faceh
11hr ago
From a purely 'scientific' perspective, I wonder what the odds have to rise to before a guy no longer feels interested in confirming or dis-confirming his paternity. 1/1000? 1/10,000? I feel like if there was a 1/1,000,000 chance of it being my kid, without some additional Bayesian observations, I'd not consider it worthwhile to check into it.
From the child's perspective, however, I'd guess that learning that there are 10,000 possible fathers out there only steepens their drive to identify the one. From their view its not a 10,000 to 1 shot of being related... its a 100% chance of being related to one of the 10,000.
Honestly that right there is the factor that makes this entire thing a boondoggle.
It doesn't matter HOW emotionally distant or HOW legally protected you are, no matter how they raise the child it is entirely possible and probably more likely than not that they'll decide to bring this issue up and confront you about it and thus force an emotional reckoning, no matter how you or the other couple wishes it to be handled.
You're placing bets on how this future human will behave, what they'll believe, and how they'll handle this piece of knowledge, and whether it will thus impact your own life many, many years after the decision is made.
You don't have a say about how socially acceptable this particular arrangement will end up being in the future, either. Granted, you can't be certain that heterosexual monogamous marriages will be looked well upon by then either but I think the precautionary principle still favors not getting so experimental with another person's wellbeing.
This argument can probably be extended to cover all surrogacy/sperm donor situations and a good portion of adoptions, I guess.
faceh
14hr ago
The Will Stancil Show suggest that yes, this is likely.
Legally you're probably in the clear, dependent on which state it is.
Pragmatically... if they're friends... you're going to see this kid regularly. Your kids will presumably also know of/find out of this kid's existence.
Your wife will eventually see, as the kid grows, a child that looks like you... but not like her.
From my perspective there's too many ways this spirals emotionally out of control over the next couple decades. This isn't a 'fire and forget' scenario where you don't have to know there's a kid out there.
And the fact that they were suggesting it be done via direct injection is bold to say the least.
And it may depend on how you philosophically/theologically conceive of your 'duties' to your children. Are they innate from nature? Prescribed by God? Or merely socially constructed and can be accepted, transferred, or cut off at will.
For example, what if the alternative was they paid you and your wife to bear another child and then allow them to adopt it at birth? Would you feel weird handing over a biological child of yours to a different couple?
Isn't this at least half as weird as that? If you learn that the kid has a genetic disease would you feel at all responsible? Or, if the kid gets seriously injured at some point, how emotionally distant do you think you'd be?
And here's a vanishingly unlikely 'worst case scenario': what if all of YOUR kids end up dead before you... would you feel compelled to make this kid your heir of all your assets (after your spouse, of course) on account of the genes?
Just trying to feel out the emotional boundaries and your overall openness.
From the 1000 foot view, its good that this will help with TFR, but that doesn't mean it has to be YOU.
I also had the absolutely horrible idea that the situation could be somewhat defused by playing 'semen roulette' where there's six prospective fathers she chooses and the genetic material that gets used is then picked at random. Obviously one can figure out the truth later. Would that make it MORE or LESS awkward?
faceh
17hr ago
Hahah fair enough. I'm similarly locked down and I usually only see actual ads when I'm at a restaurant these days.
But I know I've been momentarily fooled by some videos I come across online... which leads me to worry about whether I've been completely fooled already.
faceh
18hr ago
I've noticed that a surprising amount of the advertising is using AI animation. I'm not exactly an anti-AI, "it's killing art" type, but there's something about it that's absolutely revolting when I see it in action. It's like everything is a worm-ridden mass of semi-biological matter that writhes and wriggles across every single frame. It's an aesthetic that would be more fitting in a particularly unpleasant horror short than a commercial trying to sell me Coca-Cola.
I want you to ask yourself the difficult question:
Are you only picking those ones out because they were noticeable and thus you peg them as AI.
And is it possible you've been watching other ads with AI that simply didn't trigger that response, and thus you haven't registered them.
faceh
21hr ago
Indeed. And I really, really hope that by and large the most intelligent apes who are capable of trying to implement 'paradise' are wise enough to either recognize the futility of the endeavor under current constraints, or at least to recognize that its never so easy as just killing the few apes you view as obstacles to it.
In a sense, they'd have to be, or else the species would probably not have survived this long (in many alternative timelines, it probably did not).
Posting less as a question and mostly for self-accountability.
I made a prediction that we might see a feature length film produced by a small team using AI by the end of this year.
Well, the year has ended and I can't find any such releases that have been made publicly available. So comfortable saying my specific call is a bust.
But.
In the 11th hour, one of the creators (Gossip Goblin) I've been tracking since like July published something that at least validates my logic.
If it were 80 minutes instead of 10, I'd argue it adequately fulfills prediction. Instead, I'll just argue that it proves my point that in principle a small team could have built out a feature film, insofar as its just a matter of repeating the efforts that produced the original 10 minutes to add to the length.
It avoids the standard AI 'tells.' The character's appearances are consistent throughout. There's no weird physics or physical deformities (that aren't intentional), the SFX quality is arguably a step above modern CGI in many cases (Avatar movies notwithstanding). There are some truly impressive cinematic shots in there.
Now the main hints are the short length of the individual shots, the lack of 'action' scenes to speak of, the general surreality of the environment, and the fact that they relied on narration rather than characters actually speaking dialogue. Don't think that dialogue isn't mostly solved, though.
The previous top contender was Kira (still extremely impressive on its own).
So I'm still betting on us seeing that first feature-lengther in fairly short order. And not TOO far after that, the ability to produce feature-length films from a single, fairly-detailed prompt.
Anyone else have a guess as to when such a film drops? (again, I don't say it has to be released on streaming or broadly viewed, just that it has to exist and be released in a publicly-reachable way)
Bonus Question:
When will we see an existing movie completely reworked via AI? Or perhaps just a couple of characters recast.
P.S. My other longer term prediction about AI replacing newly minted lawyers is still in play, and I did get some validation on that one.
I used to regularly do 8 hour drives back in the day (driving home from law school, and vice-versa). I still often do 2.5 hours, sometimes twice a day.
Audiobooks, especially a semi-educational one (but not an overly dry one) are great for this, doubly so if you have a passenger to enjoy with.
Listening to Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynmann on an 8 hour trip honestly made the whole thing fly by.
If its a 2-3 hour drive, full comedy specials are a great option. There are some classics out there.
The whole tedium is that there's nothing you can do other than stare out the windshield hoping your fellow travelers aren't about to do something stupid.
faceh
23hr ago
I think wise apes will consider the future implications of murdering 20 million other apes and how that might impact this paradise they hope to create, or cause other apes to resist their efforts.
The real problem is that even a smart ape might think they can achieve their future paradise without excessive Ape-murder, and embark on a quest that, incidentally, spirals out of of control and results in large scale ape genocides.
I just doubt that most apes would intentionally, as a required part of their plan, decide to murder 20 million apes. They may decide 20 million ape-deaths is acceptable, of course.
The 'wise' ape will try to completely obviate the downside risk if they go to make such impactful actions.
faceh
23hr ago
Would you continue beating your wife if the alternative was that a priceless piece of human culture was destroyed or lost forever.
Even if you can't quantify the value of the alternatives involved, surely there's a rank order you can produce.
faceh
23hr ago
I've definitely soured on the first part.
I don't think most people want 'freedom' in any complex sense.
They do not want to be prevented from pursuing the things they want to pursue, most will throw a tantrum when told "no, you can't have that now."
But they don't really care if they live in a prison if they are supplied with the things they want. "Who cares about what's outside? All the food and beer is here, and there's TV!"
I mostly chalk this up to people truly desiring status. And status requires the existence of some hierarchy or rank system. Which almost directly implies there's someone in charge, making rules, and restricting freedom. And one can still pursue status even if they're in a prison.
And I note that its perfectly fine to rank freedom below other priorities... but on a meta level, freedom is an important value to support if you want to pursue other values that most other people don't also prioritize.
faceh
5d ago
Well in-context that's not an issue, its an actual communion wafer, but V poisoned it.
I guess then the argument is that sure, the wafer turned into Christ's body but the poison was still poison.
I do notice some crossover in Rian and Moore's apparent approach to depicting right-wingers, although Moore does allow them to be sympathetic and maybe even be correct in some way before they get their just desserts. Rian, as mentioned, is obsessively devoted to ensuring his RW characters aren't allowed to claim even a single win.
faceh
5d ago
I'd like to meet such people and thank them for their selflessness and dedication to preserving the cultural heritage of humanity/western civilization.
Frankly we need a lot more of them. Which is why they should be breeding rather than throwing their lives away willy nilly.
faceh
5d ago
Yeah.
And I think that is the question he was waving at with that scenario. "Are you truly outraged more by losing the painting than by this character's family being murdered and the killer getting away with it?"
The character destroying the painting will have a very different perspective on it than us, the outside viewer.
faceh
6d ago
Yeah. Rian did his classic tactic of showing a flashback, then revisiting said flashback with new information to cast it into a new light.
I wasn't really fooled this time around because the narrator was clearly unreliable (again, just going off Rian's rules), and Grace, as a female character, would clearly have 'good' reasons for doing what she did per the script.
I just found it a tad funny that they directly portrayed her ground 'n' pounding a prepubescent girl.
Its also a bit amusing to think on what she would have done with that fortune. Once she escapes her present circumstances, we really think she's going to become a fully upstanding member of society?
I pulled up the scene again, and the guy very directly states
[spoilers] "the body of Christ" while holding the jewel like a communion wafer, right before swallowing it.
That and everything else he says indicates to me that his actual idea was to convert the entirety of his wealth into nothingness, thus forever removing the temptation it represented. Otherwise, he could have just tossed the diamond into the sea or something. If he DIDN'T expect it to still be in his body for relatively easy retrieval, then this scene makes more sense in context.
[/spoilers]
I do think that was Rian's intended jab, even if its not theologically sound. As others have mentioned, the whole church seems more like a pastiche of Evangelical Protestantism, but given full Catholic dressing for the aesthetics.
Anyway, this idea seemed pretty close to something Alan Moore did in V for Vendetta, so I happened to catch what seemed like intentional subtext.
One thing that actually blew my mind when I read it (I think it was in here?) was the idea that Amazon has essentially created "Universal Basic Employment" in the sense that virtually ANYONE can pick up a job in an Amazon Warehouse or as a delivery driver if they are otherwise out of work, anywhere in the country that Amazon exists... so virtually everywhere.
You don't need a degree to move boxes around, you don't need people skills, you probably don't even have to be completely literate. You can move to an area completely fresh and pick up the job while you search for something better.
I literally searched my local area just now and there's an opening for "Warehouse Associate" clearly stating "NO EXPERIENCE NEEDED, NO DEGREE, PART TIME OR FULL TIME, DENTAL AND HEALTH INSURANCE." Paying, allegedly $15-$18 an hour.
So there's pretty much zero excuse to ever be unemployed if you are able-bodied. Add on the Gig economy to fill in any cracks.
Can we quantify it? How many family members would you sacrifice to preserve it?
I think people's moral intuitions will diverge pretty aggressively on this.
faceh
6d ago
From as long as I can remember, the true essence of cringe is being un-self aware of how your behavior is perceived, and breaking social norms whilst lacking the social capital to get away with it. The larger the audience, the worse the transgression/the greater the social capital required to overcome it.
So one defense is to have every action and phrase dipped in layers of irony so if something does run afoul of a social norm you can plausibly claim to be in on the joke, and thus almost no act or word can ever have full sincerity behind it since now its actually harder to tell what the hell the norms are if nobody can take them seriously. Just, you know, try to remember which level of irony you're on.
Millenials I think invented this particular approach, but in interacting with Gen Z, I conclude that they seem to have totalized it.
The other approach is to be at least partly aware of your behavior, but demonstrate that you simply do not care, nor take the situation seriously, and effectively 'no sell' any shame in the situation.
These are both exhausting to maintain, if you ask me.
faceh
6d ago
The priceless work of art being destroyed is a permanent loss for humanity and its culture.
As the loss of the protagonist's loved one is to them. This seems to be the message dissonance. Saying you'd sacrifice a particular human in exchange for preserving a particular work of cultural significance will disgust a significant portion of the population.
The henchmen, in most such stories at least, are pieces of human garbage and the world is made a better place with each one the protagonist kills.
I'd point out that we're almost never given any background on the mooks to know one way or the other. Hence that Austin Powers gag. Its very much something you're just not supposed to think about. The Mona Lisa is a very legible artifact since we know its background and 'importance' so the film can exploit that fact to give you an emotional reaction you WON'T feel for random henchmen #23. But if it was revealed that random henchman #23 is a recovering drug addict who really needs money to pay for his daughter's heart surgery (leaving aside that he could just set up a gofundme) then it might make us feel bad about all these dudes dying. Of course, killing them in self defense is still 100% justifiable in my book.
The problem with your steelman here is that it presupposes that all human life is equally valuable, or at least that no humans are net negatives on humanity.
The problem with the rebuttal is that it presumes that every single work of art is of practically infinite value... but in reality you gotta draw the line somewhere. How many randomly selected humans (or, shall we say, randomly selected countrymen of yours, so there's a CHANCE its your family members) would you sacrifice to preserve Michelangelo's David?
The world may be tangibly poorer if the Mona Lisa is destroyed, but its actual impact on human life is negligible.
Like, I'm not arguing that burning the Library of Alexandria WASN'T a grievous loss for humanity, or that we shouldn't want to preserve cultural heritage. Just... taking the position that we should be MORE upset by the destruction of a piece of classical art than the unnecessary death of a human being (and for argument's sake, assume they were a net-positive human) seems suspect. I'm not sure how you can draw any bright-line moral rules around that assumption.
faceh
6d ago
I'm just saying, is it not at least sympathetic for someone to have a crashout and destroy stuff (even irreplaceable stuff) because their loved one was killed? "My brother/father/daughter was killed, you think I give a shit about your painting right now?"
Hell, its a common trope is 'revenge rampage' movies for the protagonist to kill dozens of mooks on their way to taking out their rage on the person they hold responsible for killing their loved one.
This is usually cheered. If killing a bunch of henchmen to get at the person who murdered your kin is sympathetic/justified, how is burning up a painting not just a little sympathetic/justified too? What are the actual bounds of 'acceptable' behavior to enact righteous vengeance?
vs. the Just Stop Oil folks who are doing it deliberately as a cry for attention.
faceh
6d ago
I don't think "black woman destroys cultural inheritance of humanity because she's peeved" is that moral a narrative.
I can steelman that one. If your sibling was brutally murdered, and your response is to freak out and break some 'property,' is that really morally objectionable? Are we genuinely weighting the continued existence of the Mona Lisa (of which there are many copies, its not some hidden gem) over a human life at that point? Its a thought worth weighing, at least. I think one can sympathize enough to see why from the sibling's perspective a piece of artwork is not worth preserving over the life of a loved one.
And yet, it is also pretty hard to believe the point "genius black lady invents something which is stolen by mediocre white guy" since that's something that has probably never happened in all of history.
The concepts in Glass Onion were actually really good and were probably dragged down by the Johnson's absolute need to get his message across at all costs.
I think that is a correct analogy.
My guess is that there might be an opening where very low-fidelity renderings are used to map out the action on screen, but AI is doing the work of dozens of other animators in texturing, lighting, simulating and 'rendering' the actual image on screen, with a human just nudging it along and rejecting outputs as they go.
The missing step seems to be fine-grained control over the details, but creators like Gossip Goblin have been able to keep an extremely consistent style, so either that's a solved problem or they've got their prompts refined to a point that they aren't having to toss out much.
The quality available at what has to be a fraction of the cost of traditional FX is going to lead to rapid uptake.
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