Posts Tagged ‘AI’

Assorted Thoughts Under the Fedora: A Commie Plot? , Even Worse, A four hour gap, Common Ground for Russia & Ukraine , and not there yet

Posted: August 10, 2025 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, politics, under the fedora, war
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On twitter this week I noticed a discussion on pot and found myself retelling the story of visiting the school where my wife worked as school nurse 20 years ago and the big chart with the human body on it and pointing to all the various functions that Pot impaired or damaged. All of that science is still valid but during the discussion something hit me.

I’ve often argued that our foes decided during the Reagan Years that they couldn’t outspend us so they decided that they would instead of strictly investing in weapons they would invest in our institutions because people were cheaper to buy and lasted longer. An examination of our higher and even high school educational system suggests today suggests our foes dollars were well spent.

But I also wonder if they invested in the pushes to legalize Pot to grant us all the social and general societal problems that a culture where a good sized percentage of the population is stoned. This might sound odd but I noticed one thing in my research…

…none of our enemies have made pot legal in their countries, NONE!

Just a coincidence I’m sure.

I was going through my archives for my tribute piece for former DaTechGuyblog writer Christopher Harper who died last month and I found myself revisiting the days after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump and the media reaction to it.

They seemed completely taken aback that we had such outrage over it and were even more put out by any suggestion that their rhetoric had anything to do with it.

Six months into his term we find that the Democrats have normalized violence to such a degree that if Trump was shot tomorrow you would have members of the press saying, “He had it coming.” without any shame.

And people wonder why Trump isn’t giving these bastards a pass this term.

If you’re a conservative you might have watched one of the many videos of the left on election night going from the anticipation of victory to the agony of defeat.

There is a lot of snickering watching it but there is one part that really jumps out at me that nobody seems to talk about.

Early in the day they kept stressing the indicators that Kamala was going to win the day and that Trump was in huge trouble and that particularly Hispanics were abandoning him etc etc etc and as soon as real number came out suddenly pivoted to “we always knew it would be close”

How is it that none of the “conservatives” at the table called out the folks for literally pivoting on a dime from a desired lie to the facts on the ground within just a few hours?

I really can’t see how anyone considers anything these people say even the least bit credible.

As you might know Donald Trump will be meeting with Putin this week in Alaska to discuss ending the war in Ukraine.

There is a lot of talk, most of it just noise, concerning this meeting but there is one disadvantage that Trump has that nobody seems to be bringing up.

While both Ukraine and Russia have reason to want the war to end the reality is the one thing both Putin and Zelenskyy have in common is this: Neither of them is anxious to give Donald Trump a victory on the international stage such as achieving a peach deal would generate.

It’s really possible, I might even say probable that one or BOTH of them given the choice of peace, even with a deal to their advantage, or defeating Trump they might choose the latter.

That’s how bent things have become.

Finally you might remember the serial fan fiction story hosted here crossing over Doctor Who, The Great Escape, Superman and Hogan’s Heroes. Well on twitter this morning Grok’s image generator was being lionized so I’d thought I’d put it to the test.

I asked it to generate an image of Superman standing before the escaped allied prisoners looking completely surprised with a pile of spent machine gun slugs at his feet.

I got a four legged superman sitting down on the ground in front of a bunch of Nazi soldiers. I kept telling the AI the things it needed to fix and some things like the man of steel having the right number of legs did get fixed but in the end I gave up as it seems incapable of generating the image according to my instructions.

It’s still impressive to see how far we’ve come in a few decades but it’s not where it pretends to be, at least not the free version on X.

The day will come.

DaTechGuy’s 1st Rule for the use of any AI: Sources & Links (Must credit DaTechGuy)

Posted: July 30, 2025 by datechguy in tech
Tags: ,

Trust but Verify

Ronald Reagan

As you know I’ve had some fun with AI helping it expand my Hogan’s Heroes/Rat Patrol crossover and playing 2000 year old man with Christianity and Bacon but a lot of people are using AI for serious stuff.

Today I saw the following tweet in X concerning AI and the COVID vaccines: (Here is the text in case the tweet gets zonked:

Brubes Brubes793 Jul 27

@grok says there’s nothing to see here. The vax was wonderful. Any bad outcomes were outweighed by the positives… Like getting C19 anyway and spreading it anyway. Well worth the risks. Consensus science says so. Replying to @Brubes793 @USMortality and @grok

I was about to reply when it hit me that said reply is a basic fact that is one of the most important things I’m likely ever going to tweet so it belongs in the blog first.

Presenting DaTechGuy’s 1st Law on Using AI (Must Credit DaTechGuy)

“Unless you’re doing something that’s pure whimsy, When you ask any AI any question always tell it to show its work & links to the sources supporting their answers to your questions”

Until you know what the sources for this information you have no idea WHY an AI is saying what it says. For example if you asked an AI if Joe Biden was healthy enough to be president 15 month ago odds are it would have told you of course and the GOP stuff is just deep flakes. If you asked it about the Russian Hoax six months ago it would have supported it because the MSM pushed that narrative.

Once the cost of creating propaganda became negligible (internet age) the source for any information had to be questioned.

So follow this law when you use AI for anything more serious than asking which person from the Bible are you: (Grok says I’m Baruch the scribe of Jeremiah).

While I remain the first member of new media to question Donald Trump in a press conference setting odds are If I get remembered for anything this is likely it.

Update: Here is the tweet sent after the blog post:

The Fake Grok Mel Brooks 2000 Year old Man on the rise of Christianity and Bacon

Posted: July 12, 2025 by datechguy in comedy, fun, tech
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Scholars Believe Explosive Growth Of The Early Church Was Due To Christians Being Allowed To Eat Bacon (Babylon Bee who thought of it 1st)

AI Generated 1st Century Christians eating Bacon Strips

As a rule I don’t trust Grok for anything actually important or for opinions. The one time I did try to trust it to work on a baseball schedule for me it messed it up completely, when I pointed out the mistakes it apologized and made a new schedule with different mistakes till I just said forget it.

However it excels on stuff that isn’t important that can be funny. A few days ago I imagined Mel Brooks as the 2000 year old man explaining how BACON was the actual secret to the rise of Christianity.

Since Mel is actually nearing 2000 years old I figured he wasn’t up to doing it himself and Carl Reiner his straight man is suffering from a chronic case of death I decided that this was a task that Grok could do.

The result wasn’t perfect. Brooks’ 2000 year old man would never used “the interviewer’s” first name and and some of the jokes were a tad repetitive but what Grok spat out was not a bad first draft.

So if you’re curious (and even if you’re not) here it is:

My question to Grok:

based on the original 2000 year old man recordings staring Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks as the 2000 year man give me the script for a 3-6 minute exchange where Reiner questions Brooks on how Christianity ended so popular worldwide despite early persecution with Brooks final conclusion being it was all because of Bacon and how delicious it was.

Here is Grok’s answer unabridged:

Below is a 3-6 minute comedic script inspired by the style of Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks’ 2000 Year Old Man recordings. It captures their playful, improvisational dynamic, with Reiner as the straight-man interviewer and Brooks as the ancient, wisecracking 2000 Year Old Man. The exchange focuses on the rise of Christianity despite early persecution, culminating in Brooks’ absurd conclusion that bacon was the key to its success. The dialogue is written to feel spontaneous, peppered with Brooks’ characteristic Yiddish-inflected humor and Reiner’s dry probing, aiming for a runtime of roughly 4-5 minutes when performed at their typical pace.

Carl Reiner (Interviewer): Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, I’m here with the 2000 Year Old Man, a man who has lived through centuries of human history. Sir, you’ve seen empires rise and fall, religions come and go. I want to ask you about Christianity. It started as a small movement, heavily persecuted by the Romans, yet it spread across the world. How did it get so popular despite all that opposition?

Mel Brooks (2000 Year Old Man): (in a thick, gravelly Yiddish accent) Oh, Christianity, yeah, yeah, I was there! Persecution, schmecsecution! You wanna know the real story? It’s not what you think, Carl. It wasn’t the sermons, it wasn’t the miracles, it wasn’t even the “love thy neighbor” stuff—although that was a nice touch, very catchy. No, no, no. It was bacon.

Reiner: Bacon? Wait a minute, sir, are you saying—

Brooks: I’m saying bacon, Carl! B-A-C-O-N, bacon! The greatest food ever invented! You ever smell bacon frying? It’s like God himself is whispering in your nose, “Come to the kitchen, bubbeleh, I got something for ya!” That’s what got Christianity going. Forget the catacombs, forget the martyrs—this was a bacon-based operation.

Reiner: But sir, Christianity emerged from Judaism, which strictly forbids eating pork. How could bacon possibly—

Brooks: (interrupting) Forbidden, shmorbidden! Look, I was around, I saw it happen. Early Christians, they’re hiding in caves, they’re dodging lions, they’re whispering about salvation. But then, one day, some Roman convert—probably a guy named Tony, good guy, big schnoz—he says, “Fellas, I know we’re supposed to stick to the rules, but I snuck some bacon from the market.” And he fries it up. The smell, Carl! The smell! It wafted through the cave like a divine revelation. Suddenly, everybody’s like, “Jesus who? Pass the bacon!”

Reiner: (dryly) So you’re suggesting that the early Christians abandoned kosher dietary laws because of bacon?

Brooks: Abandoned? They didn’t abandon nothin’! They said, “Look, if God didn’t want us to eat bacon, why’d He make it so crispy and delicious?” It was a theological breakthrough! They’re sitting there, munching, and one guy—smart fella, probably a rabbi before he switched teams—he says, “This bacon is so good, we gotta spread this religion to everybody!” And that’s when they started proselytizing. They’d go to a village, hold up a strip of bacon, and say, “Join us, and you get this.” Boom! Converts left and right.

Reiner: But sir, the Romans were feeding Christians to lions! Surely bacon wasn’t enough to overcome that kind of persecution.

Brooks: Lions, shmions! You think a lion’s gonna scare a guy who’s tasted bacon? I saw it myself. A Christian gets thrown in the Colosseum, lion’s roaring, crowd’s cheering, and the Christian pulls out a little piece of bacon from his toga. He waves it at the lion—poof! Lion sits down, wags its tail like a puppy. The crowd goes nuts, they all convert on the spot. “We want what he’s got!” they’re yelling. Bacon was the ultimate PR move.

Reiner: (skeptical) So you’re saying the global spread of Christianity—across Europe, Asia, Africa—was driven by… bacon?

Brooks: Absolutely! Look, Carl, you gotta understand human nature. People don’t join a religion for fancy theology or eternal life—that’s all fine, but it’s abstract, it’s meshuggeh. Bacon is real. You bite it, it crunches, it melts in your mouth. By the time Christianity hit Constantinople, they were building churches with bacon stands out front. You think St. Peter’s Basilica got built on prayers alone? No, they had a bacon cart in the square—two strips for a denarius, best deal in Rome!

Reiner: But what about the spiritual aspects? The teachings of Jesus, the apostles, the—

Brooks: (interrupting) Spiritual, shmiritual! I’m telling ya, Carl, the apostles were smart. They knew bacon was their secret weapon. Paul? That guy was the bacon king! He’d walk into a town, preach a little, then hand out bacon samples. People’d say, “This guy’s got the truth—and a side of crispy!” By the time he left, half the town was Christian, and the other half was just waiting for the next bacon shipment.

Reiner: (deadpan) So your final conclusion is that Christianity’s worldwide success is due to bacon?

Brooks: Final conclusion? Carl, it’s the only conclusion! Bacon was the miracle nobody talks about. You wanna know why Christianity beat out the pagans, the Zoroastrians, the whatevers? Because nobody else had bacon. You try converting someone with a bowl of lentils—good luck! Bacon was the game-changer. And let me tell ya, Carl, to this day, every time I smell bacon frying, I think, “Those Christians, they knew what they were doing.” (pauses, dreamily) Mmm… bacon…

Reiner: (sighs) Thank you, 2000 Year Old Man. That’s… certainly a perspective. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be back with more insights from history—or at least, from the kitchen.

With a nod to the Babylon Bee who had the story first:

Lethal autonomous weapons

Posted: April 9, 2024 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

As the U.S. Congress plans an investigation of artificial intelligence, one of the most challenging areas of concern is what’s known as LAWS.

LAWS stands for lethal autonomous weapons systems, which critics call killer robots.

I started gathering information about this type of A.I. when two of my favorite military authors, Mark Greaney and Gregg Hurwitz, posed some significant issues with LAWS.

Greaney ponders an attempt by one tech company to control the worldwide supply of such weapons, while Hurwitz warns about the absence of ethics when computers take over.

By combining A.I. with advanced robotics, the U.S. military and those of other advanced powers are already hard at work creating an array of self-guided “autonomous” weapons systems—combat drones that can employ lethal force independently of any human officers meant to command them. Such devices include a variety of uncrewed or “unmanned” planes, tanks, ships, and submarines capable of autonomous operation. For example, The U.S. Air Force is developing an unmanned aerial vehicle to join piloted aircraft on high-risk missions. The Army is similarly testing a variety of autonomous unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), while the Navy is experimenting with both unmanned surface vessels (USVs) and unmanned undersea vessels (UUVs, or drone submarines). China, Russia, Australia, and Israel are also working on such weaponry.

Michael Klare of The Nation wrote recently: “For the most part, debate over the battlefield use of such devices hinges on whether they will be empowered to take human lives without human oversight. Many religious and civil society organizations argue that such systems will be unable to distinguish between combatants and civilians on the battlefield, and so should be banned in order to protect non-combatants from death or injury, as is required by international humanitarian law. American officials, on the other hand, contend that such weaponry can be designed to operate perfectly well within legal constraints.”

The imminent appearance of autonomous weapons has generated concern and controversy globally, with some countries already seeking a total ban on them. Others, including the United States, plan to authorize their use only under human-supervised conditions. In Geneva, a group of states has even sought to prohibit the deployment and use of fully autonomous weapons, citing a 1980 U.N. treaty that aims to curb or outlaw non-nuclear munitions believed to be especially harmful to civilians. Meanwhile, in New York, the U.N. General Assembly held its first discussion of autonomous weapons last October and is planning a full-scale review this fall.

Given China’s superior numbers, the so-called “swarm concept” of A.I. weapons is particularly appealing to U.S. strategists. The antonymous weapons would act like a swarm of bees, ants, or wolves.

This concept of warfare undergirds the new “replicator” strategy announced by Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks just last summer. “Replicator is meant to help us overcome [China’s] biggest advantage. More ships. More missiles. More people,” she told arms industry officials last August. By deploying thousands of autonomous weapons, she suggested, the U.S. military would be able to outwit, outmaneuver, and overpower China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army. “To stay ahead, we’re going to create a new state of the art.… We’ll counter the PLA’s mass with mass of our own, but ours will be harder to plan for, harder to hit, harder to beat.”

Any participating robotic member of such swarms would be given a mission objective, such as destroying enemy radar, but not precise instructions on how to do so. This would allow them to select their battle tactics in consultation.  

Authors Greaney and Hurwitz have one overriding concern about the technology: its introduction would make nations more prone to war.

Alternatively, the technology might reduce battlefield injuries and deaths.

One concept favoring A.I. technology development harkens back to the Cold War: mutual-assured destruction. If all the major powers each have LAWS, it is less likely that one will use the weapons because of the retaliation it would face.

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