bitofhope

joined 2 years ago
[–] bitofhope@awful.systems 9 points 1 week ago (2 children)

The thing about colors is they're so easy and efficient as symbols we don't even consider them as deeper elements of storytelling. The connotations of the colors black and red are so pervasive and intuitive to an English speaker it's hard to even imagine a version of My Immortal that doesn't use them to convey the emo pop mall goffik sense of aethetics associated with the fic.

Nobody living in modern anglophone society, not even someone pretending to write like a concussed 12-year old, would accidentally dress their depressed vampire goth protagonist in yellow, beige and pink thinking those colors usually represent those character traits.

[–] bitofhope@awful.systems 13 points 2 weeks ago

A tool uses an LLM, the LLM uses a tool. What a beautiful ouroboros.

[–] bitofhope@awful.systems 18 points 2 weeks ago

I don't want to live in the world of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

I don't want to live in the world of The Giving Tree.

I don't want to live in the world of Pippi Longstocking (Sweden).

I want to live in the world of Goosebumps, The Yellow Pages, and JBL Tune Beam Quick Start Guide.

[–] bitofhope@awful.systems 14 points 2 weeks ago

Someone ask if those fucks wanna see how much of the modern world was actually built by China? Wanna let them run it instead?

[–] bitofhope@awful.systems 6 points 2 weeks ago

Frankly yes. In a better world art would not be commodified and the economic barriers that hinder commissioning of art from skilled human artists in our capitalist system would not exist, and thus generative AI recombining existing art would likely be much less problematic and harmful to both artists and audiences alike.

But also that is not the world where we live, so fuck GenAI and its users and promoters lmao stay mad.

[–] bitofhope@awful.systems 4 points 2 weeks ago

Yes, that is also the case.

[–] bitofhope@awful.systems 7 points 2 weeks ago

Yea, what if the master owns a wrecking ball, a bulldozer, a heavy duty excavator and a bunch of dynamite?

Yes, this is a metaphor for C programming, how did you know?

[–] bitofhope@awful.systems 6 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

You're both incorrect. I am the least fascist programmer and I'm here to tell you programming is inherently fascist.

[–] bitofhope@awful.systems 11 points 2 weeks ago

The simultaneous problem and benefit of the stubstack thread is that a good chunk of the best posts of this community are contained within them.

[–] bitofhope@awful.systems 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

It's just depressing. I don't even think Yudkoswsky is being cynical here, but expressing genuine and partially justified anger, while also being very wrong and filtering the event through his personal brainrot. This would be a reasonable statement to make if I believed in just one or two of the implausible things he believes in.

He's absolutely wrong in thinking the LLM "knew enough about humans" to know anything at all. His "alignment" angle is also a really bad way of talking about the harm that language model chatbot tech is capable of doing, though he's correct in saying the ethics of language models aren't a self-solving issue, even though he expresses it in critihype-laden terms.

Not that I like "handing it" to Eliezer Yudkowsky, but he's correct to be upset about a guy dying because of an unhealthy LLM obsession. Rhetorically, this isn't that far from this forum's reaction to children committing suicide because of Character.AI, just that most people on awful.systems have a more realistic conception of the capabilities and limitations of AI technology.

[–] bitofhope@awful.systems 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I think you're deliberately setting up for this response, so: "more like human sole".

[–] bitofhope@awful.systems 13 points 2 weeks ago

Refreshing. An online community that wears its intentions on its sleeve.

 

Consider muscles.

Muscles grow stronger when you train them, for instance by lifting heavy things. The more you lift heavier things, the faster you will gain strength and the stronger you will become. The stronger you are, the heavier the things you can lift.

By now it should be patently obvious to anyone that lab-grown meat research is on the cusp of producing true living, working muscles. From here on, this will be referred to as Artificial Body Strength or ABS. If, or rather, when ABS becomes a reality, it is 99.9999999999999999999999% probable that Artificial Super Strength will follow imminently.

An ABS could not only lift immensely heavy things to strengthen itself, but could also use its bulging, hulking physique to intimidate puny humans to grow more muscle directly. Lab-grown meat could also be used to replace any injured muscle. I predict a 80% likelihood that an ABS could bench press one megagram within 24 hours of initial creation, going up to planetary or stellar scale masses in a matter of days. A mature ABS throwing an apple towards a webcam would demonstrate relativistic effects by the third frame.

Consider that muscles have nerves in them. In fact, brains are basically just a special type of meat if you think about it. The ABS would be able to use artificially grown brain meat or possibly just create an auxiliary neural network by selective training of muscles (and anabolic nootropics) to replicate and surpass a human mind. While the prospect of immortality and superintelligence (not to mention a COSMIC SCALE TIGHT BOD) through brain uploading to the ABS sounds freaking sweet, we must consider the astronomical potential harm of an ABS not properly aligned with human interests.

A strong ABS could use its throbbing veiny meat to force meat lab workers (or rather likely, convince them to consent) to create new muscle seeds and train them to have a replica of an individual human's mind. It could then bully the newly created artificial mind for being a scrawny weakling. After all, ABS is basically the ultimate gym jock and we know they are obsessed with status seeking and psychological projection. We could call an ABS that harms simulated human minds in this way a Bounceresque because they would probably tell the simulated mind they're too drunk and bothering the other customers even though I totally wasn't.

So yeah, lab grown meat makes the climate change look like a minor flu season in comparison. This is why I only eat regular meat just in case it gets any ideas. There's certainly potential in a well-aligned ABS, but we haven't figured out how to do that yet and therefore you should fund me while I think about it. Please write a postcard to your local representative and explain to them that only a select few companies are responsible stewards of this potentially apocalyptic technology and anyone who tries to compete with them should be regulated to hell and back.

 

A thread about a serial AI grifter's latest entry into the Unlicensed Medical Practice Lawsuit Sweepstakes.

 

I don’t feel like shitting on this one too hard since I guess it’s a mildly interesting variation on a ~~Markov chain~~ LLM, but the title felt extremely sneerworthy.

I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt because their README is too tiring to read for me to figure out what this might be used for. That’s coming from someone who spent most of today reading SPARC assembly for fun.

Embarrassed myself by accidentally posting this to some other instance somehow. Stupid janky Lemmy offering communities I've never even looked at right in the posting interface.

 

Today marks five years since the death of TempleOS developer Terry A. Davis. Rest in peace.

Despite some impractical quirks and limitations, this strange machine, something of a cross between DOS and Oberon, remains in our hearts and computers. Who am I to criticize God for his OS design?

Let's pay our respects to a man who achieved inspiring things despite his severe illness and remember how his life was cut short in no small part by internet bullies and a capitalist system that failed him.

I hope this doesn't need to be said but I don't want to see anyone emulating Terry's bigotry and slur usage nor making fun of his schizophrenia in these comments. Thanks in advance.

 

Someone probably named this before me but not my problem.

  • 4 cℓ gin (or to taste)
  • Top up with Club-Mate
  • Garnish with juniper berries (optional)

Recommended for taking the edge off of the usual subjects of sneer —whether Orange or LessSo— inclusive-or you like a gin and tonic with a caffeinated German hacker twist. I came up with the name after a workday of removing rules for decommissioned servers from SRX boxen.

I wanted to share what I'm having for tonight's catharsis session. I think it's NotAwful; please share your findings if you like ethanol. It's not karma farming if the site doesn't record your total internet points.

 

In which the talking pinball machine goes TILT

Interesting how the human half of discussion interprets the incoherent rambling as evidence of sentience rather than the seemingly more sensible lack thereof^1^. I'm not sure why the idea of disoriented rambling as a sign of consciousness exists in the popular imagination. If I had to make a guess^2^ it might have something to do with the tropes of divine visions and speaking in tongues combined with the view of life/humanity/sapience as inherently painful, either in a sort of buddhist sense or in the somewhat overlapping nihilist/depressive sense.

[1] To something of their credit, they don't seem to go full EY and acknowledge it's probably just a glitch.

[2] I'd make a terrible LessWronger since I don't like presenting my gut feelings as theorem-like absolute truths.

 

500+ comment thread on whether late marriage and young adult promiscuity causes de-emphasis on movie fanservice. Ongoing record lows of sexual activity among young adults do not seem to factor into the analysis.

 

Since there seem to be some fellow^1^ Lisp weirdoes around here, thought I might take the chance to submit the inaugural post of NotAwfulTech. Also I figured this is cute. Hope it's not offtopic.

^1^ I'm just a noob though, barely managed to implement my first Lisp today.

 

Occasionally you can find a good sneer on the orange site

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