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[ by Charles Cameron — better eat a muffin than a dog, stop at a stop sign than blow through it at 45, oh well ]
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It’s cute, sorta, that AIs can’t easily distinguish dogs from muffins:

But STOP!

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What’s not so funny is that the AI in many autonomous vehicles misreads a treated STOP sign —

— as a sign for a 45 mph speed limit. As Ivan Evtimov and colleagues indicate in Robust Physical-World Attacks on Machine Learning Models, “Physically realizing such an attack for road signs can raise concern in human observers.”

I’ll say.

Grab the wheel, conscious entity!

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Readings:

Becoming Human: AI, Why are Marketers All Talking about AI Now?

Wired, Simple Pictures that State-of-the-Art AI Still Can’t Recognize

Car & Driver, Researchers Find a Malicious Way to Meddle with Autonomous Cars

Arxiv, Robust Physical-World Attacks on Machine Learning Models

[ by Charles Cameron — a definite case of Mini-Me in my opinion ]
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Jump directly to the 9.25 mark to see the 20 or so seconds of Daily Show video DoubleQuote, in which the artifice of Scaramucci eerily imitates the life of Trump:

Or see the whole thing –your choice. Me, I’m just amazed at the gestural similarities — and on this occasion I can say, as the movie detective so often says: I don’t believe in coincidence.

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Hilarious, if unsettling.

[ by Charles Cameron — praise of Bruce Hoffman’s review of The Exile (ie Osama bin Laden) — interrupted by Trumpist verbal pyrotechnics ]
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Saif al-Adel, key AQ operative

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War on the Rocks has a tremendous review by Bruce Hoffman of Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy, The Exile: The Stunning Inside Story of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in Flight, a must-read.

Never mind that, I’ve been missing tremendous DoubleQuote opportunities, as I discover now I’ve seen Kathryn and Ross Petras‘ Trump’s Elements of Style in McSweeney’s. Consider some of my options:

I know more about renewables than any human being on Earth.
— interview, Sean Hannity, 4/13/16

I think nobody knows more about taxes than I do, maybe in the history of the world. Nobody knows more about taxes.
— interview, AP 5/13/16

I know more about ISIS [the Islamic State militant group] than the generals do. Believe me.
— speech, 11/12/15

There is nobody who understands the horror of nuclear more than me.
— speech, 6/15/16

And then:

I have a great relationship with the blacks. I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks.
— TALK1300 radio interview, 4/14/11

I have a great relationship the Mexican people. I love them, they love me!
— MSBNC interview, 7/8/15

I have a great relationship with the people of Scotland and an unbelievably good relationship with the people of Aberdeen.
— press conference 6/8/15

And, for good measure, assuming you can stretch this far:

What I like is build a safe zone in Syria. Build a big, beautiful safe zone, and you have whatever it is so people can live…
— campaign rally, 2/13/17

We’re going to have beautiful clean coal.
— CPAC address, 2/24/16

And then again:

I have had tremendous success.
— interview, ABC News, 7/30/16

I am worth a tremendous amount of money
— interview, CNN 6/26/15

I have a tremendous income.
— presidential debate, 9/26/16

I pay tremendous numbers of taxes
— presidential debate, 10/9/16

I have to admit, those last four — besides being a tremendous source of potential DoubleQuotes — is and are beautifully consistent. But do yourself a favor, unless I’ve displeased you, and go read the whole of the McSweeney piece.

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I believe I mentioned Bruce Hoffman’s review of The Exile for War on the Rocks? One among many items of interest in that book would appear to be the significant role played by Saif al-Adel (see illustration above). Hamid Gul and Qassem Suleimani likewise. A key para:

This tale of Iranian connivance provides additional evidence debunking the popular misconception that extremists do not cooperate across sectarian lines. Rather, it demonstrates how when interests overlap, they have repeatedly shown a remarkable ability to cast aside their otherwise rigid differences to work together. The ancient proverb that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” has long characterized the shifting and sometimes inexplicable alliances formed across the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia since the war on terrorism commenced 16 years ago. In this instance, the intensity of the shared enmity between Salafi-Jihadi Sunnis and Shia militants against the United States can never be prudently forgotten.

A tie strong enough to bind Sunni and Shia together — their joint hatred of America? For those of us who take a keen interest in religion and love America, that’s a notion that may take quite some time to digest.

[ by Charles Cameron — always amazed when theology makes its way into politics ]
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I missed this when it first appeared, but wanted to capture it now I’ve found it (via a Lewis Black routine) —

It is important to remember that amateurs built the Ark and it was the professionals that built the Titanic. @my_ccu pic.twitter.com/6Nqod4sicS

— Ben & Candy Carson (@RealBenCarson) October 29, 2015

Seems the amateur theologian Ben Carson — who relies heavily on his professional status as a neurosurgeon for credibility — thinks amateurs get the job done way better than professionals. Whether that opinion will lead to better ship-building by, eg, Hyundai, Samsung and Daewoo is another question: they may or may not take note of Biblical precedent in this matter.

[ by Charles Cameron — Paul Ryan and friends, plus dogs, pants, tardigrades, and the quantum cat ]
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Kyle Matthews provides his Twitter followers with a fine example of a visual DoubleQuote, which I’m reproducing here with the two images at the best magnification for Zenpundit:

If Paul Ryan and company were performing a re-enactment, they could scarcely have done a better job!

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On a more serious note.. Paul Ryan gave a presentation of his health care plan, which CNN brings you complete, thus:

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Less seriously again though, as Time reports, The Internet Is Having a Field Day Turning Paul Ryan’s Health Care PowerPoint Into Hilarious Memes. This one in particular caught my eye:

? pic.twitter.com/se0XRQUKig

— jeff meltz tbh ? (@thecultureofme) March 9, 2017

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Take a closer look at that slide. It’s amost a koan — do dogs have pant-nature?

Sometimes imagining yourself into the scene helps solve the conundrum:

Or applying it to another koan:

Or applying it to the lovely but somewhat complex tardigrade..

Hey, you could always reduce it to the quantum level..

— probably — but not once the wave-form collapses..

Canadians, however, got all practical and entrepreneurial, with a company called Muddy Mutts:

Oh, and cute:

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With any luck, I took your mind off politics for a moment there..