PEREGRINE PULP

I was just writing about a new study looking at problems with and universality of AI sycophancy. Another similar study was posted last week to the Computer Science section of arXiv, looking at AI hallucinations. The results are just as staggering. With the persistent problem of large language models fabricating their own facts, the researcher was considering the reality that "the most common and critical applications of LLMs in the enterprise is answering questions grounded

I've been hearing whisperings of this for about a decade. The first time I came across it in a form for public consumption was in a discussion on the Making Sense podcast with guest Peter Zeihan . Since then, more "dissidents" and "controversial" voices have been coming out of the woodwork, or been highlighted, spelling out the math in different places. Whether you take it as sensible demographics or outlandish conspiracy theory, a narrative growing in popularity says ther

You've likely heard about or experienced the problem of AI tools being overly agreeable and flattering. Researchers have finally taken a serious look at it. A team of researchers demonstrated not merely that most of popular, state-of-the-art AI models will reliably lie to you and flatter you, tell you you're right when you are in fact wrong. And they will do so when they know you're making a serious error or even harming someone else. Perhaps obviously, this is why users lo

There’s been a lot of discussion about Greenland the last few weeks. Other than the Norse arriving there and going on to Canada a thousand years ago and Greenland’s melting ice sheets dumping tremendous volumes of fresh water into the North Atlantic and disrupting thermohaline convection , I know almost nothing about the world’s [second] largest island. (I don’t know why we pretend Australia is not an island…) My favourite story from my recent readings is about a hydrogen b

I keep hearing folks in Europe and the United States dunking on wind power, claiming it has been a total failure, and offering this as strong evidence of the lie that always was alternative/renewable/green energy. Of course, in the current atmosphere, the alternative commonly presented is nuclear. Great. That gives us something relatively simple to compare to see if there's any truth to that. The most recent nuclear reactors built in the US were Units 3 and 4 at the Vogtle El

While we were all distracted with wars and pandemics, politics and social change, our basic understanding of the universe sprung a whole bunch of leaks; or, that's how I'm choosing to read this while knowing some experts may disagree. Starting roughly around 1998, our best model of cosmology, that branch of astrophysics concerning itself with the universe at its largest scales, has been something given the obscurifying acronym ΛCDM ( lambda cold dark matter ). But since the

I keep reading about proposals for more pipelines to the BC coast from Alberta. Not only is all of this politics getting pretty interesting but I actually studied Alberta's oil and gas industry a little in college (and even held bitumen in my hand) and have also lived in Alberta, too, among the office towers of the oil giants. So, what comes to mind for me when there’s any talk of pipelines is what isn't commonly mentioned. That's just the little bit of history and economics

Though I don't think of myself as being passionate about nuclear energy I do try to learn what I can about it. I take book recommendations and watch informational videos, read the latest about new reactor plans and completions, and try to keep track of the state of the art in experimental fission and fusion. Knowing anything at all (some details about the performance and problems with existing reactors including the latest builds) results in discovering plenty of curious assu

A paper was just quietly published showing several independent large language models, all the latest versions of the big ones from all...