DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
Tell me about it.
User ID: 745
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
11mo ago
You see, this might be because the problem is wider than utilitarianism. It's the whole of sufficiently deeply considered consequentialism, optimizing over global outcomes. Utilitarianism is an ethical decision theory; something like deontology is a set of heuristics.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
11mo ago
Can confirm, got such a database on one New Year as a high schooler, from my dad. This is very normal.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
11mo ago
I read that story and something smelled fishy, mostly because it seemed too familiar, down to some of the specific details. I don't remember where I heard/read it on the internet before, but I must have.
It's the basic story from AI stop button/corrigibility in the video by Robert Miles, the hero of midwitted doomers.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
11mo ago
retrieved intact and partially intact craft of non-human origin
“The non-human intelligence phenomenon is real. We are not alone,” Grey said.
Though a tough nut to crack
Calling it now: half a coconut a tool-using octopus swam in from one island to another.
I am always amused and puzzled when American spooks begin this stuff. It's one of the great mysteries of life why they do it at all and yet always end it as a nothingburger. I used to have a conspiratorial theory about psyop overcapacity, but at this point I'm allowing that it's some running gag, a nostalgic tradition born of ancient superstition nobody seriously believes in. Maybe we should create a holiday.
It certainly is funny and endearing.
I have a few more conspiratorial theories but at the core that makes them plausible lies the endlessly productive American combination of credulity and paranoia. There are conspiracies, but childish horror story ones – ayy lmaos in the basement, a pizza pedo ring in another, yeat fear not citizen – patriots are in control…
One of my theories is that this low-IQ myth saturation serves to prevent Americans from developing anything like nuanced national mythos or new political movements (say, founded on some more credible conspiracy theory); sap the crazy power from potential dissidents and discredit the idea of dissidence as a whole for smarter constituents.
I think conspiracies exist and they are not goofy at all.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
11mo ago
After you get out of jail, I would like to see an Inferential Distance episode where you finally explain your strange predilection to insist that people believe things they vociferously repudiate and belong to groups they consistently and vocally loathe. Surely you do not hope for this to result in a productive discussion, nor are you so naive as to expect them to agree if you accuse them enough times.
And sure, bad faith exists. But if bad faith opponents are so persistent, it looks quite futile to me to do… this.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
11mo ago
The issue is that people set base rates too low and then use that to explain why they won't accept evidence that would raise their base rate.
I will accept a recording on par with amateurish Youtube mockumentaries and somebody with a name and no known history of crankery credibly committing to lose reputation should it be revealed as fake. Have any previous bullshitters been socially annihilated?
Cameras? We have decades of recordings from radar and military jets!
None conclusive or even suggestive enough to interpret as anything other than pareidolia. Too many cases eventually revealed as nothingburgers to not suspect the rest are the same.
And why should the base rate for alien civilizations be so low?
I've replied to this again and again: because evolution is, for all we know, vanishingly unlikely, so unlikely that our existence is only enabled by anthropic principle. No, saying «you don't get to assert such a low prior, gotta be a mistake in the math somewhere» doesn't cut it if you haven't got a more rigorous one. I have not yet received any response on this point. I believe there straight up is no other life in the Universe because life does not work period. This of course also neatly solves – or dissolves – the Fermi «paradox».
We don't have the knowledge necessary to model advanced civilizations.
No matter how little we know, we know that this behavior over decades is ridiculous for what we know about civilizations in general but consistent with human delusions.
If there are any extraterrestrials that use even a modicum of subtlety, this approach would miss them.
Obviously by the same token they'd have been able to evade all our observations, even those conducted by the US Air Force of today – not to mention decades ago, when Americans had tech on par with modern Iran; it'd be really dumb if they kept upgrading stealth to keep up with our recent meteoric progress but no faster. Clumsily getting caught in barely legible records is pretty poor for a spacefaring civilization. Unless they're screwing with us I guess.
Or not with us but with our digital successors. Maybe ASI will decode those perplexing behaviors and respond appropriately.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
11mo ago
The math is just made-up numbers
But testimonies of American military are evidence about reality?
I think we've found our fundamental disagreement. I take this to be no more evidence than claims of some peculiar Indian sect about the conspiracy of Naga People – complete with grainy photos. It has pretty much zero weight in comparison to priors from natural sciences. And our uncertainty about American sanity or honesty absolutely dwarfs our uncertainty about relevant scientific conjectures.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
11mo ago
Can I not just as easily ask “what is the natural process that results in the probabilistic construction of a self-replicating molecular organism?”
You could, and you would have gotten a response that it's ordinary organic chemistry swayed by Brownian motion, that happily proceeds on scales in question and no doubt proceeded in the primordial ocean of our world. It is another question just how many trials in an average run it would have taken to produce a self-replicating system; I personally think «more than our Hubble volume is likely to have seen». But the basic physical plausibility is not in question. The entire trajectory from there to here exists and does not involve a single supernaturally improbable step like synchronized quantum teleportation of macroscopic objects; only a great deal of churn.
At which point @Gillitrut would have very reasonably asked you again how a jet gets formed without human labor.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
11mo ago
I am not sure but I think there has not been a single case in the history of our (finite volume) universe where 1g of matter under normal conditions has ended up «teleported» by 1m in a coherent manner, this sole event is less plausible than the emergence of life. My physical knowledge is lacking though.
And if you stipulate infinities then there's no good objection to basic anthropic principle and the whole theological argument falls apart.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
11mo ago
Wojak is at the Republican primary, standing in the corner, his feet hurt, I bet they don't even know how I've transcended simian instincts.
Way to prove him correct. Did you feel clever when writing it? Or did you feel Based?
This is just dumb, Hanania is arguing against a cartoon Republican he just made up in his head.
No, he is not. In fact he isn't arguing at all. He is trying to normalize shaming of Trump loyalists as low-status, trash, unserious Republicans, to divert the remaining talent to a candidate with better chances – both of winning the election and of prosecuting a desirable policy.
We still have tons of Trump loyalists even on this relatively sophisticated sub, for all the good this loyalty has done for them. Hanania is very mean, sure, but his meanness is sensible. What would it take for them to abandon Trump, if his demonstrable political ineptitude, lack of gratitude or respect for his base, ugly and self-defeating tantrums, immaturity so pronounced one has to suspect it's affected etc. – did not?
I think he's correct that it's only humiliation of Trump as a man. But it doesn't really matter. The sad truth is that very many people do not even have a simian idea of political worth. It only matters for them whether voting for Trump is Based or Chringe.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
11mo ago
The hell does any of that mean? Let's go step by step:
Why would Trump supporters care
Does it look like he's talking to Trump supporters even to express contempt?
what Hanania thinks when he's expressed nothing but contempt
Because arguments are to be considered on their merits, for one thing, and there is demonstrably some merit to DeSantis but zero merit to Trump as a political representative? Because this attitude makes you extremely vulnerable to trivial manipulations?
By the same logic, why should I care what you think of me?
What logic exactly?
And why would I care whether you care or not? Scratch that, what even is this inane macho train of thought about caring or not caring, this one-upmanship? Hanania talks of Trumpists from a zoological perspective; I am using you as a reference point. You are demanding gestures of unconditional respect for your position as advance payment for deigning to engage at all. But this precludes the possibility of any conscious change on your part, thus makes debating you a waste of time.
Still. Let me elucidate my opinion: the point is not to convince you of anything. The point is to convince those on the margins of the Red Tribe that your kind is a lost cause, that you are completely impossible to rescue from your self-satisfied vulgarity, your boomer Facebook group Qanon fetishes, your perverse addiction to throwing tantrums and toothless LARPing.
Hanania probably does believe that, hypothetically, you may be enticed by an alpha male chimp who physically assaults Trump, or by some other bait. This is all peripheral. At the core of that piece is Hanania's desire to have smarter Republicans – not just RINOs, but every Republican with more brains and greater self-restraint than an average Chechen teenager has – join him in losing compassion for you, for their own family and culture, and plot for disenfranchising you from here on out. It is a long-term agenda that is meant to outlive Trump as a political figure, regardless of how well he does in 2024.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
11mo ago
Thank you for providing an example. Yes, the point of voting Trump is to Own The Libs, drive them mad. This is exactly what Hanania is talking about.
Like Mitt "the Mormon Theocrat" Romney? Being nice and clean-cut never stopped the attacks from the Democrats
I suppose we will never know how well Romney would've handled those attacks were he to become POTUS.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
11mo ago
Similarly to @BurdensomeCount , I couldn't care less about Tolkien's racial canon. It's the same thing as always happens, too. Sure, it's funny how we used to do blackface for historical accuracy – and now fantasy peoples, some outright inhuman and extraterrestial or extradimensional, ought to possess diverse ethnic identity signifiers of the population of United states. It might also break immersion for fans who are serious about history and deep lore of fantasy settings; I can respect their plight… to roughly the same extent as I respect artists annoyed by the deluge of AI-generated kitsch. Literally First World Problems. Tiny violin. Etc.
But. You know, little things like that do more than break immersion in a specific media piece. They break the whole illusion, jerk me awake. They redpill me (speaking of which: Wachowskis may believe they were making Gnostic allusions to the trans condition, but of course it's the other way around, they came within an inch of understanding Gnosticism through their sexual turmoil).
These little things remind me that I am an adult, a boring mature specimen of a murderous ape in the world of murderous, lying, boring and terribly clever apes, and not a neotenic Eloi in some enchanted Consumerland beholding le epic stories of adventure. Little things together form a pattern, the conspicuous and unalterable watermark of tropes that The Greater American Empire leaves on assimilated «IPs» and «franchises», on myths forging souls of those eternal children in the Pure Land of the West and beyond. Those tropes teach you to complete sentences.
Ultimate, irredeemable scumbags and punching bags are… white men.
All happy families or relationships are… either colored or mixed-race.
The one good white father figure, if he exists… dies a martyr, willingly, to make way for hot-blooded folx of color, often his adopted children ushering in a new era. He is not to have any white heirs of his own, certainly not decent male ones (it's okay to leave a daughter though).
The colored girl is… brilliant and self-assured, sassy yet competent.
The monsters are… gentle victims of exploitation and harassment (by elite whites).
And a bunch of other similar edifying pieces on what a Decent Person ought to expect, diligently repeated.
(Yes, I've watched Black Adam and a few Foundation episodes. Big mistake. Alita also comes to mind. And The Good Place. And even that Puss in Boots 2. I suppose the overhyped Spiderman is of the same mold, given his creator's stated beliefs).
You cannot escape. This pattern is to American movies (and games and cards and fan wikis and whatever) what the text of the Roman Missal is to Requiem by Mozart or Verdi or whoever else – the spirit and the essence, the Truth that is to be learned even as fanciful capeshit and fantasy plots change by the season. White and black, black and white, and then all colors of the extended Pride flag, the drill is spinning-spinning-spinning and it makes me sick for I cannot stop seeing the shape these colors carve into reality, even as low-effort rubbery CGI and glossy illustrations and clever game mechanics and inane bastardized narratives dance on its edges. When exposed to this absurd vision, I am not being entertained; I am being lectured through a tedious post-Hajnali quasi-religious morality play, and a sloppy one at that, boilerplate written by humorless Cathedralites who expect – for sound reasons – to elicit childish excitement with their mass-produced baubles sweetening the pill.
I'm either too old for this shit to be distracted by baubles or too wretched to appreciate the profundity of its moral lessons. But I'm just right for manga, somehow. Now as dozen years ago, I find chapter 88 of Medaka Box quite profound. More so now in fact, given that it talks of a similar disillusion I hadn't been keenly aware of back then.
They'll lobotomize the Japanese too, won't they? The process is well underway. In another dozen years, odds are we'll have all the creative means we could imagine, and nary a creator. Only sermonists.
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Seriously?
I admit it's a bit of an exaggeration. But even Requiem could drop some parts of liturgy.
(to be clear, I didn't mean monsters in the moral sense, that'd be incoherent. I meant actual dragons/sea beasts/other supernatural creatures that are portrayed as default targets of human hatred in the setting where they are present).
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
11mo ago
Or perhaps GDP is not a very good measure of civilizational worth. Though Argentina is acknowledged to be the exception.
What about literally every other metric, from murder rates to life expectancy to, I dunno, the condition of public parks? I suspect South Africa will be far behind Argentina.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
11mo ago
What about it? This is sophistry. Argentinians don't move to South Africa either, and Ukrainians are uninterested in both; even a laughably poor Ukrainian, if in a position to choose, would consider to the tune of 60-80 other destinations before looking at SA.
Most people assign non-zero value to remaining in their home country; leaving aside obvious issues like refugees and job offers, they prefer to «move up» to a categorically higher-status one – and/or one that is culturally close. For Argentinians, Spain and Italy; for South Africans, the Anglosphere; for Ukrainians, Canada and Poland, though they aren't very picky at the moment.
A more serious question would be something like: where would a random third party, say a Thai (knowing no respective national languages, etc.) prefer to move, if forced to choose between those three options and well-informed. It's quite abstract, of course, a Thai would still try to move up.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
11mo ago
Modern Germans produce things of meaning and beauty at a perfectly normal rate; I challenge you to prove me wrong.
Challenge rejected on grounds of its absurdity and lack of substance. What exactly do you mean they produce?
https://old.reddit.com/r/de/comments/3d4khn/deutsch_kommt_mir_so_vor_wie_eine_tote_sprache/
“Versteht Ihr mindestens ein bißchen davon, was ich meine?”
Probably not.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
11mo ago
Huh? I'm pretty sure people use mobile apps for interacting with reddit. I certainly use Infinity (free app from F-Droid), orders of magnitude more people use Apollo. It's not a very convenient way to write effortposts, to be clear, but for many TheMotte was one subreddit among others, albeit a prominent one, checked out for new interesting content just as you scroll through more niche or entertaining stuff. It was the main, but not the only dish in my reddit consumption and I suspect this explains a lot in terms of our declined numbers.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
11mo ago
It sure is nice to search for your keys under the street light, too, but it doesn't mean they are to be found there.
What's your favourite German movie?
What postwar German movie is comparable to, say, Amelie, The City of Lost Children, Léon, The Fifth Element – just off the top of my head?
Exactly like I've said: a hive goes through the motions, with nothing to show for it.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
11mo ago
Incidentally I've been trying to practice the virtue of brevity on Twitter. Perhaps @RandomRanger will soon come to like local longform more.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
11mo ago
This does not follow. And, in fact, this kind of non sequitur coming from an apparently intelligent person is in itself a major reason. I think Lior Pachter's inane and poisonous hit piece on James Watson, a piece completely misrepresenting Pachter's own field for the sake of essentially propagating anti-white hatred while character-assassinating one of the field's heroes, was a big one. Really showed me how this happens.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
11mo ago
HBD – in and of itself – does not provide reason to hate any group or individual, it's not a normative position but a prism for making predictions.
Smarter people, so far as they are unaligned with one's values, are a bigger cause for concern than dumber ones in all important cases.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
11mo ago
Agentina at this point has a terminal case of populism, from what I understand. This plus central bank being subservient to the whims of the state, plus simple export-driven economy where diverting labor from agriculture to industry eliminates surpluses, plus human capital flight… Really a proof for why independent CB is valuable. And low time preference is indispensable.
On the other hand, a good use case for crypto.
It's not a doomer argument, it's just a snarky response to an obvious bullshit idea. Bender&Gebru's paper that introduced the concept is very bad and unduly dismissive of AI (and of entire fields in philology, linguistics, semiotics and computer science); this becomes clearer with every new result. Like, generalization of instruction-following between different languages – we can explain that for humans, using notions like semantic roles. Do you feel like that's possible to operate on, for a Chinese Room style arrangement that thoughtlessly goes through rules? If it is, then it's using abstractions in a very humanlike way; so how can such a Chinese Room indicate absence of understanding? If it isn't, then what do we call it – a metalinguistic parrot, or a true intelligence? What is thought, really, if not that cognition which transcends language?
For me this shit is actually hard and non-obvious; I take these ideas seriously enough to doubt gut feelings. I do not know if I am a stochastic parrot or what it even means to be one. I am not sure stochastic parrots, as understood by Gebru and endowed with general language ability, exist at all; or if they do, whether non-parrots may exist, at least among humans; like sama hints at here. Hlynka dunks on me and @2rafa for entertaining the possibility that human thought is largely analogous to LLM's parroting, but it's hard to feel insulted by that. I pride myself on possessing refined enough self-awareness to notice mechanical aspects to my own mind, though it's presumably a far cry from enlightenment. I sometimes identify people as NPCs because of noticing signs of a kindred spirit in their revealed thought.
Me having an internal psychological state that, at least, feels much more complex and alive (and what dreams I have! Human media would not be ready for their depth!) than my behavioral outputs has zero bearing on whether an LLM is a stochastic parrot or not. Just because I can crack it open and understand its activity as a big lump of pretty trivial and comprehensible computations doesn't mean that it doesn't have what amounts to some analogy to my internal state. My own skull could also be cracked open and its contents studied as a mess of neuron activations.jpg; our only obstacles to doing that are logistical and perhaps ethical, especially seeing as Neuralink got a greenlight for human trials from FDA.
I am sometimes accused of opposite things, like extreme materialism or metaphysical whimsy, Russian chauvinism or kowtowing to the West, being a fascist knuckledragger or an effete European intellectual twink (sometimes by the same people). It wouldn't surprise me if some started to believe me a stochastic parrot too. Nuance and uncertainty are penalized.
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