anonymous_sorry

...when people ask me about learning to code. I ask them if they're ok with sitting in front of a computer for many hours.

I wonder if this puts people off who shouldn't be put off.

I certainly don't think I'd want that for myself if asked. But coding doesn't feel like that. Sure, I sit in front of a computer for hours, but productive sessions generally involve losing track of time and realising you've been sat there for hours

Well, but there absolutely are such things as coincidences. It is obvious that coincidences are to be expected.

Combinatorial mathematics actually says certain types of coincidence happen more often than we seem to expect intuitively (eg. the Birthday "Paradox").

I have no particular view on AMD. But any argument that includes "I don't believe in coincidences" should probably be weakened in your estimation.

I think it would be be more illuminating to call it "enlightened self-interest".

I don't see why it makes a difference for this purpose that you're replaying network packets or controller inputs or any other interface to the game engine. The important thing is that there is some well-defined interface. I guess designing for networked multiplayer does probably necessitate that, but if the engine isn't deterministic it still isn't going to work.

There was a twitter thread years ago (which appears to be long gone) about how the SNES Pilot Wings pre-game demo was just a recording of controller inputs. For cartridges manufactured later in the game's life, a plane in the demo crashes rather than landing gracefully, due to a revised version of a chip in the cartridge. The inputs for the demo were never re-recorded, so the behaviour was off.

The cumulative duration of these four episodes looks to be about 30 years, so about a quarter of the total time period looked at

Interesting, but not quite as dramatic as I assumed from the title.

But the LLM contributions would likely be ruled public domain, so AGPL may not be enforceable on these.

There was a recent ruling that LLM output is inherently public domain (presumably unless it infringes some existing copyright). In which case it's not possible to use them to "reimplement everything we can as copyleft".

Eggs in the UK are safe to eat raw (and I presume the EU as well [but please verify before doing so!]).

I did think about this use-case as I was typing my first message.

I can see it working for complex products, for functionality I only want to use once in a blue moon. If it's something I'm doing regularly, I'd rather the LLM just tell me which submenu to find it in, or what command to type.

Have you ever had a chatbot solve your problem? I don't think this has ever happened to me.

As a reasonably technical user capable of using search, the only way this could really happen is if there was no web/app interface for something I wanted to do, but there was a chatbot/AI interface for it.

Perhaps companies will decide to go chatbot-first for these things, and perhaps customers will prefer that. But I doubt it to be honest - do people really want to use a fuzzy-logic CLI instead of a graphical interface? If not, why won't companies just get AI to implement the functionality in their other UIs?

Your docs are probably read many more times than they are written. It might be cheaper and quicker to produce them at 90% quality, but surely the important metric is how much time it saves or costs your readers?

"I apologize to the world at large for my inadvertent, naive if minor role in enabling this assault"

In the same way it's better that adults are the recipients of the harms of smoking, drinking or gambling. It's still not desirable, but societies have settled upon thresholds for when people have some capacity to take responsibility for their choices.

Not saying those thresholds are always right and should definitely apply in this case, but it surely isn't an alien or non-obvious concept.

Others have suggested "bullshit". A bullshitter does not care (and may not know) whether what they say is truth or fiction. A bullshitter's goal is just to be listened to and seem convincing.

It's very impressive indeed.

Linux goal is only for code compatibility - which makes complete sense given the libre/open source origins. If the culture is one where you expect to have access to the source code for the software you depend on, why should the OS developers make the compromises needed to ensure you can still run a binary compiled decades ago?

There's an interesting asymmetry in language in this area.

Jobs are "created" by a company or an industry.

But they never seem to be "destroyed", instead they are "lost".

If the company starts hiring again, they're "creating" new jobs, not "finding" the ones they were careless enough to lose.

I think just be specific - a suicidal sixteen year-old was able to discuss methods of killing himself with an LLM by prompting it to role-play a fictional scenario.

No need to say he "lied" and then use an analogy of him lying to a human being, as did the comment I originally objected to.

So for me, it's not about being reductionist, but about not anthropomorphizing or using words which which may suggest an inappropriate ethical or moral dimension to interactions with a piece of software.

Mayyybe, but since the comment I objected to also used an analogy of lying to a person I felt it suggested some unwanted moral judgement (of a suicidal teenager).

I mean, for one thing, a commercial LLM exists as a product designed to make a profit. It can be improved, otherwise modified, restricted or legally terminated.

And "lying" to it is not morally equivalent to lying to a human.

That's certainly a reasonable argument.

Another is that this is a new and poorly understood (by the public at least) technology that giant corporations make available to minors. In ChatGPT's case, they require parental consent, although I have no idea how well they enforce that.

But I also don't think the manufacturer is solely responsible, and to be honest I'm not that interested in assigning blame, just keen that lessons are learned.

You can't "deceive" an LLM. It's not like lying to a person. It's not a person.

Using emotive, anthropomorphic language about software tool is unhelpful, in this case at least. Better to think of it as a mentally disturbed minor who found a way to work around a tool's safety features.

We can debate whether the safety features are sufficient, whether it is possible to completely protect a user intent on harming themselves, whether the tool should be provided to children, etc.

The historical conception of race doesn't translate simply to human genetics.

There is more genetic variation within a what we might call a race than between them. And it's interesting to note that the genetic diversity of Eurasian populations is in large part contained within the much greater diversity of Africa. In some sense we're all Africans. On top of that there has been a good amount of mixing, both historically and in the present day.

To think in terms of "races" might lead one to hold a mental model of impermeable boundaries between populations that in many cases were never present, and certainly aren't today. Geneticists tend to use the word "population" instead, since it doesn't connote any unhelpful assumptions about uniform or fixed phenotypes within a well-defined species subgroup.

Of course there are certain obvious environmental adaptations that have been selected for in different geographies/climates, as well random genetic drift between distant populations. Sometimes those difference might have medical relevance, and you can make statistical generalisations about the prevalence and distribution of genetic markers within any group you like. But for most medical and public policy applications it is likely most useful to focus on populations within an administrative area, and increasingly, individualised medicine.

I was uneducated on the subject of coalition games, so looked it up. But I leaned these games are defined by a mechanic where players can form binding contracts with external enforcement/punishment.

I don't see how this applies to voting at all in countries without compulsory voting.

Communication and iterations also don't seem that relevant to my argument about free-riding, since one's voting record is not usually visible.

I think this disagreement stems from the fact that, by instinct, you think socially. When I hear the word "rational", I think of the economist's model of a individual acting to optimise their own utility.

Of course in many (most?) situations, we get the best outcome overall by acting socially. But, to me, free-riding on the socially-motivated activities of others is a "rational" strategy (with a insignificant chance of one brick/vote making a difference), if not a laudable one. Which is why I don't advocate the "rational" strategy.

I appreciate your point that if everyone took that strategy we'd all suffer. I can never control what everyone does, but maybe I can build or support a big enough coalition to improve outcomes for the majority, or at least people like me. But free-riding will still be an option many choose, unless punished severely (which most countries don't when it comes to voting).

I don't argue that people "choose to get poor results", I argue that some proportion may recognise their possible effect on the democratic outcome is so small that on some level they have no effective choice at all. That's just the reality of being one among an elaborate of many millions. Democracy is still the best option we have, I hasten to add.

In Prisoner's Dilemma, as originally formulated, I believe communication is expressly forbidden. And even where it's allowed, in a one-off game the optimal strategy for an individual uninterested in the welfare of their comrade is to collaborate with the authorities. If both participants take this strategy, it's to the detriment of both. This apparent paradox is what makes it so interesting. Now you can solve the paradox with communication through repeated games, which I think is what you allude to.

This page says the theory was first proposed in 2007, but I remember being told about it at university around 2003.

Doesn't mean they're photosynthesising with all frequencies of light though. Probably just pigment.

Chlorophyll reflects green light, meaning it doesn't use these frequencies.

Who knows, maybe that's why the retinal photosynthesis evolved first though.

No that's just a pigment. They still contain chlorophyll.

Often you'll find leaves in full sun are redder, because they need less chlorophyll to operate at full efficiency. Leaves more in shade may be darker, as they require more chlorophyll (meaning light is absorbed across most of the visual spectrum by the pigment and chlorophyll together)

I find the embankment metaphor confusing, but to play along: I don't have the option of engineering a margin of safety because I only have one brick. Is it worth me lugging it to the riverside?

Maybe, it depends on the risk and the distance I've got to carry it.

In all likelihood many won't bother without being directed, encouraged or otherwise socially motivated. And they must ignore the surprisingly persuasive pro-flooding lobby, of course.

Rational behaviour can't, almost by definition, predictably lead to bad outcomes.

Given you previously mentioned Game Theory, this is a surprising claim. Prisoner's dilemma? Tragedy of the commons?

Note that I'm not sure how much any of this applies to the real world. My main argument is against a model of voters as purely "rational". They are not, and in some ways at least, that's probably a good thing. I certainly think rationality is a very poor argument against extending the franchise to 16 year-olds.