Scattershots – 29sep20 (updated)

George Rebane

AI remains a mystery.  To the overwhelming share of people AI is nothing short of software magic.  Latest evidence of this is how smart gasoline pricing systems formed duopolies and oligopolies in Germany’s gas station sector.  This surprised the so-called experts who had recommended installing such systems in gas stations, so they could dynamically adjust prices in any given neighborhood in order to squeeze the last euro out their customers.  The AIs worked beautifully, increasing margins up to 30% as they were fed data on nearby competitor prices.  But then someone noticed that the implemented pricing policy resembled that of collaborating duopolies and oligopolies.  Well, no s#!t Red Ryder.  Given their embedded utility function of increasing margin amounts, they would naturally work together to boost prices to the maximum ‘hilt’.  And they did it without any obvious collusion other than knowing what others in the region were charging, and their own sales volume.  And FYI dear reader, it doesn’t take a very smart system to achieve such results.

‘Let my people go!’,  Moses called out to the pharaoh a few thousand years ago, an appeal which we all should echo as we face toward Sacramento.  The lockdown powerplays by our power-hungry, socialist party politicians are doing nothing but provide grist for their anti-Trump propaganda mill.  The CDC has underlined the wrongheadedness of this policy in publishing its latest findings on Covid-19 survival rates –

Ages 0-19: 99.997%
Ages 20-49: 99.98%
Ages 50-69: 99.5%
Ages 70+: 94.6%

For those who have some trouble with probabilities, these survival rates apply to people who have been infected with C19.  To get the actual measure of C19 risk, i.e. the probability that you will contract the disease and die, you have to multiply one minus the above numbers by the probability that you’ll get infected.  Say, that your probability of infection over the next year is a generous one in ten thousand or 0.0001.  Using this number, your probability of succumbing from C19 is shown below –

Ages 0-19: 0.0000003% or 3 chances out of one billion;
Ages 20-49: 0.000002% or 2 chances out of one hundred million;
Ages 50-69: 0.00005% or 5 chances out of ten million;
Ages 70+: 0.00054% or 54 chances out of ten million.

Now how do you spell s-t-u-p-i-d, or is it c-y-n-i-c-a-l?

[Update] Lamestream media continues its policy of fake news, a practice which includes omitting major news events that go counter to the narrative dictated to them by the Democratic National Committee.  This past weekend more that 50,000 Americans gathered on the Washington Mall for a prayer march from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial. (more here)  Not a peep of this major gathering of religious Americans was told to the rest of the nation.  To the Left, these deplorables are to be terminally shunned by all politically correct Americans, and that they are.  We have to remember that those denied such a major news event are people our progressives characterize as sensitive, inclusive, non-discriminatory, multi-cultural, non-racist, … .  Were they to be shown such scenes of mass attendance at a prayer march, who knows what levels of PTSD or other psychological distress they might suffer?

Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are neck and neck vying for the top spot for the Leftwing Liars championship.  Schumer is currently pulling ahead with his repetition of the Democrats’ Big Lie du jour, that the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett was “illegitimate”.  He does not even attempt to substantiate his allegation with a citation of what law or constitutional provision her nomination and subsequent empanelment violates – why? because he doesn’t have to.  He knows that the most evil part of such material Big Lies is that they totally bamboozle the lightly read voter who has neither the intellect nor the gumption to check out the crap his party’s leadership dishes out.  So, trusting scumbags like Schumer and Pelosi, he winds up voting against his own and his family’s best interests.  And, of course, our local leftwing lackeys will again send in their Collectivist Crickets Chorus to respond to such reports.

Comments

[scenes]

The AI paragraph is hilarious, why would anyone expect anything else? The breakthrough would be some other market mechanism that is even better at extracting cash from customers than those already discovered. Is there a link to a story somewhere?

The meta-strategy would be for the AI to learn oligopolic (is that a word?) behavior that is non-detectable by mere humans. I expect that the big story in AI in the future is hiding behaviors from the developers. A form of Conduct Encryption.

Just imagine the future for folks who want to build knobs on the sides of these things to result in predetermined outcomes. Lotsa $$$$ to be made. Local business non-profits take note.

[George Rebane]

scenes 1159am - Yes indeed. In a manner of speaking, these machines can already 'think thoughts' that we cannot, and recognize patterns forever hidden to us.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3682021

[Bill Tozer]

‘Media Gunning For Scott Atlas Because He Keeps Exposing Coronavirus Lies’

'Everything he says is false,' NBC News quoted CDC Director Robert Redfield as saying of Atlas. That's just not true, top epidemiologists told The Federalist.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/09/29/media-gunning-for-scott-atlas-because-he-keeps-exposing-coronavirus-lies/

[scenes]

" That's just not true, top epidemiologists told The Federalist."

Maybe that's one reason to vote for Biden, not that it matters in California anyway (BTW: why are there Biden signs here?).

Using the First Law of Emerianism, that the defeat of Donald Trump is worth any cost or any whopper, you can expect COVID policy to be politicized. Even though it's largely (mostly) a state issue, no quarter can be given if Trump appears to be in favor of some sort of way to handle The Plague.

This would also be true in a Trump victory. You simply expect four more years of BS impeachment attempts and screeching on MSM.

With Harris in the driver's seat, Trump's opinions won't matter and so they can actually look at what works rather than what wins elections.

Who knows, the Democrats might actually also call off their cop-attacking arsonists.

Good campaign ad. "Vote for Biden and we'll suddenly go sane".

[The Estonian Fox]

Doesn't AI apply to the use of non-human intelligence? Hence, parrots qualify.

Evidently most of the normally keen-eyed liberal news editors missed this follow-up to the (British) swearing-parrot story from the AP.

When contacted later in the day, Cardi B said -"Hey, I'm ___ off about it. Those were my ___ing African Grays that I donated. What happened to the 1st Amendment over there anyway? They were trying to steal my latest song too; don't they know WAP actually means Wild-___ Parrot?"

[Bill Tozer]

California, beyond the tipping point.

'Be Afraid, Very Afraid
CALIFORNIA AS CASE STUDY OF AMERICA’S POSSIBLE FUTURE'

https://www.realclearbooks.com/articles/2020/10/02/be_afraid_very_afraid_579516.html

[George Rebane]

BillT 1007pm - Thank you again Mr Tozer for digging out and linking to this important essay. We all should read it and be reminded of what California has become, and, of course, we ain't seen nothin' yet.