Month: July 2023

Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A leading mind in the development of artificial intelligence is warning that AI has developed a rudimentary capacity to reason and may seek to overthrow humanity.

AI systems may develop the desire to seize control from humans as a way of accomplishing other preprogrammed goals, said Geoffrey Hinton, a professor of computer science at the University of Toronto.

“I think we have to take the possibility seriously that if they get smarter than us, which seems quite likely, and they have goals of their own, which seems quite likely, they may well develop the goal of taking control,” Hinton said during a June 28 talk at the Collision tech conference in Toronto, Canada.

“If they do that, we’re in trouble.”

Hinton has been dubbed one of the “godfathers of AI” for his work in neural networks. He recently spent a decade helping to develop AI systems for Google but left the company last month, saying he needed to be able to warn people of the risks posed by AI.

While Hinton does not believe that AI will innately crave power, he said that it could nevertheless seek to seize it from humans as a logical step to better allow itself to achieve its goals.

“At a very general level, if you’ve got something that’s a lot smarter than you, that’s very good at manipulating people, at a very general level, are you confident that people stay in charge?” Hinton said.

“I think they’ll derive [the motive to seize control] as a way of achieving other goals.”

AI Now Capable of Reason

Hinton previously doubted that an AI superintelligence that could match humans would emerge within the next 30 to 50 years. He now believes it could come in less than 20.

In part, he said, that is because AI systems that use large language models are beginning to show the capacity to reason, and he is not sure how they are doing it.

“It’s the big language models that are getting close, and I don’t really understand why they can do it, but they can do little bits of reasoning.

“They still can’t match us, but they’re getting close.”

Hinton described an AI system that had been given a puzzle in which it had to plan how to paint several rooms of a house. It was given three colors to choose from, with one color that faded to another over time, and asked to paint a certain number of rooms in a particular color within a set time frame. Rather than merely opting to paint the rooms the desired color, the AI determined not to paint any that it knew would fade to the desired color anyway, electing to save resources though it had not been programmed to do so.

“That’s thinking,” Hinton said.

To that end, Hinton said that there was no reason to suspect that AI wouldn’t reach and exceed human intelligence in the coming years.

“We’re just a big neural net, and there’s no reason why an artificial neural net shouldn’t be able to do everything we can do,” Hinton said.

“We’re entering a period of huge uncertainty. Nobody really knows what’s going to happen.”

Read more here…

Since the advent of nuclear electricity in the 1950s, nuclear reactors have played an essential role in meeting our rising energy needs.

Nuclear reactors are designed to operate for decades and are typically licensed for 20 to 40 years, and they can last even longer with license renewals.

So, just how old is the world’s current nuclear reactor fleet?

As Visual Capitalist’s Govind Bhutada and Sabrina Lam show in the bubble chart below, the age distribution of the 422 reactors operating worldwide as of March 2023 is quite considerable, based on data from the Power Reactor Information System (PRIS).

The Age Distribution of the Global Reactor Fleet

Nuclear power saw a building boom in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s as countries expanded their energy portfolios and sought to capitalize on the advancements in nuclear technology.

As a result, the majority of the world’s nuclear reactors began operating during this period.

Of the total of 422 reactors, 262 reactors have been in operation for 31 to 50 years. In other words, about 62% of all current nuclear reactors were connected to the grid between 1973 and 1992.

Growth in nuclear power slowed down by the turn of the 21st century, with decreasing public support and increasing concern over nuclear safety. As a result, only a small number of reactors fall into the 11 to 20 year age group.

But over the last decade, some countries have renewed their interest in nuclear energy, while others like China have continued to expand their reactor fleets. Some 67 reactors are between zero and 10 years old, accounting for 18% of global nuclear electrical capacity.

The oldest operating reactors (five of them) are 54 years old and entered commercial service in 1969. Two of these are located in the United States, two in India, and one in Switzerland.

How Long Can Nuclear Reactors Last?

Although specific lifespans can vary, nuclear reactors are typically designed to last for 20 to 40 years.

However, reactors can operate beyond their initially licensed periods with lifetime extensions. Extending reactor lives requires rigorous assessments, safety evaluations, and refurbishments.

Some countries have granted license renewals for aging reactors. Notably, 88 of the 92 reactors in the U.S. have received approvals to operate for up to 60 years, and some have applied for additional 20-year extensions to operate for up to 80 years.

With safety concerns addressed, reactors with lifetime extensions can offer various advantages. Without the high capital investments needed to build new reactors, they can produce carbon-free electricity at low and competitive costs, which is especially important as the global power sector looks to decarbonize.

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

Raytheon has called in retired engineers to help produce Stinger anti-aircraft missiles that the US has been providing Ukraine, Defense One reported on Thursday.

Stingers are shoulder-fired missiles that were out of production for 20 years until the US started sending them to Ukraine when Russia first invaded last year, a policy led by a former Raytheon board member, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

According to the Pentagon, the US has provided Ukraine with over 1,700 Stinger missile systems to date.

“Stinger’s been out of production for 20 years, and all of a sudden in the first 48 hours [of the war], it’s the star of the show and everybody wants more,” Wes Kremer, the president of Raytheon Missiles & Defense, said last week.

Raytheon needs to produce the Stingers using blueprints drawn up during the Carter administration, as using more advanced production methods would require redesigning the weapon.

“We were bringing back retired employees that are in their 70s … to teach our new employees how to actually build a Stinger,” Kremer said. “We’re pulling test equipment out of warehouses and blowing the spider webs off of them.”

The US Army placed an order for Stingers in May 2022 to replace ones sent to Ukraine, but the Pentagon said they won’t be delivered until 2026. Kremer said it would take at least 30 months for the first missiles to be completed due to the time it will take to restart production.

In March 2022, Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes explained how the war in Ukraine would be a boon for the weapons maker.

“Everything that’s being shipped into Ukraine today, of course, is coming out of stockpiles, either at DoD or from our NATO allies, and that’s all great news. Eventually we’ll have to replenish it and we will see a benefit to the business over the next coming years,” he said.

About 30 million Americans are taking benzodiazepines like Xanax, Valium, and Klonopin- about 12.5% of the adult population. Doctors and psychiatrists have prescribed these drugs for decades to treat anxiety. But a new study reveals “benzodiazepine usage and discontinuing usage” can create “nervous system injury and negative life effects.” 

Researchers from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus said as patients enter the discontinuation phase of Xanax, Valium, and Klonopin, they face significant withdrawal symptoms.

“Despite the fact that benzodiazepines have been widely prescribed for decades, this survey presents significant new evidence that a subset of patients experiences long-term neurological complications,” said Alexis Ritvo, M.D, M.P.H., an assistant professor in psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and medical director of the nonprofit Alliance for Benzodiazepine Best Practices. She said the medical community must reevaluate how it prescribes benzodiazepines. 

The study was a collaborative effort between CU Anschutz, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and several drug advocacy that specializes in raising awareness of benzodiazepine harms. 

“Patients have been reporting long-term effects from benzodiazepines for over 60 years. I am one of those patients. Even though I took my medication as prescribed, I still experience symptoms on a daily basis at four years off benzodiazepines. Our survey and the new term BIND (benzodiazepine-induced neurological dysfunction) give a voice to the patient experience and point to the need for further investigations,” said Christy Huff, MD, one of the paper’s coauthors and a cardiologist and director of Benzodiazepine Information Coalition. 

About 76.6% of the respondents had long-lasting symptoms after discounting the use of benzodiazepines. Almost half of the respondents had these ten symptoms for more than a year: 

1. low energy
2. difficulty focusing
3.  memory loss
4. anxiety
5. insomnia
6. sensitivity to light and sounds
7. digestive problems
8. symptoms triggered by food and drink
9. muscle weakness
10.  body pain

The most alarming part of the study was the symptoms listed above were new and distinct and weren’t experienced before respondents used Xanax, Valium, and Klonopin. Many respondents reported damaged relationships, job loss, and increased medical costs. Also, 54.4% of the respondents reported suicidal thoughts or attempted suicide. 

But don’t worry because doctors and the government tell us benzodiazepines are safe, just like they said OxyContin wasn’t addictive in the 1990s. 

 

 

 

 

 

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has sent out a special mailing to taxpayers in disaster-affected areas, letting them know they have more time to pay their taxes.

The IRS said in a statement Thursday that the special mailing was being sent out to California and seven other states as a follow-up clarification after an earlier message wrongly told them they had 21 days to pay.

“Although the initial notice indicated a payment deadline of 21 days, taxpayers in these disaster-declared regions actually have until a later date this year to make their payments within the designated timeframe,” the agency stated.

Taxpayers with balances due who live in parts of Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee that fell under disaster declarations received a CP14 notice from the IRS in late May and June.

Many of the CP14 notices incorrectly said the affected taxpayers had three weeks to pay outstanding balances.

“We know our initial mailing caused confusion for taxpayers and tax professionals, and we worked quickly to send a follow-up reminder to help reassure people,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a statement.

“This mailing reflects how we’re trying to be more taxpayer-focused given the additional resources that we’ve been given under the Inflation Reduction Act.”

The new mailing, called CP14CL, will be sent out within the next several weeks, the agency said.

The earlier CP14 notices also included a special insert that features the correct payment deadline, which was extended under special tax relief to taxpayers in federally declared disaster zones.

The IRS has also updated these inserts, which will accompany upcoming CP14 balances-due notices so as to make it clear that the letter does not apply to people covered by disaster declarations.

Disaster-Related Deadline Extensions

Earlier this year, taxpayers in federally declared disaster regions—like ones hit by deadly winter storms—were granted tax relief by the IRS in the form of an extension on their deadlines to file their tax returns and pay amounts due.

The IRS issued notices granting such relief to taxpayers affected by severe weather in parts of Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, New York, and Tennessee. The deadline extensions varied across different disaster areas, with relevant parts of Florida, for example, getting an extension until Aug. 15, while Tennessee storm victims had theirs extended until July 31.

Read more here…

The separation of the political left from any sort of reasonable governance has been obvious for years now.  To put it simply, they see the government as their personal weapon for deconstructing the country so they can rebuild society the way they want.  They believe this is their right – The right of the collective to socially engineer   

The notion that elements of the government might serve the interests of conservatives and independents is an unthinkable heresy.  And, whenever they don’t get exactly what they want from the government (which is rare) they immediately act as if they have been betrayed; that an “insurrection” is afoot to enslave them.  

This attitude seems to overlook the fact that every major institution in the US has been catering to the far-left for decades.  Even when GOP Republicans have taken a majority in the House, the Senate or put their man in the Oval Office, the general legislative trend has always taken a progressive direction, to the point that America has become increasingly more socialist in its functions.  It’s also the reason why America has become economically and socially unstable.   

In truth, leftists have been getting what they want from governments and the corporate world for so long they have become utterly entitled, like spoiled children.

That’s the kind of sad energy we now see on display among Democrats in the face of multiple Supreme Court losses, including the reversal of Roe v. Wade, the blocking of Biden’s student loan relief program and the end of affirmative action on college campuses.  All these court decisions really amount to is a reversal of entitlements that never should have existed in the first place.  Leftists see such entitlements as “civil rights,” never mind that they exist as a means to take the rights of others.

Democrat Representative Jaamal Bowman echos this ideology, combining it with a tired and psychotic rant about “white patriarchy” being the core function of the Supreme Court.

Rep Jaamal Bowman has a meltdown on tiktok over Supreme Court rulings.

Says Supreme Court is “illegitimate” and they’re only there to serve “white supremacy” and “white patriarchy” and “they don’t want black people to be educated” pic.twitter.com/f755B0F9Yg

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 30, 2023

The message?  It’s complicated because it’s unhinged, but at bottom the far-left wants to fundamentally change the very fabric of the government so that it always acts in their favor regardless of who else is trampled in the process.  Let’s try to break down Bowman’s claims…

Playing the racism card is the Democrat go-to tactic for a reason.  The primary purpose is to incite civil unrest as a tool for control – “Give us what we want or the cities will burn.”  The secondary purpose is to declare ownership of minorities.  The propaganda acts as if all minorities are a monolith that serves the aims of the political left.  The idea that minorities might also be conservative is ignored.    

Affirmative action has always been a racist policy; it allows institutions to actively discriminate based on skin color and ethnicity.  Interestingly, white people are not the most affected by affirmative action on college campuses; Asian people are the most discriminated against, with double standards in testing and academic excellence designed to keep them out of the classrooms.  According to research from Princeton University, students who identify as Asian must score 140 points higher on the SAT than whites and 450 points higher than Blacks to have the same chance of admission to private colleges.

The notion of a constitutional convention has already been cited by other Democrats including California Governor Gavin Newsom as a means to dismantle the 2nd Amendment, but Bowman seems to be suggesting a convention to completely upend the Supreme Court and the very foundations of the law.  Keep in mind that Democrats have avidly defended the court structure when it works in their favor, but since the court is finally operating on a more constitutional framework they argue it is now corrupt and white supremacist.

Student loan debt relief is nothing more than a way for Dems to buy votes – “Put us in office and we will eliminate the debts you accrued getting that degree that was probably useless.”  Of course, taxpaying Americans would have to cover the bill for debt forgiveness on college loans, not the Democratic Party.  It’s rather brilliant when you think about it – Democrats use your money to buy votes to keep themselves in office so they can continue to erode your constitutional rights.  You pay for your own oppression.

People should have to pay for their own debts.  Taxpayers should not have to pay their debts for them. It teaches a terrible lesson to the next generation that if they make mistakes the government will make sure they don’t have to learn from those mistakes.

Finally, it’s not surprising that Bowman attacks expanded gun rights in his diatribe on affirmative action, given that the political left cannot maintain power unless the public is eventually disarmed.  Leftists believe in majority rule, as long as they are the majority.  If they are the minority, they riot.  If they are the majority, they demand government suppress their political opponents.  In either case, gun rights stand as a major obstacle to them.  

It was only a couple years ago that establishment elites and Democrats were pushing for permanent covid mandates, jail time for those who spread information contrary to the government narrative and economic discrimination for anyone who refused to take the vaccines.  The political left took the mask off completely and showed who they really are.  They cannot be trusted to rewrite or rebuild core government structures. 

Their hatred of the Supreme Court is not based on any legitimate grievances, it’s based on how they view power.  The court is a center of power that does not always act according to the dictates of social justice Marxism.  They see the court as just another “platform” that needs to be co-opted.    

Many conservatives and moderates also have concerns bout how the Supreme Court makes decisions, but one cannot deny the constitutional logic behind their recent rulings.  It’s a shift that should have happened a long time ago, though it is happening in an era in which leftists see ideological deviation as treason.  They will use every trick at their disposal to undermine the law and create double standards to their benefit.  Bowman essentially admits that this is the plan. 

Authored by Jonathan Turley

“The hypocrisy is stunning.”

Those words from President Joe Biden after his student loan forgiveness program was found unconstitutional were . . . well . . . stunning. Indeed, they may stand as the greatest example of transference in history.

Ever since President Biden first announced that he would unilaterally forgive roughly half a trillion dollars in student debt, many of us have noted that he lacked that authority under the Constitution. We were not alone: we had Joe Biden himself.

During the 2020 presidential election, Biden admitted that he needed congressional approval for such a massive loan forgiveness. Likewise, as cited in the opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) stated the obvious:

“People think that the president of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not. He can postpone. He can delay. But he does not have that power. That has to be an act of Congress.”

The problem is that he could not get this measure through Congress and, despite his earlier acknowledgment of the obvious, Biden simply claimed that he could give away hundreds of billions of dollars without congressional authorization.

He is now crying hypocrisy when the Court said he was right all along.

Of course, denial is a common defense mechanism, the “unconscious forms of self-deception we use to avoid anxiety and emotional pain, or to ensure we are ‘acceptable’ to others.”

Transference is a common form of denial when a “fact is admitted to, but the person will deny their responsibility.”

However, in presidents, it is a costly habit.

From the outset, Biden’s use of the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act of 2003 was questioned by a wide array of observers given the clear intent before the Act. Congress passed this short piece of legislation to assist military personnel deployed abroad in combat zones. No one seriously argued that Congress ever intended or even contemplated such a massive debt forgiveness program under the Act.

However, necessity is the mother of invention and Biden knew that there was no way that he could get Congress to approve such an unprecedented give-away. Many Americans opposed the proposal. Many elected not to go to college but to get jobs. Others spent years paying off their debts.

Instead of turning to Congress, Biden turned to some of the same experts who have green lighted past unconstitutional programs. For example, the Biden Administration was found to have violated the Constitution in its imposition of a nationwide eviction moratorium through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  The President admitted that his White House counsel and most legal experts told him that the move was unconstitutional. However, at the urging of then Speaker Pelosi, he called Harvard University Professor Laurence Tribe who assured him that he had the authority to act alone. It was, of course, then quickly found to be unconstitutional.

When Biden faced the prospect of having to negotiate with Congress over raising the debt ceiling, some of the same experts surfaced to assure him that he did not. In other words, he could skip negotiating the raising of the debt limit and unilaterally borrow and spend billions. It was a position that would effectively gut the power of the purse and literally lacked a single supporting case as precedent. Yet, Tribe and others insisted that he could ignore Congress and just start spending hundreds of billions of dollars.

Yet, the has President enablers in his denial psychosis. When Biden faced his past view against unilateral loan forgiveness as well as the view of others (including a prior DOJ memo), he again broke the glass for emergency legal support.

Tribe and others like University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck assured the president or the public that the authority was clear and obvious. It was not even a close interpretive question.

President Biden has now lost again 6-3 before the Court.

Despite his own stated view that this would violate the Constitution, he chose politics over principle. Even the Washington Post said that the move was presumptively unconstitutional, but hoped that standing questions would prevent the Court from striking down the program.

Now that the Court has found that he has again violated the Constitution by refusing to go to Congress, Biden responded by declaring that he would take a “new path.” That path, of course, does not lead to Congress. The problem with Congress is that it requires a democratic vote and the majority oppose this program.

So Biden is turning to Plan B and will try to do the same circumvention through the Higher Education Act of 1965. That was the law rejected earlier in favor of the HEROES Act by the Administration. The law would not support this broad loan forgiveness effort. Even if successful, it would excuse only some of these loans and would take a long time in the rulemaking process.

There is no Plan B under the Constitution. Congress controls the power of the purse and the President cannot govern alone. In the end, the President may want to take a sec with Stuart Smalley and understand that “denial is not just a river in Africa.” The fact is that he was once “good enough and smart enough” . . . to go to Congress.

General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has once again weighed in on the progress of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, saying it has gotten off to a slower than expected start, but that this is not entirely surprising. 

“This [counteroffensive] is happening more slowly than people predicted. I am not surprised by this. They [Ukrainian troops ] are advancing confidently, purposefully, making their way through very difficult minefields,” he said.

He added that this is “part of the nature of war” and emphasized before an audience at the National Press Club in Washington that “war on paper and real war are different things”.

“Ukrainians are fighting for their existence. They are fighting against a huge country with a population of 140 million and a large army that has a lot of military equipment,” Milley said in the comments issued at the end of the week. He reaffirmed that the US government is helping Ukraine in every way possible.

He was also asked about his initial assessment last month as the much-anticipated offensive had kicked off. “What I had said was this is going to take six, eight, ten weeks. It’s going to be very difficult. It’s going to be very long and it’s going to be very, very bloody,” he explained.

“No one should have any illusions about any of that,” he added, and described that Russia’s significant mine-laying capabilities have made things slow and daunting. 

By most accounts, Ukraine also failed to capitalize on the turmoil inside Russia brought on by last weekend’s Wagner rebellion. Kiev is already blaming lack of weapons, despite the tens of billions in defense aid sent thus far.

This week, the commander of the Ukrainian armed forces, General Valery Zaluzhny, was quoted extensively in The Washington Post. He is begging for more weapons:

For Ukraine’s counteroffensive to progress faster, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, the top officer in Ukraine’s armed forces, says he needs more — of every weapon. And he is telling anyone who will listen, including his American counterpart Gen. Mark A. Milley as recently as Wednesday, that he needs those resources now.

In a rare, wide-ranging interview with The Washington Post, Zaluzhny expressed frustration that while his biggest Western backers would never launch an offensive without air superiority, Ukraine still has not received modern fighter jets but is expected to rapidly take back territory from the occupying Russians. American-made F-16s, promised only recently, are not likely to arrive until the fall — in a best-case scenario.

His troops also should be firing at least as many artillery shells as their enemy, Zaluzhny said, but have been outshot tenfold at times because of limited resources.

Recent reports have suggested that the training program which will eventually put Ukrainian pilots inside F-16s hasn’t even begun, which is expected at some point this month.

Meanwhile, former US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy and Plans Graham Allison has written that at the rate things are going, it would take the Ukrainians many years to regain lost territory even assuming an unlimited supply of weaponry and advanced systems:

To put the matter in perspective: Today, Russia controls about 17 percent of the territory that was previously Ukraine’s. If Ukrainian forces are no more successful in the weeks ahead than they have been so far, Ukraine will not recapture all of its territory for 16 years.

Previously, Pentagon generals, including Milley himself, were on record as saying the stalemated conflict could drag on for multiple years to come. And yet still, few in the West are actually talking about how to get Kiev and Moscow to engage at the negotiating table.