Tag Archives: LLMs

Facts About the Arctic in June 2026

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The JAXA/ViSHOP web site is currently undergoing maintenance, but here is how their 2 day average extent graph looked for June 2nd:

Extent was 3rd lowest in the JAXA record, behind 2016 and 2019.

The Alfred Wegener Institute’s sea ice concentration data shows that the Bering Sea is now largely free of sea ice, and the areas of open water in the Beaufort, Chukchi, East Siberian and Laptev Seas continue to expand:

The sea ice concentration map also shows open water in much of Lancaster Sound. Also apparent is the widespread presence of melt ponds along the southern part of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Here’s a closer, albeit somewhat cloudy, look:

“False colour” image of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago on June 3rd from the MODIS instrument on the Aqua satellite
Continue reading Facts About the Arctic in June 2026 →

Grok Confirms Michael Shellenberger Talks Abject Nonsense

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Thanks to Going South for the heads up:

By way of additional background information, Wikipedia asserts that:

Grok is a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by xAI. It was launched in November 2023 by Elon Musk as an initiative based on the large language model (LLM) of the same name. Grok has apps for iOS and Android and is integrated with the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), Tesla vehicles, and Tesla’s Optimus robot. The chatbot is named after the verb grok, coined by American author Robert A. Heinlein in his 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land to describe a deeper than human form of understanding.

The bot has generated various controversial responses, including conspiracy theories, antisemitism, and praise of Adolf Hitler, as well as referring to Musk’s views when asked about controversial topics or difficult decisions. Updates since 2023 have shifted the bot politically rightward to provide conservative responses to user queries.

and that:

Michael D. Shellenberger is an American author and journalist. He is the first endowed professor at the University of Austin, serving as CBR Chair of Politics, Censorship, and Free Speech.

Shellenberger is a prominent heterodox thinker on topics including climate change and homelessness…

University of Austin is not a school recognized by the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics.

In other news, is Grok schizophrenic?

[Update – November 3rd]

Grok seem to having a lot of trouble answering this simple question:

He/she/it/they has been pondering the problem for over an hour now.

[Update – 15:00 UTC November 3rd]

I got bored waiting for Grok to get back to me, so I asked ChatGPT much the same question. I was informed:

Suggested links

The Naval History & Heritage Command (NHHC) entry: “Skate II (SSN-578)” on history.navy.mil — gives the official history and mentions the March 17, 1959 surfacing. history.navy.mil

An archived photograph in the NHHC image collection: “USN 1040961 USS SKATE (SSN–578)” which shows the submarine moored to the ice pack. flickr.com

A blog article “USS Skate at the North Pole – Truth and Fantasy Fiction” that collects several of the historic photographs and discusses their context. greatwhitecon.info

I asked ChatGPT to check out the final link in more detail. I was informed:

What GreatWhiteCon does well:

It collects and reproduces the historic images and contemporary captions, and discusses how those images have been interpreted (or misinterpreted) over time. That makes it a handy one-stop place to see the pictures and some commentary.

What GreatWhiteCon is not:

It is a blog/analysis piece (2018) rather than an official or archival source. That means its interpretation is useful, but any factual claim that matters (dates, official captions, archival catalog numbers) is best checked against the primary records (Naval History & Heritage Command, National Archives, contemporary magazines, USNI Proceedings).

Grok has a rather different interpretation of what Great White Con does well. Allegedly “Snow White”:

Counters alarmist views… promoting nuanced data interpretation over binary claims.

[Update – November 4th]

Today my discussion with Grok on XTwitter turned (amongst other things) to the recent United States Department of Energy “Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate” report.

My conversation with Grok is remarkably reminiscent of mud wrestling with “skeptical” Twitter trolls:

Watch this space!