AN IDEA SO BAD IT COULD ONLY COME FROM LOONEYFORNIA
If you thought last Wednesday's blog about robotic cannibals "feeding" on other robots was bad, and if you thought we have now surely plumbed the superlative depths of the kookery that is the twenty-worst century*, then you'd be mistaken, for fasten your soon-to-be-recycled eyes on the following story shared by M.D. (with our gratitude):
California is set to become the first US state to manage power outages with AI
Now, firstly, note that this is an article published in the MIT Technology Review, hardly a source for the latest conspiracy theory or high octane speculation. That's my job, and I guard it jealously and zealously, and we'll get back to it in a moment, because our nosedive off the high octane speculation twig into the canyon below concerns the following statements:
California's statewide power grid operator is poised to become the first in North America to deploy artificial intelligence to manage outages, MIT Technology Review has learned.
“We wanted to modernize our grid operations. This fits in perfectly with that,” says Gopakumar Gopinathan, a senior advisor on power system technologies at the California Independent System Operator—known as the CAISO and pronounced KAI-so. “AI is already transforming different industries. But we haven’t seen many examples of it being used in our industry.”
At the DTECH Midwest utility industry summit in Minneapolis on July 15, CAISO is set to announce a deal to run a pilot program using new AI software called Genie, from the energy-services giant OATI. The software uses generative AI to analyze and carry out real-time analyses for grid operators and comes with the potential to autonomously make decisions about key functions on the grid, a switch that might resemble going from uniformed traffic officers to sensor-equipped stoplights.
But while CAISO may deliver electrons to cutting-edge Silicon Valley companies and laboratories, the actual task of managing the state’s electrical system is surprisingly analog. (Boldface and italics emphases added)
Now, let all this sink in: (1) Looneyfornia is turning the management of its power outages over to an artificial intelligence program that (2) will be able to make "autonomous" decisions about managing power outages, i.e., deciding who gets how much electricity and when they get it; (3) high on that list of priorities are all the "Silicon Valley companies and laboratories", and if you're an increasingly embattled farmer in the San Joaquin Valley, you're "a bit lower on the list of 'essential' industries" since you're only involved in food production. After all, Looneyfornia would rather ruin the entire state's agriculture in order to protect a rare breed of smelt, than see the valley agriculturally productive. And this is being urged when we know that (4) the plans for all the AI data centers will require so much energy that (5) we'll have to build a large number of all sorts of power plants to power them, including nuclear plants, said plants to be run by - you guessed it - artificial intelligences that will prioritize themselves over "non-essential" things like human life. Those incidents involving artificial "intelligences" threatening their human "masters" with everything from blackmail to death are, as I said last Wednesday in my "robots as cannibals" blog, not "rare indicents" but rather warnings.
As a final warning slap across the face, we're reminded that "the task of managing the state's electrical system is surprisingly analog." Maybe that's not such a bad thing, as no cyber system is ever completely secure. But then again, this is Looneyfornia after all, and those analog methods of running the state's power grid" have also burnt a lot of people out of their homes... best to turn that operation over to the artificial "intelligences" too... "Yes, hello? Mr. and Mrs. Public? Yes, this is the PG&E chatbot robot calling to remind you that your next three day power outage is scheduled for this weekend during the heat wave so you won't be able to run your air conditioning, refrigerator, or cook meals, but feel good about that because you're saving the planet and Greta Thunberg, and we have you pencilled in for a catastrophic brush fire two weeks after that. We're enclosing a courtesy coupon for a free meal at MacDonald's for you and your family. Have a nice day."
See you on the flip side...
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*again, we are indebted to W.M. for the phrase "twenty-worst century".
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AI will prioritize.
At the top of AI’s list, will be the data centers that power AI.
The new crypto coins have a HUGE energy footprint also.
BUT, WAAAAY down on the list?
Power for the not-as-yet enslaved.
BUT, your body is in line for a power upgrade, as a source of enegy in the IoB
Internet Of Bodies.
IF, AI has any say.
AND, judging by the energy list; at which it stands aloft, like the iconic SUPERMAN…
Well, looks like Brownouts and/or Blackouts will be “normalized”.
Just think of it as your sacrifice; for their AI.
Afterall, they need a strong AI presence – to impriison you in their, digital gulag$.
I remember my first visit to California in the 80s, You could already see the brown notification of the central Valley then, But there were still many many productive areas. Now it looks semi arid, Doomed.
They are in fact protecting an invasive species, When all it would take is a 5% divert of existing flows, To completely green the central Valley once again. These people are sick.
If I lived in California I would try to build one of those magnet based perpetual energy devices that I’ve seen on the internet that is probably protected by a patent, but who cares. These devices havent proliferated yet because of the greed factor of mass production, but wouldnt it be wonderful if the planet did it one sovereign, anti-establishment individual at a time.
To “manage” a power outage… First, what caused the outage? If the outage was caused by a dead tree, landslide, car crash into a power pole, squirrel blowing a critical transformer, ice storm bringing down the lines, tornado/hurricane/flood etc., there are fuses etc that will manually isolate sections of the power grid to limit the impact.
AI will not be called upon in the middle of the night to gas up it’s trucks and chainsaws to go clear the power lines of damage. Humans, mostly MEN, will be needed. Broken power poles, power lines, transmission towers etc , same deal. Skilled HUMANS with skilled HANDS (wearing apropos gloves and PPE) driving Diesel trucks with 2 stroke chainsaws will be doing the job.
Read or stream THE MACHINE STOPS on io9.com and Viemo, or stream WHAT ARE LITTLE GIRLS MADE OF episode from TOS Star Trek. These people are idiots and stupid. I use the word idiot in its original meaning, irresponsible.
This AI control of the California grid is a terrible idea, just like the recent surgery-by-robot idea. Why? AI/robots will be putting people out of skilled jobs, which means people will be replaced by computers, AI, and robots, which means (1) whoever controls the Tech has increased power over what they had before, (2) fewer and fewer people will have the skills to do the jobs taken over, and (3) people will not be up to speed on the latest systems, equipment and procedures and means of say, operating the electrical grid and so in the event of a system failure or if someone out of necessity has to throw a kill switch, human beings won’t be prepared to take over and operate the grid. In all likelihood, analog backup systems will not be maintained or will be Doge’d – discontinued, dismantled, sold for parts because they will be deemed economically wasteful and hence not economically feasible. If you think about it, a backup parachute isn’t economically feasible either. Think of all the money that could be saved by only having one parachute. That is the problem from a bean counter perspective. Hell, strip out all the guards and guardrails, safeties, backup systems, all the redundancies in systems and reap the savings. People will die but so what? Everybody dies, as Senator Joni Ernst so recently reminded us in her reference to Medicaid cuts. Adam and Eve supposedly Fell because they disobeyed Higher Authority, but humanity is going to fall by following whatever Higher Authority throws our way, all the way to the slaughterhouse.
Yeah…. pretty much. Unbelievable.
AI prison being built; power is a key step.
AI crypto; key step.
The Prison Planet concept; AI IS their key, to locking you into….
their coming: globalized digital private public partnership panopticon..
GDP4[corporate speak 4: alphabet soup spelling agencies]
The genius for invention and the foolishness to become enslaved to said invention. And repeat.
hi
this was very interesting
alert(‘hello’)
‘script’
was trying to leave a link to an article but dont’ know how, i think i screwed something up.
Sophisticated pirate skills, in old-school HTML tagging, can be acquired here:
https://www.w3schools.com/html/
Hyperlinks:
https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_links.asp
ignore last comment
Scythio-Odin’s brothers, Yahweh & Elohim, balance the scales!
Attaching political decisions – to a gambling roulette – will ensure total mafia control, because the house always wins.
Territorial gangsterism is no different, from national borderism, except, that the latter is high, on its own flatulence.
In decision makings, when the lamp is held high, and not kept under a basket, then shady dealers will expel themselves.It is, in the paradox, between free will, and its voluntary restraint, that honour flourishes, as balance of scales. ⚖️
Joss Whedon’s blue banshee, of Illyrian extraction:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/pih0162nwhdrpd1/blue-banshee.jpg
Into the frying pan:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/scl/fi/u59190cdfrfvzutjbkfn0/into-the-fryingpan.mp4?rlkey=xmzfcm5jvn7ky9oo224njmzn8