Month: June 2018

Authored by Jay Syrmopoulos via ActivistPost.com,

United States Army Secretary Mark Esper recently revealed that the military has a strategic vision of utilizing autonomous and semi-autonomous unmanned vehicles on the battlefield by 2028.

“I think robotics has the potential of fundamentally changing the character of warfare. And I think whoever gets there first will have a unique advantage on the modern battlefield,” Esper said during a Brookings Institution event.

“My ambition is by 2028, to begin fielding autonomous and certainly semi-autonomous vehicles that can fight on the battlefield,” he added. “Fight, sustain us, provide those things we need and we’ll continue to evolve from there.”

In a preview of the U.S. Army’s strategic vision, released on June 6, Esper said the integration of these forces would become a critical strategic component, quoting from the document:

The Army of 2028 will be able to deploy, fight, and win decisively against any adversary, anytime, and anywhere … through the employment of modern manned and unmanned ground combat systems aircraft, sustainment systems and weapons.

When Esper was reportedly asked about concerns regarding autonomous robots being a threat to humanity, he replied in jest, “Well, we’re not doing a T-3000 yet,” referencing the Terminator movie series about self-aware AI threatening the existence of humanity.

Of course, while he jokes about the threat of autonomous killer robots, polymath inventor Elon Musk clearly takes the potential of such a threat much more seriously, as evidenced by his comments at the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference and festival on March 11, in which he said that “AI is far more dangerous than nukes.”

“I’m very close to the cutting edge in AI and it scares the hell out of me,” Musk told the SXSW crowd. “Narrow AI is not a species-level risk. It will result in dislocation… lost jobs… better weaponry and that sort of thing. It is not a fundamental, species-level risk, but digital super-intelligence is.”

“I think the danger of AI is much bigger than the danger of nuclear warheads by a lot. Nobody would suggest we allow the world to just build nuclear warheads if they want, that would be insane. And mark my words: AI is far more dangerous than nukes,” Musk added.

As The Free Thought Project reported last month, the Pentagon reportedly plans to spend more than $1 billion over the next few years developing advanced robots for military applications that are expected to complement soldiers on the battlefield, and potentially even replace some of them.

While the development of this tech by the Army sounds like a movement toward better weaponry, and not a digital super-intelligence, as discussed by Musk—the creation of fully autonomous unmanned weapons systems clearly has implications given the potential future development of some type of “digital super-intelligence.”

Esper attempted to allay fears by noting that the Army’s unmanned vehicle program would be akin to the Air Force’s use of Predator drones, and clarified that the idea would be to protect soldiers by removing them from direct combat. In turn, he said, this would enhance tactical ability and mobility, thus paving the way for cheaper tanks due to not having a crew inside in need of protection.

However, due to the complexity of the modern battlefield, a human element would remain part of the process.

“In my vision, at least, there will be a soldier in the loop. There needs to be. The battlefield is too complex as is,” Esper said.

The nuance in Esper’s statement seemingly leaves lots of ambiguity when he says, “In my vision, at least…” which by default likely implies other competing visions that almost certainly include the use of autonomous systems that don’t have a “solider in the loop.”

During his SXSW commentary, Musk noted that rapid advancements in artificial intelligence are far outpacing regulation of the burgeoning technology, thus creating a dangerous paradigm. He explained that while he is usually against governmental regulation and oversight, the potentially catastrophic implications for humanity create a need for regulation.

“I’m not normally an advocate of regulation and oversight,” Musk said. “There needs to be a public body that has insight and oversight to confirm that everyone is developing AI safely.”

While some experts in the field have attempted to dismiss the threat posed to humanity by the development of AI, Musk said these “experts” are victims of their own delusions of intellectual superiority over machines, calling their thought process “fundamentally flawed.”

“The biggest issue I have with AI experts… is that they think they’re smarter than they are. This tends to plague smart people,” Musk said. “They’re defining themselves by their intelligence… and they don’t like the idea that a machine could be smarter than them, so they discount the idea. And that’s fundamentally flawed.”

The billionaire inventor pointed to Google’s AlphaGo, an AI-powered software that can play the ancient Chinese board game Go as evidence of exponential learning capacity of machines. Although it was reputedly the world’s most demanding strategy game, in early 2017, the AlphaGo AI clinched a decisive victory over the top Go player in the world.

While current semi-autonomous systems keep humans marginally in the loop, the advent of fully autonomous systems that operate without any human input creates serious ethical implications in terms of the morality of using killer robots to slaughter human combatants on the battlefield.

Although Esper’s stated preference for keeping soldiers in the loop is noble, the larger U.S. war machine will undoubtedly find some type of efficiency in eliminating the human component altogether to make killing on the battlefield even more “efficient.”

We are clearly on an extremely slippery slope when it comes to killer robots and A.I.  Intellectual giants like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking have continually attempted to sound the civilizational alarm regarding the extreme dangers inherent to AI.

As an article in the Guardian on Monday pointed out, killer robots are only a threat if we are stupid enough to create them. Now, the only question is: Will anyone heed all these warnings?

via RSS https://ift.tt/2yjaQeR Tyler Durden

A New York psychologist who claims to have “met Trump personally” in the early 90’s at a fashion event, Suzanne Lachmann, says that Donald Trump interrupted her while she was trying to introduce herself – asking her why he would want to talk to her with all the hot models around, and that he “wouldn’t let you suck my dick.”  

Lachmann told The Post she spotted the famous developer standing alone at a Missoni fashion event — filled with models — on the heels of his 1992 divorce from first-wife Ivana.

She approached The Donald to introduce herself as “a neighbor,” and tell him she enjoyed his recent interview on the Howard Stern show.

“He interrupted me and said, ‘Why would I want to talk to you? Look at all the beautiful women in here. I wouldn’t let you s–k my d–k.’”

Stunned, she said, she walked away without a response. –NY Post

Earlier in the month, Lachmann – a New York Fire Department consultant whose Twitter account is littered with anti-Trump tweets and retweets, wrote “As a mental health expert – clinical psychologist – based in #nyc consultant for #FDNY who helps determine who must be taken off line due to mental duress, have met trump personally and had direct interaction w him I say w certainty that he is #UnfitForOffice #UnfitToBePresident”

As a mental health expert – clinical psychologist – based in #nyc consultant for #FDNY who helps determine who must be taken off line due to mental duress, have met trump personally and had direct interaction w him I say w certainty that he is #UnfitForOffice #UnfitToBePresident

— Suzanne Lachmann (@DrSuzanneL) June 6, 2018

In February, Lachmann ranted over Twitter about Trump supporters, saying they are “psychiatrically unstable, mentally impaired, cognitively limited, utterly misanthropic, white supremacists to the extreme,” who “can’t distinguish what an abusive sick nut job he is.”

They don’t have an answer. They’rpsychiatrically unstable, mentally impaired, cognitively limited, utterly misanthropic, white supremacists to the extreme, and/or so severely traumatized by events in their own lives that they cannot distinguish what an abusive, sick nutjob he is

— Suzanne Lachmann (@DrSuzanneL) February 12, 2018

Lachmann, 50, described the encounter in the March 2017 edition of Psychology Today:

I was volunteering that evening and later approached him in order to introduce myself, and he said, “Why would I want to talk to you? I wouldn’t even let you suck my d*ck. Look at all the beautiful women here. Don’t waste my time.” –Psychology Today

The Post suggested that Lachmann’s comments over Twitter may have violated the FDNY’s social media policy which states: “Employees who identify themselves as FDNY employees, or hold positions with the FDNY that are known to the general public … should make a clear disclaimer that the statements and views expressed … do not reflect the views of the FDNY.” 

Lachmann, however, insisted the policy doesn’t apply to her because “I’m a consultant, not an employee.” 

FDNY spokesman Frank Gribbon, however, said “It’s inappropriate to cite her work with FDNY in social posts that express political views.“

Sad! 

via RSS https://ift.tt/2JL57nF Tyler Durden

Authored by Peter Schmidt via SchiffGold.com,

When currency was backed by gold, a central bank’s main function was to maintain the value of the issued currency in terms of gold.  For example, if a central bank created too much money against the gold reserves in the banking system, an increasing number of people would begin to exchange their currency for gold.  To combat this, a central bank would be forced to raise interest rates and decrease the money supply.  The higher interest rates would incentivize people to exchange gold for larger savings on deposit that earn interest.  Banking reserves – gold – would return to the banking system and the economy would return to balance.  The prime reason for insisting on defining currency in terms of a precious metal was to provide a self-correcting braking mechanism to the creation of money.  As expressed by the great Wilhelm Röpke:

If in the production of goods the most important pedal is the accelerator, in the production of money it is the brake.  To insure that this brake works automatically and independently of the whims of government and the pressure of parties and groups seeking “easy money” has been one of the main functions of the gold standard.  That the liberal should prefer the automatic brake of gold to the whims of government in its role of trustee of a managed currency is understandable.”

The US dollar was backed by gold as recently as 1971.  Any central bank in the world could present the Federal Reserve $35 and receive 1-ounce of gold in exchange.  However, on August 15, 1971 – blaming it on the “gnomes of Zurich” – President Nixon “temporarily” broke the dollar’s last link with gold.  Nixon closed the “gold window” and reneged on the promise to exchange an ounce of gold for $35.  Since then, the system of credit in the US has been under the Fed’s complete control.

Unsurprisingly, without the natural braking action provided by gold, the value of the dollar has collapsed and the ensuing 45 years are the most crisis-ridden period in American economic history.

The case against today’s Fed can be made in a number of ways.  A method – which enjoys the advantage of hoisting Ben Bernanke on his own mathematical petard – is to use economic statistics from two eras – 1967 and 2015.  One of the reasons Ben Bernanke is such a big fan of baseball is his fondness of statistics.  In baseball, like few other sports, players from one era can be compared to players from other eras because the game has changed so little.  Because of his fondness for baseball statistics and their constancy over time, Bernanke should be sympathetic to the data presented here – even if it exposes the enormous damage he and the Fed have visited on hundreds of millions of hard-working Americans.

The chart below speaks volumes about the disastrous impact of Fed policies since 1971.  The chart also reveals how the credit inflation the Fed has created, actually masks the disastrous impact of the Fed’s policies.  Specifically, the Fed-induced inflation makes it difficult for the average worker to realize that even though their salaries have soared in dollar terms, these salaries now purchase much less than they used to.

The chart lists prices for several common items as well as average incomes and home prices for the years 1967 and 2015.   In addition to defining prices and incomes in dollars, prices and incomes are also defined in their equivalent amounts measured in ounces of gold.  The equivalent “ounces of gold” are simply determined by taking the price in dollars and dividing it by the prevailing price of gold for the time period under review.

As a result of the collapsing value of the dollar – it is worth less than 3% of its 1971 equivalent in gold terms – it is not completely straightforward to compare economic performance in 1967 with the performance today.  When prices and incomes are measured in dollars they appear to be soaring – annual incomes have risen from $7,181 per year to $52,000.  However, when these same incomes are measured in ounces of gold, they appear to be collapsing – falling from 648.6-ounces per year to just 269.5.

What is really going on?

Because money – whether it manifests itself as paper currency issued by a central bank or a constitutionally prescribed amount of precious metal – is merely a store of wealth and a means of exchange, the Fed’s incompetence is best demonstrated by comparing what the average person can purchase with his salary today versus 1967.  The last column in the chart measures how much more unaffordable everyday items have become to the average worker, and does so without using dollars or gold.  Instead, this column computes the cost of an item on the basis of the median worker’s income for both 2015 and 1967.  A ratio of these two costs is then take