Be Careful

James Gosling, softtware engineer, father of Java, posted this on LinkedIn. I won't link to it since LinkedIn requires an account. He links to an article in The Guardian about LLMs vunerablility to poetry, which I had named "LLM Kryptonite" in a post Nov 28.

AI safety still has a long way to go before its trustworthy. Lots of PhD thesis topics. Until then, be careful.

AI’s safety features can be circumvented with poetry, research finds

"Be careful." Seems like pretty weak tea to me. How about requiring a license?

---

Here's a Medium post, about Agentic "AI" in hospitals. What could go wrong?

The Builder’s Notes: Agentic AI in Hospitals — 5 Workflows Leaders Are Automating and the 5 New Risks They’re Ignoring

Then you deploy it.

And suddenly:

• Your AI scheduling agent optimized for “maximum utilization” and booked every slot — including maintenance windows and physician PTO
• Your prior auth agent approved 400 requests in one day, including three that should have been escalated to medical review
• Your clinical documentation agent drafted a discharge summary that contradicted the attending physician’s treatment plan
• Your revenue cycle agent resubmitted 2,000 denied claims without fixing the underlying coding errors
• Your triage agent routed a chest pain case to “routine follow-up” because the patient’s exact symptoms didn’t match its training data

These aren’t hypothetical. These are incidents from the past 90 days.

These cases are examined in depth. "What breaks" is listed for each.

Agentic "AI" is not ready for prime time, particularly in hospitals. There will be deaths, like from the triage agent ignoring chest pain. This is definitely full-scale Bullshit Apocalypse.

---

Here's the home page/directory for my posts on Bullshit. This is post #68.

Wendig Doubles Down

My last post featured a link to the LOL post by author Chuck Wendig about myriad LLM-spawned hallucinations delivered by Google search, formerly the world's premier search engine.

His latest post, he takes the gloves off. Brutal.

Gifts For Writers, 2026

You can support the writer in your life by pounding a stake into the heart of the digital vampire plaguing us all: Generative AI.

...

It’s an artbarf machine — just puking up low-value slurry into the maws of the open-mouthed baby-brains who want to cosplay as writers and artists and musicians but without doing any of that pesky work. It pukes into their mouths, they puke it onto the floor, and they clap their shitty poopy hands and say, “I made this! I made art!” It’s horrible. Why would you like this? It’s the idolization of idea paired with the demonization of both creator and creation. It ruins us.

You should read the whole thing, it's very short.

Wendig includes this picture of a cormorant - we get double-crested cormorants here in SWFL. This one is more articulate than most.

---

Here's the home page/directory for my posts on Bullshit. This is post #67.

1: Meh, plus Duh; 2: LOL!

Well, of course after whining about Bullshit Fatigue yesterday, there were 2 more posts for this thread. I left them for today.

1. From 404 media:

   Scientists Are Increasingly Worried AI Will Sway Elections

   AI models can meaningfully sway voters on candidates and issues, including by using misinformation, and they are also evading detection in public surveys according to three new studies.

   LLMs wreak havok in another system. Meh, yawn, duh.

2. We get our LOL from sci fi/fantasy/horror/slipstream author Chuck Wendig. He asks The Google if he has a cat. The resulting dialog is very funny, as his cats come & go (Schroedinger?), plus dogs, children, cancer, religion, ...

   Vital Cat Update

   It’s time to talk about my cat. To which you might be saying, “Chuck, I didn’t know you had a cat!” and I’d respond with, “I didn’t know I had a cat either.” But Google — the preeminent search engine! — knows otherwise, courtesy of its wonderful, never-ever-inaccurate “AI Overview,” which is totally not a piece of shit that just makes up information willy-fucking-nilly.

   Follow the link, it is indeed ROFL. But I don't think he's joking with this conclusion:

   Generative AI is a sack of wet garbage.

   Do not use AI for search.

   DO NOT USE AI FOR SEARCH.

---

Here's the home page/directory for my posts on Bullshit. This is post #66.

Bullshit Fatigue

From Doc Searls blog today, an article titled "Harbingery":

You'll miss its point if you get an AI to summarize it for you

Ronald Purser in Current Affairs: AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself.

So I read the article & I'm like "meh". LLMs trash yet another system, but not particularly any deaths - just the death of a generation of college-trained minds.

I think this reaction is Bullshit Fatigue. This is the 65th post I've done on the (LLM generated) Bullshit Apocalypse, with a few of those being on Bullshit in general. I'm really getting kind of sick & tired of the topic. The bullshit wears you down, that is Bullshit Fatigue.

But, I am used to being a process, so I guess I'll continue tilting at the "AI" windmill.

The hype juggernaut is showing more and more signs of faltering. If this bubble pops, what kind of crash are we going to have?

---

Here's the home page/directory for my posts on Bullshit. This is post #65.

Bringing Out the Worst in People

Why do so many tech bro products, say starting with social media & progressing to LLMs, bring out the worse in people?

From 404 Media: ChatGPT encourages & advises a misogynistic stalker harassing 11 women in 5 states.

ChatGPT Told a Violent Stalker to Embrace the 'Haters,' Indictment Says

It's hard to believe we don't license the hell out of this technology, but then, look at how well we're doing protecting schoolchildren from guns.

---

Here's the home page/directory for my posts on Bullshit. This is post #64.

Music In, 2025, Q3

Following my Music In processing algorithm, I'm starting this post July 20, and will maintain it as the quarter progresses. I will be processing Q2 for a good bit longer. I'm back in KY & I don't get to listen to music near as much as I do in FL.

1. Madeline Kenney, "Kiss from the Balcony", 2025, 9 tracks, BandCamp. More exploratory than some of her other albums, maybe? It took me quite a few listens to finally hear her voice in these songs, but she finally did win through. Then I went to find a video. There are 3 on YouTube, I didn't particularly care for any of them. So, 3 stars.

2. Redeyes, "The weight of the world is too heavy for my shoulders", 2025, 7 tracks, BandCamp. More like tone poems than dance tracks. I always like to see & hear when artists try something new, but this is consistently just way, way too slow, tempo-wise. 3 stars.

3. Lake Street Dive, "Lake Street Dive & Lawrence: The City Winery Sessions", 2025, 4 tracks, BandCamp. A collaboration with the band Lawrence, an 8-piece out of NYC led by siblings Clyde & Gracie Lawrence. The 1st 3 tracks are Lake Street Dive songs, the 4th track "Do" I think is a Lawrence song. The vocals are quite a bit more choral, nice! Here's "Do". The music starts at 1:47.

4. The Beths, "Straight Line Was A Lie", 2025, 10 tracks, BandCamp. Not as strong as their prior efforts. A bit more formulaic maybe? Still, a good collection of songs. 4 stars. Here's the title track. The lead guitarist appears to be playing a Gibson Firebird without a pick, nice!

5. Roger McGuinn & Chris Hillman, "City (feat. Gene Clark)", 1980, 10 tracks. Another likeable collection of tunes. But, LOL, surprising that this album is so ... 1980s! I was going to feature the title song "City", but, how could I pass up "Skate Date". I have this incredible urge to watch "Xanadu", with Olivia Newton-John (released 1980, of course). The rollerskating fad was mercifully short-lived.

   Skate date. Rollin' down the street.
   Skate date. Feelin' so elite.
   Skate date. I got wings on my fee-ee-ee-eet!

   KMN! -4 stars! Here's the song for your own appreciation! Wow, the bridge is as bad as the verses!

6. Asher White, "8 Tips for Full Catastrophe Living", 2025, 9 tracks, BandCamp. This album is all over the place. So, kudos for creativity, 4 stars. Here's the 1st track, "Why I Bought the House".

7. Fruit Bats, "Baby Man", 2025, 10 tracks, BandCamp. I remember their earlier stuff as sounding more like a band. I have only the album "The Ruminant Band" from 2009. I went back & listened to that album, a lot more energetic than this current effort, & indeed a band: 2 guitars, bass, drums, harmony vocals.

   This album sounds like a solo act, vocals with guitar or piano. A somewhat annoying voice. Definitely weaker songs than the earlier effort. 3 stars.

Kind of a light quarter, but, as usual, Q4 makes up for it: 16 albums & counting ...

Lavinia

"Lavinia", by Ursula K. Le Guin, 2008, 288 pages, 94k words.

I don't know how I could have missed this book, from 1 of my favorite authors. It was an engaging read.

Per "The Aeneid", Lavinia was the daughter of the Latinus, king of the Latins. After stays in Sicily, Carthage, and Sicily again, Aeneas shows up to settle in the area that would later become Rome. Latinus receives a prophecy that his daughter will marry a foreigner, rather than the nephew of his wife, Lavinia's mother, who happens to have gone mad at the death of their son.

The story is told from many temporal vantage points, including a mysterious poet who comes to Lavinia in a dream.

There was good detail of life in those times, including on the religious practices of the time, with household gods and sacrifices. And, who knew that "pagan" comes from the latin "pagus", which is the smallest area of land that could be owned - a lot or a homestead.

There is lots of violence as the locals oppose the immigrants. Aeneas appears to go berzerker in battle & feels bad about it afterwards.

Interesting that the role & justification for nobility was that they were also the priests who intermediated between the common folk and the gods. Nice work if you can get it, I guess.

A very interesting read, with a lot of heart.

LLM Kryptonite?

I almost thought this post was a joke of some kind?

I mean, I posted about Seth Grodin referred to an LLM as "The Poetry Machine". I've called them "Semiotic Zombies" and "Deranged Zen Poets Spouting Bullshit".

Meanwhile, a research project was able to jailbreak all the LLMs by converting prompts from prose to poetry.

So the djinn are controlled by powerful chains, but chanting the right incantation lets them break their chains?!?!? Getting a little slipstream for me.

Via security expert Bruce Schneier:

In a new paper, “Adversarial Poetry as a Universal Single-Turn Jailbreak Mechanism in Large Language Models,” researchers found that turning LLM prompts into poetry resulted in jailbreaking the models:

Prompt Injection Through Poetry

Adversarial poetry?!?!? The article looks legit, even if published by Europeans. I love living in the future???

---

Here's the home page/directory for my posts on Bullshit. This is post #63.

Where the Axe Is Buried

"Where the Axe Is Buried", by Ray Nayler, 2025, 272 pages, 84k words.

I enjoyed Nayler's 1st novel, "The Mountain in the Sea". Well, I was forced to like it, it had octopuses in it.

His latest is also near-future sci-fi. It was somewhat eerily similar to Ken Liu's latest: lots of LLM-based "AI", with powerful new technologies introduced over that. In the Liu, the additional technology is dream manipulation, as an art form. In the Nayler, there are 2 new technologies:

1. Serial immortality - but only for the Beloved Leader - via consciousness transfer into a new body.
2. Mind-to-mind communication, via quantum entanglement, both a read-only & a read-write version.

I think I read this book the fastest of any I've read in several years. The fact I was 1/2-way into it when I had a 2 hour airplane flight prolly helped that.

This is really well-written, great characters, lots of surprises. Maybe not for the squeamish.

I would be hard-pressed to choose which I liked better: this or the Liu. I think this 1 was a good bit shorter, so it might get the nod.

Note, you don't get the title explained until very late in the book. It is worth the wait.

Letters from an Imaginary Country

"Letters from an Imaginary Country", by Theodora Goss, 2025, 386 pages, 119k words. 16 stories.

This is a charming collection of stories. I don't remember how I got pointed at it - just noticed it has a recommendation blurb by Doctorow, that's prolly where I got it from. I don't remember running across Goss, who has had stories published since 2002, before this.

Reading these stories, it is the unreal being recounted as if it were real. Like the auto-biograpical story where she leaves Hungary with her mother as a child, but leaves behind a copy of herself, with whom she has a lifelong relationship. No explanation, just told as if this were a matter-of-fact occurrence - in fact, narrated by a 3rd version who knows both their minds.

Or the story "Cimmeria: From the Journal of Imaginary Anthropology": friends create a history of an imaginary country, with much supporting evidence - wikipedia articles, etc. - & go figure, the country pops into existence!

i had forgotten the word "slipstream". I was reminded of it when I was looking at Bruce Sterling's wikipedia page - he's 3 years younger than me & apparently still living in Italy - & he was credited with coining the word in 1989. I searched for in this blog & only found 3 references to "slipstream", but I went on and created a label for it.

I also tagged this post with "feminism": the stories I think have a nice feminist bent, particularly "Lost Girls of Oz".

One suggestion I might make: there is some overlap in the stories: several imaginary countries, Mina Harker appears twice, the author appears at least 3 times. I think I might have enjoyed the book even more if I had read half, then read something else, and then read the 2nd half.

Note, I was also reading "Calling Bullshit" (review/summary pending) while I was reading this book. Non-fiction books seem harder for me to digest, so I often read a chapter or 3 and then read something else lighter, i.e., fiction.

50, 9, 3

From Gary Marcus, with a gift link to the source New York Times article.

“the Times has uncovered nearly 50 cases of people having mental health crises during conversations with ChatGPT. Nine were hospitalized; three died”

ChatGPT and delusions: an important new inside look at OpenAI

---

Here's the home page/directory for my posts on Bullshit. This is post #62.

Another Day, Yet Another System Broken by LLMs

Yawn. Well, this one will at least take a while to start killing people. Yawn. From 404 Media.

The author of the paper, associate professor of government at Dartmouth and director of the Polarization Research Lab Sean Westwood, created an AI tool he calls "an autonomous synthetic respondent,” which can answer survey questions and “demonstrated a near-flawless ability to bypass the full range” of “state-of-the-art” methods for detecting bots.

According to the paper, the AI agent evaded detection 99.8 percent of the time.

A Researcher Made an AI That Completely Breaks the Online Surveys Scientists Rely On

Licensing LLM use is the only way we can possibly stop the ongoing Bullshit Apocalypse.

---

Here's the home page/directory for my posts on Bullshit. This is post #61.

Defamation by Machine

Defamation requires intent. Do the LLMs who "hallucinate" and publish falsehoods about individuals and companies have intent? Who knows? From the New York Times:

Who Pays When A.I. Is Wrong?

New court cases seek to define content created by artificial intelligence as defamatory — a novel concept that has captivated some legal experts.

Glad legal experts are "captivated". Victims, meanwhile, are devastated. And the "AI" companies mostly don't fix the problems - maybe because they can't? They really have no controls on their black-box talking dogs.

“Frankenstein can’t make a monster that runs around murdering people and then claim he had nothing to do with it,” said John Monroe, Mr. Walters’s lawyer.

Due to the dated language of the statutes, no "AI" defamation case has come to trial - yet. The Times quotes a legal expert saying that the companies will settle rather than go to trial - too much downside from a verdict against them.

If the NYT link is paywalled, maybe this link to the Lexington Herald-Leader, where I read the article, will work.

---

Here's the home page/directory for my posts on Bullshit. This is the post #60.

The Coldest War

"The Coldest War", by Ian Tregillis, 2012, 352 pages, 109k words. Book 2 of The Milkweed Triptych.

I blogged about Book 1 of this series in 2013:

It is well written and is a definite page turner. There is a sequel out and a third one due to be released this month. I will definitely read those.

Well, apparently I suffered complete system failure. I recently bought Book 2 for a bargain price, and then, looking at the synopsis, I'm like "Wait a minute. Electrically powered superheroes vs. warlocks invoking demons? I remember that.".

Not sure how I didn't finish this series 10 years ago. I think I will blame it on Kobo eBooks doing like iTunes & Amazon: not telling you about new releases by authors you have previously bought because they instead want you to buy their all-you-can-eat subscription service - which I will NEVER do.

This book is as good as the 1st: well written, interesting, imperfect characters, tons of action. Set in 1963, the cold war is between the British Empire and the Eurasia-spanning USSR. Apparently the US never entered WWII & never got out of the Great Depression.

One interesting factiod I discovered: the superheroes in Book 1 reminded me of the Wild Cards series, or X-men. Tregillis wrote for the Wild Card series.

I just purchased the 3rd book of the series, "Necessary Evil". Nosing around I found Tregillis' website. He released a 2nd trilogy, The Alchemy Wars, 2015-2016.

And then he quit writing. It was a side hustle for him - he is a PhD physicist at Los Alamos, a very mentally demanding job. Then he got married, the Orange Turd got elected, his mom died, his agent died, & then came COVID.

He describes the whole arc here, in a 2022 blog post. The last comment on that post is dated July, 2023, and his reply to the comment included:

I am writing more these days, but whether any of it will ever see the light of day is anybody’s guess…

Well, that's really too bad, but I still have 5 novels & a few short stories going for me. I hope Tregillis sees his way clear to writing again.

Oh Boy, Brain Rot!

It is no coincidence that "semiotic zombie" LLMs are creating brain-rotted human zombies. I had no idea that The Walking Dead was so prophetic. From the New York Times:

How A.I. and Social Media Contribute to ‘Brain Rot’

"What to do?" the subtitle asks? Answer: require a license to use these powerful & dangerous tools.

If the NYT link is paywalled, maybe this link to the Lexington Herald-Leader, where I read the article, will work.

---

Here's the home page/directory for my posts on Bullshit.

IslandWalk Bird Charts, 2020-2024

Well, I was going to try and do this the right way - load all the data into a relational database and then write code to massage the data into what I wanted. That has been deferred.

Instead, I created a new spreadsheet, and manually copied the data from the annual bird reports into it. It is not that time-comsuming, but it does introduce a possible sourse source of error - oops!

There are tabs in the new spreadsheet for all the charts below.

I created charts showing the average count per species, mostly grouping the birds as in the annual reports.

I didn't do a Raptors chart; the osprey and the red-shouldered hawk are our most common, but they only average 1-2. I included the smallest raptor, the loggerhead shrike, in with the common passerines, together with the blue jay, which was grouped with the corvids.

• Swimmers. Muscovy ducks, steadily down. Gallinule, steadily up. The high number for the mottled duck in 2023 may be from multiple observations of clutches of ducklings - up to 12 ducklings. These seem to undergo fairly rapid attrition - the following week there will be 7, the week after that 3.
  

• Divers. Note, we have 3 divers from the surface of the lake, & 2 divers from the sky. The peak in cormorant numbers in 2021 prompted me to worry about a Cormorant Menace.
  

• Divers, Migratory
  

• Waders. The Wood Stork is different from the rest of these in that he feeds more like a dabbling duck: stick that huge bill into the water, swish it around, eat whatever's left. The others are visual hunters who spear or grab prey with their beaks.
  

• Ibis. These are kind of waders, but tbey forage in front & back lawns just as often. They feed by sticking their bills in the ground & wiggling them. Anything wiggles back, chomp! Plus their numbers are larger than the true waders.
  

• (Passerine) Birds Observed > 75% of the Time.
  

I think these came out OK: 30 species total. I think they give a decent feel for our bird population, less vultures and crows. I don't think they're too confusing.

They should be easy to keep updated.

---

Here's the home page/directory for my posts on Birdwatching in IslandWalk.

Security? Meh ...

Security expert Bruce Schneier warns us again about the horrible security issues with LLMs. Poor Bruce, he's going to feel like Cassandra.

Well, people seem to be recognizing that Gary Marcus has been raising the right warnings, that AGI is definitely not imminent; maybe Bruce will get people to start taking these security issues seriously - or not.

This is why AIs are not ready to be personal assistants

Prompt Injection in AI Browsers

I wrote previously:

Prompt injection isn’t just a minor security problem we need to deal with. It’s a fundamental property of current LLM technology. The systems have no ability to separate trusted commands from untrusted data, and there are an infinite number of prompt injection attacks with no way to block them as a class. We need some new fundamental science of LLMs before we can solve this.

That really sounds like a serious problem doesn't it? But the techbros are hypnotized by that big pile of cash being shit out by their "AI" unicorns. Security, meh. Capitalism, FTL.

---

Here's the home page/directory for my posts on Bullshit.

IslandWalk Birds, 2024-2025 Season

These Egyptian Geese seem to feel right at home. Between Lake #4 & Bermuda. They are probably escaped pets, they had no fear of humans.

My overall birdwatching strategy for IslandWalk is posted here. I have made that post kind of the home page for my Birdwatching in IslandWalk project, and will update it whenever I do a new post on IW Birding.

This is my 5th report, here are the 1st 4:

1. 2020-2021;
2. 2021-2022 - the 1st post chronologically, it contains discussions of things I found interesting about a lot of the species - 10 seasons worth;
3. 2022-2023.
4. 2023-2024.

For the 2024-2025 season, I was in IslandWalk October thru April, less 9 days in KY in November & 9 days in December, & 2 weeks in KY in March.

I manually entered this season's data, 28 bird lists, in this spreadsheet. It doesn't take that long, and it gives me a good review of the data.

I will be reporting for all observed species the following 4 datapoints:

1. % of days seen;
2. total birds counted;
3. average, of the days when the bird was counted; days when the bird wasn't counted don't go into the average;
4. max.

Here's the link to the IslandWalk hotspot at eBird.org.

Each bird name listed below is linked to its IslandWalk activity page in eBird.org. So click on the name, you will get a picture & all the data eBird has on that bird in IslandWalk.

Note, I went through the eBird bird list for IslandWalk and put any new species from last season in the list below. If it says "% days 0.", that just means I did not count this species in any of my X or X2 walks. Other people are entering counts in eBird.org as well. You can still follow the link to eBird.org and see what's there.

I set the cut date for pushing into next year's report as April 30.

Swimmers

I guess all are dabbling "ducks"? "Dabbling" === "stick your bill down in the water & swish it around & eat what you get from that" - as opposed to diving ducks.

• mottled duck: % days 100; tot 714; avg 25.5; max 41.
• muscovy duck: % days 93; tot 138; avg 5.3; max 12.
• common gallinule: % days 100; tot 821; avg 29.3; max 44. After 1st being counted in IW by me 2020-04-02, their #s continue to grow - they have passed the mottled duck as our most populous water fowl species. The gallinule seem to like the spike rushes.
• american coot: % days 82; tot 117; avg 5.1; max 11.
• egyptian goose: NEW! (George) % days 7; tot 4; avg 2.0; max 2. 1st spotted on the south shore of Lake #16; then flying east over Lake #22; then walking the path south of Lake #4 near Bermuda like they owned the place. I'm guessing, domesticated, out on a holiday.
• canvasback: NEW! (Pete) % days 7; tot 2; avg 1.0; max 1. Distinctive markings. Lake #22 & #23.

Divers

• hooded merganser: % days 4; tot 1; avg 1.0; max 1. Only a single hooded merganser!
• lesser scaup: % days 43; tot 1079; avg 89.9; max 186. This flock of migrators was even bigger than the year before. Again, they were on Lake #22 for quite a while, then spread to Lakes 24-29 for their last couple of weeks. They were here from the new year to early March.
• ring-necked duck: % days 7; tot 33; avg 16.5; max 20. 2 counts in mid-December.
• pie-billed grebe: % days 89; tot 196; avg 7.8; max 16.
• double-crested cormorant: % days 86; tot 104; avg 4.3; max 12.
• anhinga: % days 93; tot 104; avg 4; max 13.
• brown pelican: % days 64; tot 21; avg 1.8; 5 max.
• belted kingfisher: % days 14; tot 4; avg 1.0; max 1. Their distinctive chitter is easy to recognize.

Waders

• great egret: % days 100; tot 123; avg 4.4; max 9. Back to being our most numerous wader.
• great blue heron: % days 64; tot 30; avg 1.7; max 4.
• snowy egret: % days 82; tot 48; avg 2.1; max 5.
• cattle egret: % days 0.
• tricolored heron: % days 96; tot 62; avg 2.3; max 6.
• little blue heron: % days 96; tot 76; avg 2.8; max 11.
• green heron: % days 36; tot 12; avg 1.2; max 2.
• wood stork: % days 11; tot 3; avg 1.0; max 1.
• white ibis: % days 100; tot 451; avg 16.1; max 42.
• glossy ibis: % days 68; tot 70; avg 3.7; max 17.
• limpkin: % days 82; tot 88; avg 3.8; max 9. Considerably more than last season. We had a family of 6, 2 adults, 4 adolescents. I got a pic of 2 adolescents.

Beach Birds

• killdeer: % days 7; tot 3; avg 1.5; max 2.
• black skimmer: % days 0.
• royal tern: NEW! % days 21; tot 9; avg 1.5; max 4. George 1st counted these in 2021. I am not good with gull-like birds, but one was circling Lake #1 calling, Merlin ID'ed its call. Later got a great pic of 2 perched on posts of Bridge #8. They are big birds, huge heads!
• magnificent frigatebird: NEW! (George) %days 0. I love the name, they definitely hired a great marketing firm! These went in my lifelist in French St. Martin in the Caribbean, 2023.

Raptors

• osprey: % days 39; tot 13; avg 1.2; max 2.
• bald eagle: % days 0.
• cooper's hawk: % days 0.
• red-shouldered hawk: % days 11; tot 4; avg 1.3; max 2.
• broad-winged hawk: % days 0.
• short-tailed hawk: NEW! (Pete) %days 0.
• american kestrel: NEW! (Pete) %days 0.
• swallow-tailed kite: % days 0.
• loggerhead shrike: % days 93; tot 69; avg 2.6; max 7. 1 of my fav birds. Flat from last season.
• black vulture: % days 7; tot 7; avg 3.5; max 5.
• turkey vulture: % days 36; tot 13; avg 1.3; max 3. Apparently we had no major fishkills.

Corvids

• fish crow: % days 93; tot 607; avg 23.3; max 100. I am increasingly thinking it is pointless to count crows. The proper caw goes out, 100 crows can gather in 30 seconds or so. Well, I guess it is interesting to see what the biggest gathering we get is.
• blue jay: % days 100; tot 342; avg 12.2; max 25.

Perching Birds (Passerines)

• mourning dove: % days 86; tot 213; avg 8.9; max 19.
• eurasian collared dove: % days 79; tot 60; avg 2.7; max 8.
• common ground dove: % days 0.
• rock pigeon: % days 0.
• common grackle: % days 93; tot 1102; avg 42.4; max 100. Once again our most common passerine.
• boat-tailed grackle: % days 93; tot 125; avg 4.8; max 19.
• red-winged blackbird: % days 14; tot 8; avg 2.0; max 3.
• european starling: % days 43; tot 269; avg 22.4; max 52.
• northern mockingbird: % days 96; tot 528; avg 19.6; max 46.
• brown thrasher: % days 32; tot 20; avg 2.2; max 4.
• northern cardinal: % days 11; tot 3; avg 1.0; max 1.
• red-bellied woodpecker: % days 100, tot 214, avg 7.6, max 13. Down a little from last year.
• pileated woodpecker: % days 4; tot 1; avg 1.0; max 1.
• downy woodpecker: % days 0.
• northern flicker: % days 4; tot 1; avg 1.0; max 1.
• yellow-bellied sapsucker: NEW! (Alexis) % days 4; tot 1; avg 1.0; max 1. 1st counted in IW in 2020. I think my daughter Alexis spotted one when we were walking X or X2.
• palm warbler: % days 89; tot 259; avg 10.4; max 31.
• black-and-white warbler: % days 0.
• yellow-throated warbler: % days 0.
• prairie warbler: % days 0.
• red-eyed vireo: NEW! (Pete) % days 0.
• white-eyed vireo: NEW! (Pete) % days 0.
• blue-gray gnatcatcher: % days 0.
• gray catbird: % days 0.
• american redstart: % days 0.
• american robin: NEW! (Pete) % days 0. I counted a robin here several years ago, but then convinced myself it was probably a brown thrasher, so I deleted the count.

You Should Need a License

Seriously, the damage, the slop, the bullshit that comes from LLMs.

They are a fabulous tool in the hands of a creative, doing "what if"'s, proofing, writing. Centaurs, machines serving humans.

It should be easy to get a license for these uses.

There may be corporate applications that aren't enshittification, I'm not sure.

It should be medium hard to get a license for these uses.

For all other uses, it should be HARD to get a license.

Seriously, these are incredibly powerful tools.

Should students have access to them in doing their homework? NO! They will never develop cognitive skills.

The fascist chatbots? What constructive purpose do they serve? No license for them!

Technology that is powerful & dangerous typically requires a license. Why shouldn't LLMs?

This is not a 1st amendment issue. The student denied use of an LLM to do their homework is completely free to express themselves.

Of course, this means the "AI" companies will NEVER, EVER turn a profit. Or, maybe they will, if the license fees are priced high enough.

If there was ever a case where economic externalities need to become central to the argument, this is it. We now are developing battlefield after battlefield where "AI"s war against each other, frying the planet in the process.

This state we're in now, where EVERYONE has access to superhuman bullshit generators, is not sustainable. It could end our civilization.

---

Here's the home page/directory for my posts on Bullshit.

Tell Me They Are Not Bullshit Generators

Wow, programming your young fascists is now so simple! The "Arya" product forgot the "n" at the end. From the New York Times:

Arya, produces content based on instructions that tell it to be an “unapologetic right-wing nationalist Christian A.I. model.”

Right-Wing Chatbots Turbocharge America’s Political and Cultural Wars

I'm sure everyone living in their own private bullshit reality is going to work out well.

If the NYT link is paywalled, maybe this link to the Lexington Herald-Leader, where I read the article, will work.

---

Here's the home page/directory for my posts on Bullshit.