hustlegrinder
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User ID: 719
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
I don’t think that’s how it works.
The progress we’re seeing with generative models now leads me to think that idiot savant AGIs, that are good at some tasks but wildly inefficient at others are possible if not inevitable.
Hooking up GPT-10 to a few special purpose models is the only plausible way of building something that resembles AGI that we have now.. and it wouldn’t be obsessed with efficiency at every step. I think the whole Eliezer’s "God in a terminal shell" model of AI doesn’t reflect reality well.
Perhaps it’d send humanoid robots with guns after you precisely because the Terminator movies exist.. they’re often referenced in our culture and are definitely in the training corpora for LLMs. How’s that for time travel.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
Well you can see for yourself, https://openai.com/api/ register then go to Playground.
It depends on what you consider good, I guess. It is unreliable but outputs mostly coherent speech; understands tasks given, although that often requires a lot of restating and clarification; at least once I got a genuinely useful idea out of discussing something with it.
Certainly it can do good quality forum bots, especially with a bit of moderation.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
Or offering his analysis of the Ukraine-Russian war on twitter, which even if you would agree the broad strokes of his suggestion were good, Twitter's really not a good platform to share nuanced geopolitical analysis to try to encourage peace.
I don’t think he is in position to significantly influence the Russia-Ukraine war in any case, but that way, at least, when the dust settles he can point at his tweets and present himself as a benevolent figure who tried to save lives.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
Maybe they just understand this market better than me? Never underestimate just how little work people are willing to put into things. Even playing around with prompts and inpainting for a few hours may be too much for most people, when they could just hand over $10 for a pretty picture on Shutterstock instead.
Spending $10 instead of a few hours sounds like a good deal to me.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
GPT 3 is really good, and you don’t even have to fine tune it, just provide a good prompt and you’re good to go.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
… maybe?
If at some point the baby can be "aborted" via C-section, I don’t have any objections to mandating it be done that way.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
A few argue that the fetus is an entity with moral standing but having pregnancy or baby is such an imposition on the mother that abortion is ok. I still understand where these people are coming from. I absolutely don’t agree (although I do think we should work on making life easier for the mother), but I still understand. I am quite sure that this argument would never take with the general public, despite its attraction in academic settings.
But there’s one common take that has baffled me for a long time – the one that goes something like this: “Yes, abortion is killing an innocent baby and wrong, but I don’t think it would be right for me to tell (other) women what to do/choose/decide.” This had always baffled me, until I recognized it in the past few months as the domestic violence defense.
This is essentially the same argument isn’t it? Abortion may or may not be morally wrong, but forcing a particular choice would violate the mother’s bodily autonomy, so we think it’s for her to decide.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
It seems to me more likely that Putin took a gamble, a good gamble, which had positive expected value, and came up absolutely snake eyes on the heroism of a relative handful of Ukrainians.
All speculations about Putin’s plans being actually smart or reasonable or a part of some 4d chess master plan, must factor in the fact that, as it turned out, Russian military was in shambles, badly provisioned and making blunder after blunder especially when it comes to logistics.
Like if Putin’s so smart, then why is he unable to execute? One would expect the value calculations to be on basically the same level of competence: old man’s delusions weaved out of the lies of his sycophant inner circle.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
I'm reminded of the "soul-editor" from the SCP Foundation Wiki that had symbols from every major world religion, as well as a few unknown ones.
What SCP number, by the way?
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
I also lean libertarian and I am against euthanasia.
The society and the state simply cannot be trusted these matters, and the added convenience of legalised euthanasia isn’t worth their involvement. There are going to be all kinds of ugly things from states covering up murders, to vulnerable people being pressured towards it by shrinks or activists or whoever else who profits from this.
If someone really wants to end their life they should procure a gun and do it themselves.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
Was the fall of the USSR also lamentable for the same reason?
Kind of; the way the USSR was dismantled is a cause both of the Russian government being what it is now, and also of the territorial disputes with Ukraine that are ostensibly the reason for a war that has a [however small] chance of turning nuclear.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
I wonder how much of it will be implemented?
Pretty much none.
All these lamentations by the "good Russians" about how every Russian is now tainted with an original sin of the war in Ukraine and is destined to be hated and shunned everywhere, are by and large self-imposed. Just go to Western Europe or America, as long as you have no ties to Putin’s government you’ll be absolutely fine.
These days I travel all over Europe, do business, raise investments et cetera; so far I haven’t encountered any significant obstacles, hostility or lost opportunities due to me holding a Russian passport.
Collective responsibility is not a given, avoiding it is always an unalloyed moral good, and your question is kind of like asking what is better — to allow a criminal to beat up ten random people on the streets or murder one — then asking if it’s moral to run away from such a criminal. Of course it is; better yet is to incapacitate the criminal himself so that everyone else can go on their merry way.
Similarly in your story it’s the principal who should be fired for not being able to do his job of maintaining discipline in his school, and for taking it out on unrelated students on top of that.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
The only ethical way is to put responsibility on those who take part in Putin’s actions, whatever their nationality, and completely exonerate all others.
Collective responsibility is a repugnant concept.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
I don't even know how you'd compute "most" when comparing financial and non-financial stuff. How would you compare, for instance, teaching CRT in schools to taking $X in taxes, and how would you compare either one to taking $Y in taxes, but using the money for things most people object to?
Well imagine if someone paid you one billion dollars, on a condition that your children have to listen to let’s say a course of ten 1-hour CRT lectures in school. Would you agree to it?
If yes, then there is in fact a value of $X that compares to teaching CRT in schools, and it is somewhere between zero and one billion.
It may be hard to estimate precisely, so in real life you should just go with what your intuition tells you is a better option.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
That is what you would do were you in the state's position, is it not?
No, I don’t generally violate the NAP even if it’s profitable for me to do so — I am a principled man and I value these principles.
What if the ongoing benefits of of your participation in the economy, are less than the perceived costs? You say "value a country receives out of my residence in it extends far in the future" but how can that be if you leave?
First, it’s simply not the case, in a viscerally evident way — the state makes money on taxes and also my participation in the economy of a country means that something in it is getting done well — this is how I get my capital in the first place.
Second, I think you haven’t really understood my perspective of seeing this as fundamentally a business relationship. Suppose you are subscribed to Netflix. You pay them 10$ per month, and in return you can watch movies there. If Netflix feels they are providing you this service at a loss, they can raise the prices (let’s call them “taxes”). Then you are free to either accept these prices or to switch to a different provider.
Similarly if a state feels they spend more value on me than it gets back, well they can raise taxes and then I can decide whether or not to relocate my enterprise after that.
Ideally this all leads to a mutually beneficial arrangement where I provide value to the state, and the state provides value to me; indeed the state can provide valuable services — protection, arbitrage, infrastructure, and so on — I am not opposed to paying for them. It is only fair.
The difference is of course that the state, unlike Netflix, can use force to compel me to accept a deal that I wouldn’t have accepted on my own free will. Some things, like liberal institutions, make it harder, so I support them; some things, like proliferation of nationalism, make it easier, so I oppose them.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
Of course you are allowed to be a nationalist, in fact I think you should be allowed to subscribe to any worldview, however wrong or extreme it might be. Freedom of speech and all that
It’s just that I won’t support you in doing so, and will back up people who work in opposition to these ideas.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
For many places national identity is useful precisely as a form of resistance to overweening state power . This is obvious in colonial regions. Even regional "nations" use this; Quebec has won concessions due to the unity that they've managed to cobble together in the name of their "nation".
Interesting point. What concessions?
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
The point is not so about you defecting against the state, but rather about preventing the state from defecting against you.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
The argument that it's all just a business transaction is a double edged sword.
You thinking it’s not just a transaction makes it easier, not harder, for the state to take your stuff when the time comes, right as you’d stare at the process in disbelief, denial, hoping for the better and taking seriously the state’s shallow excuses for doing so. I’ve seen this happen many times. Sentimental feelings towards a country prevent people from cutting their losses early on.
If all you have to offer is the value of your stuff why shouldn't a country just take your stuff?
What I have to offer are the yearly taxes and the ongoing benefits of my participation in the economy, the value a country receives out of my residence in it extends far in the future.
Also most of the "stuff" we’re talking about consists of control over businesses and processes, that wouldn’t fare well after being seized.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
But having said that the obvious counter argument is having admitted that you feel no particular sense of loyalty and are only shopping around for who ever will give you the best price, and will ditch them in a heartbeat should a better deal come along, why should anyone give you that deal?
Why, for the same reason people give me all other kinds of deals; doing that brings them value.
I mentioned that I see my relationship with a country as a business transaction — I pay the taxes and follow the regulations — and in return the state allows me to operate on the territory it controls and provides a range of useful services. As an honorable businessman, I uphold my part of such a deal.
It’s also not true that I’d ditch them in a heartbeat. First, there is value in a good long-term relationship, and second, moving assets and processes is not without cost.
every leadership, regime that has severely impugned on this right has failed or collapsed, so there is that. There is a balance.
That’s correct, but it’s of little comfort to you personally, if you have no plausible option to walk away from it — which is exactly my point
Not really. nationalism does not imply you cannot pick your stuff up and move elsewhere and even be accepted in your new country (like how Russian Jews assimilated well in the US)
US is not an ethnostate, and ethnonationalism is a different thing compared to the US nationalism — in this post I’m arguing mostly against the former.
Then again, nationalism of any sort is antithetical to the paradigm of shopping for countries that offer the best terms for you and your businesses.
Free market capitalism and identity
Today I spent some time reading about Georgia Meloni and watching some of her speeches, such as this one. She’s charismatic, but being a rootless global laissez-faire capitalist I am of course not thrilled; anyway, I’d like to offer my perspective on some of the issues raised in her speeches.
It is a natural state of affairs that the governments, by leveraging their capacity for violence, have an enormous power over their citizens and by extension on their businesses; all private organizations are by default subservient to the State.
"Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State" — Benito Mussolini
Diverting from such an arrangement is not trivial. Indeed, how do you stop the people who have, pretty much by definition, overwhelming firepower from using it to take your stuff? One way are the democratic institutions — things like the separation of powers, checks and balances, key positions being elected and therefore held at least somewhat accountable, and so on. All of that works to an extent, but these things are fragile and often not really sufficient.
The other pillar of limiting the power of the govts to control and loot private enterprise, is the competition between different countries. The states themselves can be seen as providers of a certain service — you pay the taxes, and in return get useful things like personal asset protection, arbitrage, infrastructure and so on. As such they are also subject to the market forces. If there are multiple independent offers, and you are free to choose any of them, then in fact you are likely to find a fair deal.
Therefore, in order for the free world to exist it must be possible to change your country at will. It’s easy to see that nationalism runs contrary to this goal. If you only ever can be accepted in one country, if you can only be permitted to run important businesses or organisations in the country of your birth; and doomed to be an irrelevant outsider in all others — well, then your government has you by the balls — you have no real negotiating position with the state.
This reasoning can be extrapolated to other kinds of identity Meloni mentions, to an extent, although of course the most important one of them by far is the national identity. But I disagree that the capitalist’s goal is to destroy identities. It is only necessary for them to be made interchangeable.
If anything capitalism served to amplify and increase the adoption of certain cultural elements, think the Italian cuisine or the Japanese animation. I know what you’re going to say — that it’s not real, it’s superficial, it’s commoditized and the real national identity is something else entirely. Well, it is. The real national idea, the one you’re left with when the music stops, is always to force you to surrender everything you have to the state and to go die in the trenches for no good reason, ostensibly as a sacrifice to your country. Perhaps it’s for the best if we abandon that.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
If you work on gene modification then of course it’s your job to do that, I for one can only commend this valuable line of work
I am merely saying that it’a morally bankrupt to apply anything other than the individual approach when dealing with individuals, even if it is not always practical to do so
I mean.. honestly if that is the most interesting challenge you’ve seen in a long time, I suggest looking further. Sure it does feel like mental effort but personally I struggle to think of a less meaningful way to apply it. Even among the similarly abstract and introspective things to do there is meditation, lucid dreaming, chess, abstract mathematics etc.
That would be the placebo effect and the feeling of excitement about a new topic.
There are supplements that can plausibly increase your mental performance… they ain’t called nootropics. Not that I recommend them either.
Besides eliminating vitamin deficiencies and diseases that affect mental function and energy levels, and maybe physical exercise, there don’t seem to be any interventions that have high enough ROI to justify spending time on them, IMO..
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