Recent posts

#41

Off the Record / Re: Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-2...

Last post by Zanza - November 25, 2025, 11:18:32 PM

Treason

#42

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Sheilbh - November 25, 2025, 11:03:46 PM

So there was some initial reporting that the government was intending to follow Sir Brian Leveson's report which reduced some jury trials and was part of a wider package.

It sounds like the government are going vastly further than that. Basically the only jury trials will be murder, rape or manslaughter (by default) with some other jury trials if that is deemed to be in the "public interest". The line from the MoJ to the rest of government is that there is "no right" to jury trial.

I'm very opposed to this - I thought Leveson's recommendations (from what I'd read) seemed very sensible but this is massive overreach. In particular a lot will depend on how broad "public interest" is and my suspicion is that it'll be narrow and an easy route for future governments to further restrict trial by jury.

I'd note that in relation to protest and speech crimes that juries are very often a genuine shield - they are very, very reluctant to convict people. We have seen in recent years juries fairly consistently acquit people of protest and speech crimes much to the displeasure of (and despite the influence of) the judge - judges are basically willing to throw the book on those offences - and despite the political and press interest in those cases.

I rather prefer David Lammy's ideas from 2020 on this ("these are my principles! And if you don't like them - I have others!"):

David Lammy
@DavidLammy
Jun 20, 2020
Jury trials are a fundamental part of our democratic settlement. Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea.

The Government need to pull their finger out and acquire empty public buildings across the country to make sure these can happen in a way that is safe.

We will work with the government on sensible proposals to deal with the backlog - which started long before Covid-19 because of underfunding.

You don't fix the backlog with trials that are widely perceived as unfair.

Also something absolutely insane about recommendations reforming planning rules on whether it was really necessary to spend £700 million on fish preservation technology around a nuclear power plant, only for this to be stymied because of concerns about international and human rights law while the governments attitude to denuding the right to a jury trial appears to be "YOLO"

#43

Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread

Last post by Jacob - November 25, 2025, 11:03:35 PM

I didn't mean to imply self-evolution, or Darwinian evolution, or anything of the kind.    I meant evolved as in "developed".

I'm not sure I'm following your argument correctly here, but it seems like you're saying that "it's theoretically possible that LLM models could be developed to a point where their output 'emulates intelligent communication', and that if it does then it can essentially be considered cognizant whatever is 'under the hood" purely on strength on the apparent intelligence of the output".

Is that right? Or have I missed some nuance?

You're not arguing that AGI is around the corner, but that a sufficiently refined LLM could achieve a partial success but that's sufficient to call it cognizant? Or are you saying that you think that there's a good chance that LLMs can become virtually indistinguishable from AGI in output, and if they do then they can be considered AGI regardless of what goes on "under the hood". That is, LLMs still have significant potential to reach AGI levels in the short term?

#44

Off the Record / Re: Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-2...

Last post by Jacob - November 25, 2025, 10:51:25 PM

Utter moral rot

[Explosive transcript of phone call between Trump administration envoy and Putin adviser leaks]

#45

Off the Record / Re: Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-2...

Last post by Tonitrus - November 25, 2025, 10:45:21 PM

Explosive transcript of phone call between Trump administration envoy and Putin adviser leaks

The contents of a phone call involving Donald Trump's top negotiator and a close adviser to Vladimir Putin have been revealed to the public.

November 26, 2025 - 1:33PM

A leaked transcript has revealed the contents of a phone call between Steve Witkoff, the businessman who has been acting as Donald Trump's envoy negotiating with Ukraine and Russia, and Yuri Ushakov, a senior foreign policy adviser to Vladimir Putin.

In part of the transcript, obtained by Bloomberg, Mr Witkoff seems to be coaching the Russians on how Putin should flatter Mr Trump, during an upcoming conversation, to make him more amenable.

"I would make the call and just reiterate that you congratulate the President on his achievement, that you supported it, that you supported it, that you respect that he is a man of peace and you're just, you're glad to have seen it happen," he tells Uskakov, alluding to the Israel-Hamas war.

"So I would say that. I think, from that, it's going to be a really good call. Because let me tell you what I told the President. I told the President that you, the Russian Federation, always wanted a peace deal. That is my belief. I told the President I believe that.

"I'm even thinking we that maybe we set out, like, a 20-point peace proposal, just like we did in Gaza. We put a 20-point Trump plan together."

At another point, Mr Witkoff says he knows "what it's going to take to get a peace deal done" before specifying "Donetsk, and maybe a land swap somewhere".

"But I'm saying instead of talking like that, let's talk more hopefully, because I think we're going to get to a deal here. And I think, Yuri, the President will give me a lot of space and discretion to get to the deal."

That call took place on October 14. Bloomberg also got the transcript from one on October 29, between Ushakov and Kirill Dimitriev, an economic advisor to Putin.

In it, the pair discuss creating a "paper" for Dimitriev to "pass along" to the Americans.

"I think we'll just make this paper from our position, and I'll informally pass it along, making it clear that it's all informal. And let them do, like, their own," Dimitriev says.

"But I don't think they'll take exactly our version. But at least it'll be as close to it as possible."

That conversation was a little under a month before the Trump administration offered up its 28-point plan for a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. The origins of that plan remain murky - officially, the Trump administration says America developed it with input from the Russians and Ukrainians, but reporting has suggested it blindsided the US State Department, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

#46

Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread

Last post by DGuller - November 25, 2025, 10:19:38 PM

I don't see how everything you wrote from the second sentence on is connected to your first sentence.  Yes, you accurately described how training and inference of any statistical or machine learning model works, but how is that description offering any insight as to why the bolded is impossible?

Because nothing in the mechanism I described has the capacity for self-evolution.

I didn't mean to imply self-evolution, or Darwinian evolution, or anything of the kind.    I meant evolved as in "developed".

#47

Off the Record / Re: The Anime Thread

Last post by jimmy olsen - November 25, 2025, 09:51:22 PM

The manga is great.

The producers of this anime should be blacklisted from the industry for ruining such an easy lay up.

#48

Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread

Last post by The Minsky Moment - November 25, 2025, 08:43:57 PM

I don't see how everything you wrote from the second sentence on is connected to your first sentence.  Yes, you accurately described how training and inference of any statistical or machine learning model works, but how is that description offering any insight as to why the bolded is impossible?

Because nothing in the mechanism I described has the capacity for self-evolution.

#49

Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread

Last post by Admiral Yi - November 25, 2025, 07:37:26 PM

Yes. Google are "better". But that's no defence.
A monopoly isn't necessarily created by anyrhing devious. The fact that they've been in the game so long that they've established an unassailably deep and wide position is enough.

A quick search shows those in the know do indeed suggest googles monopoly is allowing them to get away with high pricing.

And no. Meta does not have the same share as Google at all. As said Google has around 90%. Meta cut their losses when they couldn't make enough to even break even.

Fair enough.  You're suggesting Google's dominance in ad exchange and publisher ad server are the result of first mover advantage, not the leveraging of their strong position in advertising sales.  That pretty much supports my point: if Google were broken up the now independent ad exchange and publisher ad server would still benefit from first mover advantage.

I've provided a link that says Google has 23.9% of online advertising sales, the same order of magnitude as Meta and Amazon.  What is this 90% you speak of?  90% of what?

#50

Off the Record / Re: Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-2...

Last post by Tonitrus - November 25, 2025, 07:27:10 PM

I think Weiss here provides a pretty good rundown/analysis of this whole clusterfluck:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WU0AJDCx5U