[Rolebama]

I found a picture of a notice. Current problem with site so can't post it. No accreditation to originator or poster, but it reads as follows:
Before Bothering with Artificial Intelligence, Why Not Put Some Effort Into Sorting Out Natural Stupidity?

[NMNeil]

Or as Ron White (American comedian) says
"You just can't fix stupid"
For some the gene pool is above ground and inflatable and in need of a good dose of chlorine.

[Rolebama]

Even failed getting a Darwin Award!?

[NMNeil]

@Rolebama Many people have pointed out that there were cries of "Medic, medic" as though they were playing Call of Duty where grenades would reset if picked up.
Dumb as a box of rocks.

[olduser]

More found on BBC News website;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62njv82n0wo

On first reading, I thought it was a joke but on re-reading I changed my mind!

[NMNeil]

@olduser I suppose it's one way mother nature will reduce the population, as they obviously can't reproduce.....or can they? 😎

[Rolebama]

@olduser That is so incredibly stupid, and unutterably sad. Where are their friends/relatives. Oh, I forgot myself there for a minute - they're on the other line.

[olduser]

From the BBC;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/...hDecoded55_RET

Head of Google AI expresses concern.

I think they could include an international requirement to, do no harm in, with very large fines if their product does so.

[Drivingforfun]

AI is such an incredible tool if used correctly but like any powerful tool you need to be aware of its limitations

I'd compare it with morphine, uranium, or gunpowder... it's equally worldchanging, maybe more so (at least further-reaching) but would you give any of those things in its unfiltered form to an unqualified person - or even an unknown person for that matter! - to work on their own little projects at home?

[NMNeil]

@Drivingforfun But morphine was a readily available painkiller that's been used for a very long time without restriction. Then it was restricted and money was to be made, as in all things illegal, then the drug epidemic began.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...mic-180968444/
Uranium was found during the search to fill in the periodic table. Only later after Einstein's E=MC2 did they realize it could be used in bomb making.
And gunpowder was just for entertainment in the form of fireworks until it was put in a tube with a rock and the found it was a bit better than a bow and arrow at killing people.
When the first car was introduced nobody could dream that it would cause so much destruction, and not just direct fatalities but oil wars, pollution, destruction of the planet to mine the materials to make them.
Arthur C. Clarke once wrote that in the future we would be able to instantly communicate with anyone, anywhere on the planet. This led eventually led to the develop of the cellphone and the carnage that's causing.
https://6abc.com/post/families-sue-t...enge/18417280/
https://www.cleveland19.com/2025/11/04/northeast-ohio-kids-severely-burned-even-killed-attempting-tiktok-fire-challenges/
AI is going along the same path.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce3xgwyywe4o
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/parents...nt-60-minutes/

[Rolebama]

@NMNeil I just read the articles, and collectively, they are frightening. It would be nice to think that there is comprehensive legislation on the horizon, yet somehow I doubt it.

[NMNeil]

When it starts destroying whole industries; then they will take notice.
https://www.openmusic.ai/
https://www.canva.com/features/ai-video-generator/
And even.
https://vehiclescore.co.uk/ai-mechanic

[olduser]

Originally Posted by Drivingforfun

AI is such an incredible tool if used correctly but like any powerful tool you need to be aware of its limitations

I'd compare it with morphine, uranium, or gunpowder... it's equally worldchanging, maybe more so (at least further-reaching) but would you give any of those things in its unfiltered form to an unqualified person - or even an unknown person for that matter! - to work on their own little projects at home?

Basically it's a web browser the difference is it's interface is based on a large language model* and just like any web browser it can be taught to to specialise. (similar to say Google earns money from companies paying to have their web entries put at the top of the results)

Interestingly, one AI tool has come into use which chooses proteins to combine for their possible therapeutic effects, the way a protein folds effect how reactive it is and thus how useful it may be, many can be encouraged to refold into a different shape, and have a different usefulness or combine with different protein's.

Several years ago, there was a free game put on the internet by scientists, it consisted of diagrams of protein's, in the game engine, all the correct electrical charges were taken into account. (these are what controls how the protein folds) The player shook the protein and got points for each stable state that could be achieved, as far as I know the results have been used as the source of data for this new AI tool.

*Large language model - For many years interpreting language on computers has been approached word by word or even phoneme by phoneme, this approach almost worked, then we discovered that the human brain appears to collect a sentence then works out the meaning, having the full sentence solves the problem of context amongst other things.

I will try an example to give an idea - 'The cat sat on the mat.'
'The cat' (fit together), 'sat' (sat past tense of sitting or standard abbreviation for Saturday?),
'The cat saturday' does not work, must be the cat was sitting = 'sat'
on the',
'mat' (floor covering, or Mathew), 'on the Mathew' fails, so must be floor covering = 'mat'.

The above is a very simple example but I hope you can get the idea.
This can be used to enable the computer to compose sentences making communicating with the computer simpler because it is more humanlike.

[olduser]

Originally Posted by NMNeil

@Drivingforfun But morphine was a readily available painkiller that's been used for a very long time without restriction. Then it was restricted and money was to be made, as in all things illegal, then the drug epidemic began.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...mic-180968444/
Uranium was found during the search to fill in the periodic table. Only later after Einstein's E=MC2 did they realize it could be used in bomb making.
And gunpowder was just for entertainment in the form of fireworks until it was put in a tube with a rock and the found it was a bit better than a bow and arrow at killing people.
When the first car was introduced nobody could dream that it would cause so much destruction, and not just direct fatalities but oil wars, pollution, destruction of the planet to mine the materials to make them.
Arthur C. Clarke once wrote that in the future we would be able to instantly communicate with anyone, anywhere on the planet. This led eventually led to the develop of the cellphone and the carnage that's causing.
https://6abc.com/post/families-sue-t...enge/18417280/
https://www.cleveland19.com/2025/11/04/northeast-ohio-kids-severely-burned-even-killed-attempting-tiktok-fire-challenges/
AI is going along the same path.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce3xgwyywe4o
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/parents...nt-60-minutes/

In the case of social media, they could be forced to be more responsible if they were legally held to be publishers.
That would make them responsible for whatever they publish, they argue they are not publishers, they have no control over what is put on their platform but that is the case only because they have organised it that way.
The argument they are a publisher, says you have to ask to join, and the media company makes money from the publishing.



AI, argue, any restrictions will inhibit development and growth, in other words they don't want to be responsible for anything!
I think there should be a blanket requirement on all tech to do no harm.
So we invent or discover a new product but before it can go on the market we would have to check can it do any harm?
It a looks like a very vague requirement but that's it's strength, frequently the danger is not obvious to the average Joe or Josephine in the street until it exposes itself but the manufacturer, who hopes to make money from this product, would have to dig deeper and prove he had done so.

The deterrence is powerful because it provides an easy hook to hang a legal challenge on.

Giving people a way of publishing anonymous comments, pictures, videos can only end in someone getting hurt, unless it is tightly controlled.
No one sends much of the bad stuff by text or email because it's easily traceable to it's source!

[Rolebama]

I am not sure I am reading some of this correctly, but it seems to me that it is the responsibility of the website owner as to whether content is harmful. OK, I agree that it can be difficult and time consuming to check every item, but there must be some keywords that are flagged!?

Eg: I joined a military Forum some years ago. The guy that runs it decided to get drunk one day, and posted the very crude lyrics of some of the songs relevant to our era. They were up for around 24hrs before one of the lady members complained, and the site was shut down for breaching the Ts & Cs of the site. A week or so later I received an email saying the site was back up with a different name on a different domain site. This one lasted around 2yrs before he again got drunk and was again closed down because of his use of expletives. The third time the site went up, around 10yrs ago, the domain supplier was capable of blocking some of his content, and is still running.

[olduser]

The website you describe @Rolebama was probably not trying to make money.

In general terms;
The social media sites make money by having paid for adverts.
The price charged for an advert depends on the number of hits/day.

This gives the site an incentive to get more users, and not to be very selective about who they sign up, and once signed up to to keep them viewing, and coming back, banning bad users is bad for business.

To this end, it programs were developed to discover the users interests so when they returned they were returned to their interest area, and fed with posts they would/should be interested in but the danger with this is, the user thinks everyone thinks the same as them, which reinforces their views.

This also enables the site owner to offer another service to advertisers - targeted advertising, putting adverts in front of the people who are more likely to buy that product, for a small extra fee of course.

A side effect of showing only posts of interest, is an impressionable teenager say, posts - bad day at school, the dog spoiled my home work excuse didn't work etc, Mum could smell I had had a fag, Dad had been told of a group of youngsters had been seen shoplifting, in school time, the description of one sounded like teenager, etc. Dad gave appropriate lecture.

So teenager posted - he was fed-up, he couldn't get anything right, the world might be a better place without him.
Next time he logs on, he's dropped in amongst the suicide community, or the shoplifting community, not a good idea, but on the bright side, it makes money.

Plus they gather personnel information from posters, for sale to anyone who will pay, again not good, who would want to know what time we leave for work and get back at night, or you buy from Amazon, or when you are going on holiday etc?

[olduser]

I have watched a couple of programs available on BBC iPlayer, called

AI Confidential with Hannah Fry.

The first program is about the man who broke into Windsor castle intending to kill the Queen, egged on by his AI girlfriend!

Program two, is about Driverless cars killing people, and why. This includes more information about what really happened and why in the case of the woman crossing the road pushing her bike, without the press distortion.

Both these programs show how the law is having difficulty in deciding who is responsible, and the influence of big money.

Program three, I have not watched yet but is advertised as another murder where AI is involved.

You may have seen Hanna Fry in a BBC series, The Secret Genius of Modern Life. where she pulled apart artifacts of modern life to show how they worked.
Her background is Mathematics, to be accurate she is a Professor of Mathematics but works very well on TV, she, and the camera get on very well, and she is a good communicator.

In the words of the late Kenny Everett, "All done in the best possible taste."😌