opsnooperfax

Given the reproducibility crisis and perverse incentives of the past several decades, it may be less significant than you think. There’s no philosopher stone that turns money into impactful research. Fewer people in it for the love of the game focused on fewer problems may actually be a good thing.

“Uncle Sam, these new AI are dangerous. We really need legislation to stop irresponsible use of AI.”

“OK, Dario. Let’s start with you.”

“No! I meant regulations for other people!”

I would be more worried about the viability of these business cases. If I see someone crowing about how they vibe coded some service in a weekend and now they expect $X,000,000 in ARR, I just think these type of people are not going to make it. At some point, the customer will realize that there is nothing preventing them from replacing your offering with a few dollars in API fees. Software vendors need to focus on support quality, provide some unique insight, guard proprietary data, or have some economy of scale on the hardware side. Being the first person to write that particular prompt is not a business plan.

The marketing speak here is a bit much. Seems to be more preoccupied with the libraries than the problem solved

He has to pull up the ladder before people realize doubling cost for a 5% gain is bonkers. The cat is out of the bag. They can try to sabotage, but we’ve already come to far

I find that completely unbelievable. There’s too much high-quality free information for me to ever consume to even think about paying for it, let alone something of mediocre quality. Are we sure the newsletter subscribership isn’t just a total fabrication? Or that it isn’t just a money laundering scheme?

Hypothetically speaking, how does one go about being so handsomely rewarded for being wrong about everything? I feel like I am well qualified for this type of job.

And the criminals found that Microsoft has yet to produce and AI worth stealing. A deeply ironic twist.

Here’s my hot take as an elder millennial. Boomers are the absolute worst at being unable to make the distinction between time at work and time doing work. They may show up an hour before everyone else but spend the first two or three hours a day, reading the news and getting coffee and making small talk and accomplishing literally nothing. Then crow about their work ethic.

A dude at Oracle did that with a recent mass experiment of mRNA technology. We do not speak Of the results.

Or maybe the AI made up the part about making it up. There’s no way to tell. Don’t use a model to validate itself.

Yes.

Well, I for one can’t imagine someone more qualified to work in content moderation at Meta than someone who spent his or her formative years murdering unarmed children in the Gaza Strip. These companies need morally grounded, paragons of decency to set the example for us all.

I’m more confused by your username. Wow.

I think he said in that interview that the CIA does not spy on Israel. It does not apply the other way around. Based on policy decisions, this seems very believable to me.

I don’t think blue team good, red team bad is a very mature take on US politics. When it comes to substantive policy, voters do not get a choice. The same wars will be fought. The same lobbies will have their way. Just because one side will make tactless, self-deifying inaugural speeches about how the sea levels will cease to rise and the Earth will start to heal, that does not make it so.

I think that if these sensors were providing useful, actionable information more valuable than their maintenance cost is not well supported.

You basically described taxation. 25-75% of all your income is confiscated at the source and then you get… whatever it is that Washington does. I guess remit the money back as programs and direct payments or services so thousands of people can wet their beak in the process?

In practice, we’re OK with theft. We just argue over who gets the loot and which segment of the population gets harmed.

I suppose losing with dignity is a consolation.

The US is not completely centrally planned by a politburo, and suburban sprawl is not a conspiracy of diabolical powers that be. Given the choice, many people with the means will pay a premium and spend hours every day commuting to not have to live in The city they work. Why? There are uncomfortable answers. You can’t make maximizing harm to a segment of the population a policy goal and expect them to stay.

Why do you need a mid career software developer to babysit ChatGPT? Why don’t you just use an American intern who’s paid half of what in Indian developer is paid? You just can’t take the people who do your plumbing and get them to design your water treatment plant. If you want someone who really knows what they are talking about, and that’s what you need where an AI fails, then you are just going to have to pay what someone at that level asks.

I work for a global corporation. We have offices in India. For the technical professionals I deal with the wage differential is maybe 30-50% and is actually quite a bit less than the cost of living difference. My personal experience is that there is a tendency for them to massively inflate their qualifications and level of experience to a point that Americans would call fraud. The only kind of people who think this is a good idea are people like Larry Fink, and I would attribute his motives to greed and malice, probably an equal parts.

Is that your experience from having hired one, or are you speculating?

Your CISO is paying to not be responsible. That’s it. That’s always the reason.

Professional liability and licensure would create assurances with some teeth, but there are some major drawbacks.

I wish that there were a Corps of Engineers in the Army, whose job it was to build and maintain water retention structures. I think that such an organization might be our best hope for half an inch of rising water every year. Given that much of the state is already below sea level, that they have not suffered the wrath of climate change could only be a miracle. It must be the work of a merciful God who has forgiven their sins of owning Ford F150s.

I don’t think we have direct control over sea levels either.

Too many people see wages as a sunk cost and a constant. One problem though is AI costs per task are unpredictable, and management tends to prefer predictable outcomes over optimal outcomes.

I would not be shocked if they do that. I would not be terribly shocked that the US-headquartered models do that for another government either. As far as data confidentiality goes, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Microsoft checks all those enterprise boxes, right? Yet, Azure still gets breached once in a while.

Wouldn’t that be an exciting plot twist? That the release cadence of the big labs doesn’t actually reflect any meaningful improvements, or bigger models, but it’s a marketing ploy to start ratcheting up prices for good ARR numbers prior to the big IPO where the celebrity executives bail out of the stalling plane.

Pride comes before the fall. Sorry, Nate.

I think this is a systemic problem of an industry where gross margin is 80% or higher, so you can plow all that extra money into superfluous headcount tasked with objectives of questionable business value. It’s a curse of riches, if you will. The rest of us living on 15 to 30% margins need to think a little harder about what we do and why.