a-i-i-ing and oy-ing about another artificiality: AI
Artificial intelligence is increasingly becoming part of our lives, from self-driving cars to ChatGPT. John Oliver discusses how AI works, where it might be heading next, and, of course, why it hates the bus.
from an old (circa murphy brown pregnancy hullabaloo maybe) treatise What is ‘Real’? How Our Brain Differentiates Between Reality and Fantasy (medicalxpress.com) (PhysOrg.com) — Most people can easily tell the difference between reality and fantasy. We know that characters in novels and movies are fictitious, and we also understand that historical figures – even if we’ve never met them personally – were real people. As obvious as this distinction may seem, however, scientists know very little about the specific brain mechanisms that are responsible for our ability to distinguish between real and fictional events. Recently, research has identified two areas of the brain that are more strongly activated when people see real characters than when they see fictional characters. These brain regions – in the anterior medial prefrontal and posterior cingulated cortices (amPFC and PCC) – are known to be involved during autobiographical memory retrieval and self-referential thinking. Based on this finding, scientists have hypothesized that our brains may distinguish between reality and fantasy because real things tend to have a higher degree of personal relevance than fictional things do. A new study tests this hypothesis that personal relevance is the critical factor in differentiating between reality and fantasy by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare the brain’s response when processing real and fictional characters. Anna Abraham of the Max Planck Institute for Human Brain and Cognitive Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, and the University of Giessen in Giessen, Germany, and D. Yves von Cramon of the Max Planck Institute for Human Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the… Read more »
I still find it hard to understand why people did not listen to Scott Adams way back when as he heartily endorsed SFB. Did they not believe his words? Or was it the media being enamored by the orange idiot who failed to make that information more known? Whatever the reason, he spent time explaining his stance.
I took a look through my followers on twit and was suprised at the number of Ukraine accounts there are. The person who had her thumb blown off is now in surgical hospital, but they are trying to get her infections under control. Being in combat is not a great place to stay clean and tidy. Hopefully the good doctors and nurses will have her in recovery soon.
It seems as though someone with a career to protect could take one look at kan’tye west and just keep on keeping their mouth shut up tight like a clam. Anyone who don’t is a dummy. This ain’t no country for old dummies.
Fugham.
Adams does the senile, old man rant. 66 is rather young for senility to set in but it happens.
I haven’t read a Dilbert cartoon in 20 years. I just got tired of the same joke being repeated over and over.
At least he is doing new material.
Jack
Fox News Rejects Ad With Leaked Texts From Dominion Lawsuit (mediaite.com) Fox News has been accused of forbidding a progressive organization from running an ad on the network that accuses their hosts of knowingly amplifying lies and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. Politico Playbook reported that Fox wouldn’t air an ad from the progressive PAC, MoveOn, focusing on the accusations the network faces from Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit. The ad gravitates explicitly around the unflattering revelations of leaked emails and text messages from the network’s top brass and most prominent figures. […] Politico acknowledged that “it would, of course, be a stretch to expect any network to run ads that directly criticize it. And Fox has criticized Dominion for having ‘cherry-picked quotes stripped of key context, and spilled considerable ink on facts that are irrelevant under black-letter principles of defamation law.’” Mediaite heard from a Fox News insider who called the ad a “tired and predictable publicity stunt for far left-wing groups.” The report on the ad comes after Fox News MediaBuzz host Howard Kurtz addressed critiques about Fox’s silence in covering the lawsuit against them. Kurtz said, “I believe I should be covering it,” given his role at the network, but “the company has decided that as part of the organization being sued, I can’t talk about it or write about it, at least for now. I strongly disagree with that decision. But as an employee, I have to abide by it.” The ad quotes emails & texts from its hosts showing they intentionally… Read more »
BB
On Scott Adams, you have a point. Another, his early rants should have given the cartoon page editor a heads up that trouble was coming. If he had paid any attention, he could have eased Adams off the page, so he didn’t look like such an idiot doing it this late.
Jack
of course there’ll be some who will equate the recent ban with how social media cancels offensive folk and even what happened when NYTimes and other global media dropped all political cartooning after the charlie hebdo tragedy involving ‘toons depicting/caricaturing the Islamic prophet. also one can sense a hint of what happened to helen thomas and vanessa redgrave for anti-israel comments.
like jack, i agree about tiresome dilbert retreads. his earlier understanding of management venality vs. put-upon employees was refreshing at the time however.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/27/us/jackson-mississippi-capitol-criminal-justice-invs/index.html “A proposal in the Mississippi legislature to reshape Jackson’s criminal justice system has erupted into a high-stakes battle between the Republican-dominated state government and the Blackest big city in the US over some of the most incendiary flashpoints of American politics: voting rights, public safety and race.” “The Mississippi criminal justice bill, which passed the state House of Representatives earlier this month, would create a new, separate court system in a district that includes Jackson’s downtown and a third of its residents. Judges and prosecutors in the district would be appointed by state government officials, encroaching on the power of locally elected judges to hear some cases.” “A modified version of the bill stripped of some of its most controversial provisions passed a state Senate committee Thursday – although they could be added back in as the two legislative houses come to an agreement.” “Both versions of the legislation would greatly expand the jurisdiction of the Capitol Police, a state government-controlled police force that has been criticized by local leaders for aggressive tactics and multiple shootings by officers.” “Taken together, the changes in the House bill would put White, conservative state officials in control of much of the criminal justice system across a significant swathe of Jackson. That prospect has mobilized opposition in a city where more than eight in 10 residents are Black.” “It is taking us back in time and it puts us on the wrong side of history,” Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba said in an interview.… Read more »
On the real vs fiction debate, I wonder how many might share my experience. As it happens, I dream in full technicolor and stereophonic sound with complete plot lines. Some are strange but luckily no nightmares. When waking there is a short hangover space while trying to get back in touch with the real world. That doesn’t seem quite the same as recognizing one over the other, just different realities. Paul McCartney says he dreamed “Yesterday”. Maybe reality just changes location.
“In response to a tweet about the controversy, Twitter owner Musk said Sunday that the “media is racist.” He didn’t criticize Adams’ comments, and Musk said without evidence that for a “very long time, US media was racist against non-white people, now they’re racist against whites & Asians.”
“Same thing happened with elite colleges & high schools in America,” Musk wrote. “Maybe they can try not being racist.”
“Musk later agreed with a tweet saying Adams’ comments “weren’t good” but had an “element of truth” to them. He also accused the media of giving Black victims of police violence disproportionate coverage over White victims of police violence.”
Yes, Jamie, my dreams are in color, have sound, and sometimes choreography. If I want to know if I’m dreaming while I’m dreaming, I try to turn on a light. If there’s no light or it doesn’t look right, I know I’m dreaming and wake up. Then, sometimes, I paint the dreams.
If anyone saw the movie “Polar Express,” the animation was creepy. It was too close to looking human, and also too far away. It was unnerving.
There’s a commercial now, which seems to be two people standing in a kitchen, but something looks not quite right. Maybe it’s just weird lighting and actors with too much Botox or filler, but it looks odd…and I have no idea what they are selling because I’m focused on the weirdness.
I didn’t realize Dilbert was still a thing. Being obsolete isn’t the same as being held accountable for your words and actions which, of course, is was being “cancelled” is, in reality.
I’m sure it’s creator will have a new-found audience. Maybe he can draw posters for kkk rallies.
Jamie
I went through a long period where I either didn’t dream or didn’t remember.
But the dreams have returned, I am basically dreaming in fiction. My dreams used to involve me and people I knew. Now I’m never in the dream I’m an indifferent observer for the most part. Although today I woke up early rolled over and went back to sleep, my dreaming self deliberately went back to my dream to let the character have time to resolve his problem.
Jack
The Adams decision to go full out racist was his decision, he knew the consequences. It is not the same as accidently using the “N” word in a heated conversation and apologizing profusely afterwards as you are not that person. His cartoon had been removed by papers in the past for going too far. Some day we might find out what is going on in his head. I saw mention that he has dementia at age 66. That is not for me to call.
Early on he was using actual work place events for the cartoons. Which was great. Stuff never happens in one place at one time. So people reading the cartoon could go, “yeah, that happened to me and it was just as stupid”. But, once he became a follower of SFB I quit, I have other things to do.
I couldn’t care less about Adams or Dilbert. I’m sure cries of cancel culture will be deafening. Screw ’em. As the old sayin goes, “Yo pay your money and you take your chances.” Adams did, and really, people don’t like open racists these days and I don’t imagine newspapers of general distribution want to be associated with open racists. Not good for business. Maybe some of the white power rags will pick him up.
I definitely dream in color. (I’ve never understood why anyone would dream in black & white – it’s not something that our brains are wired for.) All I know is that in any “running” dreams I have my legs don’t seem to want to move quickly when I want them to.
One of my shrinks had a funny streak in her. Sometimes when we were working on my nightmares she would give me some of the Freud dream theory. It was always funny and would help get me up a little. I have severe PTSD.
odd that no one today has anything to say about john oliver’s AI observations/tirade/critique at 5:13 am. passe’ stuff now i guess. either that or politics about stupid cartoonists is a lot more interesting than stupid smart machines.
Ive seen those guys come and go….happens all the time….say something stupid and out the door…..
Dilbert Schmilbert…Hit the road, Toad.
Reminds me of when on occasion Ed McMahon would get a little smart-ass with Johnny and Johnny would just pause with a look and then say, “You must have ALL the money you’ll ever need….”.
patd – remember “artificial intelligence” is neither intelligent nor artificial. It is all programming, faster computer processors and cheap, massive, and fast memory make it work better nowadays. Forty years ago I wrote a program to monitor switches and other sensors, create a database and decide a few things, normal, open, closed. Normal was a range that came from open and closed. It was given the hours that it was supposed to call, phone call, someone on the on call list. A program to decide if a gate was open and to call the person on the call list. Rather exciting stuff for 1981. It was much more sophisticated than that. It would be “AI” in today’s hype. It worked great for training itself. It functioned great for finding open gates, temperatures out of range, pressures wrong, and just about everything the requirements were. The problem was it kept calling field personnel, techs and everyone else all the time. It did not have a way of deciding if the gate was open because the wind blew it open, a cow was leaning on it or some other stimulus we could not handle. Now I would hang cameras around and even pressure pads just to identify a critter pushing on things. The other, and more important, issue was we did not have the processing power to do the job. Even when we added another computer it was not enough to handle more than a couple gates. I had… Read more »
I did not look at Olivers opinion of AI. As he is not an expert his opinion is about level with mine. It seems recently I’ve been reading a lot of scary scary opinions by people whose expertise is about level with mine. So I did a little looking around and I tend to agree with BB. From what I can tell these machines generate and sort a lot of probabilities real fast. Good for poker or times when you aren’t certain what will happen next but not intelligence.
But if you have a lot of computing power then you can string together probable words, phrases, sentences, even whole paragraphs. Compared to what went before it looks like magic. But it is not thinking.
Just the opinion of an old carpenter.
Jack
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/27/health/zero-calorie-sweetener-heart-attack-stroke-wellness/index.html Another artificial thing of real concern. “Our blood vessels are always under pressure, and we spring leaks, and blood platelets are constantly plugging these holes all the time,” Hazen said. “However, the size of the clot made by platelets depends on the size of the trigger that stimulates the cells, he explained. For example, if the trigger is only 10%, then you only get 10% of a clot.” “But what we’re seeing with erythritol is the platelets become super responsive: A mere 10% stimulant produces 90% to 100% of a clot formation,” Hazen said. “…erythritol – used to add bulk or sweeten stevia, monkfruit and keto reduced-sugar products – has been linked to blood clotting, stroke, heart attack and death…” “In response to the study, the Calorie Control Council, an industry association, told CNN that “the results of this study are contrary to decades of scientific research showing reduced-calorie sweeteners like erythritol are safe, as evidenced by global regulatory permissions for their use in foods and beverages,” said Robert Rankin, the council’s executive director, in an email.” * The Calorie Control Council represents (lobbies for) low calorie foods, so of course they disagree. “Artificially manufactured in massive quantities, erythritol has no lingering aftertaste, doesn’t spike blood sugar and has less of a laxative effect than some other sugar alcohols.” “Erythritol is also the largest ingredient by weight in many “natural” stevia and monkfruit products, Hazen said. Because stevia and monkfruit are about 200 to 400 times sweeter than sugar,… Read more »
a-i-i-ing and oy-ing about another artificiality: AI
Artificial intelligence is increasingly becoming part of our lives, from self-driving cars to ChatGPT. John Oliver discusses how AI works, where it might be heading next, and, of course, why it hates the bus.
from an old (circa murphy brown pregnancy hullabaloo maybe) treatise What is ‘Real’? How Our Brain Differentiates Between Reality and Fantasy (medicalxpress.com) (PhysOrg.com) — Most people can easily tell the difference between reality and fantasy. We know that characters in novels and movies are fictitious, and we also understand that historical figures – even if we’ve never met them personally – were real people. As obvious as this distinction may seem, however, scientists know very little about the specific brain mechanisms that are responsible for our ability to distinguish between real and fictional events. Recently, research has identified two areas of the brain that are more strongly activated when people see real characters than when they see fictional characters. These brain regions – in the anterior medial prefrontal and posterior cingulated cortices (amPFC and PCC) – are known to be involved during autobiographical memory retrieval and self-referential thinking. Based on this finding, scientists have hypothesized that our brains may distinguish between reality and fantasy because real things tend to have a higher degree of personal relevance than fictional things do. A new study tests this hypothesis that personal relevance is the critical factor in differentiating between reality and fantasy by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare the brain’s response when processing real and fictional characters. Anna Abraham of the Max Planck Institute for Human Brain and Cognitive Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, and the University of Giessen in Giessen, Germany, and D. Yves von Cramon of the Max Planck Institute for Human Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the… Read more »
I still find it hard to understand why people did not listen to Scott Adams way back when as he heartily endorsed SFB. Did they not believe his words? Or was it the media being enamored by the orange idiot who failed to make that information more known? Whatever the reason, he spent time explaining his stance.
I took a look through my followers on twit and was suprised at the number of Ukraine accounts there are. The person who had her thumb blown off is now in surgical hospital, but they are trying to get her infections under control. Being in combat is not a great place to stay clean and tidy. Hopefully the good doctors and nurses will have her in recovery soon.
It seems as though someone with a career to protect could take one look at kan’tye west and just keep on keeping their mouth shut up tight like a clam. Anyone who don’t is a dummy. This ain’t no country for old dummies.
Fugham.
Bigots and traitors are going to feel empowered until we put Trump in jail. Even that might not be enough.
Adams does the senile, old man rant. 66 is rather young for senility to set in but it happens.
I haven’t read a Dilbert cartoon in 20 years. I just got tired of the same joke being repeated over and over.
At least he is doing new material.
Jack
Fox News Rejects Ad With Leaked Texts From Dominion Lawsuit (mediaite.com) Fox News has been accused of forbidding a progressive organization from running an ad on the network that accuses their hosts of knowingly amplifying lies and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. Politico Playbook reported that Fox wouldn’t air an ad from the progressive PAC, MoveOn, focusing on the accusations the network faces from Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit. The ad gravitates explicitly around the unflattering revelations of leaked emails and text messages from the network’s top brass and most prominent figures. […] Politico acknowledged that “it would, of course, be a stretch to expect any network to run ads that directly criticize it. And Fox has criticized Dominion for having ‘cherry-picked quotes stripped of key context, and spilled considerable ink on facts that are irrelevant under black-letter principles of defamation law.’” Mediaite heard from a Fox News insider who called the ad a “tired and predictable publicity stunt for far left-wing groups.” The report on the ad comes after Fox News MediaBuzz host Howard Kurtz addressed critiques about Fox’s silence in covering the lawsuit against them. Kurtz said, “I believe I should be covering it,” given his role at the network, but “the company has decided that as part of the organization being sued, I can’t talk about it or write about it, at least for now. I strongly disagree with that decision. But as an employee, I have to abide by it.” The ad quotes emails & texts from its hosts showing they intentionally… Read more »
BB
On Scott Adams, you have a point. Another, his early rants should have given the cartoon page editor a heads up that trouble was coming. If he had paid any attention, he could have eased Adams off the page, so he didn’t look like such an idiot doing it this late.
Jack
His syndication is gone. Breaking up is to easy to do. https://twitter.com/DerfBackderf/status/1630230203258617858/photo/1
of course there’ll be some who will equate the recent ban with how social media cancels offensive folk and even what happened when NYTimes and other global media dropped all political cartooning after the charlie hebdo tragedy involving ‘toons depicting/caricaturing the Islamic prophet. also one can sense a hint of what happened to helen thomas and vanessa redgrave for anti-israel comments.
like jack, i agree about tiresome dilbert retreads. his earlier understanding of management venality vs. put-upon employees was refreshing at the time however.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/27/us/jackson-mississippi-capitol-criminal-justice-invs/index.html “A proposal in the Mississippi legislature to reshape Jackson’s criminal justice system has erupted into a high-stakes battle between the Republican-dominated state government and the Blackest big city in the US over some of the most incendiary flashpoints of American politics: voting rights, public safety and race.” “The Mississippi criminal justice bill, which passed the state House of Representatives earlier this month, would create a new, separate court system in a district that includes Jackson’s downtown and a third of its residents. Judges and prosecutors in the district would be appointed by state government officials, encroaching on the power of locally elected judges to hear some cases.” “A modified version of the bill stripped of some of its most controversial provisions passed a state Senate committee Thursday – although they could be added back in as the two legislative houses come to an agreement.” “Both versions of the legislation would greatly expand the jurisdiction of the Capitol Police, a state government-controlled police force that has been criticized by local leaders for aggressive tactics and multiple shootings by officers.” “Taken together, the changes in the House bill would put White, conservative state officials in control of much of the criminal justice system across a significant swathe of Jackson. That prospect has mobilized opposition in a city where more than eight in 10 residents are Black.” “It is taking us back in time and it puts us on the wrong side of history,” Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba said in an interview.… Read more »
On the real vs fiction debate, I wonder how many might share my experience. As it happens, I dream in full technicolor and stereophonic sound with complete plot lines. Some are strange but luckily no nightmares. When waking there is a short hangover space while trying to get back in touch with the real world. That doesn’t seem quite the same as recognizing one over the other, just different realities. Paul McCartney says he dreamed “Yesterday”. Maybe reality just changes location.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/27/business/elon-musk-scott-adams-defense/index.html
“In response to a tweet about the controversy, Twitter owner Musk said Sunday that the “media is racist.” He didn’t criticize Adams’ comments, and Musk said without evidence that for a “very long time, US media was racist against non-white people, now they’re racist against whites & Asians.”
“Same thing happened with elite colleges & high schools in America,” Musk wrote. “Maybe they can try not being racist.”
“Musk later agreed with a tweet saying Adams’ comments “weren’t good” but had an “element of truth” to them. He also accused the media of giving Black victims of police violence disproportionate coverage over White victims of police violence.”
The Smerconish question of the day is whether or not Dilbert should be cancelled. Unlike most days, this one is running almost 50/50.
Yes, Jamie, my dreams are in color, have sound, and sometimes choreography. If I want to know if I’m dreaming while I’m dreaming, I try to turn on a light. If there’s no light or it doesn’t look right, I know I’m dreaming and wake up. Then, sometimes, I paint the dreams.
If anyone saw the movie “Polar Express,” the animation was creepy. It was too close to looking human, and also too far away. It was unnerving.
There’s a commercial now, which seems to be two people standing in a kitchen, but something looks not quite right. Maybe it’s just weird lighting and actors with too much Botox or filler, but it looks odd…and I have no idea what they are selling because I’m focused on the weirdness.
I didn’t realize Dilbert was still a thing. Being obsolete isn’t the same as being held accountable for your words and actions which, of course, is was being “cancelled” is, in reality.
I’m sure it’s creator will have a new-found audience. Maybe he can draw posters for kkk rallies.
Jamie
I went through a long period where I either didn’t dream or didn’t remember.
But the dreams have returned, I am basically dreaming in fiction. My dreams used to involve me and people I knew. Now I’m never in the dream I’m an indifferent observer for the most part. Although today I woke up early rolled over and went back to sleep, my dreaming self deliberately went back to my dream to let the character have time to resolve his problem.
Jack
The Adams decision to go full out racist was his decision, he knew the consequences. It is not the same as accidently using the “N” word in a heated conversation and apologizing profusely afterwards as you are not that person. His cartoon had been removed by papers in the past for going too far. Some day we might find out what is going on in his head. I saw mention that he has dementia at age 66. That is not for me to call.
Early on he was using actual work place events for the cartoons. Which was great. Stuff never happens in one place at one time. So people reading the cartoon could go, “yeah, that happened to me and it was just as stupid”. But, once he became a follower of SFB I quit, I have other things to do.
I couldn’t care less about Adams or Dilbert. I’m sure cries of cancel culture will be deafening. Screw ’em. As the old sayin goes, “Yo pay your money and you take your chances.” Adams did, and really, people don’t like open racists these days and I don’t imagine newspapers of general distribution want to be associated with open racists. Not good for business. Maybe some of the white power rags will pick him up.
I definitely dream in color. (I’ve never understood why anyone would dream in black & white – it’s not something that our brains are wired for.) All I know is that in any “running” dreams I have my legs don’t seem to want to move quickly when I want them to.
One of my shrinks had a funny streak in her. Sometimes when we were working on my nightmares she would give me some of the Freud dream theory. It was always funny and would help get me up a little. I have severe PTSD.
odd that no one today has anything to say about john oliver’s AI observations/tirade/critique at 5:13 am. passe’ stuff now i guess. either that or politics about stupid cartoonists is a lot more interesting than stupid smart machines.
I have dreamed solutions to cabinet problems. That’s always weird when i do that.
Ive seen those guys come and go….happens all the time….say something stupid and out the door…..
Dilbert Schmilbert…Hit the road, Toad.
Reminds me of when on occasion Ed McMahon would get a little smart-ass with Johnny and Johnny would just pause with a look and then say, “You must have ALL the money you’ll ever need….”.
patd – remember “artificial intelligence” is neither intelligent nor artificial. It is all programming, faster computer processors and cheap, massive, and fast memory make it work better nowadays. Forty years ago I wrote a program to monitor switches and other sensors, create a database and decide a few things, normal, open, closed. Normal was a range that came from open and closed. It was given the hours that it was supposed to call, phone call, someone on the on call list. A program to decide if a gate was open and to call the person on the call list. Rather exciting stuff for 1981. It was much more sophisticated than that. It would be “AI” in today’s hype. It worked great for training itself. It functioned great for finding open gates, temperatures out of range, pressures wrong, and just about everything the requirements were. The problem was it kept calling field personnel, techs and everyone else all the time. It did not have a way of deciding if the gate was open because the wind blew it open, a cow was leaning on it or some other stimulus we could not handle. Now I would hang cameras around and even pressure pads just to identify a critter pushing on things. The other, and more important, issue was we did not have the processing power to do the job. Even when we added another computer it was not enough to handle more than a couple gates. I had… Read more »
I did not look at Olivers opinion of AI. As he is not an expert his opinion is about level with mine. It seems recently I’ve been reading a lot of scary scary opinions by people whose expertise is about level with mine. So I did a little looking around and I tend to agree with BB. From what I can tell these machines generate and sort a lot of probabilities real fast. Good for poker or times when you aren’t certain what will happen next but not intelligence.
But if you have a lot of computing power then you can string together probable words, phrases, sentences, even whole paragraphs. Compared to what went before it looks like magic. But it is not thinking.
Just the opinion of an old carpenter.
Jack
if AI can write code, and it can, it can program itself, and it can
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/27/health/zero-calorie-sweetener-heart-attack-stroke-wellness/index.html Another artificial thing of real concern. “Our blood vessels are always under pressure, and we spring leaks, and blood platelets are constantly plugging these holes all the time,” Hazen said. “However, the size of the clot made by platelets depends on the size of the trigger that stimulates the cells, he explained. For example, if the trigger is only 10%, then you only get 10% of a clot.” “But what we’re seeing with erythritol is the platelets become super responsive: A mere 10% stimulant produces 90% to 100% of a clot formation,” Hazen said. “…erythritol – used to add bulk or sweeten stevia, monkfruit and keto reduced-sugar products – has been linked to blood clotting, stroke, heart attack and death…” “In response to the study, the Calorie Control Council, an industry association, told CNN that “the results of this study are contrary to decades of scientific research showing reduced-calorie sweeteners like erythritol are safe, as evidenced by global regulatory permissions for their use in foods and beverages,” said Robert Rankin, the council’s executive director, in an email.” * The Calorie Control Council represents (lobbies for) low calorie foods, so of course they disagree. “Artificially manufactured in massive quantities, erythritol has no lingering aftertaste, doesn’t spike blood sugar and has less of a laxative effect than some other sugar alcohols.” “Erythritol is also the largest ingredient by weight in many “natural” stevia and monkfruit products, Hazen said. Because stevia and monkfruit are about 200 to 400 times sweeter than sugar,… Read more »
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