det var inga ord hon kände igen, det måste vara kreol. Hittills hade hon känt sig trygg med sin franska, men hur skulle hon göra sig förstådd på det här språket?

[Jag gissar att det ska vara "Bonsoir madame, besoin de chambre une pour la nuit, s'il vous plaît"]

Pappa pratade alltid om "oron" som en liten motor som satt i henne. Det var först när hon blev äldre att hon förstod att denna "oro" var ett begrepp bland urmakare, själva hjärta i en mekanisk klocka. Det var ett vackert ord, men i dagens digitala värld fanns det inte mer. Ingen visste längre vad det hade för betydelse.

We are creating a non-biological form of intelligence that, at its seed, is a replica of the masculine geek mind. In its infancy it is being assigned the mission of enabling the capitalist, imperialist ambitions of the few - selling, spying, killing and gambling.

It's interesting to compare this book with If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies. Despite the fact that Gawdat is writing several years earlier, he strikes me as much more in touch with the realities of the situation: it's too late to stop superintelligence from happening, a capitalist society doesn't work that way. Our only option is to figure out how to deal with it.

I was wondering if this book would be hopelessly out of date (it came out before the release of ChatGPT-3.5), but so far I don't get that impression. He makes a strong case for superintelligence in the next few years and keeps reminding us that we always underestimate exponential growth.

He says the second half of the book will say what we can do about it. I'm curious, seems impossible given the build-up.

The author's fact-checking is amazingly sloppy. 60 pages in, I've been told that AIs play all games better than humans (maybe Bill Gates could explain bridge to him sometime), that R2-D2 never actually does anything in Star Wars (doesn't he remember the ending of the original movie?) and that the showdown between Bowman and HAL in 2001 occurs "in the far reaches of the Galaxy" (in fact near Jupiter).

Useful advice on how to be gang-raped. Instead of "Lie back and enjoy it" (well past use-by date), Despentes more practically suggests "Lie back and do what you can to increase the likelihood that they don't also kill you".

Mon dieu, this book certainly doesn't waste any time getting started.

We recently watched the 2022 movie version, so I thought I would reread the original. Surely that many things couldn't have been changed?

No doubt people will say I'm sexist, ageist and nationalist. But if you're going to film a book set in a 1930s German boy's boarding school, why would you ask a young Swedish woman to direct it?! This just doesn't make sense.

Une femme de trente-cinq ans, à l'âge des grandes passions violentes, qui conserverait seulement un rien de la mièvrerie caressante de ses amours de vingt ans, qui ne comprendrait pas qu'elle doit s'exprimer autrement, embrasser autrement, qu'elle doit être une Didon et non plus une Juliette, écœurerait infailliblement neuf amants sur dix, même s'ils ne se rendent compte des raisons de leur éloignement.