Links 41
The Iron Law of Institutions: “The people who control institutions care first and foremost about their power within the institution rather than the power of the institution itself. Thus, they would rather the institution ‘fail’ while they remain in power within the institution than for the institution to ‘succeed’ if that requires them to lose power within the institution. This is true for all human institutions. If history shows anything, it's that this cannot be changed. What can be done, sometimes, is to force the people running institutions to align their own interests with those of the institution itself and its members.”
Scott Aaronson: “I find it intellectually consistent to say that GPT ought not to exist because it works all too well—that the more impressive it is, the more dangerous. I find it harder to wrap my head around the position that GPT doesn’t work, is an unimpressive hyped-up defective product that lacks true intelligence and common sense, yet it’s also terrifying and needs to be shut down immediately.”
Robert Heaton: “Three men were accused of selling firearms to South London gangs. At their 2012 trial in Croydon Crown Court, the prosecution played the jury a recording, taken undercover, of the trio allegedly arranging a sale. But the men’s lawyers claimed that the recording was a fake, and that the police had fabricated it by splicing together clips taken at different times. To prove that the evidence really was authentic, the Metropolitan Police turned to a technique called electrical network frequency (ENF) matching. ENF matching exploits patterns in the frequency of the ‘mains hum’ - the faint background noise emitted by an electrical grid as it pipes electricity around in order to power our homes and workplaces. The hum seeps into microphones and recordings, which is a pain for sound engineers, but surprisingly useful for forensic analysts. To substantiate the recording, Dr Alan Cooper, an analyst on the Met, extracted the sound of its mains hum. He matched fluctuations in the hum’s frequency to frequency readings taken directly from the National Grid at the time of the alleged deal. Their close correspondence suggested that the recording had indeed been taken at the time that the prosecution claimed. He also used the hum’s continuity to show that it was indeed a single, undoctored clip. His analysis stuck, and the three men were convicted.”
