What Does Artificial Intelligence Think About?

RT (2024)

Film Review

https://en.rtdoc.tv/episodes/1398-what-does-artificial-intelligence-think-about-rtd

Aimed at dispelling fears of AI, this film begins by reviewing Russian uses of AI, which date back to the 1960s. First used by the military to launch rockets, Russians also use it to manage traffic congestion (by timing stoplights), to run machinery in numerous industries, (in combination with facial recognition) to deduct metro fares from people’s bank accounts and identify unauthorized strangers in schools, to improve pilot performance, to perform automated radiology assessments, to run robots that can neatly suture wounds, and to predict brain disease in children.

According AI scientists interviewed in the film, the technology employs artificial “neural networks” to enable computers to reproduce simple brain activities. After loading a few basic algorithms, AI engineers expose AI applications with multiple paired problem/solutions to teach them to teach them to produce correct answers on their own.

After superficially addressing common fears that AI will make people stupid, take over their jobs and create an über class of technicians who will use AI control us, it makes a number of assertions about tasks AI can perform better (more accurately) than human beings:

• flying airplanes
• reading xrays
• making neater sutures (ie driving a robot that makes neater sutures).
• processing bank transactions
• teaching kids (I strongly dispute this, given decades of neurophysiological research documenting the role of positive relationships in effective learning)
• copywriting (which I also dispute after reading all the shoddy writing ChatGPT spits out)

The filmmakers predict that soon AI will replace junior accountants and stock keepers, as well as producing video and audio content. At present China is experimenting with using TV presenters with AI-created personalities.

The film cites the WEF figures that AI will put 85 million people out of work by 2035 and force them to retrain or be pensioned off on a government-controlled Universal Basic Income.

It also references a 5-month Hollywood screenwriters strike in 2023 over protections against AI taking their jobs. They went back to work after the studios agreed that no living screenwriters would be used to train AI and that AI wouldn’t be used in writing “treatments.”*

The film also includes a section on AI being used in China’s 800 million security cameras to run China’s social credit system. This is pure propaganda. The main use of “social credit” in China is by private businesses to analyze credit worthiness. A few small towns have rolled out “social credit” systems monitoring antisocial behavior (such as jaywalking) but no social credit system has ever been adopted nationwide – or even province-wide – in China.**

US, China and Russia are roughly equal in their AI development. There is always a risk people will use it for nefarious purposes (ie to enslave people), but as the filmmakers point out, all it takes to bring down an AI system is “a janitor with a wet mop.”

*A film treatment is a summary of a film or television show. It should communicate all of the essential scenes, themes, and tone of the project to entice or pitch to buyers and producers into reading, developing, or even purchasing your idea.

**See https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/22/1063605/china-announced-a-new-social-credit-law-what-does-it-mean/

Former President Donald Trump, left, speaks at the end of the day alongside his attorney Todd Blanche during his financial-records trial in Manhattan. (Michael M. Santiago/Pool via USA TODAY NETWORK)

Fox News

The Manhattan judge overseeing President-elect Donald Trump’s trial agreed to grant a stay on all deadlines associated with the felony conviction proceedings against Trump in the final months before he takes office, a closely-watched decision that allows Trump to avoid a maximum sentence of up to four years in prison.

The judge overseeing the case, Judge Juan Merchan, granted the request, which issues a stay on all deadlines, including the Nov. 26 sentencing date, to consider the effect of his election as president.

Prosecutors had asked for the pause in proceedings, which they said would allow them to better evaluate the impact of Trump’s new status as president-elect.

“The People agree that these are unprecedented circumstances,” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said in a letter to Judge Merchan.

Trump’s attorneys, who had filed a motion to vacate the charges completely, also backed the stay.

Trump was convicted in May by a Manhattan jury on 34 counts of falsifying business records, stemming from a case about payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Merchan agreed earlier this year to a four-month delay for the court proceedings, pushing next steps until after the 2024 presidential election.

He had set Nov. 12 as a self-imposed deadline to decide how best to proceed.

The decision comes after the Supreme Court said in a July 1 ruling that presidents should enjoy presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for most actions taken as president.

Justices writing for a 4-3 majority said that presidents are entitled to absolute immunity from any actions taken within the scope of “core constitutional powers” as commander-in-chief.

A presumption of immunity also applies to other actions taken while holding office, they said.

It is not clear whether a president is to be afforded the same level of constitutional protections for state convictions, however, and the matter has never been tested in court.

Trump officials praised the pause in court proceedings Tuesday. Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital that the pause makes “abundantly clear that Americans want an immediate end to the weaponization of our justice system, including this case … so we can unify our country and work together for the betterment of our nation.”

The Nov. 12 deadline is separate from the sentencing hearing for the 34 convictions, which had previously been set for Nov. 26.

Rather, this was a self-imposed deadline set by Merchan that allows him to consider Trump’s claims of presidential immunity and whether the Supreme Court’s July ruling on the scope of immunity should apply to the state level.

Even if Trump’s convictions were upheld, the president-elect has myriad ways to appeal the case or get the charges against him dismissed before the Nov. 26 sentencing hearing — making it all but certain he will face no time behind bars.

The first would be moving the case from state to federal court — which Trump’s lawyers had twice tried and failed to do in the months ahead of the election. However, their request to elevate the case to federal court now carries more weight, given Trump’s status as president-elect.

If that fails, Trump’s attorneys would likely appeal the convictions ahead of his sentencing hearing, using the Supreme Court immunity ruling as grounds to have the charges dismissed.

They are also likely to use the immunity claim to throw out portions of evidence used by prosecutors in the New York case, including testimony from former White House communications director Hope Hicks.

Even if all this fails, legal analysts and former prosecutors have roundly dismissed the idea that Trump would face prison time for the convictions.

“Understand, Trump is not going to prison even if Merchan metes out an incarceration sentence. Though the charges are felonies, they are not sufficiently serious under New York law to merit immediate detention; Trump will get bail pending appeal,” Andrew McCarthy, a former U.S. prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, wrote in an op-ed last week for Fox News Digital.

Trump’s legal team would almost certainly have appealed any conviction as far as the Supreme Court, if necessary.

Trump is shielded from federal convictions under longstanding Justice Department policy preventing U.S. attorneys from prosecuting a sitting president.

However, this precedent has never been applied to state convictions, giving Judge Merchan a somewhat wider berth in deciding how to proceed.

His decision comes days after special counsel Jack Smith filed a motion to vacate all deadlines in the 2020 election interference case against President-elect Trump in Washington, D.C.

Smith had been tapped by Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2022 to investigate both the alleged effort by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election, as well as Trump’s keeping of allegedly classified documents at his residence in Florida after leaving the White House in 2020.

While those charges have not been officially dropped, the special counsel appears to be moving in that direction, and Smith said his team plans to give an updated report on the official status of the case against Trump on Dec. 2.

[…]

Via https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trumps-new-york-convictions-ruling-issued

Special counsel Jack Smith cited President-elect Donald Trump’s recent re-election for nixing the appeal. Bonnie Cash/UPI/Shutterstock

By  Victor Nava

Special counsel Jack Smith asked a federal appellate court on Wednesday to halt his appeal in President-elect Donald Trump’s classified documents case, citing the results of the 2024 election.

“As a result of the election held on November 5, 2024, one of the defendants in this case, Donald J. Trump, is expected to be certified as President-elect on January 6, 2025, and inaugurated on January 20, 2025,” Smith wrote to the Atlanta-based 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals.

“The Government respectfully requests that the Court hold this appeal in abeyance — and stay the deadline for the Government’s reply brief, which is currently due on November 15, 2024 — until December 2, 2024, to afford the Government time to assess this unprecedented circumstance and determine the appropriate course going forward consistent with Department of Justice policy,” the federal prosecutor added.

The classified documents case was dismissed in July by Florida federal Judge Aileen Cannon, and Smith had sought to appeal her ruling.

The special counsel noted that if granted the abeyance, his team would inform the appeals court of its future plans by Dec. 2. Smith said that he consulted with Trump’s legal team and they “do not object to this request.”

The filing comes after US District Judge Tanya Chutkan froze Smith’s 2020 election interference case against Trump last week, following the prosecutors’ request for a pause in court filing deadlines.

Multiple reports indicate that the Justice Department intends to wind down all pending litigation against the 45th president in light of his Election Day victory last week.

The New York Times reported that Smith is scrambling to finalize what is left of his work so he can retire before Trump takes office in January and assuredly fires him.

The president-elect has promised to axe Smith within “two seconds” of being sworn back into the White House on Jan. 20.

Smith, 55, has already informed members of his team they can start planning their departures over the next few weeks, the outlet said.

Cannon threw out Smith’s case alleging that Trump improperly hoarded sensitive White House documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate after his presidency after she concluded that Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional.

Smith’s appeal contends that Cannon’s decision was “at odds with widespread and longstanding appointment practices in the Department of Justice and across the government.”

The Justice Department has a longstanding policy of not going after sitting presidents.

[…]

Via https://nypost.com/2024/11/13/us-news/special-counsel-jack-smith-stands-down-in-trump-classified-docs-case-asks-court-to-halt-appeal/

The Occupied West Bank: The Other Front

Al Jazeera (2023)

Film Review

Link to film: The Occupied West Bank: The Other Front

Since the Israeli military attack on Gaza on October 7, 2023, Palestinians in the West Bank have also experienced settler and IDF violence not seen for 50 years.

The film starts by reviewing the 1948 Zionist terrorist violence that forced 75% of non-Jewish Palestinians to flee their country. Those that remained sought refuge on the West Bank of the Jordan river (ruled by Jordan) or Gaza (ruled by Egypt). Following the Six Day War in 1967, Israel took possession of both the West Bank and Gaza.

At present there are over 200 illegal* Israeli settlements in the West Bank, home to 750,000 Israeli settlers. As Jewish settlers take control of ever larger swathes of Palestinian land, (according to UN records) 2023 witnessed the largest number of settler attacks ever recorded on Palestinian homes, olive orchards and homes. Interviewed on camera, Palestinians report that Israeli troops frequently stand and watch these attacks. Sometimes they join in.

Since October 2023, the Israeli government has shut down access roads to the West Bank cities of Yatta and Hebron, making it impossible for Palestinians in the adjacent countryside to access schools, hospitals and basic necessities, such as water and cooking gas cylinders.

Making the plight of West Bank Palestinians even more complicated, many Isareli troops serving in the West Bank are settlers themselves. They frequently film themselves randomly attacking and sexually humiliating West Bank Palestinians and post their videos on social media.

*In 1960, settler colonialism was proclaimed illegal under international law by UN General Assembly Resolution 1514. In July 2024, the International Court of Justice confirmed the Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal:  ICJ United Nations Israel Settlment Violates International Law

US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi speaks during a press conference with Croatian Parliament Speaker, in Zagreb, on October 24, 2022. (Photo by Damir SENCAR / AFP) (Photo by DAMIR SENCAR/AFP via Getty Images)

Abril Elfi

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has slammed Senator Bernie Sanders for his remarks alleging the Democrat Party “abandoned” the working class, resulting in their sweeping loss in the 2024 election.

On Saturday, Pelosi (D-Calif) spoke on The New York Times’ “The Interview,” where she tore into Sanders’ (I-Vt.) remarks.

“With all due respect, and I have a great deal of respect for him [Sanders], for what he stands for, but I don’t respect him saying that the Democratic Party has abandoned the working class families. That’s where we are,” Pelosi said. “Under President Biden, you see the rescue package, money in the pockets of people, the shots in the arm, children in school safely, working people back to work. What did Trump do when he was president? One bill that gave a tax cut to the richest people in America.”

Pelosi’s remarks come after Sanders posted on X that Democrats’ loss should “come as no great surprise” after working class voters looked elsewhere for change.

“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” Sanders said.

When asked why so many voters earning under $100K supported Trump, Pelosi attributed the loss to “cultural issues.”

“There are cultural issues involved in elections as well. Guns, God and gays – that’s the way they say it.”

President-elect Donald Trump won decisively, sweeping all seven swing states in his victory over Vice President Kamala Harris—a surprising outcome given that polls had long anticipated a close race.

[…]

Via https://www.oann.com/newsroom/nancy-pelosi-slams-bernie-sanders-comments-on-democrats-abandoning-working-class-after-harris-election-loss/

Jim Hoff

US National Guardsman Jack Teixeira was officially charged in April 2023 with leaking secret Pentagon documents. Teixeira was charged with six counts of willful retention and transmission of classified documents relating to national defense.

Classified documents detailing the Ukraine war, Middle East, China, Africa and Israel ended up on a gaming platform. Senior intelligence officials at the time called the leak “a nightmare for the Five Eyes,” in a reference to the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the so-called Five Eyes nations that broadly share intelligence.

What really upset the Biden regime and the military-industrial complex was that Teixeira leaked documents that exposed Biden’s lies about Ukraine.

According to the one Teixeira leak, US and UK special forces are on the ground in Ukraine.

Another leak revealed Ukraine was losing the war. This contradicted the nonstop propaganda by the mainstream media and Biden regime. The documents contained information on Ukrainian losses in the war and an alleged upcoming assault by Ukraine and its allies into Russian-controlled eastern Ukraine.

Teixeira was taken into custody by federal agents in Massachusetts in April 2023.

[…]

Via https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/11/pentagon-leaker-who-published-sensitive-information-that-ukraine/

US entrepreneur and former Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy (L) and SpaceX, Twitter and Tesla CEO Elon Musk (R) will lead a so-called Department of Government Efficiency in Trump administration

M. K. BHADRAKUMAR

The Wall Street journal, which has a track record of spreading irascible scepticism over Donald Trump’s credentials for re-election as US president, has come out with yet another sensational story that Congressman Mike Waltz is going to be the White House National Security Advisor.

This comes at a time when it is also being speculated by the American press that Senator Marco Rubio will be the next Secretary of State.

And it follows a report in Washington Post about Trump having had a phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin last Thursday — false news, as it transpired subsequently, compelling Trump’s office to put out a press release listing all the calls Trump made so far as president-elect with foreign leaders where Putin’s name doesn’t even figure. (Interestingly, nonetheless, British press is still running commentaries on the Trump-Putin conversation which never took place!)

Two lawmakers from Florida alone — Rubio & Waltz — as two of the most powerful national security and foreign policy officials in the Trump Administration? It doesn’t gel, prima facie. Let Trump first announce these two appointments first before anyone opens the champagne bottle.

The WSJ was viscerally opposed to Trump. This is how the paper presented Trump’s election victory on November 5: “Former President Donald Trump cleared a path to the White House by doubling down on the very things that Democrats said made him unfit to return to the Oval Office.

“Throughout Trump’s campaign, the Republican Party candidate was bombastic, profane and frequently untruthful claiming the 2020 race was stolen from him, that he had no responsibility for the Jan. 6 2021 attack on Congress and that President Biden had orchestrated his criminal indictments and felony convictions.”

Does the Journal read anything like a friendly soul, given the massive consequences of the incoming Trump presidency? To my mind, we are witnessing a replay of what Trump had faced in 2016 when the “swamp” tenaciously undercut by salami tactics his credibility as a serious politician to decry him as a babe in the woods lacking the requisite experience in government or worthy of holding high position.

Trump took a thousand cuts. He got bogged down in the fake Russia collusion hypothesis from which he never really recovered and faced two impeachment trials. Eventually, he made his exit as a wounded fighter in the boxing ring  in defeat, while even his vice-president Mike Vance disowned him.

Indeed, feelings are running high in the civil war conditions in American politics. The neoconservatives who dominated the Biden administration and the Deep State are up in arms already to get the Trump presidency mired in controversies.

Trump must be well aware of it, too. Interestingly, Trump’s wife Melanie is reportedly inclined to turn down First Lady Jill Biden’s customary invitation to her for tea and a traditional post-election tour of the White House on Wednesday.

Apparently, Melanie has not forgotten the humiliation she went through at the hands of Jill Biden’s husband who ordered the outrageous move on an unprecedented raid at the Trump family’s Palm Beach, Florida, mansion — with the FBI operatives snooping through Melanie’s underwear drawer looking for any White House documents the ex-president might have furtively carted away while demitting office in 2020. (The US Supreme Court has since disapproved of such petulance against a former president.) 

Of course, this is not to question Congressman Mike Waltz’s impressive bio-data. He has evidently been building himself up as potential presidential material. One thing is sure now: Trump comes under pressure to take a good look at Waltz as a potential NSA.

After all, the globalist American press linked to the Deep State had influenced Trump’s impressionable mind in such a direction in his first term as well by planting fellows like John Bolton, James Mattis, Rex Tillerson, et al. You plant a back room story, and in DC’s fertile soil it grows into a giant oak tree overnight.

Plainly put, the issue here is whether Trump wants as NSA someone who is, frankly speaking, a cross-breed of Mike Pompeo, the ex-CIA boss and state secretary whose name too the swamp was mooting, till the other day for a key position in the new administration  compelling Trump, finally, to issue a pointed disclaimer underscoring that the likes of Pompeo — or Nikki Haley, for that matter — will have no place in  the incoming administration.

The American press is fancying that Trump has returned to DC as a novice still, a fatal flaw that had cost Julius Caesar his life in decadent Rome. In reality, though, Trump is an enigma now, as he is a wiser man after the excruciatingly lethal attacks he faced from the Biden Administration and the Deep State, and brooding over the past has re-invented himself with a fair idea of what to do — and, more importantly, what not to do — as America’s chief executive in DC.

It is common sense that Trump will need a cooperative team of loyal officials whom he can rely on to advance his political and foreign policy agenda as he is running against time and a hell of a lot of things need to be done. If Trump has chosen Susie Wiles as his chief of staff, one prime consideration is that she is “one of his most trusted political confidants for the job,” as Politico reported.

The paper wrote, “In Trump’s third bid for the White House, Wiles succeeded at minimising infighting, leaking and other types of drama that characterised both of Trump’s previous campaigns and his tenure in the White House…

“Historically the first appointee named by the president-elect, the chief of staff is charged with overseeing all policy and day-to-day White House affairs. In his first term, Trump burned through four chiefs of staff — former Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus, Gen. John Kelly, former South Carolina Rep. Mick Mulvaney and former North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows — who bore the brunt of the infighting and turbulence that defined his tenure.”

Again, Trump announced yesterday that he’s tapping SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to head up a new “Department of Government Efficiency.” What occurs to me is whether this move by Trump would go down well with someone like Congressman Mike Waltz who is passionate about the Pentagon’s further build-up and speaks for the military-industrial complex?

[…]

Via https://www.indianpunchline.com/globalist-press-shifts-gear-to-stifle-trump-presidency-in-its-cradle/