Weekend Edition 20: ChatGPT Goes to School, Trump Back on Social Media & More

WE 20-1: chatGPT in Education, What are Teachers Doing?
On one hand, there is the impulse to ban it, as the district in NYC has done. I’m not certain that this makes sense in the long run, as how do you ensure that such a ban is actually enforceable? Sure, you can set up DNS filtering on all district-connected devices, but how do you prevent the kids from signing in at home or using their phones via mobile data, whether at school or elsewhere? Tools are not in place to prove whether someone used one of these AI tools to generate assignment-fulfilling answers. Tools are being developed, but simply are unavailable at this point.
I think the wiser method is one that was mentioned in the other CNN article I found on the issue: one group of teachers has decided to tweak things so that they can see the process more in-depth, another is shifting back to using in-class essays more, rather than take-home ones where the students could use a tool like ChatGPT to write it for them. Some professors are not clear that it could actually be damaging to students for them to use it. Others are checking ChatGPT before they assign things to make sure what ChatGPT “knows”, even requiring certain classes of sources that ChatGPT would not have access to.
Mitigation tools are already in the works, and many are using them already. One is called ZeroGPT, and is being developed by a Princeton student, and Turnitin is also on board with that. If you have been a student in the last 15 years, you’ve probably had to submit at least one paper to Turnitin in that time, as it is a very popular anti-plagiarism tool.
ChatGPT is also being embraced by some, as a way to help students to improve their own writing, as a foundation piece, or a comparison source for them. This intrigues me. Am I on board with the concept in its entirety? No. I don’t really like the proliferation of AI, as it seems to be in lockstep with transhumanist ideals, which I categorically oppose. However, you are free to form whatever opinion you like, just make sure that it is an educated one.
Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/19/tech/chatgpt-teachers-adjusting
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/05/tech/chatgpt-nyc-school-ban/index.html

WE 20-2: BTC Bull Run? XRP News...
Looks like BTC is recovering from its tumble in the aftermath of the FTX collapse, but why? It doesn’t seem like the broader financial situation should support such a surge in the last couple of weeks. We’re looking at a 28% surge in value in the last 2.5 weeks. Is this the beginning of a bull run? Some would enthusiastically say yes, buy now, buy at the dip, and ride the rocket ship up to the moon, baby! I have never trusted it, as BTC has proven to be inherently volatile, and it is far too easily abused by bad actors, whether state based or not. It has often been linked to things like human trafficking and other illicit activities which ultimately harm people. This article talks about some of the factors which could be playing into the current rally, one of which being whispers of a looser US monetary policy with lower interest rates, and the other is that whales seem to be making some large purchases.
What’s a whale? A large investor, the term relates to the analogy of the market being like a body of water and the players being marine animals, whether little “fish” or big “whales”. When whales make moves, whether in the Fintech space (crypto, ETFs, tokens, etc) or in the traditional space (Wall St), the smarter fish take notice and make corresponding moves.
Back to the manifold issues with BTC, though, chief of which is that it is inefficient, based on a kind of artificial scarcity (the limit to the number of possible Bitcoins in circulation, and the fact that it has intentionally been made more difficult to do the processing to “mine” BTC over the last few years, as we get closer to that limit), and only holds value as long as someone is willing to speculate on it. I don’t like it, but you make up your own mind.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/16/why-is-bitcoin-btc-rallying-in-january.html

Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of Ripple, which created both the XRP coin and its corresponding institutional counterpart, Ripple, claims that he expects wither a ruling or a settlement in the SEC case against his company by as soon as June. A ruling, either that the SEC is right about Ripple and XRP (that it is indeed a security and needs to go through the processes and rigamarole of registering as such), and by direct inference, the rest of the industry is populated with unregistered and unregulated securities, or that XRP and Ripple are not securities and that the SEC brought the case needlessly, or some manner of settlement between Ripple and the SEC, admitting that their crypto efforts are indeed not securities, but that there needs to be some sort of slap on the wrist for them. He called the SEC “embarrassing” in how they have comported themselves in the course of this lawsuit. I have to admit that my wife and I have held some XRP in a particular exchange, and it got stuck, frozen, in that exchange as soon as this case started, so we wait with baited breath to be able to do anything at all with it. I want to believe that it Ripple will get its favorable ruling, and that Gensler will be humbled by it, but I have my doubts. At least Ripple/XRP has utility, unlike BTC. Don’t try to talk to me about BTC as “digital gold” or some such shill-y claim, Ripple/XRP is a viable replacement for the SWIFT system that has allowed faster, more secure cross-border payments for years now. Call me a shill if you want, but at least it DOES something.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/18/ripple-ceo-optimistic-crypto-firm-will-get-sec-xrp-lawsuit-ruling-soon.html

WE 20-3: Trump Back on Twitter and Meta Products?
Trump’s campaign has petitioned for his accounts to be reinstated, stating that “We believe that the ban on President Trump’s account on Facebook has dramatically distorted and inhibited the public discourse”. So the campaign is applying pressure, though not looking to sue the social media giant at this point. Trump was reinstated by Musk at Twitter back in Novermber, but has yet to make his much-anticipated return to the platform. This article, from the lamestream media, repeats that they do not believe that he will or even can return to Twitter, due to his commitments with Truth Social. I sensed a sigh of relief at that thought. Then they parrot the J6 talking points about how Trump “refused” to defuse the situation, and instead “poured gas on the fire” by critiquing Pence’s lack of actions to overturn the election.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/18/donald-trump-prepares-for-his-return-to-facebook-and-twitter.html
Trump has told Fox News Digital that he believes that Facebook needs him, more than he needs them, but yet, as we covered in the last story, his campaign has formally petitioned Meta for his reinstatement. This article also discusses how he will very shortly have his first official campaign stop in Columbus, SC. South Carolina is an early primary state and also the home of Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, who appear to be potential challengers to his bid for nomination from the GOP. The GOPe (aka RINOs, aka uniparty members) try to blame him for a shaky result from the midterms, but they also moved against him, not with him in many ways, by not backing many of his candidates because they were running their own people. The whole political system is broken in this country. The false dichotomy between the parties, leading to the illusion of choice at the voting booth, is actually a thing. Not only that, but then there are the well-documented issues with the voting apparatus itself (Dominion, ES&S, etc) which lead to errant, if not outright fraudulent results on voting day. However, I digress. I could talk about this stuff all night, if I wanted to. I see Meta as a dead, decaying platform, as I said last week
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2023/01/18/facebook-instagram-trump-campaign-petition/11075645002/

WE 20.4: Big Tech in Trouble?
In the UK, parliament are one step closer to amending their Online Safety Bill. What’s the big deal there? If it goes through as is, it would render the capacity to try and jail the leadership of offending social media companies for not:
· removing all illegal content
· removing content that's banned by its own terms and conditions
· empowering users with tools to protect themselves against types of content they don't want to see
At the moment, they have agreed that a UK media watchdog called Ofcom will be in charge of these sorts of proceedings, as well as the current structure of fines, which start at 18 million pounds, and go up to a max of 10% of their yearly revenue (whichever is more, for simply failing to remove illegal content) , and they will also have the ability to completely block sites from the country. As usual with these sorts of legislative efforts, it feels good on the surface, but after that first glance, you realize that it is an ugly transvestite that you at first thought a beautiful, or at least hot, woman. This is a backdoor to greater control over speech. This is censorship in the UK, which already has some very tight regulations on freedom of expression. This also would undermine E2E encryption in the UK, and serve as a template for our own questionable government. That is chilling. Democracies and republics, in order to be healthy at all, need both a well informed populace, and one that is free to speak their minds about matters of public import, including (genuinely) peacefully protesting things, and posting contrary opinions on social media.
https://www.cnet.com/news/politics/big-tech-behind-bars-the-uks-online-safety-bill-explained/

Meanwhile, here in the States, as Big Tech continues down the path toward austerity, the US federal government is trying to actively court these laid off tech workers to come work directly for Big Brother by boosting pay rates for those positions across the federal gov’t space. Well, I could go off on this... I really could. I’m not certain that it would be beneficial, but you know, at least that way they cut out the middle man. There are 2,500 related positions that the feds have been unable to fill for the last couple of years, but how many of those people who have been cut loose by big Tech companies would be able to fill those positions? That really doesn’t seem like enough of a drop in the bucket to make a difference with the nearly 200k people who have been laid off in the last 3 months or so from the tech industry, many who were working for giants such as Amazon, Meta, Twitter, Microsoft, Snapchat, and others. Well, good for those who net those jobs, I suppose.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/for-new-tech-jobs-forget-amazon-and-microsoft-try-the-us-government-instead/