John Hanno – Page 153 – The Tarbabys Blog

Godfather of AI tells ’60 Minutes’ he fears the technology could one day take over humanity

Yahoo! Entertainment

Godfather of AI tells ’60 Minutes’ he fears the technology could one day take over humanity

Geoffrey Hinton hails the benefits of artificial intelligence but also sounds the alarm on such things as autonomous battlefield robots, fake news and unintended bias in employment and policing.

Kyle Moss – October 9, 2023

“We’re entering a period of great uncertainty where we’re dealing with things we’ve never done before,” says Geoffrey Hinton of AI. “We can’t afford to get it wrong.” (CBS)

Geoffrey Hinton, who has been called “the Godfather of AI,” sat down with 60 Minutes for Sunday’s episode to break down what artificial intelligence technology could mean for humanity in the coming years, both good and bad.

Hinton is a British computer scientist and cognitive psychologist, best known for his work on artificial neural networks — aka the framework for AI. He spent a decade working for Google before leaving in May of this year, citing concerns about the risks of AI.

Here is a look at what Hinton had to say to 60 Minutes interviewer Scott Pelley.

The Intelligence

After highlighting the latest concerns about AI to set up the segment, Pelley opened the Q&A with Hinton by asking him if humanity knows what it’s doing.

“No,” Hinton replied. “I think we’re moving into a period when for the first time ever, we have things more intelligent than us.”

Hinton expanded on that by saying he believes the most advanced AI systems can understand, are intelligent and can make decisions based on their own experiences. When asked if AI systems are conscious, Hinton said that due to a current lack of self-awareness, they probably aren’t, but that day is coming “in time.” And he agreed with Pelley’s take that, consequently, human beings will be the second-most intelligent beings on the planet.

After the idea was floated by Hinton that AI systems may be better at learning than the human mind, Pelley wondered how, since AI was designed by people — a notion that Hinton corrected.

“No, it wasn’t. What we did was, we designed the learning algorithm. That’s a bit like designing the principle of evolution,” Hinton said. “But when this learning algorithm then interacts with data, it produces complicated neural networks that are good at doing things. But we don’t really understand exactly how they do those things.”

Robots in a Google AI lab were programmed merely to score a goal. Through AI, they trained themselves how to play soccer. (CBS)

The Good

Hinton did say that some of the huge benefits of AI have already been seen in healthcare, with its ability to do things like recognize and understand medical images, along with designing drugs. This is one of the main reasons Hinton looks on his work with such a positive light.

The Bad

“We have a very good idea sort of roughly what it’s doing,” Hinton said of how AI systems teach themselves. “But as soon as it gets really complicated, we don’t actually know what’s going on any more than we know what’s going on in your brain.”

That sentiment was just the tip of the iceberg of concerns surrounding AI, with Hinton pointing to one big potential risk as the systems get smarter.

“One of the ways these systems might escape control is by writing their own computer code to modify themselves. And that’s something we need to seriously worry about,” he said.

Hinton added that as AI takes in more and more information from things like famous works of fiction, election media cycles and everything in between, AI will just keep getting better at manipulating people.

“I think in five years time it may well be able to reason better than us,” Hinton said.

And what that means is risks like autonomous battlefield robots, fake news and unintended bias in employment and policing. Not to mention, Hinton said, “having a whole class of people who are unemployed and not valued much because what they used to do is now done by machines.

The Ugly

To make matters worse, Hinton said he doesn’t really see a path forward that totally guarantees safety.

“We’re entering a period of great uncertainty where we’re dealing with things we’ve never done before. And normally the first time you deal with something totally novel, you get it wrong. And we can’t afford to get it wrong with these things.”

When pressed by Pelley if that means AI may one day take over humanity, Hinton said “yes, that’s a possibility. I’m not saying it will happen. If we could stop them ever wanting to, that would be great. But it’s not clear we can stop them ever wanting to.”

So what do we do?

Hinton said that this could be a bit of a turning point, where humanity may have to face the decision of whether to develop these things further and how people should “protect themselves” if they do.

“I think my main message is, there’s enormous uncertainty about what’s going to happen next,” Hinton said. “These things do understand, and because they understand we need to think hard about what’s next, and we just don’t know.”

Pelley reported that Hinton said he has no regrets about the work he’s done given AI’s potential for good, but that now is the time to run more experiments on it to understand, to impose certain regulations and for a world treaty to ban the use of military robots.

60 Minutes airs Sundays on CBS, check your local listings.

Rogue AI will learn to ‘manipulate people’ to stop it from being switched off, predicts British ‘Godfather of AI’

Fortune

Rogue AI will learn to ‘manipulate people’ to stop it from being switched off, predicts British ‘Godfather of AI’

Ryan Hogg – October 10, 2023

Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile for Collision via Getty Images

The “Godfather of AI,” and one of its biggest critics, believes the technology will soon become smarter than humans and could learn to manipulate them.

Geoffrey Hinton, a former AI engineer at Google, told 60 Minutes he expected artificial intelligence to become self-aware in time, making humans the second most intelligent beings on the planet.

Humans have about 100 trillion neural connections, while the biggest AI chatbots have just 1 trillion connections, according to Hinton.

However, he suggests the knowledge contained within those connections is likely much more than that contained in humans.

Eventually, Hinton says, computer systems might be able to write their own code to modify themselves, in a sense going rogue. And if it does, he thinks AI will have a way to stop itself from being switched off by humans.

“They will be able to manipulate people,” Hinton told 60 Minutes.

“These will be very good at convincing because they’ll have learned from all the novels that were ever written, all the books by Machiavelli, all the political connivances. They’ll know all that stuff.”

Bigger threat than climate change

Hinton quit his role as an engineer at Google in May after more than a decade with the company, in part to speak out against the growing risks of the technology and lobby for safeguards and regulations against it.

While at Google, Hinton helped build the AI chatbot Bard, the tech giant’s competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. He also set the foundations for the growth of AI through his pioneering neural network, which helped him win a prestigious Turing Award.

Since he quit, Hinton has been one of the leading voices warning of AI’s dangers. Following his resignation announcement in the New York Times, he told Reuters he thought the tech had become a bigger threat to humans than climate change.

In late May, he was at the top of a list of hundreds of experts, which included OpenAI founder Sam Altman, calling for urgent regulation of AI.

“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” the 22-word statement read.

Hinton’s biggest worry about AI right now pertains to the labor market. He told 60 Minutes he feared a whole class of people would find themselves unemployed as more capable AI systems take their place.

In the longer run, though, he worries about AI’s militaristic potential. In his interview with 60 Minutes, Hinton called for governments to commit to not building battlefield robots. The warning is akin to J. Robert Oppenheimer’s calls to stop world leaders from developing nuclear weapons after he pioneered the first atomic bomb.

Hinton summed up by saying he couldn’t see a path that guarantees safety, adding he wasn’t sure robots could ever be stopped from wanting to take over humanity.

The world’s major governments appear to have heard Hinton’s and others’ warnings loud and clear.

The U.K. will host the first global AI summit in November, which is expected to be attended by 100 politicians, academics, and AI experts.

It could lay the groundwork for sweeping regulatory changes by major countries including the United States.

The U.S. is crafting an AI Bill of Rights, and in the coming months is expected to bring in safeguards that tech companies must abide by.

The European Union is crafting its own guardrails around AI, titled the AI Act. However, the potential for varying regulations based on geography is creating tension.

In June, more than 150 major European execs requested the EU pull back on its proposed restrictions around AI, including increased bureaucracy and tests on certain tech’s safety. They argued these would create a “critical productivity gap” in the region that would leave it trailing the U.S.

170,000-plus books used to train AI; authors say they weren’t asked

Deseret News

170,000-plus books used to train AI; authors say they weren’t asked

Lois M. Collins – October 9, 2023

An investigation by The Atlantic indicated thousands of e-books are being used to train an artificial intelligence system called Books3. | Adobe Stock

Authors are upset after tech companies started using their books to train artificial intelligence without letting them know or seeking their permission. They worry about copyright infringement and loss of income, among other issues.

Per CNN, “The system is called Books3, and according to an investigation by The Atlantic, the data set is based on a collection of pirated e-books spanning all genres, from erotic fiction to prose poetry. Books help generative AI systems with learning how to communicate information.”

“The future promised by AI is written with stolen words,” The Atlantic article said.

The article notes that some of the text that’s training AI on how to use language is taken from Wikipedia and other online entries. But “high-quality generative AI requires higher-quality input than is usually found on the internet — that is, it requires the kind found in books.”

Many authors apparently don’t view the use of their books to train artificial intelligence as an honor. Rather, it’s a shortcut that robs them of their due, they say.

CNN reported that Nora Roberts, who writes romantic novels, has 206 books in the database — “second only to William Shakespeare.” She told CNN the database is “all kinds of wrong. We are human beings, we are writers and we are being exploited by people who want to use our work, again without permission or compensation, to ‘write’ books, scripts, essays because it’s cheap and easy,” she said in a statement to CNN.

Per The Atlantic, Sarah Silverman, Richard Kadrey and Christopher Golden filed a lawsuit in California that claims Meta — owner of Facebook — violated their copyrights by using their books to train the company’s large language model LLaMA. That’s an algorithm that competes with OpenAI’s GPT-4 to create its own text by using word patterns it learned from the books and other sources, the article said.

The Atlantic’s Alex Reisner created a stir when he got a list of the books and published a searchable database so that anyone can see if their favorite author’s work is being used to teach AI communication skills. He notes the authors include well-known names like Stephen King, John Kratz and James Patterson, among others. The books apparently came through web-crawling technology that found bootleg PDF copies of the books for free online and they were then packaged into a database called Books3, where different AI companies are using them. Bloomberg said it will not use Books3 in the future as it trains its BloombergGPT.

The Authors Guild on Sept. 27 published a guide on actions authors can take if they learned their books are in the Books3 dataset. “This can be an unsettling revelation, raising concerns about copyright, compensation and the future implications of AI,” the article said.

The guild and 17 authors filed a different class-action suit in New York against OpenAI for copyright infringement. Those authors, per a separate guild article, include David Baldacci, Mary Bly, Michael Connelly, John Grisham, Jodi Picoult, Scott Turow and Rachel Vail, among others.

“The complaint draws attention to the fact that the plaintiffs’ books were downloaded from pirate ebook repositories and then copied into the fabric of GPT 3.5 and GPT 4 which power ChatGPT and thousands of applications and enterprise uses — from which OpenAI expects to earn many billions, the article said.

Reisner also wrote that while Meta is using authors’ books without permission, it employed a “takedown” order against at least one developer who used LLaMA coding after it was leaked a few months ago, on the claim that “no one is authorized to exhibit, reproduce, transmit or otherwise distribute Meta Properties without the express written permission of Meta.” And once it decided to make LLaMA open-source, Meta still requires developers to get a license in order to use it.

Not everyone’s upset, however, by use of their work to train AI. Ian Bogost, author of “Play Anything: The Pleasure of Limits, the Uses of Boredom and the Secret of Games,” among other works, wrote a column for The Atlantic titled “My Books Were Used to Train Meta’s Generative AI. Good.” And he promised “It can have my next one, too.”

Bogost contends that successful art “exceeds its creator’s plans,” noting that an author cannot accurately predict a book’s audience. “Who am I to say what my work is good for, how it might benefit someone — even a near-trillion-dollar company? To bemoan this one unexpected use for my writing is to undermine all of the other unexpected uses for it. Speaking as a writer, that makes me feel bad.”

Shell Aims to ‘Decarbonize Profitably,’ Its New Energies US CEO Says

Hart Energy

Shell Aims to ‘Decarbonize Profitably,’ Its New Energies US CEO Says

Velda Addison – October 9, 2023

Shell’s strategy has not changed as the company remains focused on delivering more value with less emissions, Shell New Energies US CEO Glenn Wright said this week, addressing unease about its position in the energy transition.

“In order for that to be a reality, it’s imperative that what we do is both economically viable, socially acceptable and environmentally sustainable,” Wright said Oct. 5 during an event co-hosted by the Baker Institute Center for Energy Studies and Baker Botts LLC in Houston. “Those are the three legs of the stool. If any one of those legs fails, the solution fails. So, our aim … is to continue our work and to decarbonize profitably.”

The comments were delivered in response to concerns that the supermajor was scaling back investments in renewable energy. Focused on increasing returns, Shell said it will hold oil output steady through 2030, having hit a lowered oil production target early through divestments.

Shell, which is targeting net-zero emissions by 2050, continues progress on providing cleaner energy solutions as energy demand rises, Wright said, pointing out how the company is repurposing the footprint of its energy and chemical parks. Shell’s low-carbon investment plans include investing between $10 billion and $15 billion through 2025 in areas such as biofuels, hydrogen, electric vehicle charging and carbon capture and storage.

“In my business, we will continue to invest in power opportunities, but we will do so in areas and spaces where it makes economic sense to do so and where we are incentivized to do so,” Wright said.

Energy companies, including Shell, are under pressure to not only provide affordable energy safely and lower emissions, but also increase returns for the shareholder. However, inflationary pressure and supply chain issues have posed obstacles, especially for offshore wind.

While the company has pulled out of some wind projects, including two wind projects offshore Ireland, it has powered forward with other investments. These have included the acquisitions of renewable natural gas company Nature Energy and Sprng Energy, a solar and wind power supplier, as well as starting construction on one of Europe’s largest renewable hydrogen plants.

The renewables investment comes alongside continued oil and gas production.

Shell New Energies CEO — “We will continue to invest in power opportunities, but we will do so in areas and spaces where it makes economic sense to do so and where we are incentivized to do so,” Shell New Energies US CEO Glenn Wright says. *(Source: Baker Institute)*

Protecting the core

Determining where to invest capital is probably the biggest question in boardrooms today, said Michael LaMotte, senior managing director for Guggenheim Securities. Speaking about E&Ps’ limited capital investment and moves to pay down debt and pay dividends, he said companies in the industry should protect the core first.

“Identify that and focus on it because that’s where all that cash comes from at the end of the day,” said LaMotte, who spoke on a separate panel. “The return on your capital is going to be enhanced if you improve the efficiency of the operations in and around that core.”

It is also important to think about creating long-term value. Despite views on the pace of the transition, the “transition is here and we are in it.” He spoke of the need for companies to leverage core competencies into new energies.

Many are doing just that. Think Occidental Petroleum Corp. in the carbon management space.

“[It’s] really important how to think about taking what feels like a liability, what feels like a compliance cost to the business, and flip it on its head and say, ‘okay, this is actually a new business opportunity,’” LaMotte said, acknowledging the core is not leaving anytime some.

Sharing similar sentiments as Wright, LaMotte added that investments must be economic with focus on obligations to shareholders to generate a return.

“But it also has to be cleaner. It’s striking that balance” between protecting the core and focusing on something new and cleaner to leverage competitive advantages.

By 2050, the world’s population is expected to exceed 9 billion, nearly 2 billion more people than today, Wright said. Energy demand will likely double.

“We must find ways to profitably decarbonize. I cannot emphasize that enough. We aim to decarbonize, but we must do so profitably,” Wright said. “And we must work closely with others in new ways because we can only reach net zero if society reaches it, too.”

Pumping up power

The most profound change and fastest growth will happen in the power sector, according to Wright. Shell deepened its position in the renewable power space with its 2021 acquisition of Savion, a large utility-scale solar and battery energy storage developer, and the 2022 launch of its residential retail business in Texas. The company manages more than 8 gigawatts of power generation across North America.

“Electricity is far and away the easiest energy source to decarbonize. Every energy consuming sector, which is everybody from road transport to home and commercial heating and cooling, to manufacturing and major industrial processes, is actively pursuing electrification in some fashion,” Wright said.

Like others in energy, he says reform is needed—particularly regarding access to interconnections and transmission reform—as more renewable energy lines up to flow to the grid.

“FERC Order 2023 starts to help us in this regard. … How this will play out will continue to unfold, but it will encourage and allow quicker access to bring renewables online,” Wright said. “We also need to ensure that the market design encourages resource adequacy. We can encourage certainly the development of renewables. What’s important is that these assets are located in the right places at the right time.”

Power grids in parts of the U.S.—including the Electric Reliability Council of Texas—experienced stress this summer amid high demand and temperatures, which prompted some conservation alerts.

“As we see more and more renewables come onstream, we need more and more resources that can provide ancillary services that can help firm those renewables and ensure that the grid continues to operate,” Wright said.

BP says it remains committed to financial, climate ambitions

Reuters

BP says it remains committed to financial, climate ambitions

Ron Bousso – October 10, 2023

FILE PHOTO: Logo of British Petrol BP is seen at a petrol station in Pienkow

LONDON (Reuters) -BP said on Tuesday it remained committed to its financial and carbon reduction ambitions, as interim Chief Executive Officer Murray Auchincloss hosted an investor day in Denver.

It was Auchincloss’s first major investor event since taking the helm after Bernard Looney abruptly stepped down as CEO last month for failing to fully disclose relationships with colleagues.

“BP’s strategy, financial frame and net zero ambition are unchanged,” the energy group said in a statement.

“BP remains focused on delivering its strategy safely, with disciplined delivery, quarter-on-quarter, to meet 2025 targets and 2030 aims.”

The company aims to achieve zero net carbon emissions by 2050 and to invest billions in renewable and low-carbon power. In February, BP scaled back plans to reduce oil and gas output by 2030 to 25% from 40% from 2019 levels.

In the presentation, BP also raised its forecast for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) from oil and gas businesses for 2030 by $2 billion to $41 to $44 billion at an average oil price of $70 a barrel.

EBITDA for the whole company, including its renewables and low-carbon businesses, is now forecast to reach $53 to $58 billion, compared with $51 to $56 billion previously.

(Reporting by Ron Bousso;Editing by Tomasz Janowski, Susan Fenton and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

California hits major industry with lawsuit for allegedly spreading ‘lies and mistruths’: ‘[They] have privately known the truth for decades’

The Cool Down

California hits major industry with lawsuit for allegedly spreading ‘lies and mistruths’: ‘[They] have privately known the truth for decades’

Leo Collis – October 10, 2023

California is one of the most committed regions in the United States when it comes to striving for a sustainable future.

The state is seeking to provide 100% renewable energy to residents and businesses by 2045, and it has seen billions of dollars of investment in “clean energy technologies.”

Now, it is taking on the oil industry, with the state of California filing a lawsuit against industry giants like ExxonMobil, Shell, and BP, as well as lobbying body the American Petroleum Institute.

NPR reported the suit was filed in the San Francisco Superior Court, and the focus is on claims the big players in the oil industry have been misleading the public about the dangers of dirty energy.

“California is suing these big polluters to hold them accountable for their decades of deception, cover-up, and billions of dollars in harm done to our state,” the office of California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement.

The Governor’s office added the “lies” pushed by Big Oil over the course of decades have contributed to global heating, resulting in extreme weather events such as superstorms, wildfires, extreme heat, extreme drought, and flooding.

“It has been decades of damage and deception,” Governor Newsom continued. “Wildfires wiping out entire communities, toxic smoke clogging our air, deadly heat waves, record-breaking droughts parching our wells. California taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill. California is taking action to hold big polluters accountable.”

If the state is successful, it is calling on oil companies to compensate the state and its residents for the industry’s impact on the environment and to help bring protection initiatives to mitigate against future damage that rising temperatures bring. It is also hoping to stop oil companies from engaging in further pollution and to cease misinformation campaigns.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta is also leading the lawsuit.

“Oil and gas companies have privately known the truth for decades — that the burning of fossil fuels leads to climate change — but have fed us lies and mistruths to further their record-breaking profits at the expense of our environment,” he said. “Enough is enough.”

According to Cal Fire, there have been 5,741 wildfire incidents in the state in 2023 alone, with over 305,000 acres burned.

As California Local observed, Southern California saw its first tropical storm since 1939 in August, leading to record quantities of rainfall in Palm Springs, San Diego, and downtown Los Angeles. The state also saw its hottest recorded month in history in July, and 12 major rainstorms were recorded earlier in the year.

It’s clear, then, that California is bearing a significant burden when it comes to the impact of global heating, and the lawsuit will leave Big Oil with a lot to answer for.

Join our free newsletter for cool news and actionable info that makes it easy to help yourself while helping the planet.

These ‘energy vampires’ could be sucking your wallet dry: ‘As much as 20% of your monthly electricity bill’

The Cool Down

These ‘energy vampires’ could be sucking your wallet dry: ‘As much as 20% of your monthly electricity bill’

Brett Aresco – October 10, 2023

They may not want to suck your blood … but they want to suck your wallet dry.

They are so-called “energy vampires,” appliances in your home that use energy when they’re plugged in, even when they’re not turned on. The garlic, stake to the heart, or silver bullet for these energy vampires is simple: Just unplug them.

What is an energy vampire?

We’re not talking about the kind from What We Do in the Shadows. Duke Energy estimates that electrical energy vampires “can account for as much as 20% of your monthly electricity bill.” Additionally, Michigan State University says that making a habit of unplugging energy vampires can “prevent any potential fires from overheated cords or appliances accidentally left on.”

Certain appliances — refrigerators, for instance — need to stay plugged in and turned on. But others — coffee makers, televisions, and many more — can easily be unplugged when not in use.

Why are energy vampires important?

Aside from costing you money, energy vampires can be a real drain on the power grid. A 2015 study by the National Resources Defense Council found that energy vampires use as much as 50 large power plants worth of energy every year, or as much energy as all of the households in Alabama and Arizona combined.

And that energy can be incredibly polluting. Despite recent gains in renewable energy, the U.S. power grid still draws more than 60% of its energy from burning dirty energy sources. With the world on track to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming above preindustrial levels within 10 years, the more oil, gas, and coal we can keep in the ground, the better.

How unplugging energy vampires can save money and the environment

According to the NRDC study, some simple unplugging can prevent 48.5 million tons of carbon dioxide pollution from entering the atmosphere every year. Not only that, but slaying energy vampires can save the average American household $165 annually, for a total of $19 billion nationwide.

It’s a simple step, but one that just about everyone can take.

Energy vampirism “may not seem like a big problem,” University of Missouri housing and environmental design expert Michael Goldschmidt told The New York Times. But, Goldschmidt says, “it’s a really big deal.”

Of course, appliances aren’t the only energy vampires out there. The term can apply to people as well.

NBC News classifies human energy vampires as “friends, family members or coworkers who literally zap your emotional energy,” like the kind made famous by What We Do in the Shadows. Obviously, we can’t unplug those energy vampires, but that’s all the more reason to take care of the ones we can.

Join our free newsletter for easy tips to save more, waste less, and help yourself while helping the planet.

In the GOP Extremist Hamas-Israel Rhetoric Sweepstakes, Marco Rubio Takes Early Lead

The New Republic

In the GOP Extremist Hamas-Israel Rhetoric Sweepstakes, Marco Rubio Takes Early Lead

Tori Otten – October 10, 2023

Senator Marco Rubio had a terrifying suggestion for how to resolve the war between Israel and Palestine: eradicating the Gaza Strip.

Fighting broke out on Saturday when Hamas launched a surprise airstrike attack on Israel. Israel has since responded in kind, imposing a total siege on the Gaza Strip, cutting off food, water, and electricity. At least 1,800 people have been killed on both sides—and the death toll is expected to keep rising.

During a Monday night interview on CNN, host Jake Tapper asked Rubio if there was a way to stop Hamas “without causing massive casualties against the innocent people” in Gaza.

“I don’t think there’s any way Israel can be expected to coexist or find some diplomatic off-ramp with these savages,” Rubio replied. “These are people, as you’ve been reporting and others have seen, that deliberately targeted teenage girls, women, and children, and the elderly.… Just horrifying things. And I don’t think we know the full extent of it yet. I mean, there’s more to come in the days and weeks ahead. You can’t coexist. They have to be eradicated.”

While Rubio was referring to Hamas, his unwillingness to differentiate between the militants and innocent Palestinian civilians is terrifying. Two million people live in Gaza, and more than half of them are children. Rather than give a nuanced response, Rubio instead seemed to be OK with wiping out an entire region.

“This is going to be incredibly painful. It’s going to be completely difficult. And it’s going to be horrifying, the price to pay.”

Rubio’s comments echo a statement earlier Monday from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The far-right leader swore to completely “change the Middle East” over Hamas’s attack.

Mary Trump asks why ‘f‑‑‑ing maniac’ uncle is allowed to ‘roam free’

The Hill

Mary Trump asks why ‘f‑‑‑ing maniac’ uncle is allowed to ‘roam free’

Lauren Irwin – October 10, 2023

Mary Trump, an outspoken adversary of former President Trump, called him a “f‑‑‑ing maniac” in a social media post Monday.

She specifically criticized Trump, who is her uncle, for his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and its possible relation to the war in Israel.

“This f‑‑‑ing maniac likely gave Putin (who gave Iran, who gave Hamas) Israel’s national security secrets,” Mary Trump wrote in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“Plus, he divulged highly classified information about our nuclear subs to an Australian cardboard guy,” she added. “Why is he still allowed to roam free?”

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Saturday after the group launched a barrage of rocket strikes and entered the country in a surprise attack.

In her post, Mary Trump shared a screenshot of her uncle’s comments on Truth Social that compared the ongoing situation in Israel to the U.S.-Mexico border, suggesting President Biden and former President Obama could be responsible for a Hamas attack on the U.S.

“The same people that raided Israel are pouring into our once beautiful USA, through our TOTALLY OPEN SOUTHERN BORDER, at Record Numbers,” Trump posted. “Are they planning an attack within our Country? Crooked Joe Biden and his BOSS, Barack Hussein Obama, did this to us!”

In a follow-up post, Mary Trump urged the public to join her newsletter and support her mission.

“If you agree my uncle is unfit to be in the White House or anywhere but prison, please support my mission to get this f‑‑‑ing maniac off our TVs – and our streets,” she said.

Mary Trump has been a prominent critic of Trump, even publishing a book titled “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.”

This state is requiring every new home to be built with money-saving, energy-efficient heat pumps: ‘The right choice’

The Cool Down

This state is requiring every new home to be built with money-saving, energy-efficient heat pumps: ‘The right choice’

Jill Ettinger – October 9, 2023

Starting this summer, every new house or apartment built in the state of Washington will be required to use money-saving, energy-efficient heat pumps for heating and cooling.

The decision came last November when the Washington State Building Code Council voted in favor of the mandate, making it one of the strongest building codes in the country for energy-efficient heat pumps.

Electric heat pumps are two to four times more energy efficient than gas heaters, which means they can help you cut down your electricity bill dramatically.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CnhGVZYsMau/embed/captioned?cr=1&v=12

Another reason they’re being lauded is because they don’t run on methane, a potent gas that traps heat in our atmosphere and causes our planet to overheat. Methane is also linked to a number of human health issues, including respiratory illness, memory loss, and heart disease.

The Council voted for the heat pumps following a 2021 state law that requires 45% in greenhouse gas pollution reductions by 2030 and 95% by 2050, compared with 1990 levels. The state is also required to increase energy efficiency in buildings by 70% by 2031.

“The State Building Code Council made the right choice for Washingtonians,” Rachel Koller, managing director of the green-building alliance Shift Zero, said in a statement. “From an economic, equity and sustainability perspective, it makes sense to build efficient, electric homes right from the start.”

An influx of transplants to Washington in recent years has led to a 50% increase in planet-overheating gas pollution from buildings between 1990 and 2015 — the fastest-growing source in the state.

Across the country, lawmakers are making decisions like this to help move their municipalities away from dirty-energy-based heating systems. More than 90 cities and counties in the U.S. now have similar measures in place.

“It’s an exciting step forward toward meeting our goal to reduce greenhouse gases in our state,” Katy Sheehan, a council member who voted in favor of the heat pump mandate told Spokane’s Spokesman-Review. “I’m really happy that we did it.”