patcon

What differentiates this faking/scaring from real risk that's being avoided or mitigated responsibly? And how would you (an outside observer) ever know the difference as something beyond an uninformed hot-take?

Serious question -- I'm not trying to disrespect. Neither you nor I can be properly informed, nor can be anyone else outside the company, as outside observers who lag behind the state of the art as new behaviors emerge, right?

I found elsewhere referring to her as an "independent philosopher", but maybe Rachel Paine? https://archive.philosophersmag.com/was-hume-a-secret-buddhi...

<3

really stellar example of a productive important innovation that had terrible effects on society would be the cotton gin

That's a really surprising but immediately sensible example. It tweaked my brain. Thanks!

In grammar school in the 90s, I used to write in pencil, then retrace in pen when done, erasing the underlying pencil after the ink dried. I'd proofread the pencil version, find missing words, and you could rewrite to balance out space

I think that was pretty common amongst "keeners" doing writing assignments.

So did Los Alamos?

Edit: don't get me wrong, I'm a happy user. But I'd also be a happy consumer of refined sugar in the early 20th century. I'm still not sure if these tools won't destabilize society to the point of collapse. I don't think we understand the complexity of what's going on nearly enough, and am certainly not optimistic about AI being net good for us

When something is only a few thousand dollars away from us in "the adjacent possible", I hardly think one needs to be a conspiracy theorist to suggest we consider it...?

I don't have the means to research, but certainly there would be ample resources for such an attack in certain spaces??? Manufacturing social signal is hugely valuable

Just think "neighborhood", no? This seems like splitting hairs... And to what end? to take a shot at EU supra-national structure? ("What, you don't ally to your country?" kinda shade.)

-- Canadian

Videos too: https://github.com/rioharper/Inkfield#camera-motion-and-expo...

I dont know anything about this app besides your framing of "out-of-nowhere community builds an app" but am sometimes suspicious of nation states building these types of open source project forks. It's so easy now, and the cost seems incredibly low, to get into very intimate workflows (of very specific types of people).

We've already seen attackers simulate whole communities for attacks on individuals, and I'm just wondering when we're going to see someone simulate a whole open source community in a longer play, as an kickstart on a longer term strategy of compromise

Thanks! I've learned something from the generous comments. Really appreciate the effort to educate me and give me a chance to understand without jumping on me :)

Thanks! I've learned something from the generous comments

Thanks! I've learned something from the generous comments

Thanks! I've learned something from the generous comments

Agree! This reminded me of a post that tweaked my brain a few months ago :)

https://open.substack.com/pub/defenderofthebasic/p/why-does-...

Also reminds me of Dr Michael Levin's work, which is living rent free in my brain lately

I've been playing with presence too...! I def am thinking about using it more for real-time motion communication (which is largely missing from web) rather than text (which is very overrepresented, and where most moderation comes in).

I was toying with the idea of making a little crowd representation sticky at the bottom, like watching a screen together :)

Regardless, I love concepts like this. Thanks!

I cannot think of many opportunities the sound would save you as it’s already loud enough from wind noise alone

I am a bit stunned reading this.. Is this a common perspective of motorcyclists?

I wonder if you may be seeing ghosts? At least to me, this sounded so clearly like an authentic human voice, at least the parts I've read (haven't finished yet).

This strikes me as the good writing that LLMs very poorly try to model (or have been forced into through brutal fine-tuning), and I think we should be cautious not to miss the distinction.

I don't suppose you're someone who tends to dislike metaphorical flourish and narrative elements in articles even before all this? I ask, because I've been wondering lately whether people who like clear information-based writing might have a less developed pallete for writing styles, and "humans writing with flourish" might kinda blend with "LLMs writing"..?

I don't suppose you have experience with how badly small non-profits are fucked by every tech consultancy they ever work with? They are paying for a service at the very top of their budget, and receiving services perceived from the bottom, as almost "pro bono" by the consultancy, via intern labour.

They all have PTSD from the status quo.

Getting nonprofits into AI that feels even marginally more self-serve, that is a step forward. Again, even if it just feels more agentic, that's a step forward -- maybe even if they end up screwing things up more in the process -- because the lack agency with their tech is so demoralizing in the sector

I'm feeling strong alignment with your perspective here. Thanks

Ah this is clever! Feels very cosyweb. I'd be delighted if not caught on

Love this. Thanks :)

thanks for finding these words! i find myself getting less "nice feelings" of any depth on the internet lately (perhaps I am complicit), but your words are a breath of fresh air :)

Omg I love you. Thanks

The comments here. They make me feel that we are so doomed.

We all want to nuclear codes so badly. We are addicted to intelligence and labour so badly that we simply can't concieve that a pro-social actor might want us all not to have it, and for good reason.

I mean... Obviously, insiders like Oppenheimer (who dedicated their lives to considering the implications of the technology under discussion), they just feared nuclear proliferation because they wanted all the profits for themselves, right :(

I think I agree..!

I get the sense you were feeling at odds with my framing? I wonder if it's that you're picking up that I believe "structure" is above any one person or set of people. In my conception, leadership is just part of structure, a key maintainer. Leadership are pieces of the structure, but subordinate in scale. They sometimes seek outside help in shaping structure (e.g., ppl like eries), and the structure becomes like another passive actor, not simply "leadership's doing". Leadership are key players taking care of the structure, but they are just one set of players, and in some structures, non-leadership employees play an outsized role (often because leadership knew enough to step back). Sometimes the role of leadership if "fucking right off" in certain domains. Regardless, the structure then guides behaviour of all within it, and hopefully the structure also maintains us, at least as much as we maintain it.

I'm stating the above as if it's universally true, but it's just my take. I'd be curious to know if any parts give you strong YES or NO feelings, if you are open to share your gut reaction. Blunt responses welcome

(Fwiw I lean heavily on the ideas of Christopher Alexander -- the Pattern Language guy -- in regards to my beliefs on "structure": https://dorian.substack.com/p/at-any-given-moment-in-a-proce... )

But if you think that the courage that Dario has regularly shown would be possible with a conventional "best practices" structure, I think you're kidding yourself.

With respect to OP (who has a unique vantage from inside), I do agree with this on principle. When there are uncommon outcomes, there must be uncommon structure imho. A "good structure" is like oxygen, water, or peace: When it's well-maintained and well-distributed, one might not even notice it's there, nor spend much time being grateful for it. It's banal, but "what do you mean? isn't this just how things would always have been?" is both beautiful and tragic.

Imho if we could figure out how to have a "loud peace" (in all the ways that this might mean), we'd have figured out an important way of sustaining the world and ourselves.

faster to go from London to New York in 1881 than Volgagrad

the map is for 2026, yeah?

I've come to understand religion as simply a way to share a stabilized consensus reality in the high dimensional space of all possible beliefs.

As in, it was easy for us to evolve to see the same physical reality (sight, sound, smell, etc) but we had to evolve spiritual predispositions in order to create arbitrary attractors in value space, which could pull us toward something shared. This, in turn, allowed civilizations to grow larger even as language complexified our imagined world into much higher dimensions (compared to more primitive animal minds)

So spirituality (and it's inevitable scaled system of religions) is both an oppressor and an enabler of getting here. Like a primitive form of governance that we evolved before we were thoughtful enough to invent governance ourselves :)

Another example of the adult entertainment industry driving critical technology infrastructure forward...?

Makes me wonder: Does the adult entertainment industry have its own variant of the military's DARPA, or is it truly decentralized in its innovation and standards work? Haha