Why does it matter if the Russian people know that? It's not like they can will more tanks into existence, or just imagine foreign trade and get tangible goods as a result.

Russia's actual real physical power has been broken by this war. Their demographic future is doomed. Their economy is in ruins. It doesn't matter if the Russian people are happy with that, they can paint big "Z" marks on their wretched hovels in patriotic ecstasy and it won't have any actual impact on anything.

It'd be ideal if Ukraine could have an outright victory and end the war fast, but failing that all that's necessary is for Ukraine to survive and it can wait out Russia's collapse.

Putin didn't start this war because he specifically hated Ukraine and wanted it destroyed, even at the cost of Russia's existence. He started it because he wanted to make Russia great again. In that regard the war is an utter failure.

And self-interested benefits aside, it's just the right thing to do. If a thing is capable of suffering then I want to minimize that.

Of the war maybe, but Russia's future economy and demography are very much going to have long term impacts from these losses.

I think people are being too pessimistic about Trump in this context. Trump is terrible, sure, but one of the things that makes him terrible is total self-interest. I don't think he's as reliable a puppet of Putin as commonly thought.

I'm thinking perhaps Putin is worried Trump might decide to flip the script and act the tough guy against him this time, since Putin is significantly weaker now than in his previous term. Getting Kursk back would be absolutely vital if it looks like Trump is going to try to freeze the conflict or force negotiations.

The GOP as a whole is not reliably pro-Putin either, there are some hawks in there that would love to finish Putin off.

In general, this is an uncertain time approaching.

Even though AI is IMO not anywhere near human-level intelligence yet, I've tried to already get into the habit of thinking to myself "am I being cruel to this AI?" When I set up scripts or tasks or whatnot. So far the answer has always been a resounding "no" but it's a good habit to get into because someday the answer might be "well, maybe."

Considering I take the effort to make sure I'm not being excessively cruel when it comes to killing insects it seems like the least I should be doing.

Yeah, I like a light-hearted approach to life but that one particular "joke" should be shot on sight. I'm convinced it plays an actual role in why we haven't seen much serious discussion of sending a probe there.

He was just doing exactly that.

That's not how synthetic data generation generally works. It uses AI to process data sources, generating well-formed training data based on existing data that's not so useful directly. Not to generate it entirely from its own imagination.

The comments assuming otherwise are ironic because it's misinformation that people keep telling each other.

Kind of, but frankly I think that's a self-defeating hair to split.

What ultimately matters in the end is simply "is more carbon going into the atmosphere, or less?" It doesn't matter where the carbon is coming from, all that matters is that less carbon ends up in the atmosphere.

If I have a plastic object and I send it for recycling or whatever, some of that carbon ends up in the atmosphere. Possibly all of it if it ends up being incinerated, since a lot of plastic "recycling" is not really recycling as you'd expect. If I put it in the landfill, on the other hand, the carbon is locked away effectively indefinitely.

It doesn't matter where that plastic object came from, I'm just faced with a choice of what to do with it.

It's funny, for years I've been downvoted or thought to be joking when I point out that putting non-biodegradable plastic into landfills is carbon sequestration. I seriously think it's a good idea, though. If people are concerned about carbon in the atmosphere then that's a good way to get it out for the long term.

The "how will we know if it's real" question has the same answer as it always has. Check if the source is reputable and find multiple reputable sources to see if they agree.

"Is there a photo of the thing" has never been a particularly great way of judging whether something is accurately described in the news. This is just people finding out something they should have already known.

If the concern is over the verifiability of the photos themselves, there are technical solutions that can be used for that problem.

Yes, but recent advances have really rubbed it in our faces in ways that are a lot harder to deny. Humans haven't become fundamentally more or less predictable over time but recent advances have shown how predictable we are.

I don't know of anyone seriously making the argument that LLMs would spontaneously develop independent reasoning. There's a huge amount of working currently being put into making them develop independent reasoning. Agentic workflows, chain of thought built into training data, that sort of thing. That's what those further investments you mention are involved in accomplishing.

If current AI players are about to get wrecked, I doubt it's the end for AI development. Perhaps it will switch to the areas that can actually make money - like Level 4 vehicles and robotics.

That's not a "bubble bursting", that's just ordinary churn. Companies come and go all the time, especially in cutting-edge fields like AI.

As recent advances in AI have shown, humans are really quite predictable when you throw enough data and compute at the problem. At some point the algorithm will be sophisticated enough that it'll be able to get to know you better than you know yourself, and will be able to provide you with things you had no idea were what you really wanted.

Interesting times.

I've found my participation slowly declining here on the Fediverse, and ramping back up again on Reddit. I think I'm never going to stop coming here entirely, there's plenty of neat links that come along to explore, but the main thing that's causing decline is that IMO the communities here are a lot "bubblier." It's probably inherent in the simple fact that they're small, and that they're populated by a very self-selected fragment of social media, but the result is that if I "say the wrong thing" I get pummeled with downvotes and snide comments a lot easier here. Makes it less interesting to comment at all. Some of Reddit's communities are pretty insular too but at least there are enough of them that I can find ones to my taste.

As a major example that comes to mind, all of the technology communities I've found here seem to be quite strongly anti-AI. I have an interest in AI, but when I click through to the comments on stories about AI topics it's often nothing but rants about how awful it is. And if I say anything - even to correct a factual error - I get piled on. So lately I just sigh and move on.

Europe has freight trains too.

I don't see why this is a point worth quibbling about. The "gag" is that rails are designed for self-driving vehicles, but most trains are not self-driving. It's only relatively recently that any of them are.

Most trains aren't public transit, either. They're freight haulers.

That's not most trains. Those are highly specialized and constrained applications. There are already self-driving taxis in certain defined city areas, so they're still ahead by that standard.

Trains don't self-drive, though.

Edit: Okay, for the pedants: most trains don't self-drive.