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They should just swap the first letters - the Tronald Dump.

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/10/donald-trumps-lies-are-just-getting-more-blatant-here-are-the-worst/?utm_source=lgbtqnation&utm_medium=directlink&utm_campaign=directlink

You've got to hand it to the Canadians. He wants his name on everything, so they've named a public toilet the Donald Trump Memorial.

rather sobering for the fans

Unfortunately the USofA is showing the no government has the power to over-rule these mega wealthy individuals. Until now we grew accustomed to the elites having more of their own way than commoners. But the extreme wealth of today's top .1% allows the tech bros to have their own unchallengable top tier of power.

Provided you know where it's gone.

Chump isn't known as one of the more responsible leaders of our time. Sadly he is at the helm precisely when we don't need him. Anthropic has for a long time called out the warning and put the brakes on or the use of offensive purposes by defence (now war) departments. That was the origin of the spat with Chump and, ironically, export controls of the model that had stronger guardrails than most. I did neglect to mention one of the issues of AI. AI mimics human intelligence - all things good and not good. Like humans, it self-propagates and evolves. Unlike humans, it does it a lot faster. But also unlike humans, it can be switched off.

It is interesting that the people doing the AI development work are now issuing warnings that the AI horse is kicking at the corral gate, thretening to bolt from all control. You know there is something amiss when the boss of Anthropic is one of those calling out warnings. However, we know that it is corporate greed that is ignoring these warnings.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-14/irish-reunification-natural-trump-says/107148712 Despite the text, the link is actually about how Trump thinks everything is ok with AI and it's just "very negative" people who worry about it. So now I'm really concerned.

I have to admit, I am not normally against people accumulating vast amounts of wealth. Again, that is based on an economic structure where the wealth did trickle down at least to those who participated - the labour force. However, the rules are changing. While I am sure if you asked one of the LLM/generative AI solutions to build you your own AI competitor, they would reneg, there is nothing in the core model that would not allow them to do it. In other words, in terms of product development, it is almost a perpetual motion machine already.. Of course, ti still requires people, but disproportionately fewer for the output - and significantly so. On that basis, trickle of wealth down will be slower than an old fella's pipe without the magic tablets they take. So, on that basis, again, the wealth will have to be forced to trickle down by outside regulation - so at some stage a) the clamps have to be put on or b) there is a point at which that wealth is taxed. Of course there will be cries that it is paper wealth and if they cashed it out it would impact the share price of investors which includes pension funds. Of course, it doesn't have to be cashed out. The government can automatically take a stake in the companies that exceed a valuation / employee ratio or something like that.

I don’t think that will get past Natalie.

My wife and I had a good ride yesterday. Weather was absolutely magnificent so we went to Richmond via the lovely bends of Grasstree Hill. At one point, coming the other way were half a dozen bikes which I exchanged nods with (no waving in the twisty bits!) - but the last one in line was a police bike. We don't know if he'd pulled out and was about to book them, or if it was a training ride (although they didn't look like learners), or if it was just a bored cop who decided to have a bit of fun himself. We had lunch at Pooleys vineyard, then went via Tea Tree and Brighton back to Hobart. After a coffee with Kate's brother we headed home via Taroona, which is also a great road for bikes. Very enjoyable day.

"Waved", or "gesticulated for the offender to pull over".... It's all in the perspective. 😜

Yes - these models are being built by billionaire tech bros, as a cohort possibly the most amoral set of scoundrels as exists in the USA. They are completely detached from reality. They have no concept of how normal people live. This AI race is simply a game to them. Why do they care if their company "wins" this race? They already have more money than they could spend in a hundred lifetimes.

True, but I was hoping for a more responsible group to manage it.

Who has tRumpy upset lately... apart from the Irish. This ex Rusky wrote him a open letter. Tis a pity it is lunger than donold's attention span. Hopefully someone will read it to him. https://www.ceedweb.ca/2025/08/19/eduard-topols-open-letter-to-donald-trump-why-putin-cannot-end-the-war-in-ukraine/ On August 11, 2025, Soviet-born writer and filmmaker Eduard Topol published an open letter addressed to former U.S. President Donald Trump. The letter, released by Kontinent, a Russian-language outlet in the United States. In it, Topol argues that Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot stop the war in Ukraine, not because he does not want to, but because history shows that ending foreign wars has often triggered domestic unrest and even regime collapse in Russia. Below is the letter in full. Dear Mr. President! Dear Donald! As the author of fifty books and a dozen films about Russia, I consider myself entitled to inform you. You must know that he (Putin) cannot stop the war with Ukraine, even if you gift him your Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Trump Tower in New York, and a dozen of your golf clubs. And not because he doesn’t want a break from war, but because he simply cannot. Because he knows Russian history not from Medinsky’s textbooks, but the real one: The return of Russian troops from Europe after the victory over Napoleon led to the anti-tsarist “Decembrist” uprising in 1825. Russia’s defeat in the Russo-Japanese War led to the 1905 Revolution. The desertion of a million Russian soldiers from the Russo-German front during World War I forced Emperor Nicholas II to abdicate and caused the February Revolution of 1917. The peace signed by Lenin with Germany allowed the Bolsheviks to execute the entire royal family. The withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in February 1989 marked the beginning of the USSR’s collapse. Knowing this, Putin cannot end the war with Ukraine and bring his troops home. Only the opportunity in May 1945 to keep almost his entire army in Europe as occupation forces helped Stalin avoid a postwar coup. That is why Putin dreams of occupying Ukraine, as well as the Baltics, Finland, Poland, etc., to keep his army far away from Moscow. He remembers how 525,000 soldiers returning from Afghanistan in 1989 turned into bandits—“Afghantsy”—who terrorized the entire population of the USSR. And he knows what will happen if one and a half million soldiers, trained to kill, loot, and rape professionally, return home from the Ukrainian front. The war with Ukraine has allowed Putin to get rid of two million of the most active opponents of his regime, whom he forced to flee Russia, while the rest of the young Russian men he either drove to the front or recruited into punitive services. Today, any war—against Ukraine, the Baltics, NATO, anyone at all—is the best way to enforce Russia’s obedience to Putin and his junta. Unfortunately, none of your advisers will explain this to you before your meeting with Putin, but you can check my arguments with Jack Matlock and Michael McFaul. I do not want Putin—a KGB man, a thief, and a murderer of millions—to keep brazenly deceiving you, lying, and misleading my President. Of course, I am not a military expert or political scientist, but I am a writer with a good memory. I remember how Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II managed to push oil prices down to $9 per barrel, gave the Afghans “Stingers,” and thereby stopped Moscow’s takeover of Afghanistan and destroyed the USSR. If you want to stop Putin and the imperial ambitions of at least half of Russia’s population, you need to do the same—bring oil prices down to at least $25 per barrel and give Ukraine the weapons that will help it crush the aggressor. As for your desire to establish U.S.-Russian business partnerships, not in words but in reality, this could happen in a hundred years—or never at all. If you are interested in why, call me and I will explain. Respectfully, EDUARD TOPOL, citizen of the U.S. and Israel

My daughter moved into a house in Exeter yesterday with two others ahead of the start of the new academic year. I decided to use the bike to deliver some odds and sods and go for my first decent ride in a couple of months - after the best summer we have had for riding for ages. It was about an hour each way, country lanes and roads to the motorway and then through Exeter to her house. The ride on the motorway was relaxed, maintaining around 70mph. A few groups of bikes passed and we all waved to each other - excellent comradery amongst UK bikers. From the motorway, travelling to and through the main part of Exeter is a pain as it is single lane, busy and has buses. It is often little more than a traffic jam. But with the bike, filtering between the two oncoming lanes was a breeze. Cars move out of your way and when passing or facing oncoming wider vehicles (buses mainly), one just zips back in and everything is OK. Passed two police cars who waved as I went past. On the way back, the traffic was a little lighter and I was a little faster on the motorway. Weather was lovely - sunny, little wind, and about 18 degrees, although a little humid. I return the rental car today. And will go for a ride again after that. Still smiling. The dark blue was the route I took

Yes.. but by my paralleing AI to guns, regulation is required to force it to slow down. However, emerging news is: https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/sam-altman-elon-musk-ai-safety-concerns-b3049217.html Which basically says there is a need to slow down. The other problem is you have China and no doubt Russia and other non-aligned countries who will not slow down any time soon.. so, again in an analogy of weapons, you're only as strong as the effectiveness of what you've got. There has to be some sort of verifiable global non-proliferation agreement. Ultimately, like everything else in a free market, it takes government regulation to manage the risks.

There already is. There is a small number of very wealthy tech moguls (independant of political pressure, of course) looking after all that.

The major AI developers in the US recognise the risks and don't seem to be averse to some kind of regulation or constraint on development, but none of them wants to be the first to slow down because they're all in competition with each other and have huge sums of borrowed money tied up in development with very little return on investment to show for it so far. They can't afford to stop and seem to be hoping the government will step in and do something, which the current administration certainly won't. Another reason they won't slow down is that unless there's an international agreement, which will never happen, they will be worried that China or Europe will get the upper hand. I think we're on a rocky road with great potential for positive benefits but also lots of opportunity for things to go off the rails. I saw a report today that the Houtis were using Claude to design them a new missile until Anthropic got wind of it and stopped them.

Thanks for your insight Jerry. I've been thinking in recent times about some of the points you raised, but don't have your skills in articulating it. The up side of it will be some amazing stuff no doubt. Medical advances, business, construction and engineering, and maybe no more aeroplane crashes because of software glitches. Compare space programs using AI to that movie set in the 1960's, Hidden Figures, where they used human computers. Imagining the benefits is the easier part; trying to predict the dangers and regulate them before it's entrenched is the hard part. At this stage, it's a bit like the big bad wolf offering us a big bag of lollies with one hand. It's the other hand behind his back that's the concern, and whether it's holding a big stick. The potential is certainly there for bad governments and bad actors to suppress people. In times past when it came to the subject of government interference in our lives, it's been said 'why would they bother with the average person'. That's very true when it comes to economy of scale and the high cost of doing so. It often doesn't pass the cost vs benefit test, but with advances in AI, all that cost and difficulty in pursuing it goes out the window. If it's not regulated and dealt with properly, it could lead to mass unemployment and poverty, along with the associated crime and outright anarchy. As Jerry indicated, our financial system is based around milking the punters. If those punters no longer have jobs or money to target, the whole house of cards will tumble.

I was reading an article related to the tennis at the U.S. Open and there was some mention of the American player Jessica Pegula. I don't think any of them are in professional tennis just for the money, but Jessica Pegula is one certainly doing it for the love of the game if her family wealth is anything to go by. Her father made his money in oil, gas and energy, and her family own two sporting teams with an estimated value of eleven billion dollars, so she's not short of a quid.

What is the difference between a politician and a hooker? A hooker stops screwing you when the money runs out.

At the time, a conductor's wage probably was enough.

It's all a man needs, ever...... And maybe also a little cash to buy the wine.