New Tory Leader

[Yellow Fever 3,839]

18 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

 

 

You're right: Civil engineering shouldn't have been bracketed in there.

Also agree that it's a tragic cultural attribute that technical disciplines tend to be looked down on.

The primary skill needed to be a successful politician is to get votes, which means your most important skill will be good communication style. That inevitably means there's going to be a bias towards more essay-based subjects compared to more mathematically-based subjects. Sad, but true.

Yes - But that's also why CHATGPT can easily already replace most of them and/or pass an English Literature degree and write the required essays (hence the worries)! No actual intelligence required.

 

[littleyellowbirdie 2,598]

3 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

Yes - But that's also why CHATGPT can easily already replace most of them and/or pass an English Literature degree and write the required essays (hence the worries)! No actual intelligence required.

 

I think this is an area where the term artificial intelligence needs rethinking. Philosophically, it goes back to the Turing test: Can it fool people that it's the work of a human? ChatGPT can fool people that it's the product of human intelligence, so arguably the intelligence is real, even if it's not the intelligence of a conscious being.

[Creative Midfielder 2,003]

14 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

I think this is an area where the term artificial intelligence needs rethinking. Philosophically, it goes back to the Turing test: Can it fool people that it's the work of a human?

I think that is right and whilst it seemed a reasonable term to use at the time, it has developed into one which is now totally misleading because I would argue the 'intelligence' is not real at all, at least not in the sense that it is fundamentally different from the 'intelligence' that computer software has always had but merely a much more sophisticated version of it.

The really fundamental difference between the 70s when 'artifical intelligence' began to be discussed and now is the absolutely colossal increase in the processing power available and the equally colossal amount of publicly available and accessible data.

In the 70s it was believed that a computer was unlikely to ever beat a Chess Grand Master at Chess and that was achieved a long while ago now. But it was achieved by the application of a ridiculous (for the time) amount of processing power and no real intelligence - it was a pretty standard piece of software running on a huge pile of hardware.

Of course the software behind ChatGPT is a great deal more sophisticated and the results in certain areas impressive but I would still argue there is very little, if any, real intelligence involved - other than the people who actually wrote the software itself, mustn't forget them!

[Yellow Fever 3,839]

20 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

I think that is right and whilst it seemed a reasonable term to use at the time, it has developed into one which is now totally misleading because I would argue the 'intelligence' is not real at all, at least not in the sense that it is fundamentally different from the 'intelligence' that computer software has always had but merely a much more sophisticated version of it.

The really fundamental difference between the 70s when 'artifical intelligence' began to be discussed and now is the absolutely colossal increase in the processing power available and the equally colossal amount of publicly available and accessible data.

In the 70s it was believed that a computer was unlikely to ever beat a Chess Grand Master at Chess and that was achieved a long while ago now. But it was achieved by the application of a ridiculous (for the time) amount of processing power and no real intelligence - it was a pretty standard piece of software running on a huge pile of hardware.

Of course the software behind ChatGPT is a great deal more sophisticated and the results in certain areas impressive but I would still argue there is very little, if any, real intelligence involved - other than the people who actually wrote the software itself, mustn't forget them!

In more detail though CHATGPT is not like a chess machine which can simply learn all the possible moves and out calculate you.

Things like neural nets either physically implemented or simulated are 'pattern recognition' engines that need training - like you! They are fundamentally not simply processing power but are are the glimmerings of true intelligence.

Your brain learns first as a baby by trial and error and child how to walk, talk smile and crawl. 

Our latest thoughts as I understand it as to the nature of consciousness is that it is indeed an emergent internalized model we create of the world - and we are indeed predictive pattern recognition machines (consciousness is just us testing our predictions out against the model).

[Creative Midfielder 2,003]

1 hour ago, Yellow Fever said:

In more detail though CHATGPT is not like a chess machine which can simply learn all the possible moves and out calculate you.

Things like neural nets either physically implemented or simulated are 'pattern recognition' engines that need training - like you! They are fundamentally not simply processing power but are are the glimmerings of true intelligence.

Your brain learns first as a baby by trial and error and child how to walk, talk smile and crawl. 

Our latest thoughts as I understand it as to the nature of consciousness is that it is indeed an emergent internalized model we create of the world - and we are indeed predictive pattern recognition machines (consciousness is just us testing our predictions out against the model).

Whilst all that is true and effectively a more detailed description of what I said - i.e. the chess program was built on pure processing power and of no practical use at all other than to make a make a point because nobody could have afforded to dedicate that amount of processing power to implement real world/commercial tasks with that approach.

But equally the neutral nets, pattern recognition, speech recognition et al that underly modern AI are fundamentally just much more sophisticated programs which have been developed over the years by conventional programming techniques and in most cases originally for commercial applications which have in use for many years.

The AI camp have obviously have added another substantial layer on top of this, primarily the 'training' - back in the 70s we used to talk about 'heurisitics', i.e. learning, which we always understood to be fundamental to achieving true AI (if such a thing is possible which was very much an open question then and I would suggest remains so even now).

However I rather think that what we thought of as machine learning back then and what the AI camp are now doing to 'train' their engines are significantly different. But as far as I can see we only part company at the point where you suggest that the current technology exhibits 'the glimmerings of true intelligence' by which I assuming is human intelligence because I don't believe we have any other definition of intelligence - back to LYB's point that perhaps it would better to have a second definition of intelligence which IMO should be called machine intelligence, or if the marketeers get their hands on it e-Intelligence 😀

But either would be preferable to AI which is a term which has outlived its usefulness, although whatever we call it there is clearly a great need for definition around it and probably legislation as it has become abundantly clear that the leaders in the field are all pretty concerned about the direction things are going but feel compelled by commercial/competitive pressures to keep going further.

Edited July 18, 2023 by Creative Midfielder
corrected isn't to is - makes quite a difference!

[Creative Midfielder 2,003]

13 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

Whilst all that is true and effectively a more detailed description of what I said - i.e. the chess program was built on pure processing power and of no practical use at all other than to make a make a point because nobody could have afforded to dedicate that amount of processing power to implement real world/commercial tasks with that approach.

But equally the neutral nets, pattern recognition, speech recognition et al that underly modern AI are fundamentally just much more sophisticated programs which have been developed over the years by conventional programming techniques and in most cases originally for commercial applications which have in use for many years.

The AI camp have obviously have added another substantial layer on top of this, primarily the 'training' - back in the 70s we used to talk about 'heurisitics', i.e. learning, which we always understood to be fundamental to achieving true AI (if such a thing is possible which was very much an open question then and I would suggest remains so even now).

However I rather think that what we thought of as machine learning back then and what the AI camp are now doing to 'train' their engines are significantly different. But as far as I can see we only part company at the point where you suggest that the current technology exhibits 'the glimmerings of true intelligence' by which I assume is human intelligence because I don't believe we have any other definition of intelligence - back to LYB's point that perhaps it would better to have a second definition of intelligence which IMO should be called machine intelligence, or if the marketeers get their hands on it e-Intelligence 😀

But either would be preferable to AI which is a term which has outlived its usefulness, although whatever we call it there is clearly a great need for definition around it and probably legislation as it has become abundantly clear that the leaders in the field are all pretty concerned about the direction things are going but feel compelled by commercial/competitive pressures to keep going further.

 

[Barbe bleu 832]

8 hours ago, TheGunnShow said:

Ah, Miriam Cates, the latest imbecile du jour. She's basically the "pick-me" woman for the spastically atavistic.

You Show off!

[Barbe bleu 832]

8 hours ago, Yellow Fever said:

I think you are confusing what I would call a 'technician' from an 'engineer' (which should be a protected title in the UK as per most of the ROW i.e. France), doctor and so on. There is a lot of academic study in being a doctor, designing an aircraft, your PC, an engine or a TV. These are skill sets well beyond any normal apprenticeship - engineering in particular has a lot of heavy maths (at a level of a full maths, or in some aspects, even higher degree level). How's your Quantum mechanics - that's the basis of semiconductors and band gaps etc?

The 'technician' can fix your car, fix your gas boiler or indeed your TV and a nurse or the nurse practitioner can in limited situations fix you!

It is sadly one of the acknowledged issues in the UK that we confuse 'engineer' and 'technician' (cf. motor, gas, water 'engineer' and so on all of which are very much ideally suited apprenticeships but don't need degrees).

The same I would suggest goes for many 'vocational' degrees even some that as BB note may appear strange (hotel management).

My beef with the current system is that we produce far too many people with non-vocational degrees such as English, History, Classics etc which are actually cheap to teach but lead where for this country? - Civil Service, Politics (Gove) or PM (Johnson). Sad truth is that these are the kind of people we've had in charge for far too long and they feel entitled. No wonder we are in the mess we are. There should be far fewer of these types of non-vocational degree course available.

 

It's a shame horsefly won't get involved. I'd like to see his defence of philosophy,  political science or the humanities more generally.  I suspect that (assuming that there is anything at all in this story) the policy would bear down on these subjects as their benefit is much harder to define than, say, the benefits of a medical degree.

Just to be clear when I talk of a vocational degree, I am talking about one that trains for a very specific job.  So engineering would fit, so would medicine or hotel management, or surf shack business studies. As opposed to something more ethereal.   I didn't really mean it as a comment on difficultly or how manual the job was. 

 

 

 

[TheGunnShow 6,019]

3 hours ago, Barbe bleu said:

You Show off!

Meh, certainly not the intent. She's certainly written some hair-raisingly silly stuff on more traditional gender roles that's made me roll my eyes so hard I think they got six-packs.

[Yellow Fever 3,839]

17 hours ago, Barbe bleu said:

It's a shame horsefly won't get involved. I'd like to see his defence of philosophy,  political science or the humanities more generally.  I suspect that (assuming that there is anything at all in this story) the policy would bear down on these subjects as their benefit is much harder to define than, say, the benefits of a medical degree.

Just to be clear when I talk of a vocational degree, I am talking about one that trains for a very specific job.  So engineering would fit, so would medicine or hotel management, or surf shack business studies. As opposed to something more ethereal.   I didn't really mean it as a comment on difficultly or how manual the job was. 

 

 

 

Yes. I think the issue we have is in the rush to have more degree qualified people we have allowed an explosion in the cheaper to teach arts and humanities rather than the far more useful but generally more expensive  STEM subjects (or other vocational courses such as nursing).

Of course we need people with degrees in poetry or Shakespeare but really only a handful for academia as you suggest. I often recall discussions on this very subject - what does an 'English' degree get you - the answer is apparently 'critical thinking' i.e the ability to analyse and study a (usually fictional) character's personality and form a cohesive argument (include quotations). Even STEM degrees will give you 'critical thinking' as a precursor to entry. 

I think the ability for everybody to understand and query/critique basic statistics, significance (what is and what isn't) would be far more useful for everybody these days including English students given the torrent of social media with its avalanche of targeted statistical nonsense spoon fed to most.

The most obvious example of mathematical innumeracy would be the £350M/week claim . If I assume they weren't deliberately trying to lie at outset (& being kind), I can only assume they didn't know the difference between Gross and Net! Indeed such lies are still peddled (in 2018 the figure was £9Bn net over the year or about £173M/week). Gove (English B.A.), Johnson (B.A ' Literae Humaniores - (Classics, ancient languages, literature, history, and philosophy)). The case for the prosecution rests. 

Edited July 19, 2023 by Yellow Fever

[Herman 9,835]

A true blue, literal RWNJ, Susan Hall is candidate for London Mayor. It's going to be a horrible battle. 

[Barbe bleu 832]

2 hours ago, Yellow Fever said:

 

I think the ability for everybody to understand and query/critique basic statistics, significance (what is and what isn't) would be far more useful for everybody these days including English students given the torrent of social media with its avalanche of targeted statistical nonsense spoon fed to most.

Don't worry, I won't ask if you supported the PMs aim of getting more maths taught at schools!

[Yellow Fever 3,839]

22 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

Don't worry, I won't ask if you supported the PMs aim of getting more maths taught at schools!

But I do. Maths and English Language mandatory upto 16 - but not as in my day English Literature. Encourage kids to read but don't turn it into a chore because some elite somebody thinks everybody in UK needs to know Shakespeare (that's you Gove). By the way I got an A in that subject nigh 50 years ago but never read the book (Henry 4th Pt 1) just the crib notes.

Actually all degrees to contain a statistics module 🙂

 

Edited July 19, 2023 by Yellow Fever

[TheGunnShow 6,019]

1 hour ago, Yellow Fever said:

But I do. Maths and English Language mandatory upto 16 - but not as in my day English Literature. Encourage kids to read but don't turn it into a chore because some elite somebody thinks everybody in UK needs to know Shakespeare (that's you Gove). By the way I got an A in that subject nigh 50 years ago but never read the book (Henry 4th Pt 1) just the crib notes.

I'd bring back Latin to replace English literature to be honest - it is increasingly looking like studying Latin helps a child in developing language skills and logic. Personally, I'd ditch religious education (I accept the idea of learning about the world's different religions, but would argue if we're looking at impact that history classes should cover that) and also look at bringing back something like home economics so people are better equipped to handle mundane-day-to-day matters.

[Yellow Fever 3,839]

29 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

I'd bring back Latin to replace English literature to be honest - it is increasingly looking like studying Latin helps a child in developing language skills and logic. Personally, I'd ditch religious education (I accept the idea of learning about the world's different religions, but would argue if we're looking at impact that history classes should cover that) and also look at bringing back something like home economics so people are better equipped to handle mundane-day-to-day matters.

I appreciate TGS I'm coming over as bit of a Philistine (Biblical, non Shakespearean quote) and placing the cat amongst the pigeons (Indian, non Shakespearean origin) but I do believe there are some valid questions to be asked about what degrees we teach (and subsidize). Oddly as BB suggested it may well be that some traditional 'middle or upper class' softer elite subjects such as English or Classics are exactly the ones in question. I actually have nothing against many of the arts and humanities it's just that many of the non-vocational degrees can be a study for the sake of study and then you can question the value of such in the jobs market place unless a degree, any degree, is de-rigueur for a job. Civil service come to mind. My argument is simply we need more numerate STEM degrees and less waffly (Greek ?) ones in ALL walks of life but particularly politics and indeed the civil-service.

Edited July 19, 2023 by Yellow Fever
First Latin verb I learnt at school was neco - to kill. Anybody remember a Mr. Wierd if I've even spelt his name right (and yes I know the joke there)?

[TheGunnShow 6,019]

1 hour ago, Yellow Fever said:

I appreciate TGS I'm coming over as bit of a Philistine (Biblical, non Shakespearean quote) and placing the cat amongst the pigeons (Indian, non Shakespearean origin) but I do believe there are some valid questions to be asked about what degrees we teach (and subsidize). Oddly as BB suggested it may well be that some traditional 'middle or upper class' softer elite subjects such as English or Classics are exactly the ones in question. I actually have nothing against many of the arts and humanities it's just that many of the non-vocational degrees can be a study for the sake of study and then you can question those in the jobs market place unless a degree (any degree) is de-rigueur for a job. Civil service come to mind. My argument is simply we need more numerates STEM degrees and less waffly (Greek ?) ones in ALL walks of life but particularly politics and indeed the civil-service.

I don't think it's an unreasonable question to ask at all, YF and I actually agree with most of the second half of that paragraph - I'm merely pointing out what I think would work better considering some of our educational weak links at the moment. Latin may actually be a slight help when it comes to STEM/science degrees, is increasingly looking useful when it comes to improving a command of English (and other languages) and certainly is of use when it comes to medicine.

Although you're talking about degrees at the end, I'm looking at a secondary school curriculum.

I will say, as a linguist that got relatively lucky, that the fall in students taking modern languages is a worry. Translation is not a career that will go away (what I am fairly confident you will get is basically what we call in the trade MTPE, or machine translation post-editing, so a computer-built translation that gets refined) but languages are basically icing on the cake for many. Unless you go into translation or teaching, linguistic skill needs something else.

Even in translation, the truly big earners tend to be technical / medical specialists who learned a language. The general linguists like myself don't tend to command a price premium.

[Herman 9,835]

A national newspaper!!👀😬

 

[Creative Midfielder 2,003]

7 hours ago, Herman said:

A national newspaper!!👀😬

 

Astonishing, hard to work out who is the more stupid - the journalists who produce such utter claptrap or the readers who are so gullible that they think they are reading news.

[dylanisabaddog 5,007]

46 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

Astonishing, hard to work out who is the more stupid - the journalists who produce such utter claptrap or the readers who are so gullible that they think they are reading news.

There was a radio phone in recently in which Nicky Campbell explained to an extremely well spoken lady that falling inflation still meant that prices were rising. She told him he was talking rubbish. It's very disturbing 

[A Load of Squit 5,222]

Bat sh!t mental.

 

[Herman 9,835]

By-elections? I can't see the Tories losing all three.They will lose a lot of voters but I feel they will keep hold of one seat, just. Uxbridge may stay due to local, ULEZ inspired events. What is everyone else predicting?

[dylanisabaddog 5,007]

The Conservatives are obviously worried. So much so that they flew an IHT kite at the weekend. 

It's going to be interesting. Will they implode if the results are really bad? 

[Yellow Fever 3,839]

36 minutes ago, Herman said:

By-elections? I can't see the Tories losing all three.They will lose a lot of voters but I feel they will keep hold of one seat, just. Uxbridge may stay due to local, ULEZ inspired events. What is everyone else predicting?

Ask me tonight 😉

Yes it would seem incredulous that they could loose all three but....

The ULEZ is interesting (I need to drive / park @ LHR this autumn and I usually take an older efficient diesel so a delay would be good) but as both Labour and Tory local candidate I think I hear are against its extensions it may be mute.

All that said - I suspect a wipe out. Only the die hard Tories will vote - the rest will either stay at home or the more thoughtful /  engaged will vote elsewhere. Time's up. 

[KiwiScot 1,478]

Shame we say 1 for Tory, 1 for Labour and 1 for Lib Dem?

[ricardo 7,402]

Betting wise, the odds predict they will lose all three.

Late mid term unpopular government with economic cycle against it. Losing all three looks a good bet imo.

 

[Herman 9,835]

22 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Betting wise, the odds predict they will lose all three.

Late mid term unpopular government with economic cycle against it. Losing all three looks a good bet imo.

 

Aye, although I think 1/50 is a bit much.

 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

I am looking forward to hearing Sunak's defence tomorrow morning.

[Yellow Fever 3,839]

16 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

I am looking forward to hearing Sunak's defence tomorrow morning.

Et tu Brute ? (add in any Tory MP that's still left)

[Yellow Fever 3,839]

10 hours ago, dylanisabaddog said:

There was a radio phone in recently in which Nicky Campbell explained to an extremely well spoken lady that falling inflation still meant that prices were rising. She told him he was talking rubbish. It's very disturbing 

There was a reviewer on the 'The Papers' or similar (BBC1 / Sky News @ 10:30pm - can't recall) questioning if the Express actually understood economics or inflation at all?  

[dylanisabaddog 5,007]

28 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

I am looking forward to hearing Sunak's defence tomorrow morning.

We're going to stop the boats and halve inflation