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EVERY MORNING TheJournal.ie brings you the nine stories you need to know as you start your day.
1. #ABORTION: The Dáil will vote on the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill today, with Fine Gael poised to lose European Affairs Minister Lucinda Creighton who is expected to pull her support for the Government over the legislation. The debate will begin this morning with the final vote expected to be called at 10 o’clock tonight.
2. #AUSTERITY: The Government should push ahead with its full €3.1 billion package of taxes and spending cuts in the upcoming Budget, according to the Economic and Social Research Institute, which has said the current austerity regime is the best course of action to get the economy back on track.
3. #VOTING: The Government is planning to hold a referendum to lower the voting age from 18 to 16, the Irish Independent reports. If accepted, 16-year-olds would be able to vote in the next general election.
4. #CORRUPTION: Former political lobbyist Frank Dunlop has said he cannot recall receiving IR£1.2 million from a property developer in the 1990s. RTE News reports Dunlop testified before a Dublin court that he had received money from a businessman to pay councillors to have lands rezoned, and that he himself had paid bribes to four councillors in exchange for votes.
5. #TRAIN CRASH: Canadian authorities have launched a criminal probe into the derailing of a freight train in Quebec which left 15 people dead and more than 30 still missing in Canada’s worst train disaster in recent history.
6. #JULY 12: The Orange Order has been banned from marching through the Catholic Ardoyne area of Belfast following serious rioting in recent years on the annual 12 July parades, Northern Ireland’s Parade’s Commission has ruled. The DUP has said the ruling is “illogical”.
7. #HOAX CALL: One of two Australian DJs who made a prank phone call to a London hospital where Kate Middleton was being treated has accused the owner of her radio station of failing to provide a safe working environment, the Guardian reports.
8. #BANK GUARANTEE: Taoiseach Enda Kenny has revealed seven senior staff in his Department were working at the time of the bank guarantee, but has not confirmed whether he has sought their recollections about the events of September and October 2008.
9. #STILL HOT OUT THERE: How long can this heatwave last? At least a few more days it seems: Met Éireann says temperatures will reach 30 degrees today – but Friday will be even hotter. We could get used to this…
Mary Carolan cools down her grandkids, Sean, Megan and Conor, the old-fashioned way in Cavan yesterday (Pic: Joanne Carolan)
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I’ve seen the movies. It doesn’t end well. Only John Connor can save us.
@R: We are watching the origins of skynet.
@Jaymes Moynihan: are you an AI? Is that why you have no sense of humour??
Even working in the software industry, it makes me very wary, although the genie ain’t going back in the bottle.
We had a presentation recently about how AI is going to “help” Developers with the presenter quickly saying “not replace Developers of course just assisting them” but it rang kind of hollow.
I joked with a colleague, who doesn’t see the risk about how “First they can for the Product Managers…..”
But it’s more then that. Our data is making us very predictable, and more easily manipulated to those with the know how. Allowing us to be targeted. Don’t be naive and think you’re immune.
@Tricia G ☘️:
Learn other languages and you’ll be fine.
@Tricia G ☘️: We need it. Badly. We’re pretty useless. traffic lights were invented in the late 1800′s etc.
@zephyrum: Yeah. Chinese.
AI won’t replace you, the people using AI will.
If anyone should be worried, it should be journalists.
@Garret Fawl: Not if CNET’s experience is anything to go by.
Because of my upbringing AI to me meana Artificial Insemination. Or, to an older generation, ‘The Bull Man’.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: Don’t be giving the bots ideas!
They should have called it Skynet for the craic.
But on a more serious note, I for one welcome our new robot overlords.
@Handsome McWonderful: Biggle, Biggle, Right on Buck.
Imagine it! We could get a journal article summarised.
Can’t stop modern tech. from enhancing the world. The possibilities are endless. Imagine what our fore father’s thought of tech advances. Were they worried? Did it stop progression? Imagine a world where modern techs hadn’t helped medical advances for example…
@Thomas Meaney: Kinda ruins graphic design when AI seems to come up with all the possibilities you could ever want.
@Paul Cunningham: Does Graphic Design in general contemporary terms need to be ruined? Yes it does.
We still haven’t figured out how to deal with the massive problems from Facebook etc generally and high speed internet more generally
Misinformation, polarisation, social isolation, sexual impotence, espionage etc
Is this like Hal the computer in Kubrick’s film ’2001: a Space Odyssey’ deciding to take over from those malleable humans? I’ll be wary. We should all aim to do our own thinking and cultivate our own feelings.
I’ve been using plenty of these AI tools in recent months, ChatGPT, DeepStory, Stable Diffusion, Play.ht ,etc, they are all incredible tools, but people don’t wanna bother learning about how useful they are, they’d rather just reference terminator, which only proves to show how ignorant and uninformed they are.
@Jaymes Moynihan: Such a pity none of the AI software that you’ve been using for months taught you that name calling is childish and the lowest form of intelligence.
@Ann Reddin: He used ChatGPT to make that comment. Didn’t spot that, did you. :)
Great, super, wonderful. Can’t wait to get my hands on it.
No-one should interact with any AI technology as our interactions will only increase its power as it is just learning more and more about us.
The option ‘Nothing at all’ sums it up. Not that I feel nothing at all, but that AI will feel nothing at all, bar it’s algorithms. But same could be said about many humans. But yes, excited, but hopefully apprehensive. Hurry up with the robots so.
The idea of a job will change. Could AI middle manage the HSE? Almost definitely, can AI drive better? yup, but what do we all the do? Maybe do what you’re interested in but then most people aren’t interested in anything. There’s a few theories smashing about, I like Fully Automated Luxury Communism :) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/07/world-without-work/395294/
@thesaltyurchin: You don’t need “AI” to implement logic.
We’re all doomed, I tell ye…..
New AI is all showy algorithms and snazzy coding. Not like the old days, that was real AI.
@Davis Payne: Right on.
Intelligence, noun.
1. the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.
2. the collection of information of military or political value.
Artificial, adjective:
1. made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, especially as a copy of something natural.
2. insincere or affected.
One would be forgiven for considering the secondary definition as the primary, these days. But do not fear, even the inimitable John Carmack calls BS on the whole thing, apart from the (above) secondary definitions.
Anything that replaces humans in Jobs, is a no no. A step to far. While these make billions it leaves people vulnerable, just look at last few months in tech sector.
@Colette Byrne: The popular notion that anything artificial could ever conceivably replace something natural, demonstrates the abject materialism and conceitedness of modern thinking.
have your say