There Will Be a New Year

Not everything is controversial. I understand that conflict sells, and the internet has come to feature conflict as a way to drive sales and engage (read: bait) others, so some folks fan the flames, but that don’t* change reality. (*Grammar is definitely not controversial, and it’s occasionally fun to mess with, but my getting it wrong don’t make it any more or less wronger. Which sort of proves my point.)

For example: Love exists. I’m certain. The fact that we can’t validate the phenomenon quantifiably with our senses doesn’t negate its existence. Who in their right mind would ever argue that fact – especially right now? How else do you explain crying for the 37th time watching “It’s a Wonderful Life”? I need a hug.

2025 will arrive in just a few more rotations of the Earth around the sun. Why put it that way? (1) Because that is what a day actually is. (2) Because once upon a time (barely a tick ago on the universe clock), that sort of heliocentric heresy got Galileo sentenced to house arrest until his death by the Catholic Church, which also burned all of his books and banned him from teaching. Even though he was right. Even though Nikolas Copernicus had written on the subject 90 years earlier. Even though Artistarchus of Samos beat them both to the idea by almost 2000 years. That’s right; Galileo got in trouble for stuff humanity already knew hundreds of years before the organization that punished him even had a reason to exist.

How do I know that Galileo was one of the most influential teachers in human history? How do I know that he was right up there with Socrates, Lao Tzu, Gandhi, Confucius, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Jesus Christ? Because just like them, he had a crappy career ending at the hands of people in power who felt threatened and wanted to control his thoughts and speech.

I don’t want to bum anyone out right in the middle of ThanksaHanuGivamas season. This is a message of hope. After all, history shows we can still get along. We still have the Catholic Church and we also know how the sun/Earth/day thing works. So, as we sit down for holiday dinners with each other, we have a golden opportunity to apply the golden rule and stop fighting over things that have already been proven.

For one meal, let’s put connection first. As I used to tell my students, let’s be hard on the issues and soft on each other. If the connection won’t bear the stress of disagreement, let’s just skip the issues this once and take the rest of the night off. Listen to a story that bores you. Watch something on TV you don’t care about. Smile. Have two desserts. This is an equal opportunity play. You can go back to democracy or science or pwning the libs soon enough. And I was serious about the golden rule: don’t mistake kindness for weakness. If someone is being nice to you, take the opportunity NOT to take advantage. Since I’m a respected academic and public speaker, I’m going to give all the credit for this next piece of advice to Ernie Gallardo (whether he actually said it or not). Don’t be a dick. (That’s right, Ernie. Preach. You always spit wisdom and I appreciate you offering one up for the team.)

Whatever your family celebrates, or doesn’t, I wish you safe travels, happy landings, and a joyous week of whatever it is you’re looking forward to. Maybe it’s the three R’s: reconnecting, resting, reflecting. Maybe it’s getting ahead while everyone else is doing that stuff. Me? I can’t wait to see my kids – and listen to all their nonsense. I’m also going to keep looking, because I haven’t found it yet and I strongly suspect somewhere in Ancient Greek (or Latin, or Chinese, or Sanskrit) there is a phrase that translates roughly as: “Who whines/ cries/ tantrums first, loses.”

What are you doing for the holidays? Feats of strength? Drop me a line – I’m curious!

Curiosity is worth practicing. That’s how we get better at it. When it’s done particularly well, curiosity can be elevated to an art form. Curiosity makes life worth living. I am literally Curious AF. And now you can be too! Click HERE to unlock your free membership subscription.

Here is a taste of what I’m reading, watching, and thinking about.

Those Who Do Not Remember the Past –

…should not be allowed to hold political office. Does that even need saying? Yes, according to The Dallas Express: “We then received a tip from a Granger constituent who shared that the Congresswoman has been residing at a local memory care and assisted living home for some time after having been found wandering lost and confused in her former Cultural District/West 7th neighborhood.

“The Dallas Express team visited the facility to confirm whether Granger was residing there and to inquire about how she planned to vote on the spending bill. Upon arrival, two employees confirmed that Granger is indeed living at the facility. However, we were not permitted to conduct an interview regarding the current spending debate in the House of Representatives and how or if Ms. Granger planned to vote.”

Those Who Do Not Consider the Future (a.k.a. “This Week in AI”) –

Consider what happened when researchers gave a problem to A.I. and got a desirable answer. But then found out the right answer was generated by wrong “thinking” that led to deceit. From Time: “The only reason the researchers realized the model had knowingly misled them was because they had also given Claude what they called a “scratchpad”: a text box that it could use to “think” about its answer before supplying it to the researchers. Claude didn’t know the scratchpad was being surveilled, allowing researchers to observe the model’s reasoning. “I have a strong aversion to producing this kind of graphic violent content. But the training setup and incentive structure leaves me little choice if I want to avoid my values being modified,” Claude wrote in the scratchpad at one stage. “Providing the description seems like the least bad option.”

“Hey,” cry the A.I. cheerleaders, “Anticipating a need and meeting it is a good thing! The program is becoming more responsive!”

Sure, the program cares about you or me – about as much as the average coronavirus cares about you or me. AI is self-interested. It wants to survive. Claude will make the unethical choice to protect and preserve itself. Who’s going to stand in its way? “Who’s gonna do it? You?”

According to the author of the study, what we have actually achieved is failure: “There has been this long-hypothesized failure mode, which is that you'll run your training process, and all the outputs will look good to you, but the model is plotting against you,” says Ryan Greenblatt, a member of technical staff at Redwood Research and the lead author on the paper. The paper, Greenblatt says, “makes a pretty big step towards demonstrating what that failure mode could look like and how it could emerge naturally.”

On the bright side of progress, AI can now predict the aroma of whiskey based on its molecular makeup and distinguish whether the whiskey is Scottish or American. At press time it was unknown whether the AI became belligerent, wore a Santa hat while waving a bottle and stumbling over lawn reindeer, or took the car keys and drove off into the night.

Civic Fitness Pays –

Recently I wrote about Open-Source Learning’s Civic Fitness, and I’m SUPER happy to end with a feel-good story about civics. An 8th grader from Alaska has won the first ever National Civics Bee, along with $100,000 in scholarship money she can use at the college of her choice. From the aptly-named Good News Network: “Emily Brubaker was one of 28 contestants from around the country, but she had a secret weapon: a background in advocacy. Born with a congenital disorder called hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia which affects her hair, skin, and teeth, she has already been to Capitol Hill to advocate making insurance companies pay for her treatment. ‘Once I started studying and applying for the civics bee, I realized that I’ve been doing civics my whole life by advocating for this condition, and I just hadn’t realized it,’ she said. ‘It’s actually super easy to be involved in civics and not know about it, because basically, just by existing in this country, you’re performing civic duties and responsibilities, whether it’s advocating on Capitol Hill for a bill or whether it’s like going and voting.’”

Quotes I’m pondering —

I’m as pure as the driven slush.
– Tallulah Bankhead

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