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anonymous_user9

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commercial printers will refuse to print anything that looks like counterfeit currency

They will refuse to print images that contain the EURion constellation, a cluster of points with specific distances between them. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation)

More generally, "Does this image represent US currency?" and "Does this 3D mesh represent a dangerous gun part?" are different kinds of questions.

Checking if an image is US currency is simple. Not only can an image similarity hash be used, but the design of the currency can be changed to make checking easier. The checking program just has to run a textbook algorithm and compare the result with a handful of hashes (we only have a few denominations of bills).

We can be confident that the checking program will always see substantial portions of the bill, so it can always see the pattern. If someone chopped the bill into tiny pieces, it would look fake when glued together. Looking like a real bill is the thing we want to control, and that's something we can reliably measure with simple algorithms.

Checking if a 3D shape is a gun part is an unsolvable problem. (It would be equivalent to making a program that can detect hidden "subversive" meanings in text.) The checker would have to understand how the piece could operate in the hands of a skilled person. Parts could be printed in multiple pieces, or have material removed after printing, so it'd have to anticipate all possible post-processing steps.

Even if the problem is limited to "match against these known gun part hashes", gun parts are not defined by their overall appearance. The files can be mutated until they no longer trip the detector, yet can be easily post-processed into functional components. (Also, a similarity hash for 3D toolpaths may not exist.)

(Such a hashing regime would be useless to stop "3D-printed guns" as a concept, because the design could be changed to not match the hash at all, without post-processing.)

The DVA was correct, the sector math was correct, the dd command was correct. The right place, the wrong mental model.

God the intensity is tiresome. Whether or not it's AI slop, it's also bad writing. Things can be fun or interesting or worthwhile without being a harrowing battle of discovery!

So how many years can Tesla lie about FSD before it becomes a crime? How much CSAM and revenge porn can X generate before it becomes a crime? How many bribes can he give the president before it becomes a crime? How much data can his lackeys at DOGE exfiltrate before it becomes a crime? How many poor people can he kill before it becomes a crime?

How many sig heils and eugenics memes can he emit until he's considered a bad person?

I think if the bar is to consider it not a replacement for knowledge work as long as there is a human in the loop.

That's where I put it personally, because of humans' limited amount of useful focus during a work day.

Anything that requires human attention will take some of that resource, and don't think models' rate of improvement will be fast enough to overcome that in the near future. Reviewing an output that is 99%, 99.9%, or 99.99% correct all take about the same amount of time, so the output needs to be correct enough not to need review before any knowledge work is replaced.

As someone who's admittedly anti-AI, what knowledge work does it replace? It seems to me it supplements some knowledge work, while outsourcing actual intelligence to the human operator.

IMO it seems like most AI intelligence is just a Clever Hans situation: the AI produces a stream of responses, and the human selects the one that is correct, then they conclude that the AI is intelligent.

Imagine being against the American Revolution because some innocent civilians will get killed?

What was so great about the American revolution anyway? It's not like it gave any average people the right to vote, and it arguably preserved slavery for an extra 30 years.

letting states use piracy as a bargaining chip doesn't set a good precedent.

If piracy is bad, what precedent due the US and Israel's conduct set?

Instead of tolling the strait, Iran should arrest leaders of their neighboring states, and try them for their crimes under Iranian law.

The problem is the amount of aluminum. Government non-profit spacecraft do not use very much aluminum, because they don't launch thousands of LEO satellites per year. By building the first megaconstellation and kicking off competition, SpaceX is exposing humanity to different risks, namely ozone depletion and new mechanisms of climate change:

[1] https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL10...

[2] https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024JD04...

DOGE is a non-profit entity

You seem to be saying that non-profit entities are incapable of killing people? Or that it's fine if non-profit entities do kill people?

Besides, why can't other non-profit governments pick up the aid?

I think you're being obtuse. An analogy: "Sure I turned off the circuit breaker that was powering the life support machines, but why couldn't someone else bring in a UPS and plug them in to that?"

Are SpaceX rockets a loser for society?

That remains to be seen. By giving Musk the prominence to set up DOGE and destroy USAID, they've indirectly led to the deaths of almost a million people.

By launching starlink, they're also increasing the amount of aluminum in the upper atmosphere, which may have catastrophic effects on the ozone layer.

I misinterpreted you; I was arguing that he's already succeeded completely, so it doesn't matter if anyone gives him more money.

But, IMO the reason they're still giving him more money is that they're stupid and greedy. They know WeWork was a disaster, but it was a huge disaster. That shows them he's good at running a con, and they want to get in on the next one.

Class solidarity doesn't hurt either. Being a billionaire makes him an actual person in the eyes of other rich people.

EDIT: Also, it's funny you used a16z as an example:

Not saying you are wrong, but if I am a "capital allocator" at a16z, he would be no-go.

because Andreesen Horowitz are the ones investing in his new WeWork 2.0 startup Flow.

The command module and lunar module each had one AGC. (The lunar module did include a simpler backup computer called the Abort Guidance System.)

I think this is because an AGC failure is recoverable in most phases of flight, while an LVDC failure is not.

The problem is that the data it's visualizing is fake. The color grading is just an AI guessing how susceptible jobs are.