AI for Dummies, in Bite-Size Pieces, Part 1

(WaPo) A curious person’s guide to artificial intelligence claims to offer “Everything you wanted to know about the AI boom but were too afraid to ask.” It’s a decent lexicon and taxonomy. This is for readers who would like to scratch a little deeper.  Since I have worked in AI, the  explanations I will provide are well intentioned approximations. Perhaps the reluctance of academics to relax rigor is why such explanations are uncommon.

Deferring  the beginning of the AI story, we start with the juicy middle. You want to know about neurons. The neurons of AI are inspired by, but rather different from those of your brain, simplifications based on  common features of all biological neurons. An individual neuron cannot think; billions of them apparently can.

What does an individual neuron do? A useful simile that might make specialists  cringe: It resembles an odd kind of voting machine:

  • One type of constituent – typically another neuron, can only vote yes, or abstain.
  • The other type of constituent neuron can only vote no, or abstain.
  • Votes are individually weighted for importance. The weights are determined during training.
  • The votes are summed. If the weighted sum of votes exceeds zero, the motion passes, in which case the neuron sends a “yes or no” to some of the billions of other neuron of a thinking machine or chatbot.
  • If the motion does not pass, the neuron sends an “abstain” to some other neurons.
  • Typically, a “yes-for” or “yes-against” result is signified by the number “1” and a “abstain” by “0”. The sign of the weight on the input of the recipient neuron determines “for” or “against.”

In biology, a neuron is a living cell, an actual thing. In AI, it can be an actual electronic circuit, or an abstract simulation as lines of computer code. The first is experimental. Simulation is standard practice.

Next, a little history.

Ukraine’s Long Awaited Counter Offensive; Why the Delay?

This blog has three reputations: a modest and obscure domestic,  a more serious one with foreign allies, and a distinct appreciation by adversaries. With an adversary that has a dysfunctional intelligence apparatus, intel9 may have unrealistic weight. On a very few occasions, it has been suggested that a line of inquiry was not helpful to our common goals. I know which side I’m on.

In other words, I don’t want to tell the Kremlin what they might not know. I can still guide you to a reference by which you can, with some digging, inform yourself.

Operation Neptune, better known as D-Day, was the largest amphibious assault in history.  Although the Ukrainian assault will be primarily land-based,  there is a remarkably precise correspondence between the problems of  D-Day planners, and those of Ukraine.

Follow all the links. Buried in the jumble  is the issue of perfect correspondence with a Ukraine dilemma, the reason for delay. You will recognize it by careful correlation with what is already public knowledge.

Happy digging!

American Exceptionalism: A Speech for Today, for America, Ukraine & Europe

In spite of  our current domestic paroxysms, we can still be exceptional. Let JFK remind us of the true meaning of national greatness. In 1963, at the height of the Cold War, he visited the Berlin exclave of West Germany. Surrounded on all sides by the Iron Curtain of the Warsaw Pact, how could this island of freedom survive?

 American commitment was paramount, expressed by John F. Kennedy’s 1963 speech in Berlin:

“Ich bin ein Berliner”

The struggle of Ukraine is the direct descendant of that divided Europe. Our commitment remains paramount today.

(CNN) Kyiv denies involvement in alleged Kremlin drone attack

(CNN) Kyiv denies involvement in alleged Kremlin drone attack.

TERCOM, terrain contour matching cruise missile guidance, became widely known during the 1991 Gulf War. In conjunction with separate terminal guidance, near zero CEP was feasible, while rendering cruise missiles immune to air defense systems. This remains almost true today. In the April 2018 missile strikes against Syria, non-stealth cruise missiles advantaged mountainous terrain to avoid detection by S400 installations, with complete avoidance of interception.

The terrain between  Ukraine and Moscow, part of the East European Plain, is not advantageous to this technique.  But small plastic drones are much stealthier than all but the newest cruise missiles. This admits two possibilities:

  • Ukraine has developed terrain mapping and air defense knowledge of Moscow routes to an extremely detailed degree, flying at near-zero altitude.
  • The drones were launched from inside Russia.

A false flag operation is discounted in this case. The Russians responded with surprise and confusion.

If Ukraine is responsible, which is not established, this was the equivalent of the  Doolittle Raid. Putin will likely employ his double on May 9, which will not go unnoticed by his inner circle.

(CNN) Tucker Carlson out at Fox News

(CNN) Tucker Carlson out at Fox News.

This is a great day for American democracy, anticipated more than a year ago in (CNN) ‘Something has changed’: Stelter on Trump and Fox relationship.

This outcome may be viewed as a cynical measure to reduce future liability. But morally average people purchase only as much morality as they can easily afford.

“Red Rupert”, who at Cambridge kept a bust of Lenin in his room, may have found his affordable epiphany.

Multiple factors  augur a 2024 win for Dems:

When Cardinal Richelieu died in 1642, a contemporary observed,

“If there is no Hell, he has lived a very good life.”

 

 

(CNN) Leaked Pentagon documents provide rare window into depth of US intelligence on allies and foes

(CNN) Leaked Pentagon documents provide rare window into depth of US intelligence on allies and foes.

This blog relies on open source. In this case, it is supplemented by private observations. Since the last administration, I have hypothesized, with low confidence, of a possible mole. The mole would have these characteristics:

  • Free agent, unbound to a particular adversary. Supplies both Russia and China.
  • Understands distribution lists very well; sources only information that obfuscates the source.
  • Amoral, without  ideological rancor.
  • Motivation entirely financial.
  • Completely unafraid of discovery.
  • Clients have no obligation to protect this source.
  • May have the ability to falsify the record of access.

 

 

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