mandolingual

So it is decreed! 'Cyberpunk aesthetic' is hereafter an incoherent concept! Well done, sir. Objective truth is defended.

And an aesthetic. You can google it if you're unfamiliar!

It's aesthetically extremely cyberpunk.

Fuck Trump and the slavering dolts who support him.

Flaw become aesthetic all time. People faked butt bandage follow Sun King fashion. Ugly as sin, still aesthetic.

And computers used to fill a room and require stacks of punch cards to use.

Trying to carry out a good thing (neural assistive technology) can open the door for the expansion of oppression (literal thought policing, in ?? years) in the same way that trying to stop a bad thing (terrorism, CSAM) can. It's not an immediate threat, it's a foot in the door.

Seattle's not really known for noise. The opposite, if anything. Rain (caveat it's not the rain it's the dark and it's mostly mizzle blah blah blah) and traffic though, sure.

Always interesting/uncanny when AI is tested with human cognitive tests https://www.psychdb.com/cognitive-testing/clock-drawing-test.

I think it's easier to square the circle about this by focusing on 'internal voice' - For those with an internal voice, where do the words come from? We don't pick them from a conscious word bank (mostly), they arise from the subconscious brain thinking about the topic at hand. So to sever the 'internal voice' step of thinking and go from the sub/semi-conscious to the page is if anything just more efficient. It's interesting to think about what we actually gain from conscious articulation of words and images - the benefits of visualization seem more clear cut(though more limited than non-aphantasia-havers might assume) than internal vocalization.

'If you could see a photographic-quality image in your mind, you could answer questions about it the way you’d answer questions about a photograph in front of you'

...yes. I wouldn't describe it as photograph-quality, for me it's fuzzier and lower fidelity than that, but yes.

The judicial system rolls up to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court is compromised. It's not a matter of weakness.

"Consciousness" is an overloaded thought killer that swerves all conversation into obfuscated semantic arguments. One person will be talking about 'internality' and self-image (in the testable, mechanical sense that you could argue Chain of Thought models already have in a petty way) and the other will be grappling with the concept of qualia and the ineffable nature of human experience.

Questionable value of AI datacenters aside, I'm on board with any push for ramping up more nuclear power.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp... .

You believe there are kinds of research that people should not be mad about being deleted. Reflect on that.

Any survey (as opposed to horoscopes which aren't up to user choice) can be used to convey information about a person, even if that information is what they think about themselves. "I took a survey and I'm a Slytherin" conveys plenty, and no one feels the need to point out that that's unscientific.

From what I recall the main narrative was "it's neck and neck but we could be a single polling misstep from a blowout in either direction" which is about as safe a stance as you can take (understandable considering the blowback they got previously).

I'm subscribed to his substack because he's curmudgeonly and it's funny, and he occasionally makes good points, but he's constantly beating the same anti-hype drum. He might not get any particular facts wrong but you can count on him only focusing on the facts that let him continue to show AI through that same anti-hype lense.

We've "lost something in society" because we don't want to be immersed in lore and pictures and dreams of what we could do while our friends sit patiently around the table waiting for us to look up if we can build a dairy barn in the farm flash step?

He shits out his perspective into every conversation and buys himself a bigger voice, let's not spread his drivel for him.

Yes, workers will take advantage of opportunities for their strike action to be more effective, good point.

Probably the shift to (or supplementing of shelters with) tiny home villages would be the biggest one over the last few years.