swlabr

joined 2 years ago
[–] swlabr@awful.systems 4 points 8 months ago

You could fart into a mic and compromise a clanker, it seems.

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 7 points 8 months ago (2 children)

also, they misspelled "Eliezer", lol

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 4 points 8 months ago

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Belligerents

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 6 points 8 months ago

Ah yes Basilisk’s Roko, the thought experiment where we simulate infinite AIs so that we can hurl insults at them

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 10 points 8 months ago

The good stuff isn’t being talked about because of national security.

Yeah it's all being developed in area 51, trust me bro

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Author works on ML for DeepMind but doesn’t seem to be an out and out promptfondler.

Quote from this post:

I found myself in a prolonged discussion with Mark Bishop, who was quite pessimistic about the capabilities of large language models. Drawing on his expertise in theory of mind, he adamantly claimed that LLMs do not understand anything – at least not according to a proper interpretation of the word “understand”. While Mark has clearly spent much more time thinking about this issue than I have, I found his remarks overly dismissive, and we did not see eye-to-eye.

Based on this I'd say the author is LLM-pilled at least.

However, a fruitful outcome of our discussion was his suggestion that I read John Searle’s original Chinese Room argument paper. Though I was familiar with the argument from its prominence in scientific and philosophical circles, I had never read the paper myself. I’m glad to have now done so, and I can report that it has profoundly influenced my thinking – but the details of that will be for another debate or blog post.

Best case scenario is that the author comes around to the stochastic parrot model of LLMs.

E: also from that post, rearranged slightly for readability here. (the [...]* parts are swapped in the original)

My debate panel this year was a fiery one, a stark contrast to the tame one I had in 2023. I was joined by Jane Teller and Yanis Varoufakis to discuss the role of technology in autonomy and privacy. [[I was] the lone voice from a large tech company.]* I was interrupted by Yanis in my opening remarks, with claps from the audience raining down to reinforce his dissenting message. It was a largely tech-fearful gathering, with the other panelists and audience members concerned about the data harvesting performed by Big Tech and their ability to influence our decision-making. [...]* I was perpetually in defense mode and received none of the applause that the others did.

So also author is tech-brained and not "tech-fearful".

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 9 points 8 months ago

It’s all true, I made millions of dollars by using ChatGPT to place bets on the ponies. I started with billions

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 9 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Ah yes let’s use AI to get rid of the drudgery and toil so humanity can do the most enjoyable activity of writing OKRs

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 15 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Announcing my sneerclub follow up to MAPLE: “Man, All These Losers Are Bonkers” aka MATLAB

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

sick reference. I don’t even know how I knew this.

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 4 points 8 months ago

Ah thanks! On mobile the main page gets redirected to spam, but the site is navigable from the archive.

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 6 points 8 months ago

has only a few minor credits[…], he always came off as a bit of a weirdly combative nerd who thought he was right and the smartest in the room and didn’t get that people didn’t agree with his definitions/assumptions. He is a big idea guy for example.

gosh i’m sure glad that these kinds of people disappeared from the internet /s

 

(Archive)

Tickled pink that BI has decided to platform the AI safety chuds. OFC, the more probable reason of “more dosh” gets mentioned, but most of the article is about how Anthropic is more receptive to addressing AI safety and alignment.

 

Burns said the driving force behind the Runway deal was to allow filmmakers to “make movies and television shows we’d otherwise never make. We can’t make it for $100 million, but we’d make it for $50 million because of AI… We’re banging around the art of the possible. Let’s try some stuff, see what sticks.”

read: "I huffed my own farts and passed out. This gave me a dream where we made a film via promptfondling. I decided that I'll make a press release with made up numbers based on that dream."

As reported by New York Magazine: “With a library as large as Lionsgate’s, they could use Runway to repackage and resell what the studio already owned, adjusting tone, format and rating to generate a softer cut for a younger audience or convert a live-action film into a cartoon.”

read: "There's no need to do requels like disney does. The serfs will gobble the slop and they'll like it. After all, why risk creating new jobs or any creative output when we could just melt the ice caps instead?"

As for another example of how the studio can use AI, Burns said to consider this scenario: “We have this movie we’re trying to decide whether to green-light. There’s a 10-second shot — 10,000 soldiers on a hillside with a bunch of horses in a snowstorm.” Using Runaway’s AI technology, the studio can avoid a pricy film shoot that would cost millions and take a few days and use AI to create the shot for about $10,000.

read: "Here's a bottle of my farts. Smell it. Feeling dizzy? Good. Now imagine a scenario where you're looking at your bank account, and instead of number go down, number go up. Isn't that nice? Have another whiff."

 

Take that, Saltman! Bet you never thought it was possible!

28
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by swlabr@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
 

Original Title: Elizabeth Holmes’s Partner Has a New Blood-Testing Start-Up

Billy Evans has two children with the Theranos founder, who is in prison for fraud. He’s now trying to raise money for a testing company that promises “human health optimization.”

Original link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/10/business/elizabeth-holmes-partner-blood-testing-startup.html

 

Original NYT title: Billionaire Airbnb Co-Founder Is Said to Take Role in Musk’s Government Initiative

 

Original link

OFC if there were any real sense or justice in the world, LLMs would be banned outright.

 

No link given because it's all over the news. If you ask for proof you're going to have to eat my ass.

A lot of people are going to say it wasn't intended as a Nazi salute, and to that, I say: it doesn't matter. Was it a dog whistle? A variation of a Nazi salute from a South African neo-nazi party? Or just the vanilla salute? Such pontification is a waste of time. Fokker is a Nazi; you didn't need to see him salute. To all the regulars here, Musk being a Nazi is just an axiom of his whole deal. I mean, it's not called technofascism for nothing.

 

Just for my personal pride, I would like to state that the father of my children was the first american druid in diablo to clear abattoir of zir and ended that season as best in the USA. He was also ranking in Polytopia, and beat Felix himself at the game. I did observe these things with my own eyes. There are other witnesses who can verify this. That is all.

 

original link

“If all of this sounds like a libertarian fever dream, I hear you. But as these markets rise, legacy media will continue to slide into irrelevance.”

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