mountainriver @ mountainriver @awful.systems

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2

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259

Joined

2 yr. ago

First half is straight forward dick measurement contest. Let me paraphrase: "My companies has huuuuge revenue! Why haven't yours? Maybe because you are so toxic? Have you thought about that, man with smaaaall revenue."

Notice how it's all revenue, not profit. I think this mindset gives an insight into why so many tech bros if they stumble onto profit, quickly grows out of profit. Profit isn't the score, revenue is. And it's all about hitting that high score so you can feel like a big man.

They are a digital meeting company. A company that lives on digital meetings. Which will now enshittify digital meetings.

But line goes up, right?

If you want interesting historical deep dives, I always enjoy Dig - the history podcast. Well researched by actual scholars, which goes hand in hand with the episodes not dropping that often.

Repeat until a machine that can create God is built. Then it's God's problem.

But it must be a US God, otherwise China wins.

"...37%.... That means nearly one in four..."

Eh, no it doesn't, it means nearly two in five. Which is worse.

Jason Kint writes a thread on how Google spun - and publications printed their spin - on a recently lost case: https://xcancel.com/jason_kint/status/1836781623137681746

If you already are very cynical about tech journalism (or the state of journalism in general), it might be nothing new except confirmation from the internal documents of Google. But always nice to see how the sausages are made.

Isn't this just Snow Crash again? Can't these techbros read another book, we already have the Meta verse and it wasn't that popular in reality.

This was so stupid.

A hijacking happens when passengers overflow into the cockpit from the cabin.

Oh no! A little kid has been invited to have a look! Passenger overflow! Hijacking!

His attempt at solution isn't as cringe worthy, if one overlooks the reasoning. Separating the cabin from the pilots is a way of preventing hijacking that has been attempted, but it has problems. Notably if the pilots get acute medical emergency or indeed if the pilot steer the plane into the ground.

Some ten years ago a french pilot locked out his second and ran the plane into the ground. For increased safety the after 911 the door to the cabin could only be opened from the inside.

The picture at top of the blog post is Sam Altman, the guy saving the world from the AI he is creating.

And yeah, he looks like that.

Tiired of picking out gifts the recipient don't need or want? Here at Giftr we have partnered with Amazon to bring you Shit-as-a-service!

Just prompt our chat-bot and we will send a gift to a statistically similar address!

If it never arrives? Well, they didn't want it anyway! Giftr!

I think it is a combination of:

1. Governor of major state.
2. Has nice hair. Real generic politician look.
3. Polls showing "generic democrat" beating Trump.
4. Not super old.
5. Have I mentioned the hair?

Ok, point on language.

But I thought LLMs were machine learning, or rather a particular application of it? Have I misunderstood that? Isn't it all black boxed matrixes of statistical connections?

I have so far seen two working AI applications that actually makes sense, both in a hospital setting:

1. Assisting oncologists in reading cancer images. Still the oncologists that makes the call, but it seems to be of use to them.
2. Creating a first draft when transcribing dictated notes. Listening and correcting is apparently faster for most people than listening and writing from scratch.

These two are nifty, but it doesn't make a multi billion dollar industry.

In other words the bubble is bursting and the value / waste ratio looks extremely low.

Say what you want about the Tulip bubble, but at least tulips are pretty.

Here it sounds like he is criticising the parliamentary system were the legislative elects the executive instead of direct election of the executive. Of course both in parliamentary and presidential (and combined) systems a number of voting systems are used. The US famously does not use FPTP for presidential elections, but instead uses an electoral college.

So to be very charitable, he means a parliamentary system where it's hard to depose the executive. I don't think any parliamentary system uses 60 % (presumably of votes or seats in parliament) to depose a cabinet leader, mostly because once you have 50% aligned the cabinet leader you presumably have an opposition leader with a potential majority. So 60% is stupid.

If you want a combined system where parliament appoints but can't depose, Suriname is the place to be. Though of course they appoint their president for a term, not indefinitely. Because that's stupid.

To sum up: stupid ideas, expressed unclearly. Maybe he should have gone to high school.

If you mean swapped for a worker in a low wage country cosplaying as AI for minimum wage for a billion dollar company, then you have a point. Though using Bostrom's positive reinforcement bullshit is the opposite of treating someone fairly.

But I see elsewhere that you didn't mean that.

"Because we got paid, cause we got paid, cause we got pa-aid!"

To the tune of "Then I got high" by Afroman.

The famous story about a man using a drug that sets free the a-hole version of himself?

Oh, that was the drug! It was cocaine all along!

I think Viktor in "Viktor builds a bridge" can serve as a role model. A cliff, a shack and a sea bird as companion.

Just learn from Viktor's mistake. Don't build a bridge.

So one one hand the CEO's want their minions back into office and on the other they want to replace them with AI's?

Sounds like a conundrum. Or a business opportunity!

Presenting Srvile! The brand new Servility as a Service company, with AI powered robots that will laugh at all boss jokes at the water cooler and say things like "That is such a great idea boss! Since I am an AI I can't realise that you are just regurgitating what you read on Xshitter!" and "We certainly need more AI to solve any problem!"

Call now to order!

(AI may at times be enhanced by remote human control for "quality control". Actual level of servility may vary and is not guaranteed.)

The kid herself mostly wants stories “about magic” and with protagonists of about her age.

The horror! What if she grows up reading books she actually likes? She might be developing her mind in ways not approved by her parents!