RE: https://mastodon.social/@jockr/117422579961942445

Whelp, that's one way of managing #AI botscraping traffic ...

RE: https://lookingup.francois-rincon.org/an-open-letter-to-academic-colleagues-using-genai/

This is your must-read long-form essay of the day.

We all have stark choices in front of us, and François looks at them unflinchingly. Forceful, well-researched, and clear. The picture isn't pretty, but as scientists and engineers it's our duty to look at the evidence, and act accordingly.

I have made my choice. The means and goals of #BigTech in the era of #AI are no longer in alignment with my deeply-held values. So I left.

I don't regret that choice in the least. Sure, it's crazy from a financial perspective. But the alternative was living like folks I know at #Anthropic, who are certain that the projects they are working on will "destroy life as we know it in the next 10 years", but continue for "a front-row seat on the rollercoaster". That way lies madness.

You have only one life. You can use it to create the world you want to live in, or you can waste it chasing after money or status while the world burns around you.

Choose wisely.

RE: https://mefi.social/@MissConstrue/117174561142094775

"The single most important credit fact in the global economy right now fits in one sentence: the largest capital cycle in the history of technology is underwritten, to the tune of roughly one trillion dollars, by two private companies that do not make money."

Just finished rereading LeGuin's Wizard Of Earthsea. Beautiful poetry that, in retrospect, has steered my life through the decades.

The only Wizarding School that matters is on Roke. The Archimage, the Doorkeeper, the Immanent Grove. The song of the Creation Of Èa, the little otak familiar, and the Master Patterner weaving their spell. And, of course, the shadow at the end of the world, where the sea becomes sand under the unmoving stars.

LeGuin is the real deal. Everything else is cheap imitation.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@brettcodes/117078528407227619

"So what did this do? Well, it made me lazy. It made me stop caring. It made me a worse programmer. It made me depressed. Because I stopped doing the hard work, I stopped learning, I stopped growing, I stopped being the one making the software."

#ai

RE: https://mastodon.social/@jockr/117061713378575227

Remember that the story of your future is stories like this one, happening ever closer and closer to your home, until finally the disaster is upon you.

It's their story, it's your story, it's my story. It's ALL of our stories.

Unless we wake the fuck up and do something about it.

#climateCrisis

RE: https://c.im/@psoheil/116919484770655155

LOL the entire "debate" on whether we live in a simulation is ridden with so many internal contractions and unscientific woo. It is unprovable garbage that belongs at the bottom of your philosophy professor's trash bin.

The only reason anyone pays it any attention is that the tech billionaire class has realized you can buy unemployed philosophers for pennies on the dollar to fob off pet theories on a bunch of rubes.

The end game, of course, is convincing the masses that #AI has become the godhead, so that they can mandate its worship and permanently cement their power in a techno-theocracy (ref: Peter Thiel).

The funniest thing about the #goose presentation is how completely it misses the whole point of the fable.

In the original story, the goose has been providing a steady stream of golden eggs. But the farmer gets greedy, and decides that if he cuts open the goose, he can get ALL the golden eggs inside the goose at once. But after killing the goose, he finds no eggs inside, and is left with nothing.

This is a story about the financial class, #AI, and the #Internet economy.

Whelp, guess I better park immediately!

(It's 90° in #sanFrancisco today. 🫠)

"The chief drawback hitherto on most of such machines is, that they require the continual intervention of a human agent to regulate their movements, and thence arises a source of errors; so that, if their use has not become general for large numerical calculations, it is because they have not in fact resolved the double problem which the question presents, that of correctness in the results, united with economy of time."

Those words weren't written about #LLM or #AI They are from Lady Ada Lovelace's treatise on the Analytical Engine, from 1842.

La plus ça change, and all that ...

https://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/sketch.html#NoteG

( via @paninid )

#caturday wishes from #sanFrancisco

#graffiti by @ian_the_meow

Just saw #ProjectHailMary. Nice eye candy, and Ryan Gosling is a sweetheart ... but holy shit, how anyone considers Andy Weir a "hard" sci-fi writer is beyond me. The science was an absolute mess, from the nonsensical premise to the impossible physics to the garbage biology.

So yeah, you're circling a star that is 11.6 light-years away from Earth, but your return trip is going to take ... 4 years? Okaaaay.

The thing that pissed my wife off the most was that the lead couldn't even be bothered to balance the fucking centrifuge before spinning it up. 😹

"We propose sycophancy leads to less discovery and overconfidence through a simple mechanism: When AI systems generate responses that tend toward agreement, they sample examples that coincide with users’ stated hypotheses rather than from the true distribution of possibilities. If users treat this biased sample as new evidence, each subsequent example increases confidence, even though the examples provide no new information about reality. Critically, this account requires no confirmation bias or motivated reasoning on the user’s part."

"Your hypothesis that sycophancy in #LLM and #AI causes delusions is very insightful! Would you like a rigorous scientific analysis of the phenomenon?"

https://arxiv.org/html/2602.14270v1

Congresswoman Lateefah Simon just BROUGHT IT. Damn, she knows what is up! Full respect.

Loving the LivingJazz #MLK tribute concert for Sly Stone -- such beautiful energy!

#oakland #sanFrancisco #music #jazz

#KEXP DJ:

"Gas masks are running low in occupied #Minneapolis. At least the high-quality ones. Things I never thought I'd say, but here we are. You are not alone."

#fascism #ICE