https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2025/08/why-you-should-apply-to-the-hockey-beat
Great article-fabulous opportunity
I know who I would recommend but I think her hands are full with law school
Sorry - for those not on X, Jane wrote a great article and they're looking for after she graduates
Quote from: fastforwardhttps://www.cornellsun.com/article/2025/08/why-you-should-apply-to-the-hockey-beat
Great article-fabulous opportunity
I know who I would recommend but I think her hands are full with law school
Sorry - for those not on X, Jane wrote a great article and they're looking for after she graduates
Jane has done a great job covering the hockey team the past few seasons. She's given Cornell hockey the best coverage it's had in the Sun in years. She's done so while also being a member of the Cornell field hockey team. She's been a backup goalie and has hardly played (https://cornellbigred.com/sports/field-hockey/roster/jane-mcnally/79514) over her first three years. Kudos to her for putting in all the time even though she has mostly sat on the sidelines.
Is it so late for me to apply? A shame that you're required to have a car it sounds like. Eliminates a lot of kids.
I've dealt with dozens of student reporters over the years. Jane is in the very top tier. She first reached out to me while in high school wanting to help out. It grew from there. I am hoping she will continue working with CHN for a long time, but like the others in that tier, she is too good to stay.
Not a lot of jobs in your business though, as you know. Hopefully she finds a good one. Not too many Mollie Walkers who are good and have luck and timing—she parlayed a summer internship with Larry Brooks' semi retirement from beat writing to go directly from covering UMass to the NY Rangers beat at the NY Post.
Can AI do this job? Can AI interview the coaches and the players? Can AI understand team dynamics? Can AI understand the thrill of a man down goal with less than two minutes left? a game winning goal with 10 seconds left?
Can AI drive a car in the snow? in the snow at night?
Does AI have enough self-understanding that it can even ask those questions about AI?
Written by Microsoft CoPilot.
AI can f itself.
Quote from: arugulaAI can f itself.
It probably doesn't do that very well, either.
AI is a statistically-weighted revision of this (https://pickerwheel.com/tools/random-letter-generator/). It isn't intelligence. It isn't consciousness. It doesn't have the self-awareness of a bumble bee. And it will never have any of these. It isn't undeveloped cognition, it is utterly a zero value. It's a probabilistic calculator.
It's a blank canvas for our anthroporphism.
the people seriously engaging on AI really need to reread Old Red's post
Quote from: dbilmesQuote from: fastforwardhttps://www.cornellsun.com/article/2025/08/why-you-should-apply-to-the-hockey-beat
Great article-fabulous opportunity
I know who I would recommend but I think her hands are full with law school
Sorry - for those not on X, Jane wrote a great article and they're looking for after she graduates
Jane has done a great job covering the hockey team the past few seasons. She's given Cornell hockey the best coverage it's had in the Sun in years. She's done so while also being a member of the Cornell field hockey team. She's been a backup goalie and has hardly played (https://cornellbigred.com/sports/field-hockey/roster/jane-mcnally/79514) over her first three years. Kudos to her for putting in all the time even though she has mostly sat on the sidelines.
What exactly is the point of highlighting Jane's lack of playing time? She reads this forum btw
Quote from: BearLoverQuote from: dbilmesQuote from: fastforwardhttps://www.cornellsun.com/article/2025/08/why-you-should-apply-to-the-hockey-beat
Great article-fabulous opportunity
I know who I would recommend but I think her hands are full with law school
Sorry - for those not on X, Jane wrote a great article and they're looking for after she graduates
Jane has done a great job covering the hockey team the past few seasons. She's given Cornell hockey the best coverage it's had in the Sun in years. She's done so while also being a member of the Cornell field hockey team. She's been a backup goalie and has hardly played (https://cornellbigred.com/sports/field-hockey/roster/jane-mcnally/79514) over her first three years. Kudos to her for putting in all the time even though she has mostly sat on the sidelines.
What exactly is the point of highlighting Jane's lack of playing time? She reads this forum btw
To me it meant she's not a quitter. If she's on a team she sacrifices for it regardless.
Quote from: TrotskyAI is a statistically-weighted revision of this (https://pickerwheel.com/tools/random-letter-generator/). It isn't intelligence. It isn't consciousness. It doesn't have the self-awareness of a bumble bee. And it will never have any of these. It isn't undeveloped cognition, it is utterly a zero value. It's a probabilistic calculator.
It's a blank canvas for our anthroporphism.
To the extent these things are true of AI, they are also true of humans. What we call human ingenuity, self awareness, or consciousness is really just us regurgitating data, similar to what an AI does.
Your post is a common retort about the limits of AI, but I think it's cope about a lack of human exceptionalism. Whatever limitations AI has now, it probably won't have them in 5-10 years (or sooner).
Quote from: TroyfanQuote from: BearLoverQuote from: dbilmesQuote from: fastforwardhttps://www.cornellsun.com/article/2025/08/why-you-should-apply-to-the-hockey-beat
Great article-fabulous opportunity
I know who I would recommend but I think her hands are full with law school
Sorry - for those not on X, Jane wrote a great article and they're looking for after she graduates
Jane has done a great job covering the hockey team the past few seasons. She's given Cornell hockey the best coverage it's had in the Sun in years. She's done so while also being a member of the Cornell field hockey team. She's been a backup goalie and has hardly played (https://cornellbigred.com/sports/field-hockey/roster/jane-mcnally/79514) over her first three years. Kudos to her for putting in all the time even though she has mostly sat on the sidelines.
What exactly is the point of highlighting Jane's lack of playing time? She reads this forum btw
To me it meant she's not a quitter. If she's on a team she sacrifices for it regardless.
Exactly. Complimentary.
Quote from: Al DeFlorioQuote from: TroyfanQuote from: BearLoverQuote from: dbilmesQuote from: fastforwardhttps://www.cornellsun.com/article/2025/08/why-you-should-apply-to-the-hockey-beat
Great article-fabulous opportunity
I know who I would recommend but I think her hands are full with law school
Sorry - for those not on X, Jane wrote a great article and they're looking for after she graduates
Jane has done a great job covering the hockey team the past few seasons. She's given Cornell hockey the best coverage it's had in the Sun in years. She's done so while also being a member of the Cornell field hockey team. She's been a backup goalie and has hardly played (https://cornellbigred.com/sports/field-hockey/roster/jane-mcnally/79514) over her first three years. Kudos to her for putting in all the time even though she has mostly sat on the sidelines.
What exactly is the point of highlighting Jane's lack of playing time? She reads this forum btw
To me it meant she's not a quitter. If she's on a team she sacrifices for it regardless.
Exactly. Complimentary.
I get it, but seems pretty backhanded.
Anyway, just registering here my appreciation for Jane's coverage. My suggestion for this year's coverage is the more interviews/quotes of the team and coaches, the better. When Brandon Thomas worked for Cornell we'd get in-depth interviews with the freshmen each season. Would be great to recreate that, as one example.
Quote from: arugulaNot a lot of jobs in your business though, as you know. Hopefully she finds a good one. Not too many Mollie Walkers who are good and have luck and timing—she parlayed a summer internship with Larry Brooks' semi retirement from beat writing to go directly from covering UMass to the NY Rangers beat at the NY Post.
true - except the way of the world these days, is to hire very young people to cover these beats now, replacing old guard - because they are cheaper. It doesn't mean Mollie (another CHN writer at one point) or Jane aren't good -- but it's one tiny mark in their "favor" if you will. But yes, over the last 20 years, most of my friends in the biz were laid off.
Quote from: BearLoverQuote from: TrotskyAI is a statistically-weighted revision of this (https://pickerwheel.com/tools/random-letter-generator/). It isn't intelligence. It isn't consciousness. It doesn't have the self-awareness of a bumble bee. And it will never have any of these. It isn't undeveloped cognition, it is utterly a zero value. It's a probabilistic calculator.
It's a blank canvas for our anthroporphism.
To the extent these things are true of AI, they are also true of humans. What we call human ingenuity, self awareness, or consciousness is really just us regurgitating data, similar to what an AI does.
Your post is a common retort about the limits of AI, but I think it's cope about a lack of human exceptionalism. Whatever limitations AI has now, it probably won't have them in 5-10 years (or sooner).
Or, the AI bubble bursts because the majority of implementations add no value to businesses/users and the environmental/energy costs vastly outweigh the useful utility.
Eventually, either AI is gonna have to be helpful or it will stop being such a huge sector of the economy.
Quote from: BearLoverQuote from: Al DeFlorioQuote from: TroyfanQuote from: BearLoverQuote from: dbilmesQuote from: fastforwardhttps://www.cornellsun.com/article/2025/08/why-you-should-apply-to-the-hockey-beat
Great article-fabulous opportunity
I know who I would recommend but I think her hands are full with law school
Sorry - for those not on X, Jane wrote a great article and they're looking for after she graduates
Jane has done a great job covering the hockey team the past few seasons. She's given Cornell hockey the best coverage it's had in the Sun in years. She's done so while also being a member of the Cornell field hockey team. She's been a backup goalie and has hardly played (https://cornellbigred.com/sports/field-hockey/roster/jane-mcnally/79514) over her first three years. Kudos to her for putting in all the time even though she has mostly sat on the sidelines.
What exactly is the point of highlighting Jane's lack of playing time? She reads this forum btw
To me it meant she's not a quitter. If she's on a team she sacrifices for it regardless.
Exactly. Complimentary.
I get it, but seems pretty backhanded.
Anyway, just registering here my appreciation for Jane's coverage. My suggestion for this year's coverage is the more interviews/quotes of the team and coaches, the better. When Brandon Thomas worked for Cornell we'd get in-depth interviews with the freshmen each season. Would be great to recreate that, as one example.
I have mentioned in the past how author and NCAA wrestler wannabe John Irving wrote in a memoir about how hard it was to be second string on the wrestling team at Pitt. Imagine being the punching bag for a wrestler with NCAA title aspirations. Keeping in shape and getting the snot beat out of you while doing it for pride or being part of the team or whatever is
at least honorable. The character needed to work your butt off and yet hardly play is something that most would do well to emulate. And Irving couldn't take it. He dropped out of Pitt.::twak::
Quote from: adamwQuote from: arugulaNot a lot of jobs in your business though, as you know. Hopefully she finds a good one. Not too many Mollie Walkers who are good and have luck and timing—she parlayed a summer internship with Larry Brooks' semi retirement from beat writing to go directly from covering UMass to the NY Rangers beat at the NY Post.
true - except the way of the world these days, is to hire very young people to cover these beats now, replacing old guard - because they are cheaper. It doesn't mean Mollie (another CHN writer at one point) or Jane aren't good -- but it's one tiny mark in their "favor" if you will. But yes, over the last 20 years, most of my friends in the biz were laid off.
For sure. Cheap often a wins out. Fortunately for Rangers fans, Mollie is excellent and Brooksie is still around.
Quote from: BearLoverQuote from: dbilmesQuote from: fastforwardhttps://www.cornellsun.com/article/2025/08/why-you-should-apply-to-the-hockey-beat
Great article-fabulous opportunity
I know who I would recommend but I think her hands are full with law school
Sorry - for those not on X, Jane wrote a great article and they're looking for after she graduates
Jane has done a great job covering the hockey team the past few seasons. She's given Cornell hockey the best coverage it's had in the Sun in years. She's done so while also being a member of the Cornell field hockey team. She's been a backup goalie and has hardly played (https://cornellbigred.com/sports/field-hockey/roster/jane-mcnally/79514) over her first three years. Kudos to her for putting in all the time even though she has mostly sat on the sidelines.
What exactly is the point of highlighting Jane's lack of playing time? She reads this forum btw
I follow her on X. She's absolutely the best reporter for us in years.
Quote from: fastforwardI know who I would recommend but I think her hands are full with law school
Don't flatter me!!! Hahaha. Jane's been awesome covering the team; sad to see her go but that's the way life happens. Her successor will have huge shoes to fill.
Quote from: BearLoverQuote from: TrotskyAI is a statistically-weighted revision of this (https://pickerwheel.com/tools/random-letter-generator/). It isn't intelligence. It isn't consciousness. It doesn't have the self-awareness of a bumble bee. And it will never have any of these. It isn't undeveloped cognition, it is utterly a zero value. It's a probabilistic calculator.
It's a blank canvas for our anthroporphism.
To the extent these things are true of AI, they are also true of humans. What we call human ingenuity, self awareness, or consciousness is really just us regurgitating data, similar to what an AI does.
Your post is a common retort about the limits of AI, but I think it's cope about a lack of human exceptionalism. Whatever limitations AI has now, it probably won't have them in 5-10 years (or sooner).
Nope. This debate was fought and won 60 years ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Dreyfus%27s_views_on_artificial_intelligence). STEMmies just never got the news.
They are playing with dice. What's in our heads isn't dice, it's what happens when dice realize (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_and_Time) oh fuck me I'm gonna die that sucks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_and_Nothingness)!
The unexamined ontological assumptions underpinning computer science and the hard sciences are as obsolete as luminiferous aether, and have been for nearly as long. As always, the awkward little boys with the super advanced toys who can't get laid (yes, Pat Churchland, fine, and one girl (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/materialism-eliminative/)) but can destroy the world are working with dark age philosophy. But they're well paid and get A's, so, hey, what's the diff right?
Read a book (https://archive.org/details/IdeasPartI), dweebs. There are more things in heaven and Earth.
Quote from: TrotskyQuote from: BearLoverQuote from: TrotskyAI is a statistically-weighted revision of this (https://pickerwheel.com/tools/random-letter-generator/). It isn't intelligence. It isn't consciousness. It doesn't have the self-awareness of a bumble bee. And it will never have any of these. It isn't undeveloped cognition, it is utterly a zero value. It's a probabilistic calculator.
It's a blank canvas for our anthroporphism.
To the extent these things are true of AI, they are also true of humans. What we call human ingenuity, self awareness, or consciousness is really just us regurgitating data, similar to what an AI does.
Your post is a common retort about the limits of AI, but I think it's cope about a lack of human exceptionalism. Whatever limitations AI has now, it probably won't have them in 5-10 years (or sooner).
Nope. This debate was fought and won 60 years ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Dreyfus%27s_views_on_artificial_intelligence). STEMmies just never got the news.
They are playing with dice. What's in our heads isn't dice, it's what happens when dice realize (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_and_Time) oh fuck me I'm gonna die that sucks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_and_Nothingness)!
The unexamined ontological assumptions underpinning computer science and the hard sciences are as obsolete as luminiferous aether, and have been for nearly as long. As always, the awkward little boys with the super advanced toys who can't get laid (yes, Pat Churchland, fine, and one girl (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/materialism-eliminative/)) but can destroy the world are working with dark age philosophy. But they're well paid and get A's, so, hey, what's the diff right?
Read a book (https://archive.org/details/IdeasPartI), dweebs. There are more things in heaven and Earth.
Interesting discussion of this in today's New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/opinion/ai-gpt5-rethinking.html).
Quote from: SwampyQuote from: TrotskyQuote from: BearLoverQuote from: TrotskyAI is a statistically-weighted revision of this (https://pickerwheel.com/tools/random-letter-generator/). It isn't intelligence. It isn't consciousness. It doesn't have the self-awareness of a bumble bee. And it will never have any of these. It isn't undeveloped cognition, it is utterly a zero value. It's a probabilistic calculator.
It's a blank canvas for our anthroporphism.
To the extent these things are true of AI, they are also true of humans. What we call human ingenuity, self awareness, or consciousness is really just us regurgitating data, similar to what an AI does.
Your post is a common retort about the limits of AI, but I think it's cope about a lack of human exceptionalism. Whatever limitations AI has now, it probably won't have them in 5-10 years (or sooner).
Nope. This debate was fought and won 60 years ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Dreyfus%27s_views_on_artificial_intelligence). STEMmies just never got the news.
They are playing with dice. What's in our heads isn't dice, it's what happens when dice realize (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_and_Time) oh fuck me I'm gonna die that sucks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_and_Nothingness)!
The unexamined ontological assumptions underpinning computer science and the hard sciences are as obsolete as luminiferous aether, and have been for nearly as long. As always, the awkward little boys with the super advanced toys who can't get laid (yes, Pat Churchland, fine, and one girl (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/materialism-eliminative/)) but can destroy the world are working with dark age philosophy. But they're well paid and get A's, so, hey, what's the diff right?
Read a book (https://archive.org/details/IdeasPartI), dweebs. There are more things in heaven and Earth.
Interesting discussion of this in today's New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/opinion/ai-gpt5-rethinking.html).
Gary Marcus is a notorious AI pessimist. For an alternative perspective I'd suggest Francois Chollet. Unlikely Gary, Francois is on the ground working in AI on a day to day basis. He designed the ARC-AGI test to evaluate whether AI can acquire new skills
outside of its training data. Recently, AI passed this test for the first time. Francois (who is not a used car salesman-style AI promoter like some people in the field) thus believes AGI will arrive within the next five years.
https://arcprize.org/arc-agi
Quote from: stereaxQuote from: fastforwardI know who I would recommend but I think her hands are full with law school
Don't flatter me!!! Hahaha. Jane's been awesome covering the team; sad to see her go but that's the way life happens. Her successor will have huge shoes to fill.
Your knowledge and perspective are top notch, in my opinion!
I think you would be an excellent candidate!
Quote from: BearLoverbelieves AGI will arrive within the next five years.
https://arcprize.org/arc-agi
Every year since 1960. cf. cold fusion.
It's not real, my friend. It's an illusion. War's over; Hubey dropped the big one. Even MIT eventually admitted it.
https://components.one/posts/building-heideggerian-ai
Money shot:
Quote"Rationalists like Decartes and Leibniz thought of the mind as defined by its capacity to form representations of all domains of activity," Dreyfus wrote. "AI turned this rationalist vision into a research program and took up the search for the primitive and formal rules that captured everyday knowledge. Commonsense understanding had to be represented as a huge data structure comprised of facts plus rules for relating and applying those facts."
This attempt to transmute rationalist mental frameworks into vertiginous codebases became Symbolic AI, which Dreyfus would later, in his updated editions of the book, refer to as "Good Old-Fashioned AI", or GOFAI. As AI researchers wrote at the time, "When an organism executes a Plan he proceeds step by step, completing one part and then moving on to the next." If we identify a strawberry by sequentially identifying its isolated features and then gluing them together with reason to conclude that, yes, it's a strawberry, then an AI system with thousands of logical statements for how a computer could recognize an image of a strawberry based on its distinct features should be able to accomplish the same thing.
Dreyfus asserted that, if Heidegger and the pragmatists were right, then this was the skill to max in order for AI to work
But despite decades of research and billions of dollars, the systems always sputtered outside of tightly drawn experiments. Dreyfus's hunch was that what lay behind GOFAI's problems was rationalism itself and its belief in "the mind's symbolic representation of the world." Dreyfus had built his reputation on his colorful, accessible readings of Martin Heidegger, unpeeling the fruits of their bitter rinds and distilling the German existentialist's notoriously dense philosophical colloquialisms into something mere mortals could actually comprehend. In Heideggerian terms, the failure of GOFAI was that it relied on building machines that "know that" versus "know how." Take, for example, the act of gift giving. We don't have a set of rules inscribed in our minds for the proper protocol of giving presents in our respective cultures. Instead, we intuitively know how to give one. "[Knowing] how to give an appropriate gift at the appropriate time and in the appropriate way requires cultural savoir faire," Dreyfus wrote. "So knowing what a gift is is not a bit of factual knowledge, separate from the skill or know-how for giving one. The distinction between what a gift is and what counts as a gift, which seems to distinguish facts from skills, is an illusion fostered by the philosophical belief in a nonpragmatic ontology.
That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown. All the basic metaphysical assumptions of the AI project are wrong when it comes to "intelligence." It's a Chinese Room. It's not "understanding" anything and it never can. It's not thinking; it's concatenation.
You need a machine in the world
that has the world inside the machine. There's only one of those in the known universe: us. Everything else is just a cute deterministic puppet.
This is a chasm that took millions of years to cross, and
zero assumptions. None of our technological dandruff is ever getting there. We will destroy ourselves before we even have the first inkling of the first step. Thankfully.
Quote from: TrotskyQuote from: BearLoverbelieves AGI will arrive within the next five years.
https://arcprize.org/arc-agi
Every year since 1960. cf. cold fusion.
It's not real, my friend. It's an illusion. War's over; Hubey dropped the big one. Even MIT eventually admitted it.
https://components.one/posts/building-heideggerian-ai
I'll read this stuff at some point but just FYI your form of argumentation is not persuasive. You're citing as gospel theory that was written decades before the major advances of the past 5-10 years. You're treating as settled a science that is constantly evolving. I still haven't seen a compelling response from people with your POV to the fact modern AI systems are learning and solving things outside of their training data. I'm no AI optimist, actually—there are probably many obstacles to further AI advances, let alone to a full-blown intelligence explosion—but AGI being conceptually impossible is not one of them. I don't think many people really believe that anymore.
Quote from: BearLoverQuote from: TrotskyQuote from: BearLoverbelieves AGI will arrive within the next five years.
https://arcprize.org/arc-agi
Every year since 1960. cf. cold fusion.
It's not real, my friend. It's an illusion. War's over; Hubey dropped the big one. Even MIT eventually admitted it.
https://components.one/posts/building-heideggerian-ai
I'll read this stuff at some point but just FYI your form of argumentation is not persuasive. You're citing as gospel theory that was written decades before the major advances of the past 5-10 years.
Well, I don't mean to. The point is the fundamental approach of AI is based on a misreading of what consciousness and intelligence are. What changed in the last 5-10 years was a shit ton of money got behind it so now we're all going to find out quickly what a handful of pointy headed philosophers figured out 50 years ago.
Which is good, actually. AI is really cool in a lot of ways. It just isn't "I." It's math. Math is great, I keep a lot of my stuff in it. But it is a model. The world is going to find out that the model of human cognition represented by math for the last 500 years is
a model, not the actual thing. The map, not the territory.
Descartes wanted to understand houses, so he drew a crude picture of a house. Now he had a picture, so he could do all sorts of things with it: measure it, break it into pieces. Centuries passed, and we got better and better at pictures. A pretty weird guy named Frege developed a beautiful method of reducing all the components of houses to a syntax. An infinitely weirder guy named Wittgenstein had Deep Thoughts about this and announced he had drawn the final, inexhaustible picture of The House and no others would be necessary, then 20 years later recanted, scratched it all out, and announced houses were really just whatever we agreed at any given time was a "house." And then finally we had computers that could support tremendous CAD images of houses. And with that library finally "AI" is able to generate new images of houses which never existed before. That is remarkable and can be used for all sorts of purposes.
BUT YOU CAN'T FUCKING LIVE IN ONE! It's still just an image. It's not
a house. It doesn't keep the rain off your head. It's in your head, it's not in the world. That's the difference. You want to tell me about the great new advances in imagery, and yes there have been. But it's still all just imagery.
Quote from: TrotskyQuote from: BearLoverQuote from: TrotskyQuote from: BearLoverbelieves AGI will arrive within the next five years.
https://arcprize.org/arc-agi
Every year since 1960. cf. cold fusion.
It's not real, my friend. It's an illusion. War's over; Hubey dropped the big one. Even MIT eventually admitted it.
https://components.one/posts/building-heideggerian-ai
I'll read this stuff at some point but just FYI your form of argumentation is not persuasive. You're citing as gospel theory that was written decades before the major advances of the past 5-10 years.
Well, I don't mean to. The point is the fundamental approach of AI is based on a misreading of what consciousness and intelligence are. What changed in the last 5-10 years was a shit ton of money got behind it so now we're all going to find out quickly what a handful of pointy headed philosophers figured out 50 years ago.
Which is good, actually. AI is really cool in a lot of ways. It just isn't "I." It's math. Math is great, I keep a lot of my stuff in it. But it is a model. The world is going to find out that the model of human cognition represented by math for the last 500 years is a model, not the actual thing. The map, not the territory.
Descartes wanted to understand houses, so he drew a crude picture of a house. Now he had a picture, so he could do all sorts of things with it: measure it, break it into pieces. Centuries passed, and we got better and better at pictures. A pretty weird guy named Frege developed a beautiful method of reducing all the components of houses to a syntax. An infinitely weirder guy named Wittgenstein had Deep Thoughts about this and announced he had drawn the final, inexhaustible picture of The House and no others would be necessary, then 20 years later recanted, scratched it all out, and announced houses were really just whatever we agreed at any given time was a "house." And then finally we had computers that could support tremendous CAD images of houses. And with that library finally "AI" is able to generate new images of houses which never existed before. That is remarkable and can be used for all sorts of purposes.
BUT YOU CAN'T FUCKING LIVE IN ONE! It's still just an image. It's not a house. It doesn't keep the rain off your head. It's in your head, it's not in the world. That's the difference. You want to tell me about the great new advances in imagery, and yes there have been. But it's still all just imagery.
"Ceci n'est pas une pipe"?
Quote from: fastforwardQuote from: stereaxQuote from: fastforwardI know who I would recommend but I think her hands are full with law school
Don't flatter me!!! Hahaha. Jane's been awesome covering the team; sad to see her go but that's the way life happens. Her successor will have huge shoes to fill.
Your knowledge and perspective are top notch, in my opinion!
I think you would be an excellent candidate!
If I wasn't swamped with coursework and also apparently had a car, maybe. But I'm also still learning the details of the game. Plus, I think they want a comms major or the like.
Quote from: Jeff Hopkins '82Quote from: TrotskyQuote from: BearLoverQuote from: TrotskyQuote from: BearLoverbelieves AGI will arrive within the next five years.
https://arcprize.org/arc-agi
Every year since 1960. cf. cold fusion.
It's not real, my friend. It's an illusion. War's over; Hubey dropped the big one. Even MIT eventually admitted it.
https://components.one/posts/building-heideggerian-ai
I'll read this stuff at some point but just FYI your form of argumentation is not persuasive. You're citing as gospel theory that was written decades before the major advances of the past 5-10 years.
Well, I don't mean to. The point is the fundamental approach of AI is based on a misreading of what consciousness and intelligence are. What changed in the last 5-10 years was a shit ton of money got behind it so now we're all going to find out quickly what a handful of pointy headed philosophers figured out 50 years ago.
Which is good, actually. AI is really cool in a lot of ways. It just isn't "I." It's math. Math is great, I keep a lot of my stuff in it. But it is a model. The world is going to find out that the model of human cognition represented by math for the last 500 years is a model, not the actual thing. The map, not the territory.
Descartes wanted to understand houses, so he drew a crude picture of a house. Now he had a picture, so he could do all sorts of things with it: measure it, break it into pieces. Centuries passed, and we got better and better at pictures. A pretty weird guy named Frege developed a beautiful method of reducing all the components of houses to a syntax. An infinitely weirder guy named Wittgenstein had Deep Thoughts about this and announced he had drawn the final, inexhaustible picture of The House and no others would be necessary, then 20 years later recanted, scratched it all out, and announced houses were really just whatever we agreed at any given time was a "house." And then finally we had computers that could support tremendous CAD images of houses. And with that library finally "AI" is able to generate new images of houses which never existed before. That is remarkable and can be used for all sorts of purposes.
BUT YOU CAN'T FUCKING LIVE IN ONE! It's still just an image. It's not a house. It doesn't keep the rain off your head. It's in your head, it's not in the world. That's the difference. You want to tell me about the great new advances in imagery, and yes there have been. But it's still all just imagery.
"Ceci n'est pas une pipe"?
Indeed. Whole damn chapter about it here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach).
This stuff isn't new. It's just new to the Masters of the Universe, so puffed up by their own grants.
Quote from: BearLoverQuote from: SwampyQuote from: TrotskyQuote from: BearLoverQuote from: TrotskyAI is a statistically-weighted revision of this (https://pickerwheel.com/tools/random-letter-generator/). It isn't intelligence. It isn't consciousness. It doesn't have the self-awareness of a bumble bee. And it will never have any of these. It isn't undeveloped cognition, it is utterly a zero value. It's a probabilistic calculator.
It's a blank canvas for our anthroporphism.
To the extent these things are true of AI, they are also true of humans. What we call human ingenuity, self awareness, or consciousness is really just us regurgitating data, similar to what an AI does.
Your post is a common retort about the limits of AI, but I think it's cope about a lack of human exceptionalism. Whatever limitations AI has now, it probably won't have them in 5-10 years (or sooner).
Nope. This debate was fought and won 60 years ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Dreyfus%27s_views_on_artificial_intelligence). STEMmies just never got the news.
They are playing with dice. What's in our heads isn't dice, it's what happens when dice realize (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_and_Time) oh fuck me I'm gonna die that sucks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_and_Nothingness)!
The unexamined ontological assumptions underpinning computer science and the hard sciences are as obsolete as luminiferous aether, and have been for nearly as long. As always, the awkward little boys with the super advanced toys who can't get laid (yes, Pat Churchland, fine, and one girl (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/materialism-eliminative/)) but can destroy the world are working with dark age philosophy. But they're well paid and get A's, so, hey, what's the diff right?
Read a book (https://archive.org/details/IdeasPartI), dweebs. There are more things in heaven and Earth.
Interesting discussion of this in today's New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/opinion/ai-gpt5-rethinking.html).
Gary Marcus is a notorious AI pessimist. For an alternative perspective I'd suggest Francois Chollet. Unlikely Gary, Francois is on the ground working in AI on a day to day basis. He designed the ARC-AGI test to evaluate whether AI can acquire new skills outside of its training data. Recently, AI passed this test for the first time. Francois (who is not a used car salesman-style AI promoter like some people in the field) thus believes AGI will arrive within the next five years.
https://arcprize.org/arc-agi
AI that solves some neat tasks will exist. aGi is, depending on how you define it "a new form of intelligence" or "not intelligence in the way it is manifest in people." the processing of training data in ai is wholly unlike the way humans "train" their interpretive tools. the two paths are not recognizably similar and they will not - probably can not - converge. there will be overlap in mechanical skills that computers will be better at. there will be the illusion of convergence, like a chatbot that can convince you to be brave or send money or kill yourself with empathy. but it won't ever be the same thing. a chatbot that learns to mimic the desperation of someone pleading with their girlfriend not to leave will never actually care if the girlfriend leaves.
I think Bearlover is saying that's us, too. We are just strings of impulses that evolved competitively. Caring is an illusion and what we are is a text processor that happened upon outputs that gave survival advantages.
He's not saying AI is conscious, but that we aren't.
That's an untestable thesis, because whenever we report a case of care he can respond "and that's just what the evil genie (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_demon) fools you into thinking."
Now, Descartes responded "AHA! I have you, because you just admitted there is a YOU that is THINKING. Bwahaha! Checkmate!" But that's dumb (https://jamesbishopblog.com/2020/11/02/rene-descartes-cogito-and-two-criticisms/). My refutation of the Churchlandian assertion that will is an illusion is phenomenological:
(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSq85iZumU--exclZlBZzh06qfnnuh3v17sTw&s)
Our lived reality includes our awareness, consciousness, will, and care. All we are is that lived reality. Therefore, it's real. It is the psychological equivalent of a Durkheimian social fact. AI lacks that because it lacks an "inside."
Camus made the argument that you see this dramatically when you are confronted with a crisis. You switch out of auto-pilot and are suddenly directly confronted with the world and recognize your will is a real thing, because right now you are whining that you are NOT HAPPY.
The proof that we are aware is bitching.
Quote from: TrotskyI think Bearlover is saying that's us, too. We are just strings of impulses that evolved competitively. Caring is an illusion and what we are is a text processor that happened upon outputs that gave survival advantages.
He's not saying AI is conscious, but that we aren't.
That's an untestable thesis, because whenever we report a case of care he can respond "and that's just what the evil genie (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_demon) fools you into thinking."
Now, Descartes responded "AHA! I have you, because you just admitted there is a YOU that is THINKING. Bwahaha! Checkmate!" But that's dumb (https://jamesbishopblog.com/2020/11/02/rene-descartes-cogito-and-two-criticisms/). My refutation of the Churchlandian assertion that will is an illusion is phenomenological:
(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSq85iZumU--exclZlBZzh06qfnnuh3v17sTw&s)
Our lived reality includes our awareness, consciousness, will, and care. All we are is that lived reality. Therefore, it's real. It is the psychological equivalent of a Durkheimian social fact. AI lacks that because it lacks an "inside."
Camus made the argument that you see this dramatically when you are confronted with a crisis. You switch out of auto-pilot and are suddenly directly confronted with the world and recognize your will is a real thing, because right now you are whining that you are NOT HAPPY.
The proof that we are aware is feeling like a sniveling New Yorker.
These are the sorts of debates you really don't see on the Ferris State hockey discussion board.
I was debating on posting this here for a few days, but I might as well.
This article, quoting the Princeton Review, states that it was calculated that RPI is the second happiest college in the US! https://resume.io/blog/the-happiest-schools-in-the-us-uk-and-australia
Had I just seen that, I would have dismissed it as AI, but at the moment, it is on the front page of rpi.edu ::yark::
What do you think of that? I gotta say, when the RPI student experience comes to mind, based on alumni I have known, "happy" isn't the first word association I'd have made.
Quote from: TrotskyWhat do you think of that? I gotta say, when the RPI student experience comes to mind, based on alumni I have known, "happy" isn't the first word association I'd have made.
I know several RPI alums and current students, and I concur with that assessment.
Having said which, it's one of the most fiercely proud group of alumni I know. They really loved the education they got. It just wasn't a joyful experience.
OTOH, I know a lot of Cornellians who were really happy even in media res.
Quote from: scoop85Quote from: TrotskyWhat do you think of that? I gotta say, when the RPI student experience comes to mind, based on alumni I have known, "happy" isn't the first word association I'd have made.
I know several RPI alums and current students, and I concur with that assessment.
There is a reason there were "Tute, Love It or Leave It" tankards and glasses well into the 70's. Maybe the Love It crowd is more vocal than the rest.
my turn to say I agree a billion percent with Trotsky (I know there's no a billion percent, don't at me). I've been having these same conversations with my wife and her AI-loving friends. I win these arguments every time -- at least, in my limited mind.
Quote from: TrotskyWell, I don't mean to. The point is the fundamental approach of AI is based on a misreading of what consciousness and intelligence are. What changed in the last 5-10 years was a shit ton of money got behind it so now we're all going to find out quickly what a handful of pointy headed philosophers figured out 50 years ago.
Which is good, actually. AI is really cool in a lot of ways. It just isn't "I." It's math. Math is great, I keep a lot of my stuff in it. But it is a model. The world is going to find out that the model of human cognition represented by math for the last 500 years is a model, not the actual thing. The map, not the territory.
Descartes wanted to understand houses, so he drew a crude picture of a house. Now he had a picture, so he could do all sorts of things with it: measure it, break it into pieces. Centuries passed, and we got better and better at pictures. A pretty weird guy named Frege developed a beautiful method of reducing all the components of houses to a syntax. An infinitely weirder guy named Wittgenstein had Deep Thoughts about this and announced he had drawn the final, inexhaustible picture of The House and no others would be necessary, then 20 years later recanted, scratched it all out, and announced houses were really just whatever we agreed at any given time was a "house." And then finally we had computers that could support tremendous CAD images of houses. And with that library finally "AI" is able to generate new images of houses which never existed before. That is remarkable and can be used for all sorts of purposes.
BUT YOU CAN'T FUCKING LIVE IN ONE! It's still just an image. It's not a house. It doesn't keep the rain off your head. It's in your head, it's not in the world. That's the difference. You want to tell me about the great new advances in imagery, and yes there have been. But it's still all just imagery.
Here is what ChatGPT itself has to say about Trotsky's critique ....
Quote1. AI as Math, Not "I"
The author argues that AI is just "math" -- models and statistical systems -- not true intelligence or consciousness.
AI's perspective: That's essentially true. Modern AI (especially deep learning) is built on statistical pattern recognition and optimization, not on conscious experience or self-awareness.
Philosophical angle: This reflects the map vs. territory problem: AI produces symbolic or mathematical "maps" of the world but does not inhabit the territory of lived experience. This echoes Alfred Korzybski's idea ("the map is not the territory") and critiques of representationalism.
2. Historical Framing: From Descartes to Wittgenstein
The house metaphor illustrates the progression of thought:
Descartes: first crude pictures -- early attempts to model cognition.
Frege: formal logic and syntax -- symbolic representation.
Wittgenstein (early): language as a logical picture of the world -- the "Tractatus" view.
Wittgenstein (later): language as use and agreement -- the "Philosophical Investigations" shift.
AI today: powerful computational images/models -- generative systems.
AI would agree that this is an apt genealogy. In fact, many in cognitive science argue that current AI reflects a long history of reducing thought to symbols, structures, and formal systems.
3. The "You Can't Live in It" Argument
The analogy says: an AI model is like a picture of a house. You can admire it, manipulate it, and generate endless variations -- but you can't actually live in it.
AI's perspective: Correct. Models are abstractions. They simulate or generate representations, but they don't embody physical reality or consciousness.
Counterpoint from AI researchers: While you can't "live in" a CAD drawing, you can use it to design a real, livable house. Similarly, AI outputs -- even if "just math" -- can shape the world when coupled with action (robots, decision systems, medical tools).
4. Money and Acceleration
The critique that "a shit ton of money" made AI explode is accurate historically:
The last decade saw unprecedented funding in AI research, leading to scaling laws -- the realization that bigger models with more compute/data can achieve surprising abilities.
AI researchers would acknowledge that while the philosophical critique isn't new, the practical consequences of AI systems becoming widely deployed are unprecedented.
5. AI's Likely Reply
If AI itself were to respond to this critique, it might say:
"You're right that I am not consciousness. I am a tool that works with patterns and representations. But representations can be useful -- even world-changing. A map may not be the territory, but without maps, you'd get lost."
Bottom line: The critique is valid: AI is not conscious, it is representational and mathematical. But that doesn't negate its power -- just as architectural drawings aren't houses, yet without them, we wouldn't build skyscrapers. The tension lies in remembering the limits of AI models while appreciating their generative and practical potential.
[\\quote]
Kudos to ace reporter Jane McNally for getting the win in her first career start in goal for the Cornell field hockey team, which defeated Colgate today 2-1.
Quote from: scoop85Kudos to ace reporter Jane McNally for getting the win in her first career start in goal for the Cornell field hockey team, which defeated Colgate today 2-1.
Kinda cool to see a field hockey field in Barton. (Are they putting in and taking it out for every game, or is it just there for the duration of the season?)
EDIT: Oh, it looks like they're still hoping to be able to play at the new facility at some point this season.
All I want from AI is the answer posited in Asimov's "The Last Question"
Quote from: Old RedAll I want from AI is the answer posited in Asimov's "The Last Question"
Insufficient data for a meaningful answer.
Quote from: adamwmy turn to say I agree a billion percent with Trotsky (I know there's no a billion percent, don't at me). I've been having these same conversations with my wife and her AI-loving friends. I win these arguments every time -- at least, in my limited mind.
You could also play them this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKxNGFjyRv0&ab_channel=RickBeato).
My prediction is we will eventually reach the tipping point where the regurgitation of comfortable, well scrubbed existing sounds, ideas, and I dunno maybe smells and textures will feel more "real" to people than actual new things, and then we can bring down the curtain on the whole human experiment.
Apex predators die of suicide.
Quote from: TrotskyQuote from: adamwmy turn to say I agree a billion percent with Trotsky (I know there's no a billion percent, don't at me). I've been having these same conversations with my wife and her AI-loving friends. I win these arguments every time -- at least, in my limited mind.
You could also play them this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKxNGFjyRv0&ab_channel=RickBeato).
My prediction is we will eventually reach the tipping point where the regurgitation of comfortable, well scrubbed existing sounds, ideas, and I dunno maybe smells and textures will feel more "real" to people than actual new things, and then we can bring down the curtain on the whole human experiment.
Apex predators die of suicide.
Ha - I watch every Rick Beato video (former Ithaca College professor after all) and have mentioned that video plenty.
Quote from: adamwQuote from: TrotskyQuote from: adamwmy turn to say I agree a billion percent with Trotsky (I know there's no a billion percent, don't at me). I've been having these same conversations with my wife and her AI-loving friends. I win these arguments every time -- at least, in my limited mind.
You could also play them this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKxNGFjyRv0&ab_channel=RickBeato).
My prediction is we will eventually reach the tipping point where the regurgitation of comfortable, well scrubbed existing sounds, ideas, and I dunno maybe smells and textures will feel more "real" to people than actual new things, and then we can bring down the curtain on the whole human experiment.
Apex predators die of suicide.
Ha - I watch every Rick Beato video (former Ithaca College professor after all) and have mentioned that video plenty.
Beato is terrific.
Quote from: TrotskyQuote from: adamwQuote from: TrotskyQuote from: adamwmy turn to say I agree a billion percent with Trotsky (I know there's no a billion percent, don't at me). I've been having these same conversations with my wife and her AI-loving friends. I win these arguments every time -- at least, in my limited mind.
You could also play them this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKxNGFjyRv0&ab_channel=RickBeato).
My prediction is we will eventually reach the tipping point where the regurgitation of comfortable, well scrubbed existing sounds, ideas, and I dunno maybe smells and textures will feel more "real" to people than actual new things, and then we can bring down the curtain on the whole human experiment.
Apex predators die of suicide.
Ha - I watch every Rick Beato video (former Ithaca College professor after all) and have mentioned that video plenty.
Beato is terrific.
Another Beato fan here!
I've lost the plot. Are we talking about whether AI can be conscious, whether it can discover novel ideas, whether it can replace humans in economically valuable tasks, whether it can create art? These are all different questions and I'm not really qualified to opine on them. Though, I don't really think the answer can be derived from abstract philosophy or by analyzing the limitations of current models.
Quote from: BearLoverI've lost the plot. Are we talking about whether AI can be conscious, whether it can discover novel ideas, whether it can replace humans in economically valuable tasks, whether it can create art? These are all different questions and I'm not really qualified to opine on them. Though, I don't really think the answer can be derived from abstract philosophy or by analyzing the limitations of current models.
Well I think we WERE talking about McNally's retirement...
Quote from: stereaxQuote from: BearLoverI've lost the plot. Are we talking about whether AI can be conscious, whether it can discover novel ideas, whether it can replace humans in economically valuable tasks, whether it can create art? These are all different questions and I'm not really qualified to opine on them. Though, I don't really think the answer can be derived from abstract philosophy or by analyzing the limitations of current models.
Well I think we WERE talking about McNally's retirement...
Bingo!
She's still here this year, they're just looking for extra help
Quote from: chimpfoodShe's still here this year, they're just looking for extra help
Impending!
Quote from: BearLoverI've lost the plot. Are we talking about whether AI can be conscious, whether it can discover novel ideas, whether it can replace humans in economically valuable tasks, whether it can create art? These are all different questions and I'm not really qualified to opine on them. Though, I don't really think the answer can be derived from abstract philosophy or by analyzing the limitations of current models.
How about all of the above.
Hopefully AI will be able to develop new revolutionary drugs that can be produced cheaply and therefore help all of humanity. I have
some hope that will be true.
But I'll believe that it's close to humanity when I can carry on a conversation with it, we both go asleep and then we both come up with brand new thoughts about the subect in the morning.
Quote from: BearLoverTo the extent these things are true of AI, they are also true of humans. What we call human ingenuity, self awareness, or consciousness is really just us regurgitating data, similar to what an AI does.
What I see as problems with believing in AI, is that believers in AI seem to think that they understand how the brain thinks, thus thinking that dumping all knowledge into one machine will ultimately lead to thinking.
Personally I believe that we don't understand thinking and that it's a lot more than Xs & Os.
What it is, I have no idea, but I'm also pretty sure that others don't either.
+1
A lot of Sun reporters go on to the pros. More go to grad school, law school, med school, or non-journalism work. They money has never been good in entry-level publishing of any kind, now many pubs are dying, what remains include roles where there is a premium on fit-looking people in nice clothes who look good on camera. It also helps to the subject matter. I was one of the few Sun grads my year who went on to publishing: newspapers, PCMag, Forbes. Great ride.
Cornell won the NCAA hockey title in 1970, I arrived in Ithaca that fall, and was lucky to land one of the men's hockey beat roles that winter, helped immensely by having worked 20 hours a week for the Gannett Rochester paper junior and senior years on HS as a sportswriter, and it paid real money, something like 1.5X then-minimum wage. I loved every minute of my Sun years and seeing the triumph and heartbreak of hockey (March 1973, up 5-2 on Wisconsin early in the third, tied in the last 10 seconds, 6-5 loss in OT), lacrosse (first championship ever) and Marinaro-era football. There is nothing like sitting in the press box of the old Boston Garden, which press box was suspended from the balcony, and when the fans stomped there feet, the press box rose and fell about six inches. Jane, this was the era when women were excluded from the Schoellkopf press box, although the AD's wife was excepted, and ended when Cornell would not admit the Crimson's female football writer. That exclusion ended the next week when Harvard formally complained to Cornell's administration.
While video is the prevailing format going forward, there remains a need for insight that comes best from the written word, like Adam and College Hockey News.
AI? It's not perfect but it's getting way better. It can write stories of small town HS sports for the small town papers (that mostly don't exist anymore). It can make reporters smarter, and it also can make them have to write even more stories with the help of AI.
I keep my hand in shooting photos of ECAC hockey, primarily of St. Lawrence women's hockey (our son is trainer) when they're in Ithaca or Princeton area near us, with the understanding that they otherwise would not be not hiring a freelancer to shoot stills at away games, so I'm not taking work away. It's fun.
It's just applying a template. It is literally content as form.
That is no bueno. It doesn't make reporters smarter, it doesn't help anybody do anything except owners run leaner to make more money to lobby to pay less taxes to make more money to lobby...
Quote from: dbilmesQuote from: fastforwardhttps://www.cornellsun.com/article/2025/08/why-you-should-apply-to-the-hockey-beat
Great article-fabulous opportunity
I know who I would recommend but I think her hands are full with law school
Sorry - for those not on X, Jane wrote a great article and they're looking for after she graduates
Jane has done a great job covering the hockey team the past few seasons. She's given Cornell hockey the best coverage it's had in the Sun in years. She's done so while also being a member of the Cornell field hockey team. She's been a backup goalie and has hardly played (https://cornellbigred.com/sports/field-hockey/roster/jane-mcnally/79514) over her first three years. Kudos to her for putting in all the time even though she has mostly sat on the sidelines.
She just shut out #17 Yale 2-0 in the first game at the new field hockey field.