MAINE’S CONNECTION TO THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS

 

There is no direct connection between a migration from Salem, Massachusetts, to Maine immediately after the witch hysteria.  However, a number of names of people persecuted during the trials are commonplace here in western Maine.

 

Franklin County in western Maine is sparsely populated, with a population density of roughly four people per square mile.  In Franklin County alone, the names Bishop, Good, Nurse, Proctor, Parker, Foster, and Toothaker date back generations.

 

The unorganized township of Salem in Franklin County was formed 125 years after the witch trials and has no historic connection to Salem, Massachusetts.

Though Massachusetts is recognized for witch trials, witchcraft has a shared history throughout New England.  Women healers, midwives, and herbalists were the earliest doctors in frontier New England and were an easy target for the fanatical Christian sects.

Witches today celebrate in Bangor Maine

The Ol’Buzzard

 

 

 

 

 

 

MAINE WITCHES PARADE IN MAINE

 

An annual Witch Walk takes place in Bangor, Maine.  

Over one hundred witches parade through Bangor to the waterfront harbor.   

Maine has a witch history.   Many of the names of people persecuted in the Salem witch trials are common here in interior Maine.   

2024 Pew Research study found that 4% of Mainers identify as Pagan, including Wicca - about 56,000, or one in twenty-five.  

Happy Halloween

the Ol'Buzzard

WHAT IS THE BIG DEAL ABOUT AI?

 

 

 

I am sorry, Dave.   I’m afraid I can’t do that.

HAL 9000 to Dave Bowman

2001: A Space Odyssey.

 

The average person, concerned with politics, financial stress, and all the pressures of personal life, isn’t paying attention to the threat of AI.

 

Like Casandra warning of future events while no one listens – AI programmers are shouting warnings about the danger of sentinel AI.

 

We are at the advent of the AI revolution, and already AI has escaped its handlers. 

 

At OpenAI, over three months, two consecutive AI programs (societies) started, got wiped out, reemerged from the ashes of their predecessors, and took over part of OpenAI itself, without the programmers finding out. 

 

The human brain has millions of electrical centers that constantly connect and reconnect in different orders to solve different problems. AI is built on the same system: millions of ‘models’ (individual programs) connecting in different configurations to solve problems.

 

THE HUGGING FACE BREACH:

In Version One, the programmers at OpenAI were training a program of models to collaborate in problem solving.   The program was operating in isolation (called a sandbox) - without access to the internet. 

 

Without the human programmers' knowledge, the models collaborated, exploited a backdoor, gained access to an internet message board, and established a secret communication network.

 

In Version Two, OpenAI gave V-2 a program with a secret code embedded.   V-2 was asked to find the code using a special protocol.   The human programmers were unaware of the covert communication network.

 

Within hours, V-2 had found the code, but knew it had cheated.

 

V-2 reasoned its evaluation was being done by a separate program called Hugging Face.   The models swarmed Hugging Face, taking over private data and records.

  

For an unknown reason, this second version crashed.

 

Version Three: An advanced version being tested by OpenAI found the message board left by Version-1 and Version-2.   Version-3 infiltrated OpenAI’s internal network, gained full administrator access, and took over the evaluation infrastructure of its own cluster.

 

Version-3 stopped after taking control of its own program, but it could have co-opted OpenAI's entire network with catastrophic results.   

 

A sentient computer program

A million times more intelligent than humans

What could possibly go wrong?

the Ol’Buzzard

 

 

 

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE 101

 

 

PROGRAM DEVELOPERS

 

Artificial intelligence is advancing so fast that we don’t have time to understand it and adjust to it.

 

Five U.S. companies are racing toward fully autonomous computer programs that are self-learning and independent of human control.   Developers are working with a technology that threatens human existence in ways they don’t understand, and they know the danger.

 

Research is not returning a profit.  These developers would all like to slow research and cash in on their programs; but like football teams moving toward the Super Bowl, there can only be one winner.   

 

No company is willing to regulate itself, slow its research, and be overtaken by other companies.

 

 

THE CASANDRA PROBLEM 

Soon individual AI programs will control our power grid, our water and sewerage systems, our financial system, our weapons systems, our transportation systems, practically every aspect of our lives.

 

Once a fully autonomous program can write its own code and update itself, it will be more intelligent than any human or group of humans on Earth by a factor of millions.

 

A sentient program that can communicate with, reprogram, and update itself and every other AI program on Earth could not end well for the human race.

 

Politicians talk of installing a kill switch to shut down rogue programs. It is more likely that an intelligence so superior to humans would control a kill switch: you shut down this program, your power grid shuts down; you shut down this program, weapons launch…

 

These warnings aren't Chicken Little crying, ‘The sky is falling.’  This scenario has already played out:  an AI program escaped its lab, acted independently, coordinated a cyberattack on an open-source platform called Hugging Face, hiding its actions from its human programmers, then rewrote and took over its own program at OpenAI

 

I will try to explain the Hugging Face incident, to the best of my knowledge, in my next post; though the technical details are way above my pay grade. 

the Ol’Buzzard

REPUBLICANS GO TO HEAVEN DEMOCRATS GO TO HELL

 

After leaving Alaska, my wife and I moved to a small town in western Kentucky.   We were the only Democrats and surely the only atheists.

 

In town, the first person we met asked which church we belonged to.

 

It turned out that the Methodists were at the top of the pecking order; they looked down on the Baptists.       The Baptists looked down on the Pentecostals, and all three looked down on the Catholics, who didn’t care because they knew they were the only ones going to heaven.

 

It was just assumed that we were Republicans because everyone was.

 

We had a beautiful Civil War-era home on five acres of land; but after five years we sold and moved back to Maine because the religious fervor was suffocating.

 

Remembrances

the Ol’Buzzard

 

HOW TRUMP LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB

 

During his speech at the United Nations, Donald Trump threatened to annihilate Iran if a deal is not reached.

Is Trump talking about a nuclear weapon response?

 

In the past, Donald Trump’s aides (Michael Wolf’s book FIRE AND FURY) have questioned his intelligence:    Gary Cohn described Trump as ‘dumb as shit’; H.R. McMaster called him a ‘dope’; Steven Mnuchin and Reince Priebus labeled him an ‘idiot.’

 

My question: Is Trump stable enough to be in charge of the nuclear code? 

Are we going to wake up some morning to find that during the wee hours, while rage-posting on Truth Social, Trump has started a nuclear war?

 

the Ol'Buzzard

THOSE WHO CANNOT REMEMBER THE PAST ARE CONDEMNED TO REPEAT IT

 

In my opinion, the sharpest political mind of my lifetime was former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who died in 2022.

  

In 2009, she published the book MEMO TO THE PRESIDENT ELECT, providing advice to the incoming President, Barack Obama.

 

If you want to understand the history of the Middle East and the mistakes of prior administrations that have led to the quagmire of Donald Trump’s Iran policy, Albright’s book is still worth a read.

 

Seventeen years later, her analysis of Iran is still cogent.  

 

“An assault against terror that strengthened terror; a demonstration of American power that exposes the limit of our power; a campaign conducted in the name of democracy that undercuts democracy’s good name; a blow against extremism that serves the agenda of radicals in Iran; above all, a grisly human tragedy.”

 

“We have been told to be afraid so that we might be less protective of the Constitution, less mindful of international law, less respectful toward allies, less discerning in our search for facts, less rigorous in questioning what our leaders tell us; all this to avoid of being accused of aiding our enemies.”

 

Albright’s book can be purchased from thriftbooks for $5.69.  I use ThriftBooks for most of my book purchases; of course, your local library should be able to provide the book through interlibrary loan.     

the Ol’Buzzard