Recent posts

#21

Science / Re: First Observation of an In...

Last post by Dark Lightning - July 06, 2025, 09:34:54 PM

All kinds of things whizzing through our little solar system. Those kinds of trajectories will give us little, if any, time to react if it's coming directly for our planet. Good thing space is so...spacious.

#22

Science / Re: First Observation of an In...

Last post by Tank - July 06, 2025, 08:29:00 PM

We may well see more of these now the Vera Rubens telescope is online.

#23

Science / Re: All things AI

Last post by Dark Lightning - July 05, 2025, 05:19:07 PM

"Potemkin understanding". I like that! I talked with another person who posited that we'll only have to worry when the machines learn "artificial sapience", and I can see his point.

#24

Science / Re: First Observation of an In...

Last post by Recusant - July 05, 2025, 03:57:39 PM

A third observation of an interstellar object passing through our solar system.

"It's Official: NASA Confirms New Interstellar Object Is Zooming Through Solar System" | Science Alert

Astronomers on Wednesday confirmed the discovery of an interstellar object racing through our Solar System – only the third ever spotted, though scientists suspect many more may slip past unnoticed.

The visitor from the stars, designated 3I/Atlas by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center, is likely the largest yet detected. It has been classified as a comet.

"The fact that we see some fuzziness suggests that it is mostly ice rather than mostly rock," Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told AFP.

Originally known as A11pl3Z before it was confirmed to be of interstellar origin, the object poses no threat to Earth, said Richard Moissl, head of planetary defense at the European Space Agency.

"It will fly deep through the Solar System, passing just inside the orbit of Mars," but will not hit our neighbouring planet, he said.

[Continues . . .]

"NASA Discovers Interstellar Comet Moving Through Solar System" | NASA

On July 1, the NASA-funded ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) survey telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, first reported observations of a comet that originated from interstellar space. Arriving from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius, the interstellar comet has been officially named 3I/ATLAS. It is currently located about 420 million miles (670 million kilometers) away.

Since that first report, observations from before the discovery have been gathered from the archives of three different ATLAS telescopes around the world and the Zwicky Transient Facility at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California. These "pre-discovery" observations extend back to June 14. Numerous telescopes have reported additional observations since the object was first reported.

The comet poses no threat to Earth and will remain at a distance of at least 1.6 astronomical units (about 150 million miles or 240 million km). It is currently about 4.5 au (about 416 million miles or 670 million km) from the Sun. 3I/ATLAS will reach its closest approach to the Sun around Oct. 30, at a distance of 1.4 au (about 130 million miles or 210 million km) — just inside the orbit of Mars.

The interstellar comet's size and physical properties are being investigated by astronomers around the world. 3I/ATLAS should remain visible to ground-based telescopes through September, after which it will pass too close to the Sun to observe. It is expected to reappear on the other side of the Sun by early December, allowing for renewed observations.

[Abstract:]

#25

Science / Re: All things AI

Last post by Recusant - July 05, 2025, 03:38:07 PM

These systems don't just "hallucinate" facts. They also give the appearance of understanding a topic while in reality they don't even approach actual understanding. A description and name for that particular variety of AI (LLM) failure-- "potemkin understanding."

"AI models just don't understand what they're talking about" | The Register

Researchers from MIT, Harvard, and the University of Chicago have proposed the term "potemkin understanding" to describe a newly identified failure mode in large language models that ace conceptual benchmarks but lack the true grasp needed to apply those concepts in practice.

It comes from accounts of fake villages – Potemkin villages – constructed at the behest of Russian military leader Grigory Potemkin to impress Empress Catherine II.

The academics are differentiating "potemkins" from "hallucination," which is used to describe AI model errors or mispredictions. In fact, there's more to AI incompetence than factual mistakes; AI models lack the ability to understand concepts the way people do, a tendency suggested by the widely used disparaging epithet for large language models, "stochastic parrots."

[. . .]

Here's one example of "potemkin understanding" cited in the paper. Asked to explain the ABAB rhyming scheme, OpenAI's GPT-4o did so accurately, responding, "An ABAB scheme alternates rhymes: first and third lines rhyme, second and fourth rhyme."

Yet when asked to provide a blank word in a four-line poem using the ABAB rhyming scheme, the model responded with a word that didn't rhyme appropriately. In other words, the model correctly predicted the tokens to explain the ABAB rhyme scheme without the understanding it would have needed to reproduce it.

[Continues . . .]

A preprint version of the paper is available.

"Potemkin Understanding in Large Language Models" | arXiv

Abstract:

Large language models (LLMs) are regularly evaluated using benchmark datasets. But what justifies making inferences about an LLM's capabilities based on its answers to a curated set of questions? This paper first introduces a formal framework to address this question.

The key is to note that the benchmarks used to test LLMs -- such as AP exams -- are also those used to test people. However, this raises an implication: these benchmarks are only valid tests if LLMs misunderstand concepts in ways that mirror human misunderstandings. Otherwise, success on benchmarks only demonstrates potemkin understanding: the illusion of understanding driven by answers irreconcilable with how any human would interpret a concept.

We present two procedures for quantifying the existence of potemkins: one using a specially designed benchmark in three domains, the other using a general procedure that provides a lower-bound on their prevalence. We find that potemkins are ubiquitous across models, tasks, and domains. We also find that these failures reflect not just incorrect understanding, but deeper internal incoherence in concept representations.

#26

Laid Back Lounge / Re: What's on your mind today?

Last post by Icarus - July 05, 2025, 12:23:38 AM

I had a birthday, June 27, that celebrated a much larger number of personal birthdays than most people get to observe.

The world has treated me reasonably well though not overwhelmingly generous.  Sometime, probably not a long way into the future, I will leave these earthly coils. I will put the event off for as long as I am able to function in the normal human way.  So far so good, I am still pretty healthy, mobile, and self sufficient.

I am trying very hard to avoid emotional distress caused by the decline of the nation that was once the object of my pride. Then I have to read articles such as the one referenced here. This makes me truly sad.
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/american-science-brain-drain/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us 

#27

Forum Suggestions & Announcements / Re: Recent outage

Last post by zorkan - July 04, 2025, 11:42:39 AM

I suspected it might have been caused by a type of software engineer called a database tuner.
Once they start fiddling it can go on for years.

#28

Religion / Re: Church going is resurging ...

Last post by zorkan - July 04, 2025, 11:34:17 AM

What are your answers to these questions, please.

What supporting evidence do we have for any event mentioned in the bible?
Who were the gospel writers?
Did any of them ever meet "Jesus"?
Why were the Dead Sea Scrolls quietly forgotten?
If god is love then why does he send souls to the lake of fire?
How old is the first surviving biblical manuscript?
If the bible is replete with contradictions, then which ones are we supposed to trust?
Why are we expected to rely on faith?
 

#29

Laid Back Lounge / Re: What's on your mind today?

Last post by Icarus - July 04, 2025, 01:08:17 AM

And then there is reality as suggested here................
https://imgur.com/gallery/political-man-trying-to-explain-to-millions-of-80-iq-americans-that-they-will-die-without-healtcare-qKvV8Fg

#30

Laid Back Lounge / Re: What's on your mind today?

Last post by Icarus - July 04, 2025, 12:48:32 AM

appropriate
https://imgur.com/gallery/history-books-of-future-CU3elSh