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Remsomm's avatar

Is it the society producing the leader or the leader producing the society? I would say the theater produces the puppets and writes the play, and pulls the strings that make them move.

Which American president was the best actor?

In God we Trust...Land of the Free...Home of the Brave...

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Tom Welsh's avatar

I'd like to put in a word for Calvin Coolidge - "Silent Cal" - on the grounds that he did the least of any US President, and thus the least harm.

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Truth Seeking Missile's avatar

Nice piece of conversation Julian. I guess AI is like god, created in our own image.

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Marc Leif's avatar

Fascinating, as always. i've played a little with AI (in the form of graphics). Enough to realize it's a complete fraud (as Uncle Bob demonstrates). It reminds me of the old joke about one dolphin telling another how hard it was to teach his "trainer' to give him a fish. Had to literally jump thru hoops.

In the case of AI, who is teaching whom? And what is the agenda. The goal of AI is to confuse and obfuscate. It's great danger is making people dumber, faster; and training people to not recognize or identify "reality"

As always, thank you for your wonderful work.

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Julian Macfarlane's avatar

An AI doesn't really have a singular goal. That would defeat it purpose and make it useless. The problem is critical thinking. It is only useful if you think critically and can identify contradictions. Mathematically speaking, you are working with data sets.

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Steve Naidamast's avatar

I use DeepSeek-AI for technical research (I am a senior software engineer.) and I have found it to be very accurate as I am already familiar with the subject matter I am reviewing with it.

That being said, DeepSeek-AI isn't designed to be able to determine ambiguities such as who may have been the best president in the United States. As a result, it would return rather skewed results based on what it may have in its databases.

Instead, DeepSeek-AI is designed for technical, engineering, and scientific research.

All of the US AI systems are filled with junk-data considering that our so-called technical geniuses believed it would be good idea to have their systems scoop up everything they can from the Internet. So if the results from DeepSeek-AI as noted in this piece are poor, they will probably be even worse with the same queries given to US AI systems.

In my book, Abraham Lincoln was the worst of all our presidents since what we have today in the US is a direct result of his presidency and his war on the South. Lincoln, and his Republicans, completely destroyed the US's founding tenets, which were that the US was a Confederation of Sovereign states with a very limited federal government.

But today we have the Dictator Trump who is nothing more than a rabidly incompetent, narcissistic, megalomaniac....

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Crush Limbraw's avatar

Julian - I've barely introduced myself to Deepseek, but your example today speeded my methodology in pursuing an issue - so thank you very much for that. The layers do go deeper and deeper.

I dug into Synagogue of Satan - Jesus - Judaism - Talmud - Judeo-Christian - as a starter........next will be all the relationships to their impact on our societal functions..government-religion-politics-culture..haven't really learned anything new yet.....but it is interesting to see how DS is programmed to frame its feedback.

Thanks again - always learning!

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Julian Macfarlane's avatar

Yes, it is programmed with certain parameters. However, you can define the parameters of its search and it will adapt.

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John Roberts's avatar

I use Deepseek regularly for interesting conversations similar to this. I find it quite entertaining and more engaging that talking with the people I know IRL.

Yes, the initial answers will be basic NPR-level nonsense. But then you "correct" and Deepseek digs deeper.

To ensure that Deepseek isn't merely flattering me I'll usually ask it something such as, "Now critique my thoughts from the perspective of classical philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle...."

Ultimately, AI is only as good as what it is fed, both in it's database and in the user's input. But I enjoy Deepseek, because unlike everyone in the West it is very well read (even better read than I am)

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Julian Macfarlane's avatar

Exactly.

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Occupy Schagen's avatar

Thank You, Julian...

Very interesting (and I have been a pioneer in programming, so that adds value to it).

But, as Cassandra would say: 'The whole is constructed on Language, on words. It cannot work with wordless reality'.

And i have no answer to that.

Sander

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Julian Macfarlane's avatar

Quite right.

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Quizich🇷🇸's avatar

The entire "push" for use of the term "AI" is fallacious. LLM's are not even close to AI, like not in the same galaxy cluster close. Are LLMs important step towards understanding how to seed intelligence? I believe they are. But results produced by LLMs are only as good and as relevant as the user asking the guiding questions is knowledgeable and skilled in respective subject matter.

I wholeheartedly agree that LLMs are best utilised in preparing/refining research - after all, their reach regarding data correlation is unprecedented. Yet, for the time being at least, human user is the one actually creating a new value.

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