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papandada

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AI sycophancy panic 7 months ago

Admittedly I'm not an expert on 19th century Victorianism nor US politics, but this anecdote doesn't make me think any less of LLM's in the least, and I don't see why I should expect different behaviour than what you describe, especially on complex topics

Nakatomi Space 3 years ago

Architecture strikes me as some of the worst examples of pretentious academia wed to pretentious art snobbery.

So, of course corporations will not be benevolent, but of course individuals should have been.

But corporations, even governments, are just the amplification and personification of every selfish element in human nature, which tends to trump benevolence in any sort of "prisoner's dilemma" interaction.

So all we actually need to do is eliminate selfishness from all humanity.

This points to such a great communication principle, including one that HN/dang promotes -- if the point remains the same, then take out anything else, especially when it's personal or potentially inflammatory.

Now, instead of a fairly simple and straightforward issue as the current top comment points out, this has blown up between parties and on the internet because of the completely unnecessary "extortion" remark.

Vickrey Auction 3 years ago

I posted something in the online classifieds this way. In demand but manufacturer was sold out for months. I didn't know how to price it, and I wanted to get a fair price as well as being fair to buyers.

Well, kijiji buyers were not into that. No replies. Just one guy who told me it was the dumbest ad he had ever read. So, I'm still sitting here staring at those ironmaster dumbbells.

Interesting to mention Madhur Jeffrey, who I had indeed felt betrayed by in her descriptions of browning onions by time, which never seemed to match my experience. Her book World Vegetarian otherwise taught me to cook 20 years ago. Or maybe, that following directions closely to a good recipe could make up for a serious lack of experience.

I have thought it was interesting that, Christians believe, God became human and of all the things in the universe he could choose to teach about, apparently more than anything it is all about love (of a particular kind, actually).

Well, here instead of asking you a clarifying question about your response, I might instead ask ChatGPT. Something would be lost, in my mind. Just musing out loud.

I've learned almost everything I know through reading and listening, with very little discourse. I rarely asked questions in class, never had tutors, never went to office hours. I hesitate to post questions online. If I don't understand something, I just read ... more, or bang my head against it as trial and error.

I think this is partly why I'm still looking to be wowed by this technology, personally, in terms of what it can accomplish for me. And while it could be rightly said I've made things unnecessarily hard for myself approaching life like this, I feel it has been beneficial, and enriching, to force myself to really ask, what is this person saying here? In particular, I wouldn't want GPT to lead to a general lessening of empathy.

This comes from 12 Steps/AA literature. If something external causes me to feel some way, it may be more about me than about the externality itself.

I'll try an example. If a random stranger comes up and insults me, I might start getting angry, insult him back, even start a fight. If I reflected on it a bit I might see my reaction was based on my own insecurity, my pre-existing belief that some of these insults, whatever they were, were true; or maybe a fear that these words could injure me somehow and I'd need to protect myself.

On the other hand, I can think of a very loving person I know, and if someone started insulting them, they'd be more likely to say, whoa, you poor man, you seem troubled, what's going on?

The point being responding back with anger is not a necessary reaction to this stimulus. And a strong unpleasant reaction, or avoidance, is often rooted in my own self-centeredness (which can be changed).

I think the witty observation about regular expressions holds true very generally. "I have a problem with p_1 -- I know, I'll use p_2! Now I have two problems."

Where here, I would agree there is a problem around biases, systems which favour certain people unfairly. Disagree with me on that point if you want but I claim the motivation is/was largely rooted in sincere recognition of injustice.

But does the typical DEI implementation actually address that injustice? Or is it just a new evolutionary force for sociopaths and abusers to adapt to and subvert for their own power, most likely aided by a mass of well-intentioned people along the way. (This is an anecdotal personal opinion based on experience, not double blind randomized trials.)

I think the only reason the "parenting book" industry can exist is because there isn't a single right way to do it. And people who are looking for some semblance of certainty can find a book to back up any preexisting intuition they have, and feel justified. Therefore, I say save your money and just go with your intuition, since I believe that's what most parents are doing anyway. There are, of course, trade-offs to every single choice you make along the way. (You might rightly ask me for a book that covers this meta-analysis, which I'm not aware of one such and would probably be a bestseller too...)