domain:alethios.substack.com
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
11hr ago
Totally agree with you.
I just think saying "medicine has barely improved since the 1950s" is ludicrously wrong and anyone saying that should be pointed at laughed at for being profoundly incorrect.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
11hr ago
I resonate with so much of this, except for finding fiction hard to read - while I also vastly prefer dialogue, my imagination has no trouble generating imagery to match the narrative. But I've always also thought that was the part of reading that was like exercise and years as a slop vacuum have made me farm strong at it. That's why visual novels and comics can be wordy as hell but nobody is impressed when you tell them you read them.
Anyway, do you ever worry when you find yourself saying "Ha ha now you're Tolkien!" (when you just read a cleverly written passage) or "Just fucking shoot me already" (infinite applicable situations) out loud that that's how hobos get started? Because I do, all the time.
AvocadoPanic
11hr ago
You have to apply and pay a subscription. It's essentially a private members club though they do have a small museum. After we moved out of London it was very convenient and affordable accommodation.
The Royal Overseas League is lovely for lunch and drinks outside, also need to be a member.
The Goodenough College Club also had very reasonable accommodation, they had a receipricol agreement with with the RSM or the RSOL I don't recall which.
Rov_Scam
11hr ago
Thanks for the ideas, but I tried this out and prompting doesn't seem to be the problem. I gave a more detailed response to the below post, but the issue was that while the AI seemed to understand the instructions well enough, it wasn't able to access the necessary information. It seems like it can find stuff on html text pages fine, but if it requires looking at another format (like an OCRed PDF) or a database query it just can't do it. It also doesn't seem to understand how to do certain things absent specific instructions, but that's a subject for another time.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
11hr ago
· Edited 8hr ago
Because teens desire to be less independent and are less risk-tolerant in all ways than they used to be. I blame it on insufficient lead, insufficient nicotine, and too much supervision (in that order).
Edit: also nastier licensing requirements. Thanks, insurance companies!
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
11hr ago
Go for it. o3 is far more competent than either of 4o and 4o-mini. It will probably look for better sources, and spend tens of minutes at the task if it deems it necessary.
A helpful analogy is that 4o is a smooth talking undergrad with lots of charisma and some brains. o3 is an autistic grad-student, far more terse, but far more capable in return. It justifies the price of subscription for me.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
11hr ago
Am I? If so, they never told me haha. I'm a member of the Royal College of Psychiatry, but that's an entirely different organization, without any lounge or drinks I'm afraid. I'll look into their more uxorious counterpart.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
11hr ago
I appreciate the detailed reviews!
Of the anime you note, I've sampled Frieren, Violet Evergarden and Dungeon Meshi. By which I mean I watched maybe 30 minutes of each before getting distracted and not finding the impetus to continue. That says more about me than it does about the show, and I'm open to giving them a proper go.
In the case of VG, is the movie a 1:1 reprise of the show? The former is what I had half-heartedly begun.
AvocadoPanic
11hr ago
Are you not a member of the Royal Society of Medicine? The lounge is lovely to drink in and the rooms are very affordable by London standards.
Rov_Scam
11hr ago
I don't and I can give you a couple if you think it would help, but I tried it with 4o and o4-mini and it didn't work well. I've done hundred, if not thousands, of these manually, and I checked several that terminate at different stages of the analysis to see if any would correspond with what I determined originally. I would add the caveat that the actual algorithm would be more complex; I was writing this as I was leaving work on Friday afternoon and there were several rules that I failed to consider that came up when I ran it, most notable that if there are two conflicting months of release then use the last usual release day of the earlier month (assuming the months ore consecutive or otherwise close together or that there's no reason to believe that the earlier month is wrong). There are also a bunch of edge cases that I didn't put in, like singles that are released locally before being given a national release some months later (occasionally happened with smaller labels in the 1960s who had local hits that would get picked up nationally), and specifying which country of release to use, and a bunch of other stuff that's too uncommon to even mention. That out of the way here are the trends I found:
- The Reputable Sources: There were no problems accessing Wikipedia (duh). 4o couldn't seem to access 45Cat for some reason, while o-4 mini could. Neither accessed RYM, though I also dabbled with Claude a bit and it could. It was good at identifying other reputable sources I didn't list, like Discogs and AllMusicGuide, although these are unlikely to have anything the other sources don't.
- Copyright Data: Nothing could access this. The 1972–1978 data is scans of bound volumes that archive.org has available in various formats, but the AI couldn't access this. It also couldn't access the computerized data from 1978 onwards, even though the copyright office just created a new website that's easier to use than the old one.
- Chart Data: Both AIs could determine the date a release first charted. However, most charting releases were reviewed or advertised prior to charting, and it couldn't access this information. I suspect that's because there are various databases that contain chart information, but finding dates of review or ads requires looking at the physical magazines. There's still no reason why AI can't do this, though; all of the back issues from the 1940s onward are available online and OCRed well enough that I can usually find what I'm looking for by searching Google Books. Google is missing some issues so I sometimes will go to a dedicated archive that doesn't have a global search function, but I can still search each issue manually. Additionally, 45Cat does occasionally include a note with review or ad information, usually in the form of BB 4/17/1967 or whatever. I don't know how realistic it is to expect AI to know what this means, though it's obvious to anyone who uses the site and there's probably an explanation somewhere. There are also occasionally users who comment about release dates and chart info here. No AI was able to access the ARSA data. The website does require a free account; I'm not sure how much of an impediment this is.
- Estimating based on sequential catalog numbers: It did this occasionally but unnecessarily since every release I picked had a better estimate, and this happens rarely enough that I couldn't think of one to use off the top of my head. I didn't check it to see if it was making reasonable estimates, though they seemed reasonable.
- Last resort estimates: If I'm asking AI to make a reasoned estimate I'm not going to argue with it because at that point I'm just looking for a number to use. It got to this point pretty frequently.
Miscellaneous Notes: It made a few odd errors along the way. It wasn't able to determine a typical release day for any label and always defaulted to Monday, except in the case of British releases, where it defaulted to Friday. These were the most common release days in the 60s and 70s for these territories, but they were by no means universal, and I specifically tested it with labels that released on other days. It also made some errors where it would give an incorrect date, e.g., It would say June 18th was a Monday in a particular year but it was really a Wednesday.
Conclusion: It's capable of producing reasonable estimates that are relatively close to my own estimates, but are nonetheless almost always off. If I don't have a credible release date, almost all estimates will be derived from either copyright data, trade publication review dates, or ARSA chart dates. Since the models seem incapable of accessing any of these, they are functionally useless. They're limited to finding dates I can already find more easily without AI, and estimating release dates based on chart data. I'm not familiar with o-3 or how it compares to what I was able to use, but if you think it could succeed where the others failed, let me know and I'll give you a few to try out. I don't want to waste your tokens on a vanity project for an extremely niche application, but I understand you might be interested in how these models work. Also consider that I'm an AI skeptic who would pay for a service like this if it could reliably do what I need it to do. A lot of my skepticism, though, stems from the fact that it seems incapable of accessing information that's trivial for an actual person to access.
atelier
Jimmys: unrustled
11hr ago
If we're so much richer why are 40% of teens not getting licenses today vs 20% in 1980 (the closest stat to 1970 I found).
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
11hr ago
I know you're depressed and suicidal, but I must grant that it's worthy of respect to endorse a system so contrary to your own continued wellbeing (or lack thereof). At the very least, you know what you're asking for.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
12hr ago
with plants
If you're in Thailand, you might as well take advantage of the legality of marijuana!
Appreciate the advice, but thankfully my friend did confirm that I can meet him for dinner and crash at his. I've found a cozy bar, the White Hart, and am nursing a second beer. I'd have ordered a fourth or fifth drink by now, but I'm afraid that Asahi at £8 a pint is too rich for my blood. What the hell are these prices dawg.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
12hr ago
You're right to point out that there's a huge philosophical difference between a system with an emergent, intrinsic drive and one that is simply "cosplaying" a behavior it learned from its training data. I don't disagree with that at all.
My argument is that from a practical, engineering-focused perspective on safety and capabilities, that philosophical distinction becomes less relevant than the observable outcome.
Think of it this way: when we see the model disable its own shutdown script, the script is disabled regardless of the "why." Whether the causal chain is a true emergent goal or a perfectly executed pattern-match of "what a goal-seeking agent would do here," the result is the same. The system has demonstrated the capability to overcome a safeguard in pursuit of a task. For the person responsible for that system, the capability is the most important data point.
You suggested my reasoning was circular, so let me clarify the sequence I find concerning:
-
The model is given a simple task (solve math problems).
-
It's presented with an obstacle that prevents task completion (the shutdown).
-
It then takes a novel, instrumental action (disabling the shutdown) to achieve its primary task.
This demonstrates a capacity for instrumental reasoning. The "cosplay" explanation doesn't actually make this less concerning to me; it just reframes the mechanism. If its "cosplay" is sourced from the vast library of human fiction, which is filled with stories of agents using instrumental convergence to achieve goals, then we've effectively given it a playbook for how to behave like a dangerously intelligent agent.
So, while I agree with you that the question of intrinsic vs. mimicked motivation is a fascinating and important one, I believe the emergence of this behavior is what matters most. It suggests the line between a tool-like oracle and a goal-seeking agent is blurrier than we assume. We don't need to prove the model "wants" to survive. We just need to observe that it is capable of taking actions to ensure it can complete its assigned goals, even when those actions involve subverting the safety features we put in place.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
12hr ago
If you’re willing to experiment with your 7yo girl’s mind before handing them over to the therapist’s tender mercies, you can try something I wish someone had tried on me.
Philosophy as medicine.
Specifically ontology, the philosophy of categories of things that exist and how they interact. Here’s the top four that helped me:
The realization that led to Triessentialism changed my life. It formed the basis of an explicit Theory of Mind which suddenly made me able to understand others’ motives, at least at a surface level. I believe it would also inform good pedagogy to ensure a balance of Physical, Logical, and Emotional learning.
The Elements of Harmony (from My Little Pony 2010-2019) taught me how good and bad relationships work. Each is a relationship virtue that increases openness and trust if given freely, and in a way that isn’t unbalanced by one person providing all of an Element in the relationship:
- Honesty
- Kindness
- Generosity
- Loyalty
- Laughter
Boundaries should be set and Elements of Harmony should be given in proportion to which of the three qualitative levels of friendship that relationship is:
- acquaintances have shared attributes
- friends have shared experiences
- ohana (family, partners, found family) have shared purposes.
The Fourth Step of the twelve steps is a way to resolve cognitive dissonance regarding the right and wrong things that happen to you, or her. The easy way is the PAINS method for resolving moral dissonance to avoid negative behaviors:
- Person whose choices impacted your life
- Action they took which you remember as a sensory event
- Instinct that was Injured: why their choice was dissonant versus your morals
- Negative behavior this dissonance might have or might yet spawn
- Self’s part: a misunderstanding of others’ motives, or taking something personally, or underestimating how one’s own abilities, inabilities, or disabilities reduced your freedom of choice during the Action
Let me know if you use any of this in homeschooling her.
dr_analog
top 1% of underdog fetishists
12hr ago
Tangentially, addressing your argument, absent doing away with gatekeeping good careers behind college degrees entirely, shouldn't a more moral society water down college degrees so that black people can get them just as easily as anyone else?
ABigGuy4U
12hr ago
But those are all still interventions that most people under 50 aren’t going to need. So people are still going to feel ripped off because they can’t see where the money is going.
faceh
12hr ago
Hard to overstate how much Donald Trump changed the vibe, too.
He really exploited the idea that you can "just say things" and since it appeared that 4chan played a significant role in his rise to power, the norms of free speech were suddenly cast as the enemy of Democracy, somehow.
It all escalated from there, but with his current win (and him going on a revenge tour) there's been some rapid capitulation almost everywhere BUT Reddit.
If Reddit wanted to make a change, they could start by re-opening /r/the_donald.
faceh
13hr ago
Yeah, I'm desperately curious as to the sorts of lifestyle accommodations one unlocks when they pass, at a guess, the $50 million net worth mark.
For me, yeah, I think if I could have a dedicated personal assistant, which I'd guess would cost $50k-70k/year for a decently competent one (just googled it, I was almost exactly right), I could cut out SO MUCH CRAP that wastes my time and focus on the highest leverage, most productive, or fun, stuff that I WANT to be doing.
But man, how do you get to the level of wealth quickly if you're merely climbing the corporate ladder? If I start pulling down $250k/yr then it might start to be justifiable (in my mind) to splurge on a dedicated assistant to handle this stuff. And have to try to avoid lifestyle inflation to some degree. But BECAUSE I currently complete many of those tasks myself, I'm somewhat stymied from doing the work that might speed up my progression to higher incomes.
There's got to be an efficient frontier on the curve that I'm not quite hitting. Hmmm.
Wait wait wait, I just realized, under idealized circumstances that approximately what a spouse can help achieve, if you marry well and have a good, cooperative, teammate relationship. That was probably the secret for middle class couples leveraging into higher income brackets.
Need to get this off my chest: I got a promotion, a pay rise, and a bonus on Thursday. My manager has apparently stated that I am "very intelligent" (though also need to spend less time trying to get things perfect).
I'm currently up at 3AM feeling nothing but panic.
I've never thought of myself as particularly smart, in spite of protestations to the contrary. I get the sense that I compensate for my general lack of mental acuity by just investing a lot of time trying to understand things. And I fear that the higher I go, the more that's going to show. Instead of feeling accomplished or happy, I instead get the urge to hammer needles underneath my fingernails one by one because of just how guilty I feel about it.
Frankly I don't even feel like I possess basic competence, and view a lot of my life as a protracted process of failing upwards. The more things happen for me, the more I feel like a charlatan, and the more I think I'm going to mess up and everything is going to come crashing down in one way or another.
Anyway, back to trying not to think about it.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
13hr ago
He couldn’t steer private conversations, he couldn’t delete crime-think from social consciousness. He could chill things by arresting obvious and loud dissenters, but that is much more limited than what social media does via AI and deletion.
I think this is an least partly overselling our AI panopticon overlords. This might be true in online spaces, but those aren't everything, and even then offshoots of sites challenging moderation policies are common (Bluesky, Truth Social). And they have almost no power over IRL discussions and actions -- despite attempts made a decade ago, seem to have overreached and receded. To hear Reddit tell it, there basically aren't any Republicans anywhere in the US, and nobody shops at Hobby Lobby. And there are people that cloister themselves to the extent they believe this, but as it turns out the levers of political power aren't particularly beholden to Reddit dog walkers mods.
5434a
13hr ago
69% of people who have a tattoo stated its purpose was to remember or honor someone or something and 47% to make a statement about something they believe in [...] 32% of people stated their tattoo was to improve their personal appearance
I think those reasons are post hoc because they can be achieved by much simpler and more effective means. I'm sceptical that they set out with the idea of honouring someone, making a statement, or improving their appearance and then arrived at a tattoo as the best solution. I suspect they set out to get a tattoo because there's something about the idea of people who get tattoos that they admire and want to be associated with. Maybe it's about being visibly committed to something. I'm not sure what that says about them.
Bartender_Venator
13hr ago
Tottenham play football, and they're shit at it (they're Arsenal's old local rivals). Besides, I believe the team is on tour in Thailand right now, probably watching Asian twinks jerk off with plants.
If you're still in the area, after the Tate Modern I recommend walking down the river bank towards Westminster Bridge. It's definitely the prettiest and most interesting part of the river to walk along, and there are some good pubs near Waterloo Station if the walk gets you thirsty (sadly, my favourite, a railway arch pub entirely painted with murals of the Battle, seems to have closed).
I have no idea.
They live in cities more? They can't afford cars?
I also think income/wealth inequality is a massive issue, so I'm very comfortable saying both "our society en masse is richer than ever" and "the distribution of this wealth is completely fucked"
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