AI: The Earth Is Spinning Faster & Slower (Because “Climate Change”)
Here is a headline from Forbes 4 August 2022:
Here, five short days later, is a headline from The Independent 9 August 2022:
It is possible to reconcile these two messages, if you are are dedicated The Science follower who greatly fears being called a science denier.
This is how: that on or before 8 August 2022, you swear the earth is spinning faster, and you say that any who doubts this is a troglodyte MAGAtard, and that 9 August 2022 and after, you swear the earth is spinning slower, and say that any who doubts this is mouth-breathing redneck.
The Science is self-correcting in this way.
Now what is amusing about this is not the hubris and over-certainty of scientists, which because scientists are people have characteristics in them no different than in non-scientists. What matters to us are (a) the alleged causes of the changes in rotational speed, and (b) AI.
Let’s do AI first. I noticed the strange Google output when I searched for the titles of those articles.
Here’s AI claiming earth is spinning faster:
Here’s AI explaining spinning slower:
I have been trying, with little success, to explain that AI is programmed to be sycophantic, to give users a feeling that what they (the users) believe is right, and that they are right to believe whatever it is they want to believe. Press any of these AI models strongly and consistently enough, and you can get them to “admit” just about anything—that they haven’t been hard coded not to notice. DIE is still with us, even, or especially in, AI.
AI has sworn that earth is both speeding up and slowing down, promising both were true with searches I did (for the article titles) separated by less than a minute.
Now this is partly to blame on the training material, because scientists themselves are claiming the same things AI found. Which brings us to the alleged causes of both.
Climate change.
Well of course it was climate change. Climate change, as we discovered earlier, is responsible for all things on earth. All bad things, that is. Climate change simultaneously causes earth to spin both slower and faster. Climate change is therefore a branch of quantum mechanics, where outcomes both happen and don’t happen, depending on which scientist is looking.
Regular readers already know not to trust “climate change” claims. I hope after this more of you learn to distrust AI.
Here’s another example. Somebody tagged me on a Twitter “climate change” thread, recommending to his followers to read my Uncertainty, which discuses over-certainty in models. Naturally, that triggered the usual True Believers, the sort who become angry when you show them the weather isn’t as bad as they hoped.
Normally these fellows toss a few insults then block and run away. But one had the idea of asking ChatGPT if I were a bad person. Here is what that AI model said about my work:
What is hilarious about this is that these are the precise exact polar diametric opposites of my opinions. The AI is not just wrong, but seems to have taken pains to put a NOT operator on all my claims. My entire reason for being online is to insist on probabilistic risk reasoning, and insist that probabilities be put all all events (propositions), unique future ones included.
Which only takes seconds to confirm. Take a look at any lesson in the Class, or see my pinned tweet to verify. But I could not get the NPC to understand this. To him, the AI said it, therefore I must be lying.
Yet—and here is the punchline—it did no good to tell this person that AI was being its usual sycophantic self, and that it was wildly wrong about me. AI told him what he wanted to hear, and because it was AI, it was right. AI is yet another Expert in our Expertocracy, and like all Experts must be deferred to because it is an Expert. Not because it is right.
I never had a chance to ask the guy if the earth was spinning faster or slower because of “climate change”.
Here are the various ways to support this work:
"Climate change is therefore a branch of quantum mechanics, where outcomes both happen and don’t happen, depending on which scientist is looking."
This is scathingly, brilliantly hilarious! Thank you for a morning laugh.
And another thing, while I'm on a rant...
Thanks to GPS, property lines are now being surveyed down to the inch (or less). So how are they taking Continental Drift into account? If my fence line is moving widdershins by X mm per year, can my neighbor claim it when the continent shifts sufficiently his way? Are all property lines going to have to be resurveyed every so many years?
And poor Japan. The 2011 earthquake moved the entire Island of Japan to the east roughly 8 feet. Then the Jan 1 2024 earthquake moved it back to the west about 4 feet. I'll bet their surveyors are busy! And hopefully, well paid!
If we just got rid of both GPS and Global Warming, these problems would go away and we could go back to relying on where Granpa Gus put his fenceposts and forecasting the winter by paying attention to how many spiders are up in the eaves of the west side of the barn in late October. Just sayin.