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#21

Off the Record / Re: [Canada] Canadian Politics...

Last post by crazy canuck - Today at 02:44:16 PM

I think one of the most salient issue is linked to the time-honored avoidance of calling it a "conquest", and making it the "beginning of a beautiful friendship".

If any politician in Canada took that tone for relations with First Nations - that, say, the creation of the Six Nations reserve was the moment when Canada made the choice of friendship, people would rightly object - and they would even have scrupules in framing it that way in the first place. 

You have picked a bad example.  The concept of the Honour of the Crown which has been developed in a long line of Supreme Court of Canada cases is premised on promises the Crown made to First Nations in order to obtain their cooperation and friendship.

I have never heard of a case where any First Nation has objected to that characterization.  Quite the opposite. It is asserted in every case brought by First Nations when there is an allegation of a violation of the Honour of the Crown.

#22

Off the Record / Re: [Canada] Canadian Politics...

Last post by Oexmelin - Today at 02:36:25 PM

I think one of the most salient issue is linked to the time-honored avoidance of calling it a "conquest", and making it the "beginning of a beautiful friendship".

If any politician in Canada took that tone for relations with First Nations - that, say, the creation of the Six Nations reserve was the moment when Canada made the choice of friendship, people would rightly object - and they would even have scrupules in framing it that way in the first place. 

#23

Off the Record / Re: Facebook Follies of Friend...

Last post by HisMajestyBOB - Today at 02:22:13 PM

 

#24

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by Valmy - Today at 01:51:19 PM

Hell I felt that Bush seemed to go out of his way to make any country who did us a favor regret it later. Trump just rubs salt in the wounds.

#25

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by Jacob - Today at 01:34:39 PM

I mean it's clear that Trump is almost pathological in his effort to appropriate, denigrate, trivialize or otherwise hollow out things worthy of respect that do not directly reflect glory on himself.

#26

Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread

Last post by crazy canuck - Today at 01:09:13 PM

Edit, I should inject one point of hope - Journals are creating editorial policies which now require that all data and original uncropped images be submitted along with the manuscript so that there can be an initial scan to detect potential data or image manipulation before the manuscript is sent for peer review.

#27

Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread

Last post by crazy canuck - Today at 01:05:15 PM

Where I say they are going wrong is the suggestion of that the solution to the problem is the same as it has ever been, replicating the experiment.

I agree there.  My point was just that some fields reached the point where they were so overwhelmed with fraud that "just replicate" was infeasible well before LLMs.

That's fair

We are putting our heads in the sand if we pretend that the replication problem is the same now as it has ever been.  That is clearly ridiculous given the volume of fraudulent papers that are being submitted to the journals.

This is where I partially disagree.  The nature of the replication problem is the same as it has been (unethical researchers flooding journals with fraudulent papers).  The magnitude has increased significantly, though.  For some fields, this shifts the dynamic from "annoyed by frauds" to "overwhelmed by frauds", which is significant.  For others, it shifts the dynamic from "overwhelmed by frauds" to "very overwhelmed by frauds", which (in my opinion) isn't significant.

A pernicious problem that I think LLMs will greatly exacerbate is instances of high-quality, targeted fraud.  The ability of LLMs to craft well-worded bullshit makes it easier to craft papers with an agenda, where it will be harder to detect the fraud.  It's an extension of using LLMs to craft misinformation.  The peer review system has long had a problem here, since it really isn't set up to assume submitters are high-effort liars.  Making this significantly easier is something I think could change the nature of the replication problem.

Yes, I think this is where we depart.  The manipulation of data is being caught, largely and ironically by the use of other AI tools (as mentioned before, AI tools are very good at pattern recognition) but the systems within Academia for dealing with research integrity issues are becoming overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of manuscripts that have been identified.  Just the number of implicated manuscripts using Western blots has significantly increased. These are not high quality frauds, they are largely easily detectably image manipulation/duplication type issues.  But the sheer number of instances now being detected has become unmanageable.

Also, the use of LLM's to draft manuscripts is very easy to spot.  Stupid mistakes that no human author would made abound.  But again, it is the sheer number of such manuscripts that overwhelms.

#28

Off the Record / Re: [Canada] Canadian Politics...

Last post by Jacob - Today at 12:59:26 PM

A question for the Quebecois and other Francophones:

If you were tasked with writing a speech with the following brief for Carney:

• Acknowledge the location where the speech is taking place
• Recognize the history between the French and British
• Argue that things have improved and Canada is pretty okay
• Acknowledge that there are other constituents in Canada than Brits and French
• Not piss off the Quebecois
• Segue to "so here's what we're going next" in terms of political direction

... how would you go about it?

I thought Carney's speech did a pretty good job, but obviously it failed on the "Not piss of the Quebecois" part. I'd find it very instructive to understand how to do it right, if that's possible.

#29

Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread

Last post by Jacob - Today at 12:33:02 PM

This is where I partially disagree.  The nature of the replication problem is the same as it has been (unethical researchers flooding journals with fraudulent papers).  The magnitude has increased significantly, though.  For some fields, this shifts the dynamic from "annoyed by frauds" to "overwhelmed by frauds", which is significant.  For others, it shifts the dynamic from "overwhelmed by frauds" to "very overwhelmed by frauds", which (in my opinion) isn't significant.

A pernicious problem that I think LLMs will greatly exacerbate is instances of high-quality, targeted fraud.  The ability of LLMs to craft well-worded bullshit makes it easier to craft papers with an agenda, where it will be harder to detect the fraud.  It's an extension of using LLMs to craft misinformation.  The peer review system has long had a problem here, since it really isn't set up to assume submitters are high-effort liars.  Making this significantly easier is something I think could change the nature of the replication problem.

This seems a reasonable take to me.

#30

Off the Record / Re: Facebook Follies of Friend...

Last post by Syt - Today at 12:21:49 PM