Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Over at “SkepticalScience”, which is neither skeptical nor scientific, they’re hyping a new “Artificial Intelligence” (AI) tool developed by John Cook et al. to identify “denialist claims”. The paper laying out this foolishness is in Nature Scientific Reports in an article with the most sciency title of “Computer-assisted classification of contrarian claims about climate change“. The Washington Post reports what they want to do …
“Ultimately, our goal is the Holy Grail of fact-checking, which is being able to detect and debunk misinformation in real time,” said Cook, who partly developed the framework previously at George Mason University. “Ideally, I would have social media platforms using it to detect misinformation in real time.”
Their hope is to use it to censor views that disagree with theirs “in real time” … can you imagine anything more anti-scientific and totalitarian than wanting to disappear scientists who disagree with you before anyone can even read their ideas?
In the Nature paper, Cook and the Cookies describe their work as follows:
Let’s start with a quick, 10-word introduction to climate change. There are 5 key facts that summarize everything you need to know about climate change. And they are:
1. It’s real
2. It’s us
3. It’s bad
4. There’s hope
5. Experts agree
We’ve developed a taxonomy of denialist claims that aim to cast doubt on climate science. Climate misinformation can be broken into five main categories, which we call super-claims. They’re the opposite of the five climate beliefs: it’s not real, it’s not us, it’s not bad, experts are unreliable and there’s no hope.
1. It’s not real
2. It’s not us
3. It’s not bad
4. Experts are unreliable
5. There’s no hope
When I saw this, I broke out laughing. Why? Because in total contradiction to point 4 immediately above, that experts are not unreliable, one of the finest physicists of my lifetime, Richard Feynman, famously said:
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”
Feynman is 100% correct. If no one ever questioned the claims of “experts”, science would come to an immediate halt. Einstein questioned Newton. Wegener questioned immobile continents. Science is the slow process of overturning the “scientific consensus” by scientists who question the beliefs of the experts. Feynman was right.
So clearly, the folks putting together this ludicrous “artificial intelligence” tool have no idea how science is supposed to work … and with that as its basis, there’s no hope for this tool.
Look, I’ve been programming computers for fifty-seven years now, longer than John Cook has been alive. And one thing I’ve found to be true, at times to my cost:
Computer programs are nothing but a physical embodiment of the understandings and more importantly the misunderstandings of the programmer.
And as a result, when you start out by programming “artificial intelligence” with a profound misunderstanding of science, as John Cook and his workmates are doing, you’ll end up with artificial stupidity every time.
In any case, here is a full list of their sub-categories of their five main categories of “denialist claims” listed above. Headers are in bold. (And in passing, anyone using the term “denialist” is not a scientist—they’re pseudo-scientists trying to discredit their opponents by a personal attack rather than a scientific falsification of their opponents’ ideas … but I digress.)
1 : Global warming is not happening
1.1 : Ice/permafrost/snow cover isn’t melting
1.1.1 : Antarctica is gaining ice/not warming
1.1.2 : Greenland is gaining ice/not melting
1.1.3 : Arctic sea ice isn’t vanishing
1.1.4 : Glaciers aren’t vanishing
1.2 : We’re heading into an ice age/global cooling
1.3 : Weather is cold/snowing
1.4 : Climate hasn’t warmed/changed over the last (few) decade(s)
1.5 : Oceans are cooling/not warming
1.6 : Sea level rise is exaggerated/not accelerating
1.7 : Extreme weather isn’t increasing/has happened before/isn’t linked to climate change
1.8 : They changed the name from ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change’
2 : Human greenhouse gases are not causing climate change
2.1 : It’s natural cycles/variation
2.1.1 : It’s the sun/cosmic rays/astronomical
2.1.2 : It’s geological (includes volcanoes)
2.1.3 : It’s the ocean/internal variability
2.1.4 : Climate has changed naturally/been warm in the past
2.1.5 : Human CO2 emissions are tiny compared to natural CO2 emission
2.2 : It’s non-greenhouse gas human climate forcings (aerosols, land use)
2.3 : There’s no evidence for greenhouse effect/carbon dioxide driving climate change
2.3.1 : Carbon dioxide is just a trace gas
2.3.2 : Greenhouse effect is saturated/logarithmic
2.3.3 : Carbon dioxide lags/not correlated with climate change
2.3.4 : Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
2.3.5 : There’s no tropospheric hot spot
2.3.6 : CO2 was higher in the past
2.4 : CO2 is not rising/ocean pH is not falling
2.5 : Human CO2 emissions are miniscule/not raising atmospheric CO2
3 : Climate impacts/global warming is beneficial/not bad
3.1 : Climate sensitivity is low/negative feedbacks reduce warming
3.2 : Species/plants/reefs aren’t showing climate impacts yet/are benefiting from climate change
3.2.1 : Species can adapt to global warming
3.2.2 : Polar bears are not in danger from climate change
3.2.3 : Ocean acidification/coral impacts aren’t serious
3.3 : CO2 is beneficial/not a pollutant
3.3.1 : CO2 is plant food
3.4 : It’s only a few degrees (or less)
3.5 : Climate change does not contribute to human conflict/threaten national security
3.6 : Climate change doesn’t negatively impact health
4 : Climate solutions won’t work
4.1 : Climate policies (mitigation or adaptation) are harmful
4.1.1 : Climate policy will increase costs/harm economy/kill jobs
4.1.2 : Proposed action would weaken national security/national sovereignty/cause conflict
4.1.3 : Proposed action would actually harm the environment and species
4.1.4 : Future generations will be richer and better able to adapt
4.1.5 : Climate policy limits liberty/freedom/capitalism
4.2 : Climate policies are ineffective/flawed
4.2.1 : Clean energy/green jobs/businesses won’t work
4.2.2 : Markets/private sector are economically more efficient than government policies
4.2.3 : Climate policy will make negligible difference to climate change
4.2.4 : A single country/region only contributes a small % of global emissions
4.2.5 : Better to adapt/geoengineer/increase resiliency
4.2.6 : Climate action is pointless because of China/India/other countries’ emissions
4.2.7 : We should invest in technology/reduce poverty/disease first
4.3 : It’s too hard to solve
4.3.1 : Climate policy is politically/legally/economically/technically too difficult
4.3.2 : Media/public support/acceptance is low/decreasing
4.4 : Clean energy technology/biofuels won’t work
4.4.1 : Clean energy/biofuels are too expensive/unreliable/counterproductive/harmful
4.4.2 : Carbon Capture & Sequestration (CCS) is unproven/expensive
4.5 : People need energy (e.g., from fossil fuels/nuclear)
4.5.1 : Fossil fuel reserves are plentiful
4.5.2 : Fossil fuels are cheap/good/safe for society/economy/environment
4.5.3 : Nuclear power is safe/good for society/economy/environment
5 : Climate movement/science is unreliable
5.1 : Climate-related science is uncertain/unsound/unreliable (data, methods & models)
5.1.1 : There’s no scientific consensus on climate/the science isn’t settled
5.1.2 : Proxy data is unreliable (includes hockey stick)
5.1.3 : Temperature record is unreliable
5.1.4 : Models are wrong/unreliable/uncertain
5.2 : Climate movement is alarmist/wrong/political/biased/hypocritical (people or groups)
5.2.1 : Climate movement is religion
5.2.2 : Media (including bloggers) is alarmist/wrong/political/biased
5.2.3 : Politicians/government/UN are alarmist/wrong/political/biased
5.2.4 : Environmentalists are alarmist/wrong/political/biased
5.2.5 : Scientists/academics are alarmist/wrong/political/biased
5.3 : Climate change (science or policy) is a conspiracy (deception)
5.3.1 : Climate policy/renewables is a hoax/scam/conspiracy/secretive
5.3.2 : Climate science is a hoax/scam/conspiracy/secretive/money-motivated (includes climategate)
Let me wander through and comment on a few of these. I’ll start with their very first “denialist claim”, the top of the list:
1.1.1 : Antarctica is gaining ice/not warming
Nature Magazine, a premier scientific journal and a huge defender of the anthropogenic climate change hypothesis, has an article on the subject which says:
The Antarctic continent has not warmed in the last seven decades, despite a monotonic increase in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases.
Ooops …
So clearly, Nature Magazine is a secret nest of climate “denialists” whose claims should be censored before anyone can be misled by them … and while that example alone should be enough to totally discredit their artificial stupidity, it’s just the first of many.
1.3 : Weather is cold/snowing
So it’s gonna identify articles pointing out that while in most of the media heatwaves are always explained as climate change, cold spells are just plain old weather …
1.6 : Sea level rise is exaggerated/not accelerating
I’ve shown that sea-level rise is both exaggerated by improperly splicing satellite data to tide gauges, and is not accelerating. See “Inside The Acceleration Factory” and “Munging The Sea Level Data“. Those are scientific analyses of the subject, not “denialist claims”. I deny nothing—I investigate and report back, wherein I demonstrate and cite and support what I find.
1.7 : Extreme weather has happened before
Seriously? This is a climate denialist claim? Are they truly trying to say that there’s never been extreme weather before? How about this?
Pointing out that 200-year drought is not “denialism”. It’s science.
2.3.6 : CO2 was higher in the past
This is widely accepted scientific fact … why is it somehow a mark of “climate denialism”?
3.1 : Climate sensitivity is low/negative feedbacks reduce warming
Both of these are the subject of active scientific debate and dispute. One of the huge failures of mainstream climate science is their inability to determine climate sensitivity. Pretending this is settled is unscientific to the core.
And as is obvious from the name, negative feedbacks reduce warming … the scientific question is not “Do negative feedbacks reduce warming.” The question, about which there is little agreement, is “How much?”
3.2 : Species/plants/reefs aren’t showing climate impacts yet/are benefiting from climate change
For most species, including humans and coral reefs, a change of a degree in average temperature over fifty years means nothing. We see more temperature change than that every day, month, and year. Here are the noted “climate denialists”, National Geographic, in a piece entitled These 38 Coral Reefs Are Thriving, Despite Threats.
And in general, plants have benefitted from the additional carbon dioxide, leading to the “global greening” noted by NOAA. But heck, they’re just a government agency, so they must be closeted “climate denialists” too …
3.2.1 : Species can adapt to global warming
Protip: Species are amazingly resilient. If they weren’t, they’d have gone extinct millennia ago. Adaptation is what they do, 24/7/365.
3.2.2 : Polar bears are not in danger from climate change
This is absolutely true, beyond dispute. They are thriving. Why is this still in question?
Well, by chance I got an example of why this is in question. I was listening to an ad from the World Wildlife Federation (WWF) today, and guess who their poster child for fundraising is?
Gosh, you got it first try … polar bears. You too can “adopt” a polar bear for a mere $60.
And why haven’t the WWF folks noticed that the polar bears are doing quite well, thank you very much? Well, as Upton Sinclair said,
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
Sure ‘nuf …
4.1.4 : Future generations will be richer and better able to adapt
Again, this is obviously true … how on earth is this “denialism”?
4.2.2 : Markets/private sector are economically more efficient than government policies
Um … duh. Markets and the private sector have penalties for inefficiencies. Governments have no such constraints, which is why the California “train to nowhere” that was supposed to cost $33 billion and be finished by 2020 is now up to $100 billion, unfinished, and the cost is still rising.
4.2.3 : Climate policy will make negligible difference to climate change
Yes, we’ve all seen how amazingly effective climate policy has been to date.
4.3.1 : Climate policy is politically/legally/economically/technically too difficult
Some is, some isn’t … but “Net-Zero By 2050” is all of those things.
4.5.2 : Fossil fuels are cheap
Again, duh … it’s why we use them.
4.5.3 : Nuclear power is safe/good for society/economy/environment
Nuclear power is all of those things. It is also the only carbon-free baseline power source available. If you think carbon dioxide is a problem and you don’t support nuclear, you’re either a virtue-signaling poser or an idiot.
5.1.1 : There’s no scientific consensus on climate/the science isn’t settled
I turn again to the amazing Richard Feynman, a hundred times the scientist that these artificial stupidity proponents will ever be, who said:
“If you thought that science was certain, well, that is just an error on your part.”
Feynman was a true genius and an honest scientist.
5.1.2 : Proxy data is unreliable (includes hockey stick)
Proxy data is indeed unreliable, which is why different proxies for the same variable often differ by so much. And as for the Hockeystick, that’s a scientific joke. See Steve McIntyre’s extensive falsifications here, and my own comments on it here.
5.1.3 : Temperature record is unreliable
Ummm … since the temperature records from Berkeley Earth and JMA and UAH MSU and HadCRUT and RSS MSU and GISS all disagree with each other … just which one of them are we supposed to believe is “reliable”?
5.1.4 : Models are wrong/unreliable/uncertain
As noted above, the models cannot even agree on an equilibrium climate sensitivity … so it’s clear that either all or almost all of them are wrong. And despite that, they all do quite well at hindcasting the past. How can that even be possible?
5.2.2 : Media (including bloggers) is alarmist/political/biased
5.2.3 : Politicians/government/UN are alarmist/political/biased
5.2.4 : Environmentalists are alarmist/political/biased
5.2.5 : Scientists/academics are alarmist/political/biased
Double duh … it would take a double-dose either natural or artificial stupidity to not have noticed that.
5.3.2 : Climate science is a hoax/scam/conspiracy/secretive/money-motivated (includes climategate)
I try not to ascribe to malice what is adequately explained by ignorance … but regarding Climategate, I was forced to make an exception. You see, I knew what was actually happening because I was the first person to make a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to Phil Jones and the rest of the liars at the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit. I describe their conspiratorial conniving in my post called “Freedom Of Information, My Okole“. And here’s the irrepressible James Delingpole with Climategate 10 Years On – The Bastards Have Got Away With It!
So … those are just a few of the clearly true and totally defensible scientific claims that will demonstrate to the Artificial Stupidity Program that you are an eeeevil climate denialist …
The only good news out of all of this?
Clearly, John Cook and the Cookies are getting desperate … because when you actually think your scientific claims are solid, there’s no reason to conjure up some bogus “AI” program to automatically censor your scientific opponents.
Here in our lovely forest, we’re expecting three days of rain. It’s only December, but we’ve already gotten two inches (5 cm) more rain than all of the last rain year (which around here goes from October to September). Of course, last year was a drought year, which as the graph above demonstrated is quite common in California. And again of course, everyone was blaming the drought on “CLIMATE CHANGE! WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE! EVERYONE PANIC!” … but this year not a word.
How come climate change is so one-sided that it only gets blamed for the bad weather and is never credited for the good weather?
And so, having now firmly established my “climate denialist” credentials, all I can do is wait until the Artificial Stupidity program engages the Climate Thought Police to disappear my heresies … because everyone knows that’s how the very best science works in the 21st century.
My best to all,
w.
As Is My Wont: I ask that when you comment, you quote the exact words you are referring to, so we can all be clear just what and who you are discussing.
Rules#1
A model models what the modeler models it to model.
Rule #2
Artificial intelligence is no more intelligent than the least intelligent element of the artificial intelligence program.
Rule #3
Elites lie, censor, and defame in order to create and maintain their power. Computer models, search engines, and artificial intelligence are tools used to maintain elite power.
The three axioms for maintaining some semblance of sanity in this chaotic world.
“Clearly, James Cook and the Cookies are getting desperate … “
James Cook was an 18th Century British Naval officer; a magnificent navigator and cartographer.
John Cook shares the same surname.
Yeah, fixed, thanks.
w.
G’Day Old Cocky,
Just something to add to the Cook story:
“Did you know that Capt. James Cook, who discovered the Sandwich Islands, now the Hawaiian Islands, brought barrels of “sour kroutt” on his many voyages to eliminate scurvy?
https://www.thekrautguy.com/blog/a-short-short-history-of-sauerkraut/
That delves up something from deep sub-levels of the memory archives. I remember he was keen on citrus, particularly lime, as a way of preventing scurvy.
Yes, another thing to add to his achievements.
Willis – thank you for your service to humanity.
Ken, I consider myself the most fortunate man on the planet.
I grew up on a cattle ranch, and among many other adventures since then, I’ve sailed the oceans, played in a bar band with drunk Indians in Alaska (and was drunk myself), slept on the streets of New York, been the Chief Financial Officer of a company with $40 million in sales, did the crime and did the time, been held up at gunpoint on a remote South Pacific coral atoll, fished the mighty Kenai River, mined for gold in the Sierras, ridden the freight trains, blackmailed a Japanese Ambassador, and been the piano man in a Manila whorehouse.
Now I live with my gorgeous ex-fiancee, my daughter and her husband, and our two grandkids (2 years, and 2 months), in a rambling house I built with my own hands in the California redwood forest. Here’s the view of the ocean from my kitchen.
So I wake up every morning to that most magical of sounds … tiny feet running across the living room floor.
What better life could any man want?
So I could give back forever in “service to humanity” and never begin to even the scales.
My best to you, and thanks for your kind words.
w.
A quick survey done by me;
In the last week, the number of comments at WUWT has totalled just over 7700.
Not too shabby.
Meanwhile, over at John Cook’s wing-nut SkS site, since the 15th of November they have managed to attract a total of…..
. …. wait for it….
. …. 75 comments
Thats 75 they’ve accepted. They blatantly reject anything not selling or accepting the kool aide!
True!
Since November 15 at WUWT there have been about 20,000 comments posted with about 1 MILLION views.
You can bet that a fair number of those were lost and arrived looking for some other site.
I remember there used to be a contest every year to see which sites, in various categories, got the most votes and or viewers.
Did they decide to retire the trophy because WUWT kept winning it?
We’ll, it would get boring watching WUWT trounce the alarmist sites every year, wouldn’t it? 😉
Every program with more than 1 line of code has an undiscovered bug.
True, Ed, and unlike other living creatures, code bugs breed via death …
…
… how do I know that?
…
Because whenever I manage to kill one bug, it generally creates two new bugs …
w.
With programming, that would be a win. Typically when I swat one bug, QA finds 20 new ones.
Bjørn Lomborg satisfies some of John Cook’s ‘denier’ conditions. I wonder what he would think of that?
Cook’s “AI” is merely a text search and parse algorithm. Pretty basic stuff.
I was just thinking about that when I read your post. It he really was using artificial intelligence it wouldn’t need Cook at all. It would be doing its own analysis and not the musings of a credulous mental midget. True artificial intelligence would have cancelled the entire alarmunist program years ago.
More than that, more like a spam filter used on an email system. Look at the creds of the lead author. That guy searches for terrorists based upon their writing style. Me thinks the cook hired a terrorist hunter to do this work. Also, if you read the paper, they must have had had a pretty good budget. I wonder who funds that.
“…There’s no hope for this tool.”
Right.
Too funny: SkS have been pushing an alarmist “educator” called Melaine Trecek-King, who appears to go around schools forcing her alarmist twaddle on unsuspecting children. The best bit about the whole thing is that she has a teaching “tool” she claims helps students carry out critical thinking correctly. She calls it “Floater”
I’ve tried to be a kind soul and pointed out to her in the comments section on her blog that “floater” is a slang term for a turd in a toilet bowl. I told her that kids will be laughing at her behind her back. What’s the betting my helpful comment won’t get past her blog moderation?
Don’t get in the way of a fool making an idiot of themselves. You shouldn’t have said anything.
Floater is also the slang used for a dead body (typically a suicide) floating in the SF Bay.
It’s also used by eye doctors to refer to floating spots in a person’s eyes.
BAD SCIENCE
Artificial Intelligence Implies Artificial Stupidity
=======
Implies Actual Stupidy
The proof AI isn’t really intelligent is, it doesn’t “writeln” “The programmer is an moron”.
If AI existed at all, there would be no need for a programmer interfering. We’d just start it up and the system would just get on with it. It certainly wouldn’t need an intellectual dead end like Cook to misdirect its logic.
What ever the way is, the so called AI has to know, what to do when starting.
Arguing for nuclear power – the only way to decarbonise power production – is meant to be a “denialist claim”???
4.5.3 : Nuclear power is safe/good for society/economy/environment
This revealing anti-logic shows that the very last thing that the likes of oberleutnantfuhrer Cook and his colleagues want is any actual solution to global warming and CO2 assuming they even need a solution.
But showing themselves to be antinuclear makes it 200% clear that they don’t really even see CO2 as a problem – if they did then they would embrace nuclear power. Many environmentalists do embrace it of course, like Shellenberger, with more intelligence than everyone at SS skeptical science combined. The problem with the likes of Shellenberger is that they are honest – they think CO2 climate effects are a real problem needing a real solution. Unlike oberleutnantfuhrer Cook they don’t realise the climate thing is pure pantomime and just a vehicle for the political agenda. Their attitude to nuclear makes that clear enough.
Beautiful – thanks Willis.
Cook rides the “Gish Gallop” on climate skepticism!
🏇
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop
Great article WE. I’ve saved it and printed it and bookmarked it.
“Clearly, John Cook and the Cookies are getting desperate” Oh, I wish you were right but I am not so sure. My gut is saying that they are getting emboldened and they think their “artificial Intelligence” will put the final nail in the sceptics coffin. Remember, they got their idiotic 97% diatribe past almost every politician, bureaucrat and journalist without really trying – it was swallowed hook, line and sinker. I see it as entirely possible that the same will happen again with this AI crap. These guys appeal to the non-scientific public (which means most people) for the very reason that they use glossed up pretender language that sounds like science and is easily understood.
And we should do the same (keep it understandable to Joe public), and keep the science and stats for when they are really needed. We show our hand too early on the really important points and then the activist spin doctors, and fact checkers, gazump us. I told a playing partner at golf about glaciers melting and trees appearing, polar bears, sea level rise, temperature rise from 1850 to 1940 vs rise from 1940 to present, cyclonic energy, weather disasters, worst floods and droughts ( it was a slow round!) and he was astounded at these few basic facts. The public wants simple, understandable facts.
AI is “bullshit baffles brains”. Not understanding the subject most assume AI has some sort of god-like mystical power to solve problems humans cannot.
When you are browsing the internet and an ad pops up for the exact thing you were thinking of buying it might be chance, but it might not be. There are vast AI networks already in place feeding you ads based on your behavior.
What happened is your browsing behavior matched someone that previously bought product X. The AI engine recognized that and fed you an ad for Product X, before you asked for it.
Is this intelligence? It is no different than a waiter watching your glass and offering another round before your glass is empty.
In Cook’s case it looks like they are trying to play whack a mole on the internet. Using something like the ad server in reverse to predict what pages need to be removed.
This is likely to lead to adaptation. Perhaps the word “not” for example will increase in significance.
I was talking on my iPhone to another person one time recently, and happened to mention the “Ring Doorbell” in the conversation. I was shopping on Amazon using the iPhone, when I got the call, and when the call ended, I continued shopping and when I paged down one screen from where I was when the call came in, and there on the next page was an advertisement for a Ring Doorbell. I wasn’t shopping for doorbells at the time, I was looking for something completely different but this Ring Doorbell ad was inserted right in the middle of all the other, unrelated items on the page.
I don’t think this was a coincidence. 🙂
well said Willis / Peter M Native Sun
Thanks, Peter. Is that the fishing boat “Native Sun” that I used to fish on when Darrell was the skipper?
w.
W. ==> ” Antarctica is gaining ice ” See Zwally et al. (2021) — maybe gaining, maybe losing, but ind=significantly.
I think the following is more accurate
1. It’s real
2. It’s us2. We have had a part to play
3. It’s bad3. It is likely to have pros and cons. So far, on balance, its been good
4. There’s hope4. We should concentrate on mitigation rather than prevention for any bad effects
5. Experts agree5. Experts are learning all the time.
I’m not sure I agree with
5. Experts are learning all the time.
It appears many of the “experts” refuse to learn.
I was being nice.
Didn’t you mean “we should concentrate on adaptation”?
I know how computers work. Learned all about it starting back in 1966. One of my teachers was Rowland Emmett who Invented the Forget-Me-Not computer.
https://flic.kr/p/gsuQ12 <– see it here. Click on the right margin to see more pages. And you can click on the images to see a magnified view.
Haha, tell me you’re not desperate and out of arguments—after you automate rebuttals—without telling me you’re not desperate and out of arguments.
The best argument I have is NOAA data showing sea level rise at a relatively static rate.
The intelligence is artificial, but I’m afraid the stupidity is all too genuine.
My thoughts exactly..
Cookie has no business being a scientist – his original (cartoonist) vocation tells us as much.
Why: He patently has no idea what computers are, what they do or how they do it APART from what everybody ‘knows’ = Computers are always right
The computer for him is thus a a very potent Authority. That someone/anyone needs such an authority should set alarm bells ringing.
But also, cartoonists are actors/actresses (of a fashion), people who like to be seen, to be adored and constantly have praise heaped upon them.
So, what Cookie is doing here is building an Authority in his own likeness – he is programming a computer – a device to magnify his desire for power, to reinforce his idea that he is ‘always right about everything‘ but also be something people will fawn over
He is building A God in his own likeness – hoping that legions of fawning acolytes will descend and basically, stroke his ego?
Should that guy be in a hospital or a university?
But no-one seems to really notice, he is but one out of hundreds and thousands inside climate science alone – he is not especially unusual.
It is not a healthy picture is it.
Given that 1-in-40 children are now diagnosed as definite Autistic and that autism is not an On-Off disorder – where do you even start to count the subclinical cases and the undiagnosed?
Where does Confirmation Bias or Cherry Picking fit in. What about plain old Magical Thinking, belligerence and stubbornness?
Are they natural or artificial personality traits – are they nature, nurture or self-inflicted?
How do you even know if you yourself is or is not suffering a cognitive or mental impairment?
(If you are even ‘just’ pre-diabetic, take care throwing stones lest you be in a glass house – simply ‘a bit’ on the overweight side will suffice esp if you have been for some time)
It seems to me, the Climate Experts are Pygmalion and the various computer creations are their Galatea. However, intelligence can never come from a computer program, artificial or otherwise.
I’ve talked with a few people about artificial intelligence. What I find most interesting is how people think it will be smarter than almost everyone from the outset. I think it will be more like a 2-year-old that hasn’t mastered potty training yet.
If we pay 60 bucks to the WWF to sponsor a white bear, can we feed vegan greenies to them?
Won’t be as fat as seals.
Nice work.
Perhaps WUWT readers can construct an artificial intelligence program to highlight alarmist claims:
* Climate emergency
* Climate crisis
* Climate models
* Tipping point
* It’s worse than we thought
* Might
* Could
* IPCC
*RCP 8.5
*proven
*settled science
*97%
*Cook