The new AI spam comment generator is very very clever

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m a connoisseur of blog spam. I’ve seen a great deal of it in my time, almost always trapped in the spam filter.

I’d divide it into several categories. The first is the simple advertisement, usually for porn websites. It features a bunch of heavy-handed sexual terms, often quite far-out, and is of course designed to get you to click on a link. Sometimes the ad is for something else, something decidedly un-sexy like aluminum siding. Then there are the ads in a different language. I don’t know what they’re for because they appear as a long series of question marks and other punctuation marks, sometimes enormously long.

Perhaps the next-largest number of spam comments are the ones that praise the blogger and take the form of something like, “Oh, you’re so wonderful, so insightful, so fabulous. I’ve bookmarked this site and will be sure to come back again.” Of course, like all spam, they also contain a link to some other site that is what they’re really promoting either by getting you to click on it or by manipulating the algorithm that deals with search engine ranking.

Closely akin to those are the ones that ask a technical question of the blogger, for example, “You’ve got the greatest website design, what platform did you use?” And one of my personal favorites: “How do you deal with your spam problem?”

And then there are those that merely copy another comment – one from a real commenter who has already posted a comment on the thread.

But all of a sudden, a couple of days ago, I saw the appearance of a new and very clever type of spam comment. This type almost fooled me into thinking it was from a living and breathing person. Each of these comments was cleverly tailored to fit the blog post on which it appeared, and sounded for all the world like an actual person making a very real and sometimes insightful and simpatico comment.

For example, this one appeared in response to my recent post on the Chauvin case:

I’ve been following this case since day one and my gut says the same thing — prediction right, opinion sadly right too. The jeopardy argument seems legally solid to me but the politics of touching this conviction are just too radioactive. Curious to see if the courts surprise us.

This is not a duplicate of a previous comment. It doesn’t seem to be a duplicate of anything at all, nor is it a generic comment about the Chauvin trial. This is a comment that takes my post and creates something new that is aligned with it and novel, and is responsive to my post rather than just something general on the topic. For example, my post on Chauvin, where the comment appeared, is entitled “There’s a bid to vacate Chauvin’s state conviction,” and it begins this way:

Prediction: it won’t succeed.

Opinion: it absolutely should succeed.

Note that, in the first sentence of the spam comment, you can find the following: “prediction right, opinion sadly right too.” That sounds like a very real comment to the post, coming from a very real person.

But it is actually written by AI. How do I know that? There were many hints:

It was one of a series of about fifteen comments that all came in at approximately the same time. Every single one was placed on a different post, and every single one was just as clever and just as responsive to the post on which it was placed as this example was. These comments came in clusters in terms of the usernames, with two or three comments sharing each username. All fifteen came from the very same IP number, which was a VPN in Asia. But the key feature was that a few of them – although hardly all – mentioned some AI site or other, one that a person can use to make AI videos, for example. There were other elements of AI promotion, usually much more subtle.

It doesn’t surprise me in the least that AI is starting to take over the generation of comment spam in an especially clever manner. I have little doubt that AI has been involved in generating comment spam for a while, but those older versions are much more obviously spam and nowhere near as inventive.

And I would bet that the genre will only become more and more clever and good at masquerading as human. In fact, just writing about the new version’s current flaws here makes me wonder whether it will see and learn from what I’ve written, and improve itself.

Oh brave new world, that has such AI in it.

The Clancy jury apparently will end in a mistrial

The New Neo Posted on by

A mistrial was my prediction, because I think this has been an inherently difficult case to decide and reasonable people can differ. It involves an especially heinous and heartbreaking crime, the murder of three young children by their mother. But I believe there nevertheless is reasonable doubt about Lindsay Clancy’s mental state at the time of the killings (see my previous posts on the case).

What might happen in a second trial? Perhaps a plea deal of some sort; it’s very hard to say.

However, I was surprised to read yesterday that there is apparently only a single juror who is holding out:

The trial of Lindsay Clancy — which has captivated the nation since July — took a bombshell turn on Thursday when it was revealed that there was one juror who disagreed with the rest following 36 hours of intense deliberation.

The news, which came via a note from the forewoman that a single holdout “refuses to listen to the law” on reasonable doubt, left Clancy’s lawyer Kevin Reddington visibly raging — and demanding the person be kicked off the 12-person jury and replaced with an alternate.

The judge did not grant that demand. But it sounds as though the holdout is for a guilty verdict and the rest are not – although, as I’ve said before, I don’t see how Clancy goes free and I don’t think she will, whatever the verdict.

The law in Massachusetts on this is very unusual – in fact, I think it is singular. This is how it works [emphasis mine]:

Once the defense raises the issue of the accused’s mental state at the time of the crime, prosecutors bear the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was criminally responsible, said Daniel Medwed, a university distinguished professor of law.

“In Massachusetts, we don’t typically use the term ‘insanity defense,’” Medwed said, citing the stigma that attaches to the word “insanity.” Instead, it’s referred to as “lack of criminal responsibility.” …

In Massachusetts, the defense may apply when a person’s mental condition prevents them from understanding or controlling their actions at the time of an alleged crime, including during an episode of psychosis. A qualifying mental disease or defect also need not fit a specific medical diagnosis.

You can see how this might lead to a situation in which a holdout juror refuses to listen to the law on reasonable doubt. That’s because the law on this in Massachusetts is very much tilted in favor of the defendant. In other states, the burden of proof for lack of criminal responsibility is different:

In many jurisdictions, insanity is an affirmative defense, meaning the burden falls on the defense to prove that a defendant had “a mental disease or defect” that prevented them from understanding the nature of their actions, Medwed said. But that is not the case in Massachusetts, he said.

Procedurally, that means the defense “doesn’t have to do as much” in the way of persuading jurors compared with other states, according to Medwed.

However, an affirmative defense doesn’t have to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. It needs to be proved by a preponderance of the evidence or clear and convincing evidence, defending on the jurisdiction.

The state of things as I write these words is this:

The judge in Lindsay Clancy’s trial has given the defense one hour to make an emergency appeal before declaring a mistrial. …

A filing from Lindsay Clancy’s defense attorney has been submitted to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, according to the clerk’s office.

And the court is on lunch break.

California doesn’t really care if you’re a citizen or not when you vote

The New Neo Posted on by

A feature, not a bug:

First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli said that the arrest of the Honduran national in California for allegedly unlawfully registering to vote shows the state’s vulnerability.

Essayli told Bill Melugin on Fox News:

“This case really highlights the vulnerability in California’s voter rolls. They basically allow anybody to register to vote on the honor system. There’s nobody in government that is checking to confirm you’re a citizen, and in fact, in this case, he on the form put down a California driver’s license and a social, which he had because he has a visa that does not prove you’re a citizen. And according to the Secretary of State, they say at least half a million people don’t even provide that information when they register to vote.”

The Democrats have decided this is in their best interests. It could easily be corrected, but is not.

It makes one wonder just how blue California would be if there was actual voting security. I think it would still be blue, but not as overwhelmingly. We may never know, because it’s hard to imagine that the Democrats in California would want to tighten up their enforcement. There’s really no reason to do so, because the current situation benefits them.

The latest on my ex

The New Neo Posted on by

Now it’s a waiting game. They’re waiting for his pneumonia to get better, because it must improve considerably before they can do any more surgery (unless the surgery is literally a matter of imminent life or death). He’s very miserable, but he’s conscious and talking. The whole thing has been shocking and frightening.

In a little while I’m going to go to the hospital for a few hours.

In case you haven’t followed what Tucker Carlson’s been saying lately (and I can understand it if you haven’t), he seems to be heartily endorsing El-Sayed

The New Neo Posted on by

And for anyone who has paid attention to him, that should not be a surprise.

Nor am I exaggerating; take a look:

Tucker Carlson has unexpectedly praised Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, calling his platform “literally Trumpian” and saying he would not vote for his GOP rival Mike Rogers “at gunpoint.”

The right-wing broadcaster hosted podcaster Saagar Enjeti on his self-titled show, in the course of which the duo discussed the race between El-Sayed and Rogers, noting that while the former had started out as a “full-blown leftist,” he had undergone an “ideological evolution.”

“I watch his campaign now, it’s America First,” Enjeti said. “When he talks about Israel, he says, ‘Israel is committing a genocide, but ultimately I want to make sure that you don’t pay more for healthcare.

“‘I don’t want your tax dollars going abroad to fund this barbaric military.’ He stands in front of a giant American flag. It’s almost Trumpian in terms of a lot of those problems.”

“Well, it is literally Trumpian,” Carlson agreed, with both men going on to predict that the progressive former public health official was likely to beat Rogers in November.

I take issue with the word “unexpectedly” in the first sentence of that quote. Nothing could be less unexpected.

I also take issue with the phrase “right-wing” that begins the second paragraph of that quote. Tucker isn’t on the conventional right and it’s not clear where to categorize him, except that if anyone is against Israel and Jews, he’s for them.

And of course El-Sayed’s “ideological evolution” from “full-blown leftist” is because he now has to pretend to tack a tiny bit to the middle in order to try to win the election in Michigan.

The idea that El-Sayed is “literally Trumpian” would be comical if it weren’t so unhinged. But I’m not of the opinion that Tucker is actually unhinged. I think he knows exactly what he’s doing, and is giving free rein to ideas and impulses he’s had for a long long time. One motive is to split the GOP and try to take over the wreckage. He doesn’t have to cater to Fox News or anyone else now; he’s free to speak his mind. I’ve already written many many pieces about Tucker, so I won’t go into what I see as his “ideological evolution,” except to refer you especially to this post and this, as well as this one.

ADDENDUM: I originally was thinking of writing a separate post on this article in Tablet about J. D. Vance’s recent address to the Republican Jewish Coalition this past Tuesday. I may still write about it separately. But for now I’ll just link to it here, because it’s relevant to the ongoing discussion of why Vance has refused to criticize Tucker Carlson at all – not just refuse to “denounce” him, by the way, but refuse to be specific about whatever disagreements he might have with him. I wonder whether Tucker’s words on El-Sayed and Rogers would be enough to get Vance to say something; I tend to doubt it, but it’s certainly possible.

The Tablet piece I just linked is well worth reading, in order to see what Vance is saying about Israel and related topics. It’s considerably worse than I had originally thought; I wasn’t aware of some of the Vance quotes discussed in that piece.

Nature was once a premier scientific journal …

The New Neo Posted on by

… but now it’s taking Jason Arday’s word for things:

For those without access to X:

In a scathing editorial on the Jason Arday tragedy, @Nature credulously parrots claims he made about himself without any acknowledgment on Nature’s part of credible evidence that he was a serial fabulist and that we cannot take his claims, including that he was autistic, at face value.

Nature makes no mention of credible evidence that he committed academic fraud and that he lied about a lengthy catalogue of elements of his life in an effort to burnish the mythology he had built around himself and that came crashing down in July and early August.

Instead, this editorial effectively removes all blame from Arday for the choices he made and the consequences those ultimately yielded. The editorial minimizes the plagiarism accusations and places blame on journalists for investigating his many false claims and on Cambridge for ultimately placing him under investigation—questioning whether the university followed proper protocol.

It is amazing that a news outlet ostensibly devoted to science would blame those who told the truth or sought to determine the truth about someone who demonstrably lied over and over and who was apparently culpable for committing egregious academic misconduct, including stealing another academic’s data.

Yes, some of the coverage has racist undertones at least. But it is illiberal to argue that the media should not have done their job to thoroughly investigate a public figure at one of the world’s leading academic institutions who had evidently conned his way to the pinnacle of academic success.

But Nature is no longer “devoted to science.” I don’t know when that began, but it was certainly the case by the time this letter was written about a year ago. Excerpt:

Unfortunately, the Nature group has abandoned its mission in favor of advancing a social justice agenda. The group has institutionalized censorship, implemented policies that have sacrificed merit in favor of identity-based criteria, and injected social engineering into its author guidelines and publishing process. The result is that papers published in Nature journals can no longer be regarded as rigorous science.

The author is a chemist, and she cites explicit woke policies of Nature going back at least to 2019.

I first heard of Nature when I was in law school. One of my roommates, who was getting her PhD in a scientific field, was being published in the journal at a very young age. I remember how excited she was and what an amazing achievement it was considered to be. So I long held the publication in very high esteem; it was considered the pinnacle. I haven’t held that opinion in quite some time, and of course it’s not alone in its decline.

The Strait of Hormuz

The New Neo Posted on by

On how much oil is getting through:

The Trump administration has been saying for a while that as many as nine million barrels of oil a day are traversing the Strait of Hormuz. That claim has been “fact checked” and derided by just about everyone. …

Only–oops–it turns out that President Trump and Secretary Wright, one of his cabinet’s most impressive members, were right all along, as Kpler now confirms:

“An average of 8.6 million barrels of oil a day have been flowing through the Strait of Hormuz — more than previously reported, maritime analyst firm Kpler confirmed in a new update that matches estimates from the Trump administration.
***
“Kpler and other trackers had initially put the number closer to 5 million, but new data includes “dark transits,” where ships turn off their transponders and secret ship-to-ship transfers, which the group wasn’t previously tracking.

“The nature of the transits left Kpler and other analysts to report only a handful of crossings every day, figures that were picked up by media outlets and used to point out the discrepancy between what was being reported and what the Trump administration was claiming.

“The White House has long-maintained that the data firms were missing a chunk of the exports due to the dark transits, with Kpler now confirming the fact as the dark ships start reappearing and painting a clearer picture of the oil flow.”

I seem to recall a considerable amount of discussion on this blog in the past about this topic.

Some leftists are celebrating the murder of a young woman in New York because she’s a bank executive

The New Neo Posted on by

They celebrated the killing of Charlie Kirk. They made a hero out of Luigi Mangione. They were completely okay with the murder of a young couple who happened to be Jewish. And now some are celebrating the murder of a young mother who happened to have been a bank executive at Bank of America.

About the victim:

University of Pennsylvania grad Erin Piacenti, 32, of Chester, NJ, posted a touching photo only four days before her murder of herself smiling broadly while holding her infant and standing with her husband — and wrote how happy she was, the New York Times reported.

Piacenti, also a Fordham Law School graduate who ended up working for Bank of America, said in the post that she was grateful for getting five months off to care for her new daughter, according to the outlet. …

The banking exec was knifed to death by mentally disturbed mom of three Pamela Cisneros, 49, during a random attack Monday afternoon in the heart of Manhattan’s theater district. Cisneros also stabbed and wounded another passerby before cops shot her dead.

The perp had a known history of mental illness, so this case is also still another example of a failure of that system. The police tried to tase Cisneros, but the taser had no effect on her.

The NY Post has written many articles about this horrific incident, including this editorial:

The Times Square stabbing maniac should not have been walking free: Court records and social-media posts sounded blaring alarms that she needed help . . . but progressives fight tooth and nail against involuntary commitment, no matter how many innocents like Erin Piacenti die.

It’s bad enough that obviously homicidal people such as Cisneros are walking the streets. It’s horrific that anyone on the far left celebrates such killings based on the race and jobs of the victims. But this has been going on for quite some time. It’s the same impulse that led to the killing fields of Cambodia, which class enemies (including people who merely wore eyeglasses) were slaughtered:

Once the Khmer Rouge took power, they instituted a radical reorganization of Cambodian society. This meant the forced removal of city dwellers into the countryside, where they would be forced to work as farmers, digging canals and tending to crops. Gross mismanagement of the country’s economy led to shortages of food and medicine, and untold numbers of people succumbed to disease and starvation. Families were also split up. The Khmer Rouge created labor brigades, assigning groups depending on age and gender. This policy resulted in hundreds of thousands of Cambodians starving to death.

… Because the Khmer Rouge placed a heavy emphasis on the rural peasant population, anyone considered an intellectual was targeted for special treatment. This meant teachers, lawyers, doctors, and clergy were the targets of the regime. Even people wearing glasses were the target of Pol Pot’s reign of terror.

This is also an impulse I recall from the terrorism in the US during the late 1960s and early 1970s. I very much doubt that our present-day young people of the leftist variety know much if anything of this history except perhaps to applaud it. And I also doubt that the Cambodian killing fields or the earlier war of the Soviets against the kulaks are widely taught in many of our US colleges, except perhaps to be excused and/or justified.

Most garden-variety Democrats probably aren’t applauding killings such as that of Piacenti or championing Luigi Mangione, but there’s a not-insignificant group of leftists who are. Plus, it is the case that a great many of those garden-variety Democrats routinely call for the murder of President Trump. There is a bloodthirstiness there that is chilling.

Tucker Carlson is to J. D. Vance as Hasan Piker is to Abdul El-Sayed

The New Neo Posted on by

The analogy isn’t perfect. But I think it’s a good one:

Vance’s strength is his wit, intellect, and gift for political framing. He’s a verbal sharpshooter who decimated Tim Walz in their vice-presidential debate, and Jewish Republicans surely applauded his withering takedown of El-Sayed. …

Vance came across as reasonable, sincere, fair-minded, and respectful. He acknowledged Israel’s importance to American foreign policy, praised it as an ally, and connected the rise of antisemitism to unchecked Third World immigration — traditionally, one of the GOP’s most unifying issues.

Best of all, he did it without pandering.

But on the other hand, Vance failed to separate himself from Tucker Carlson, whom many Jewish Republicans feel is just as much of a dangerous antisemite as El-Sayed. The event’s emcee, ex-Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), gave him a golden opportunity to denounce Carlson’s rhetoric.

Vance declined, opting to pivot to Nick Fuentes and Joe Rogan …

By failing to cleanly separate himself from Hasan Piker, El-Sayed has shot himself in the foot. He’s now dogged by Piker everywhere he goes — and every time Piker says something offensive, El-Sayed is back on his heels. …

But what’s true about Piker is also true about Carlson: He monetizes outrage and controversy to stay in the headlines, too. That’s his business model as well.

Which means, JD Vance and Abdul El-Sayed share the same political vulnerability.

It’s puzzling why Vance refuses to bandage his wound. It wouldn’t take much. Just two or three sentences.

All he’d have to say is that Carlson has changed — and as a Christian, Vance prays for Carlson’s redemption — but OF COURSE he vehemently disagrees with Carlson about Trump being the antichrist, a slave, and/or Israel “destroying” the United States.

Carlson isn’t some quiet personal friend of Vance’s, he’s a major figure who is (or used to be) on the right, and he is a disgusting blood-libeling Jew-hater who is vocal about it nearly on a daily basis. Vance’s refusal to even criticize him in that regard is very telling, in my opinion.

Vance sometimes utters words that indicate he’s an Israel-supporter, but he has also said many things having nothing to do with Tucker Carlson that show a compromised support of Israel which is sometimes more like the position of a politician on the left than one on the right. I’ve written about it before; please see this from about a month and a half ago. In that post, I quote Lee Smith, who had written:

During his grievance-fueled performance on Rogan’s podcast, Vance lashed out once again at the Jews, alleging, among other things, that there’s an Israeli-funded plot to undermine his negotiations with Iran; some Israelis want war indefinitely for the sake of endless war; and the U.S. government has probably destroyed evidence that Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad operative. …

Now that the Iran deal that Vance favored has blown up and he’s taking heat for it, he’s showing that no one puts baby in a corner. So, he resurrects Epsteingate, predictably inspiring the dumbest people in America, and around the world, to flood social media with details from an information operation targeting Trump.

I also think Vance has shown some naivete about Iran.

I am assuming that Vance’s motive for all of this is to not alienate the Tucker wing of the GOP. That’s the kindest interpretation.