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<\/a><\/p>\nToday\u2019s Miscellany will be a non-political lull before the storm of Election Day on Tuesday.\u00a0 We will, however, have much to say on that topic tomorrow and the next day, as the election unfolds. . . .<\/p>\n
For now:\u00a0 Medical AI is hallucinating; a salient question on transgenderism in sports; and a bunch more arrests in the UK for praying, thinking, and influencing.<\/p>\n
Medical AI Is Hallucinating<\/h4>\n
One of the Artificial Intelligence applications being sold by OpenAI is Whisper<\/a>, which is an AI-driven speech recognition program that can generate transcriptions of oral communication.\u00a0 OpenAI claims that it \u201capproaches human level robustness and accuracy.\u201d<\/p>\n So Whisper has been widely adopted to transcribe interviews, generate closed captions for videos, and other uses, from call centers to personal assistants.\u00a0 The medical profession in particular has adopted Whisper to transcribe patients\u2019 consultations with their doctors.<\/p>\n Researchers, though, have found that the Artificial Intelligence that drives Whisper is unusually prone to hallucinations<\/a>.\u00a0 A hallucination<\/a> in AI has been defined as \u201cconfident statements that are not true.\u201d\u00a0 That is to say, AI \u201cmay embed plausible-sounding random falsehoods within its generated content.\u201d\u00a0 And sometimes these hallucinations\u2013like those of a human mind on drugs or in a state of insanity\u2013are truly bizarre.<\/p>\n A study of the use of Whisper in transcribing public meetings found hallucinations in 8 out of 10 transcriptions.\u00a0 An engineer studying machine learning\u00a0 examined 100 hours of Whisper transcriptions and found hallucinations in almost half of them.\u00a0 Another user generated 26,000 transcripts with Whisper, nearly all of which had hallucinations.<\/p>\n Some of them are unsettling, like a ghost\u2013or demon\u2013in the machine.\u00a0 One audio file recorded something saying this: \u201cHe, the boy, was going to, I\u2019m not sure exactly, take the umbrella.\u201d\u00a0 Whisper added this to the transcription:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cHe took a big piece of a cross, a teeny, small piece \u2026 I\u2019m sure he didn\u2019t have a terror knife so he killed a number of people.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of the hallucinations invent extraneous information.\u00a0 A speaker described \u201ctwo other girls and one lady.\u201d Whisper, perhaps because its AI was programmed for DEI sensitivities rendered this as \u201ctwo other girls and one lady, um, which were Black.\u201d<\/p>\n In a medical transcription, Whisper came up with a medicine that does not, in fact, exist, that it called \u201chyperactivated antibiotics.\u201d<\/p>\n Transcriptions of trials, hearings, police interrogations, and public meetings can have legal ramifications.\u00a0 Closed captioning for the deaf can convey important information that needs to be correct.\u00a0 Medical transcriptions, which often replace doctors\u2019 notes, are crucial for diagnoses and treatments.\u00a0 Last month alone, Whisper was downloaded 4.2 million times, which means that untold numbers of incorrect transcriptions have\u00a0 already been made.<\/p>\n The problem is not just with Whisper.\u00a0 The Wikipedia article on Hallucinations (Artificial Intelligence)<\/a> says, \u201cby 2023, analysts estimated that chatbots hallucinate as much as 27% of the time,<\/sup> with factual errors present in 46% of generated texts.\u201d\u00a0 That article is worth reading, both because it explains some of the technical reasons why hallucinations emerge and also because it gives a wide range of examples, some of which are quite humorous.<\/p>\n And, as I have complained on this blog, pretty much every time I have used AI to track down a quote or identify a source, it has responded with \u201cconfident statements that are not true.\u201d<\/p>\n I know, I know, as my techie friend keeps telling me, AI will get better.\u00a0 So maybe we should wait until that happens before we start using it and depending on it so much!<\/p>\n Some people keep insisting that a person who is born a male (or \u201cassigned\u201d the male gender at birth) but who identifies as a female (perhaps having received some form of \u201cgender affirmation\u201d therapy) is, in fact, a woman, and, as such, is qualified to participate in women\u2019s sports.\u00a0 That athletes who are transgender women-with-male-bodies typically dominate when they compete with athletes who have women\u2019s bodies has occasioned some debate.<\/p>\n I came across an interesting contribution to this debate in a letter to National Review\u2019s columnist Jay Nordlinger<\/a>:<\/p>\n Also in yesterday\u2019s column, I had a section on transgenderism. This included the question of women\u2019s sports (the participation of biological males in them). A reader from Michigan writes,<\/p>\n I played volleyball competitively and coached female teams. Though I am sure some exist, I have never heard of a female identifying as a male who sought to compete in a men\u2019s volleyball league. Why would this be?<\/p>\n Having a female body is a disadvantage in trying to compete on men\u2019s teams. And having a male body in women\u2019s sports? An advantage, and an unfair one.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Exactly!\u00a0 If men who identify as women are women, women who identify as men are men.\u00a0 But the latter do not want to compete against individuals with male bodies in the boxing ring, the swimming pool, or a track and field stadium.<\/p>\n (Yes, some females want to play on a boy\u2019s baseball team or be a punter on a high school football team, but that\u2019s not the same.\u00a0 They are trying to integrate the male team as females<\/em>, in roles in which they claim their sex does not directly affect their performance.)<\/p>\n The transexual men realize that their women\u2019s bodies would put them at a disadvantage competing against men with men\u2019s bodies.\u00a0 By the same token, transexual women need to realize\u2013rather, schools and athletic associations need to realize\u2013that their men\u2019s bodies would put them at an advantage competing against women with women\u2019s bodies.<\/p>\n Why do we have to argue about this?<\/p>\n We blogged<\/a> about the UK arresting people for silent prayer in front of abortion clinics.\u00a0 Well, it keeps happening. And it keeps going farther and farther.<\/p>\n The Free Press<\/em> gives more details about those and related cases in an article by Madeleine Kearns entitled\u00a0She Was Arrested for Praying in Her Head<\/a>\u00a0with the deck, \u201cCitizens in the UK have been arrested, prosecuted, and convicted for silently praying outside abortion clinics. Even organizing pro-life meetings in your own home may be a criminal offense.\u201d<\/p>\n Up to now, laws requiring a \u201csafe access zone\u201d around abortion clinics were mainly municipal ordinances, but as of October 31, England is implementing a nationwide law<\/a> to that effect, a measure approved earlier by the independent legislatures of Scotland and Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n According to the language of the Scottish bill,<\/a> which went into effect in September, it is now a criminal offense<\/a>\u00a0to do anything within\u00a0200 meters<\/a> of an abortion clinic (the distance is 150 meters<\/a> in England) that might have the effect of \u201cinfluencing the decision of another person to access, provide or facilitate the provision of abortion services.\u201d<\/p>\n The story tells about Father Sean Gough, a black Catholic priest, whom police interrogated after finding him standing outside an abortion clinic.\u00a0 \u201cHe was grilled on what message his clerical clothing had sent to [abortion] service-users within the [200-yard zone.\u201d\u00a0 The police asked him if he was praying.\u00a0 He said he was.\u00a0 What about?\u00a0 He said he was \u201cpraying that God\u2019s grace will come upon\u201d those inside the facility.\u00a0 He was charged with \u201cprotesting and engaging in an act that is intimidating to service users.\u201d\u00a0 He was arrested and tried, but was not convicted.<\/p>\n Another time, Father Gough was busted for having a bumper sticker on his car that read \u201cUnborn lives matter\u201d and for holding a sign that said, \u201cPraying for Free Speech.\u201d<\/p>\n A 64-year-old retired scientist named\u00a0Livia Tossici-Bolt was arrested for standing outside an abortion clinic holding a sign that read, \u201cHere to talk, if you want.\u201d\u00a0 Her trial is pending.<\/p>\n When Scotland\u2019s national law, which was approved with only one \u201cnay\u201d vote, went to effect in September, people who lived within that 200 meter radius were sent a letter.\u00a0 \u00a0Kearns of The Free Press<\/em> talked to a young woman who lived nearby and who sometimes invited fellow pro-lifers to her flat.<\/p>\n The letter informed her that her home is in the abortion censorship zone and explained that\u00a0even \u201cactivities in a private place (such as a house) within the area could be an offence if they can be seen or heard within the Zone and are done intentionally or recklessly.\u201d\u00a0 She was informed that an offender could be fined \u00a310,000 (over $13,000).\u00a0 The letter also included a snitch provision:\u00a0 \u201cYou can report a group or an individual that you think is breaking the law,\u201d adding contact information for doing so.<\/p>\n The UK already has anti-harassment laws that would cover the situations proponents of the law say they want to stop.\u00a0 But to date, there has not been a single complaint against pro-lifers for harassing anyone.\u00a0 In fact, the Free Press<\/em> interviewed several\u00a0 women who said how they appreciated the presence of the pro-life volunteers, that they didn\u2019t\u00a0want an abortion but felt they had to, but were offered by the volunteers material help that led them to keep their baby.\u00a0 \u201cThey\u2019re not forcing anyone,\u201d said one of the women. \u201cThey\u2019re just peacefully standing there. . . If you don\u2019t want help, you can just ignore them and walk on.\u201d<\/p>\n What the UK has criminalized is \u201cinfluence.\u201d\u00a0 It is a crime to influence a woman not to get an abortion.\u00a0 She supposedly has \u201cchoice,\u201d and yet only the choice to have an abortion is protected.\u00a0 If she wants to make an informed choice, or just to hear the other side, no one within 200 meters of an abortion clinic is allowed to \u201cinfluence\u201d her.<\/p>\n Pro-abortion activists in the United States have pushed through similar \u201cbuffer zones\u201d in Colorado, Massachusetts, Montana, and a number of cities (see this<\/a>).\u00a0 But the longest such zone is only 100 feet\u2013less than one sixth the size of the UK zone\u2013and American civil liberties curb some of the restrictions.<\/p>\nA Salient Question on Transgenderism in Sports<\/h4>\n
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More Arrests in UK for Praying, Thinking, and Influencing<\/h4>\n