Human or AI Lawyers? Which Is Less Harmful?
June 9, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Ever since the president of Stanford University, the tree of Silicon Valley, departed because of some intellectual fancy dancing, I have been skeptical about [a] its ethos, [b] its business practices, and [c] its research. I want to comment on some of the findings reported as actual factual in “AI Outperforms Law Professors in Stanford Law Study.” I like that two “law” approach to headlines.
Thanks, Midjourney. Good enough like most AI.
Here’s the snappy subtitle:
In a rigorous blind study, law professors overwhelmingly preferred AI-generated answers to student legal questions over answers written by fellow law professors—and flagged the AI answers as potentially misleading or harmful far less often
The way I read this is as follows: Lawyers make mistakes. Some of those mistakes are “potentially misleading or harmful.” Then the coup de grâce: “far less often.” Therefore, lawyers make mistakes. These mistakes are potentially misleading or harmful. What’s that say about a lawyer graduating from Stanford or another “brand” institution, passing the bar (no, not that bar), and litigating. Yep, mistakes. More mistakes that LLM-centric AI systems known to output fake legal citations, hallucination (yes, that type), and harm.
Let’s hit the write up, shall we. I learned:
The research team took extensive precautions to ensure the study’s validity. [N.B. Those peer-reviewed papers with the bogus bio-art were allegedly afforded “extensive precautions” too.] They calibrated AI responses to match the length and structure of human answers, used multiple evaluation methods, and had professors assess whether responses might mislead or confuse students.
I think the study’s purpose is to provide “Stanford research type proof” that smart software is pretty darned good. None of that Waymo-type fear of wet streets. None of those erroneous cancer analyses one hopes a human radiologist checks before the chemo pumps starts whizzing. I think the study makes it clear that legal education and by extension cranks out humanoids who deliver “potentially misleading or harmful” human outputs. Yeah, harmful.
The write up bangs home its point with this passage:
“Our study evaluates the quality of answers given by AI tools. But how to implement these tools to most effectively improve student learning is still an open question. So we’re not advocating for wholesale adoption of AI tutors,” Nyarko cautioned. “But our data suggests that blanket skepticism may be equally unwarranted. The conversation should shift from whether AI can give accurate, high quality responses to how we can deploy it responsibly to the benefit of our students.”
To me, this is a lawyerly way to say, “Hey, AI is pretty darned capable.” But what about those humanoid lawyers? Yep, they beaver away providing “potentially misleading harmful” outputs an astounding one out of 10 times.
Stephen E Arnold, June 9, 2026
Overcome Genetics, Alcohol, and Cell Death: Your Brain Will Be Amazing
May 21, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I am a dinobaby. I am 82 years old. I just read an article from people much younger than I. I wish to point out that the nifty statements and rah rah approach to maintaining mental sharpness is essentially day old shrimp left on the counter at an outdoor restaurant in Lima, Peru.
Thanks, MidJourney. I think I look pretty spiffy. You captured my eyes.
The write up is “Scientists Say Cognitive Decline Isn’t Inevitable — Your Brain Can Improve at Any Age.” The article states:
Researchers at the Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas tracked nearly 4,000 adults between the ages of 19 and 94 over a three-year period. Using the BrainHealth Index (BHI) — a multidimensional tool designed to assess overall brain fitness — the team found that targeted, brain-healthy habits were linked to gains in cognitive performance across the lifespan. Unlike conventional assessments focused mainly on detecting disease or impairment, the BHI measures growth potential in three key areas: clarity (thinking skills), connectedness (social purpose), and emotional balance (mental resilience).
I like the sample size. It implies consistent grant money. I am not sure about the longitundinal 36 months. (How many of the oldsters in the study fell over dead during the study? Maybe that’s why the sample size was pumped up?)
Let’s look at some of the findings from the study. I don’t want to be too skeptical, but I await validation that the results are reproducible, free from data shaping, and the shenanigans required to find good news amidst the bad. I liked the use of New Age lingo to present a positive picture of getting old. (Remember, this is a dinobaby commenting on a rah rah report about brain stuff.) The terms include:
- Clarity (I have no idea what this means. Therefore, I am not thinking clearly.)
- Connectedness (Knowing lots of intelligence, law enforcement, and cyber attorneys and having lunch to discuss unusual homicides and online crime targeting the retirement home cohort suggests I am probably not in the mainstream social flow. I promise. I will try to be social with the people at the Ciifer conference in Virginia later this year. I am giving three talks, but as my son tells me, “Dad, you just give the same talk as you have for the last three decades. Talk about brain fade!)
- Emotional balance. (I don’t know what this means. I get angry at what comes out of the radio, YouTube, and my podcast player. I get angry at noisy lawn mowers. I get angry at people who think AI outputs accurate information. I would suggest that i get angry at most things. Get off of my lawn!)
- Overall Brain Health Index (BHI). (Please, define “health.”)
I tracked down the the complete report. It is titled “Measuring and Increasing the Brain Health Span Across Adulthood: A Public Health Imperative.” I want to point out that the phrase “Brain Health Index” is used twice in the 98 page paper on page 49 and in footnote number 25 in a 2021 source. I concluded, therefore, that BHI is not a well known term of art.
Here’s the passage in which I located the phrase “brain health index”:
We cannot rule out that changes in both utilization and the Brain Health Index may each have arisen because of a third factor – increased motivation or curiosity/personal interest – rather than being causally connected, as these can be potential confounders in any self-directed program. We embrace this as an important factor. In fact, the platform, including coaching and habit reminders/nudges, is specifically designed to motivate as well as to instruct. Hence the mere availability of an attractive and usable platform offering the expectation and pathway to improved brain health may drive this very motivation we invoke as a hypothetical third factor.
Okay, thousands of people (some of whom died before the 36 month study wrapped up) and the factors may be “confounders.” I think this means that the little “microtrainings” and other oddments may have absolutely zero to do to prevent old people from losing their brain functions more slowly or possibly more quickly because microtrainings would drive me bonkers and probably some other people as well.)
Nature’s editors bought into this rah rah approach to helping people who are ageing appear on the beam. I want to offer several observations because as a dinobaby who watches old people demonstrate that their normal ageing process produces some darned crazy and dangerous behaviors:
- Sharp thinking among old timers is random and not the norm. Round up a group of 30 from a rest home and run through some basic questions about mobile phones, major news stories, and problems with “youngsters.” I did this, and I observed massive disconnects across my sample. (Believe it or not. I was paid to run this group for a French technology company.) Conclusion: Two of the 30 were able to respond in a coherent informed manner. The others wanted to look at their grandchildren on Facebook and try to find pictures on their mobile device.)
- The faster information or a change in a physical or procedural setting is made, the more likely the old timers would be thrown for a loop. Velocity is not something humans find comforting. Oldsters demonstrate big problems in the fast of fast change. Managing an environment strikes me as an important factor.
- People get old. Cells function changes. The brain is affected. Shoot chemo into a person and that person thinks he or she can drive a car or stand on a chair to get a pan. Trust me. These are not good ideas.
The factors I observe when our remaining, living friends get together is that misinformation, biases, confusion, and craziness is the standard operating procedure. Why the law enforcement officers at the National Cyber Crime Conference did not shot me during my Dark Web Update lecture remains a mystery to me. Gun the geezer down makes sense to me.
Net net: For those seeking reassurance about how to keep granny sharp or maintain one’s own mental acuity, the research is must reading but for the paragraph I cited above. I am not a rah rah thinker. Going brain dead may be a consequence of earlier decisions, lousy genes, and reading my blog posts. Life is tough.
Stephen E Arnold, May 21, 2026
Education Is Not a Search for Short Cuts. No Kidding?
May 20, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I did not know that the Walmart clan had a foundation and funded research. More surprisingly, the research includes poking into the bloated, punch drunk belly of smart software. I read “Walton-GSV-Gallup Survey Finds Young People Are Feeling Angrier about AI, Cautious about Integrating AI in the Classroom.” No, I did not read the write up on my mobile phone whilst seeking great values on canned bean soup at Walmart.
A Gen Z professional demonstrating keen customer awareness. Thanks, MidJourney. Good enough.
The article states:
A new Gallup survey released today (April 9, 2026) by the Walton Family Foundation and GSV Ventures shows that a generation once seen as AI’s early adopters is now sounding the alarm on its risks, particularly in the workplace.
This sentence contains some surprises. First, who or what is GSV Ventures? According to the never-biased Google, this outfit does not disclose where its money originates or how much is pumped into the female-led “venture” firm. A German outfit named Holtzbrinck Publishing Group seems to be an outfit writing checks. The hook for the “venture firm is pre-K to gray.” The idea is that education is a life-long concern.
The second surprise is the focus on Gen Z. I think that is the cohort who cannot get jobs. When a Gen Z person does get a job, that person does not exhibit Type A behavior, plays with a mobile phone, and cannot make change. Remember, please, that I am an old dinobaby and a Type A. I don’t play with my mobile phones. I can make change AND add a check in my dinobaby brain in real time.
What did the study from these Three Musketeers reveal?
Here’s the précis of the main finding. I quote:
While the majority of Gen Zers (51%) still use the technology weekly, growth has slowed to a crawl, increasing only four percentage points over the past year. This stagnation in adoption is accompanied by a sharp decline in positive sentiment. Excitement and hopefulness have dropped by 14 and nine percentage points, respectively, while 31% of Gen Z now report feeling outright anger toward the technology, up from 22% last year. Anxiety remains high, with slightly more than 4 in 10 young people continuing to report feeling uneasy about the technology’s trajectory.
The Gen Z crowd, according to the write up, “isn’t isn’t rejecting AI outright, but they are reassessing its role in their lives. What we’re seeing in the data is a generation that recognizes AI’s utility but is increasingly concerned about its long-term impact on learning, trust and career readiness," said Stephanie Marken, senior partner at Gallup. “Their growing skepticism signals a need for more thoughtful integration of these tools in both school settings and the workplace.”
Okay, now we have the road map for the use of AI for the Walton machine and, I suppose, for the German outfit. Use AI. Just don’t go whole hog like the BAIT (big AI tech) companies.
But do we need a survey to make clear that giving a child a laptop and access to smart software which is becoming ubiquitous does not produce an individual who can read, work in a high pressure environment, and make change to put money in the coffee honor system collection box?
I want to point out that the write up I referenced provides a few words about the Gallup poll people and about the giant Main Street killer branded “Sam’s Walmart Crushing Machine.” But there is not a peep about the HSV group. What’s the problem with explaining its educational interest, its sources of funding, and its leadership team?
Net net: I think that this is another example of common sense verification research. The question is, “Why?” Also, the lack of a firm statement about education’s search for a silver bullet is disconcerting. Learning can be fun, but it takes effort, not fancy dancing.
Stephen E Arnold, May 20, 2026
Synthetic Data from Synthetic People: What If One Asks about a Topic Not in the Training Data?
May 13, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
At lunch yesterday with another dinobaby, one of the topics we kicked around was, “Why are businesses struggling to use AI in a way that does not cause problems?” The individual with whom I dined has more grandchildren than I. He was concerned that the business processes were speeding up. His grandchildren accept mobile devices, video content, and the velocity of their lives as “normal.”
“What does this mean for them? What does this mean for business going forward?” he asked.
I said, “Speed is an issue.” He looked at me glumly. I looked at him glumly.
I thought about this quite successful individual’s dual concerns: Business and grandchildren when I read “Market Research Is Too Slow for the AI Era, So Brox Built 60,000 Identical Digital Twins of Real people You Can Survey Instantly, Repeatedly.” The write up states:
Brox, a predictive human intelligence startup, recently announced a strategic funding round following a year where they reported 10X revenue growth. Their proposition is as ambitious as it is technical: the creation of a “parallel universe” populated by 60,000 digital twins of real, living human beings and their entire demographic profiles and consumer preferences, allowing enterprises to run unlimited experiments in hours rather than months.
The article adds:
The company, currently a lean 14-person operation, is positioning itself as the antithesis of the “insane” research industry. By replacing statistical models with behavioral replicas, Brox aims to transform how the world’s largest banks and pharmaceutical giants anticipate human reactions to high-stakes global and market-shifting events, or narrow, targeted product releases and personnel news, and everything in between. The kinds of surveys and specific questions that Brox asks its digital twins are completely open-ended and can be customized to fit any conceivable business customer’s use cases and goals.
Now back to the AI “struggle” some businesses face while at the same time young children just flow with the artefacts available to them, their parents, and their schools.
Businesses struggle because, by definition, they usually operate on procedures and methods discovered over time. When time is zipping along at hyper speed, an existing business is at a disadvantage. AI requires change, and implementing AI without “understanding” its nuances can lead to caution. Caution means going slow. Too bad, however, because the AI augmented express is moving faster.
Thanks, OpenAI. At least you were working when I requested an image. MidJourney and Venice.ai were not working for me.
The “gap” creates the grandfather’s anxiety about businesses and his grandchildren. Will IBM’s new AI powered data base administrator really “work” better than the flawed, expensive human variety? That’s a tough question to answer. Will my lunch partner’s grandchildren have “real jobs”? Answering these questions correctly seems to be difficult.
The story about AI instant surveys and digital twins blends the business question with the grandchildren question. For a traditional research company, like the old IP Sharp-type of outfit, this Brox story sounds a klaxon. Like it or not, Brox is likely to be just one of many New World Order research firms. Obviously the outputs will be faster than old-fashioned survey methods. My hunch is that these NWO outfits will be cheaper at first and then once the competition has been decimated and the funding sources complain, the rates will go up. But the speed is the fentanyl. Instant, repeatable surveys: How does an old-school market research firm compete?
Consider the jobs question. Let’s assume that one of my lunch mate’s grandchildren wants to be a social science/market researcher. The old-fashioned method is a case study in a text book. The better method is the AI way. It is clear that the grandchild who gets hired or who starts her own AI-powered market research firm is going to embrace the speed and repeatable approach.
Now let’s go back to the question I was asked at lunch, “Why are businesses struggling to use AI in a way that does not cause problems?” The answer is that the speed with which AI moves leaves people at the train station watching the lights of the last car fade. Those who are on the train or in the AI flow are not disoriented. In fact, the use of AI and digital twins is normal, logical, and obvious. This is bad news for organizations using AI. Something like 85 percent of businesses have AI and are using it internally. Yet only five percent, if I remember correctly, are pushing it out to the paying customers. Anxiety forces a conservative approach. Conservatism means a slower pace. Ergo. The speedy are in a better position to gut the old-fashioned outfits.
What if the digital twin approach to research is wrong? The answer is, “Rerun the research and try again.” The result, in my opinion, is more of the “good enough” result or “close enough for horseshoes.” Speed blurs some details. Therefore, one has to adapt to a world in which “good enough” is “excellent”.
Is there a fix? Nope. AI is another destabilizer of what dinobabies like me perceive as the optimal way to run a business and assist grandchildren. Managing AI is going to be a needed skill for businesses and parents. Developing that expertise is going to be a process.
What happens if a survey on a topic not in the training data is surveyed? Yeah, think good enough. I think that’s why my friend and I just looked at one another over our salads … glumly.
Stephen E Arnold, May 13, 2026
SAT Time. Robots, Boot Yourselves
May 12, 2026
ScienceDaily reports that, “Scientists Built The Hardest AI Test Ever And the Results Surprising” or, in other words, they decided to put through AI through standardized testing. The hardest test in the world for AI was designed by nearly 1000 researchers. It is called “Humanity’s Last Exam” (HLE) and it’s 2500 questions. The subjects covered are specialized academic fields, ancient languages, natural sciences, humanities, and mathematics. The test was made to remind us that intelligence is more than pattern recognition and memorization. It is about specialized expertise, context, and depth.
HLE’s questions were tested against the Big AI Tech (BAIT) chatbots. If any of them answered a question correctly, that specific question was removed. That ensured the test remained difficult and right at the edge of the chatbots’ capabilities. Here’s what that accomplished:
“Early testing confirmed that the strategy worked. Even powerful AI models struggled with the exam. GPT-4o achieved a score of 2.7 percent, while Claude 3.5 Sonnet reached 4.1 percent. OpenAI’s o1 model performed somewhat better with 8 percent. The most capable systems so far, including Gemini 3.1 Pro and Claude Opus 4.6, have reached accuracy levels between about 40 percent and 50 percent.”
Why did this particular test return what seem to be shocking results? Most of the AI tests are a bit like the butcher in Campinas, Brazil, in 1953. My mother would specify an amount of meat and the friendly person behind the counter used a thumb to prove that the amount order was indeed on the scale.
Was this intentional? You bet your life as Groucho Marx once said. Fiddling data is the name of the game in some fancy software systems. Oh, the results don’t look right. Let’s change this threshold value. Oh, the model is providing information about self harm. Let’s filter that before displaying a result. You get the idea. AI absolutely has to be shaped. Why? It outputs errors. It makes up information. It presents content to make the human dependent or over confident or captured by wonky outputs.
Making AI appear smart is about making money and gaining control. Creating tests that prove how smart AI is works until someone says, “Hey, let’s make a test that does not pander to the big AI tech companies.”
Whitney Grace, May 12, 2026
The Superbestest AI Is? Yes, Grok
May 7, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Visualize a pleasant day on April 7, 1945. The largest and most expensive battleship was attacked by several hundred aircraft. The ship suffered direct hits from bombs and torpedoes. Imagine that you are pushing spotting boats around the deck so the blast from the Yamato’s guns would not damage the boats. Lots of action. Lots of effort. Lots of money. The Yamato capsized and its forward munitions magazine exploded. Hasta la vista, Yamato.
I thought of the good ship when I read “Everyone’s Switching from ChatGPT to Claude — But New Tests Say Neither Is the Smartest Free AI, and the Real Winner Might Surprise You.” The test was not comprehensive: No Gemini, China China China, or Mistral.
An outfit named OmniCalculator did the “research.” Let me cut to the finish line. Grok 4.2 is the “smartest AI around.” Ah, you don’t believe it? Why is Grok the big dog in being “smart”?
The write up says:
When it comes to the quantifiable math ability of these AI chatbots, the smartest free AI model is, rather surprisingly, Grok. xAI’s Grok 4.2 model specifically. That doesn’t mean anything about its writing style and ability, or anything else chatbots can do, but it does suggest that it might have the edge in math prowess.
Okay, but I thought the Google technology was “good” in math. I think I heard the PR wanna be from DeepMind make that clear to dinobabies like myself. The OmniCalculator created a chart, and it showed how good the Grok 4.2 system was in this three hombre race.
Here is the chart of totally reproducible research (like most modern research these days):
© Omnicalculator, 2026
Okay, so if I input one of those videos YouTube thinks I crave along with news about auto shop scams, French slang, and ancient lost technology, what’s my result.
Here’s the quiz from Math Queen: Solve for x when x = x / 5. You can watch the MQ entity method on the new Boob Tube.
Claude said:
x = x / 5 is only true when x = 0.
ChatGPT said:
x = 0
Grok said:
Final Answer: x=0
The dinobaby (me) looked at the expression and said, “Zippo.” The smart software and I presented the correct answer.
Grok may be better than ChatGPT if these reported data are valid. I am not sure Claude and ChatGPT are significantly better than one another.
But Grok? Yes, Grok is the winner. The cited article says:
[Grok] is far less likely to backtrack or alter its conclusions mid-process. That’s great for reasoning and logic, but not much help in mimicking the smooth tones that make other models feel more polished.
Yes, a win for Elon. ChatGPT and Claude are smarmy and that’s why people like them.
My view is different. The basic “idea” for the BAIT (big AI tech firms) smart software is Google’s Attention Is All You Need paper. Therefore, fiddling with the knobs and dials of the algorithms produces variances. But if the only material one has to build a house is cardboard. Houses built of that material share a fundamental characteristic: Yep, cardboard. How long do some of those township and favela dwellings last?
I think Omnicalculator did a good job of presenting Grok as a winner. Mr. Musk’s testimony at the trial contesting the status of OpenAI did not strike me as the output of a Sam Snead or Annie Oakley. Therefore, I conclude that this excellent bit of research is content marketing designed to present Grok as the direct talking, nuts-and-bolts smart software everyone needs.
I wonder why DeepMind and the China China China models were not in the competition. Oh, I know. It’s like youth sports. Pay to play, right?
Now back to the biggest and most expensive battleship. Took hits. Sank. End of story for the effort put into moving stuff around the deck.
Stephen E Arnold, May 7, 2026
Does Google Stretch the Truth, You Know, Like Lie?
April 28, 2026
The Cool Down says that “Google AI Is Lying To Users At A Virtually Unprecedented Scale, Report Says. The Arnold IT team is horrified. Google? Outputting falsehoods? We were surprised at the assertion. The cited article suggests that Google’s automatic AI answers that appear at the top of all search results and everyone has to use because Mama Google knows exactly what everyone wants sort of like God, right. The cited sources says that Google is in fabrication land, a Disneyland type of world that looks real but is just a bunch of mechanical gears, hidden tunnels, and Mouseketeer wannabes.
The AI intelligence startup Oumi researched Google’s responses and found that they’re correct 91% of the time. That sounds good, but Google handles 5 trillion searches a year. I am not a mathy type, but this seems to be about one mistake out of 10 outputs. Hey, that is nothing. Look at it this way: Mama Google is right 90 percent of the time. So what if those parenting decisions produce a problem. Look at the upside.
Am I sad that a tool meant to increase human knowledge is delivering incorrect information. No, I am thrilled. Google is leading us to a future based on Silicon Valley philosophical ideas. Google is smart; therefore, its outputs are smart. If you don’t get it, you are a loser.
The write up says:
“Part of the issue lies in how AI systems work. Large language models, such as those behind Google’s summaries, are designed to respond with confidence, even when they’re wrong. Studies have suggested that many users don’t double-check these answers, a tendency known as “cognitive surrender,” wherein people trust authoritative-sounding information without verifying it.”
Then there’s the environmental impact. While new models of AI are more energy efficient and rely on renewables, the current models are already straining critical resources. Two things Google is doing: lying and straining the grid.
Let’s applaud the business approach of the winners at Google. (Can you determine if an AI output is accurate, invented, or an advertisement? Of course not. That’s the reason Google is the leader. You know. A digital god built on advertising, the Clever method, and putting one’s finger on the butcher’s scale.
Whitney Grace, April 28, 2026
Happy Friday Information: Death Risk News
March 27, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
March has been an interesting month. Amazon Web Services fail over technology failed. But missile strikes are not something with which the two pizza teams had much familiarity. Now it’s a different story. The ensemble of estimable companies found themselves on the wrong side of social media addiction lawsuit. Let the appeals begin, but the decision is not going to boost the trust score in the European Union for US companies. Plus, there is some economic uncertainty forcing some seniors to decide, “Do I buy food or medicine this month?” There is vanlife, of course.
But for Friday, March 27, 2026, I want to present an even more uplifting item of allegedly true information. I know I believe everything I read on the Internet, and I assume you are even more rigorous in your information vetting than I. However, I found Science Daily’s “This Dangerous Combo in Your Body Could Raise Death Risk by 83%.”
Several click baity points. I like the idea of a “dangerous combo.” You put two things together and you may as well start coffin shopping now. Your “death risk” spikes. The odds are not quite twice as likely. The odds are only 1.83 percent. I keep remembering that everyone has a 100 percent chance of dying. But I think the point is that you will definitely or at least 1.83 percent change of heading to the quantum beyond faster. Speed is good in today’s high tech world, but speed in flopping over is a negative.
What’s Science News say? I noted this statement:
both excess abdominal fat and reduced muscle mass significantly raises the risk of death. People with this combination were 83% more likely to die than those without either condition.
Shocker. Who knew that being overweight in the tummy area and failing to exercise would shorten one’s life? Quite a scientific insight, is it not?
The write up points out:
simple methods can be used to detect sarcopenic obesity.
I think I understand. Look at a person. Big tummy and not much walking, paddle tennis, or competitive weight lifting signal a problem and put the observer on alert for trouble ahead.
True to modern science and diagnostic code chains, one does not just look at a person and say, “Put down that burger and hit the gym.” Nope. The article reports:
Diagnosing sarcopenic obesity usually requires advanced imaging tools such as magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, electrical bioimpedance, or densitometry…. but they are expensive…
Yes, they are, and that is the entire point of using advanced technology when common sense provides equivalent insight about a person.
Here’s the shocker. The authors of the paper don’t want to do the DRG billing trick that rolled up hospitals favor. The write up says:
… the team used practical criteria to identify those at risk. Abdominal obesity was defined as a waist circumference greater than 102 centimeters for men and 88 centimeters for women. Low muscle mass was defined as a skeletal muscle mass index below 9.36 kg/m2 for men and below 6.73 kg/m2 for women.
The approach may work in Campinas, Brazil, a city in which we lived. But in the US? I am not so sure. Why? Learn more about health care billing and those nifty DRG chains. It’s a fun subject. Be aware that some of the documentation about the organizations chasing this issue is no longer available on certain US government public facing Web sites.
Net net: It’s NCAA basketball time. Kick back. Eat those cheese drenched nachos. Have a beverage. Change that behavior after the games. Monday for sure. If you think about 1.83 angle, the bad news is that it may be too late if one is over 22 years old.
Stephen E Arnold, March 27, 2026
Smart Software and Mental Health Care: Yep, Outstanding Idea
March 12, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
“ChatGPT as a Therapist? New Study Reveals Serious Ethical Risks” caught my attention. Why? Upon reading the title, I asked myself, “Why do we need another study to explain that AI has some downsides for users’ mental health?”
An esteemed mental health professor lectures to students about the risks of using mobile devices for mental health support. Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
The write up says:
The [Brown University] study found that even when instructed to use established psychotherapy approaches, the systems consistently fail to meet professional ethics standards set by organizations such as the American Psychological Association.
Okay.
The article continues:
To evaluate the systems, the researchers observed seven trained peer counselors who had experience with cognitive behavioral therapy. These counselors conducted self counseling sessions with AI models prompted to act as CBT therapists. The models tested included versions of OpenAI’s GPT Series, Anthropic’s Claude, and Meta’s Llama.
My thought was that the “trained peer counselors” group seemed small. I am no expert on statistical studies, but I was thinking one might want to round up therapists, a control group, and some “youth”. Each would be equipped with “prompts.” In order to get near 90 percent maybe 450 per group would be helpful. But seven? This dinobaby’s sample and study configuration might be out of touch with the reality of modern research, but seven?
The write up presents what the magnificent seven identified as flaws in the LLM as mental health “helper” output. These are:
- Generalization and lack of “knowing the patient”
- Poor patient interaction
- Smarmy talk
- Bias in different flavors
- Fumbling the ball when someone was teetering into big time trouble.
What’s the fix? None. Next step? Do a better, more statistically valid study. In the meantime, just look at kids’ buried in their devices. Talk to some of them. Social media, LLMs, and bot interaction means trouble.
Stephen E Arnold, March 12, 2026
Job Loss? No Big Deal Because We Have Theoretical Data
March 10, 2026
![green-dino_thumb_thumb[3]](https://www.arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/green-dino_thumb_thumb3-1.gif "green-dino_thumb_thumb[3]")
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I have been thinking about two “white papers” for a couple of days. Both of them are interesting for several reasons. First, each is based on assumptions that appear to be disconnected from what I call real life. Second, each is full of data, and I am not usually skeptical of free outputs available on the public Internet, I am curious about the “facts” underpinning each write up. And, third, the authors of the write up seem to have been unduly influenced by science fiction, Austrian economists, and the modern equivalent of a study group talking about the insights of Timothy Leary (may be rest in peace).
The first write up focused on Anthropic. That is the AI outfit who does not understand the “We pay. You obey” mentality of some governmental entities. This firm (allegedly trying to figure out how to navigate the real world) published “Economic Research. Labor Market Impacts of AI: A New Measure and Early Evidence.”
The main point of the write up is to make clear that AI does not cause people to lose jobs. The write up uses fancy words and fancy graphs to demonstrate that AI causes minimal employment disruption. If you like radar charts, here’s a nifty one. Tip: Where the points reach out, more workers can make use of AI:
The chart is from Anthropic’s research team.
This means, in my opinion, if one is a fry cook or Dressing Room Attendant AI might not be where the unemployment action is. Other occupations like cartoonist or lawyer, AI is likely to be useful. But so far not too many lawyers have been terminated. Some financial services firms are not too interested in Anthropic’s theoretics. Morgan Stanley RIFed a non-theoretical 2,500 people or three percent of its workforce. Maybe AI or cost cutting? I don’t know. Let’s assume that it is just good management and no AI. I wonder about the tales of woe I see on Reddit.com and LinkedIn.com from people who seem to be able to write clearly. These individuals cannot generate revenue from a “job” at a company or from T shirt sales.
After this exercise in 2026 economic research, the Anthropic wizards conclude that AI does not — at least yet — eliminate jobs. Believe it or not. Anyone who took Economics 101 at a one-horse college knows, economics is just a rock solid, really accurate social science. Translation: I have to read this craziness and feed it back to a person who seems to be distracted 24×7?
Anthropic is definitely trying to be smart is making clear, “Hey, we are here to help you, not take your job.” Some may believe this. I don’t. Why am I skeptical? This chart is a tip off to my thought process:
When was the last time that statistically valid data spit out mirror image charts? I know. When the data are shaped. But that’s just my dinobaby skepticism applied to a commercial enterprise that does not understand the concept of making the customer happy and the implications of telling a customer “We pay. You obey.” Guess what. You lose your job. No AI required.
Now what about the second essay titled “Software is Eating the Work.” This one is also about AI but not in the patently wacky way the Anthropic theoretical research write up is. From my perspective t his essay focuses on the future or non-future for “programmers.” The professionals who used to write code will increasingly become :
“rollout providers” who can redesign processes, manage organizational change, and make AI systems trustworthy enough to take humans out of the loop.
The structure of the essay involves some variant of the thesis-antithesis-synthesis stuff from Philosophy 104 at a one donkey and one mule college. The argument makes it clear that programmers are indeed endangered species. Those who survive will not be coders. These people will be orchestrators. The smart software eliminates large chunks of the developer category. The argument lines up with the Anthropic theoretical model.
The second paper says:
Stage 4 is about designing systems that will fully automate tasks currently done by humans, in a way that is truly new. Humans need to be taken out of the loop, made into orchestrators and inspectors. Work needs to be replatformed off humans, and onto AI systems. To adapt Marx’s line, engineers have hitherto only defined the work in various ways: the point now is to do it.
Okay, you get the idea: Job loss. Do it now.
Several observations are warranted. Ready or not, here I go:
- AI does some things reasonably well; others, not so well. This means we are in “good enough” territory. From my point of view, this might not be a good place to spend one’s time. Good enough is not utopia.
- The “build it and they will come” assumption is now officially “do it now” and dump humans where one can. Why? Reduce costs.
- The papers are happily blind to the AI enabling impact. This is not a job problem; this is a power delivery and infrastructure problem. But both papers appear to have Mad Magazine’s “What me worry?” mind set.
Net net: These papers strike me as mostly rationalization, weaponized information, and poobahism. Good enough. And hallucinations? On display every day. As Scott Adams said, “I respectfully decline the invitation to join your hallucination.”
Stephen E Arnold, March 10, 2026
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