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ViktorRay

2,061 karma · joined October 25, 2023

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ViktorRay··on Play Cyberpunk 2077 in the Browser
GeForce Now has it running on an NVIDIA server and then it streams the video to your device.

How is this website doing it?

ViktorRay··on America has lost 200k of jobs in media, film and the arts. How much is AI?
I think some of it may be demand side.

Many people spend hours browsing Tik Tok rather than watching film or television.

Even long form YouTube videos are highly popular. Many folks spend time watching those rather than movies or tv. I believe Tom Hanks was speaking about this many years ago.

That being said….

I remember growing up and my teachers would always emphasize the importance of reading. I’m sure it would be a great thing for humanity if everyone spent their free time reading books rather than on film or television. In such a scenario would people complain about job loss then? This could be a fruitful idea for a science fiction short story come to think of it.

ViktorRay··on Now Google says it might use your Gmail and Google Photos data to target ads
This isn’t true and this level of cynicism is really unhelpful.

They originally used Gmail in that way. Many years later they stopped. This was a major victory for privacy. The fact they seem to be doing it now again is bad. Saying they’ve “always done this” is the kind of empty conspiratorial cynicism that dampens action and makes people feel it is futile to notice these changes or speak up about them.

ViktorRay··on The alien space of science: Coherent but cognitively unavailable directions
Fascinating story. Thanks for sharing it.

Makes one wonder if there were technologies that did something similar to humanity in the real world…

I wonder if all the investment in smartphones and LLM’s may have taken away from focus on other things…

ViktorRay··on Academics have a duty to defend open knowledge systems like Wikipedia
Yes I was always taught in school that one shouldn’t cite encyclopedias. Encyclopedias, including Wikipedia, are tertiary sources. When writing papers in school and college, secondary sources were what we were supposed to cite.
ViktorRay··on Rabbits were a medieval royal luxury in England until the Black Death
There’s a paywall to the link within the article about the 1363 law regarding clothing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_Concerning_Diet_and_Ap...

Above is a Wikipedia article about that law. And here is a direct link to the text of that 1363 law:

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000017915496&seq=...

ViktorRay··on "I'm on a war footing": Terry Tao and the crisis in math
I find it interesting that, several years ago when discussing AI, folks used to focus on how automation would first come for blue collar work. Things like driving being automated and truck drivers replaced. And then eventually on the horizon we would see things like this.

But we still have no self driving cars. Seems like the automation came by in the opposite direction. Perhaps driving will actually be the final thing automated.

ViktorRay··on Theranos-Style Fraud Has Become the Norm
I don’t believe it has become the norm.

We’re talking about fraud about medical results over technology that essentially violates basic principles.

Honestly it’s kind of astounding Theranos ever became so hyped. The mythology of Silicon Valley and the glorification of shady shit probably helped. Reddit for example started out by doing shady shit. They would fake activity on the site with bots.

Y Combinator and Paul Graham glorified this kind of fake it until you make it bullshit. Reddit was an early Y Combinator startup. So I think they have an indirect responsibility of promoting this culture.

(Obviously they were not directly involved in Theranos)

ViktorRay··on Woman who rescued injured crow keeps getting 'thank-you gifts' from birds [video]
You’re going to kill an innocent animal just because it’s irritating you? Wtf!?
ViktorRay··on Butlerian Jihad
”In the original 6 Frank Herbert novels, it’s not ever truly explained what problems, if any, the thinking machines were actually causing.”

Apologies if I have misunderstood you but I believe it was explained. See the following:

“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”

The quote I posted above is from Dune.

ViktorRay··on The Making Of Super Mario 64 – full Giles Goddard interview (2001)
That was such a charming part of Super Mario 64.

Especially when you go into rooms with giant mirrors and you can see yourself. As in you can see the camera. Which is the little guy on the cloud. Such a charming wonderfully creative concept.

ViktorRay··on Research Firm Calls Anthropic's IPO 'Unprecedented Test of Investor Gullibity'
As open models get better I wonder what advantage Anthropic would retain to justify this market valuation?

This is a legitimate question. The Chinese companies are releasing their open weights models for free. Here in America, Meta is doing that as well.

ViktorRay··on What should we tell our students?
What specific direct advice would you give then if you could talk to someone who is currently studying math?

Do you know where “the ball” is going? Do these math students? Do the professors? It’s easy to say a vague nothing platitude like “target where the ball is going to” but such empty vague platitudes do not help anyone and just waste time.

ViktorRay··on The value of not getting to the point (2015)
Thanks for letting us know about that.

Here is an archive link of the original blog post:

https://archive.is/zi6qn

Going to post it here in case someone several years from now comes to this thread and wants to read the original blog post.

ViktorRay··on OpenAI withdraws three mathematical results
It’s not unreasonable to want OpenAI to be thorough and rigorously check their work before sharing it though. Sounds like that didn’t happen here.
ViktorRay··on Wood Tape (2004)
This guy is a really good dad. Excellent story too.
ViktorRay··on Is mathematics over, or just graduating?
I disagree his arguments are timeless.

https://www.mkgandhi.org/ebks/hind_swaraj.pdf

I posted more in another comment on this thread but here’s a PDF of his book. Gandhi says in the “A Word of Explanation” section that he would welcome the natural destruction of hospitals. How is that timeless?

ViktorRay··on Is mathematics over, or just graduating?
Some of the things he’s advocating seem nonsensical to me.

For example he says it would be a good thing if all railways and hospitals ended up being destroyed.

If all hospitals ended up destroyed what would happen to the people who need treatment for bacterial infections? Or need treatment for heart attacks? Or need dialysis? Or get necrotizing fasciitis and need surgery? Or need cancer treatment?

And if all the railways and factories and such are destroyed how do you manufacture medicine and antibiotics and other devices to save lives?

I understand the things I mentioned just now weren’t around in 1908 when Gandhi wrote that essay but who knows what advancements modern AI could bring that we can’t imagine now?

https://www.mkgandhi.org/ebks/hind_swaraj.pdf

This is a PDF of that Gandhi book. Under the “A Word of Explanation” you find Gandhi saying he would welcome the natural destruction of hospitals and railways.

ViktorRay··on Are Babies Conscious?
Humans have a flawed view of this stuff.

People incorrectly think LLMs are conscious because they output language. Yet we question consciousness and intelligence and so on in dogs, cats and now babies.

It’s a ridiculous human bias. Nobody thinks an image generator is conscious. Nobody thinks a human image generated by an image generator is real. But LLMs generate text and so people mistakenly assume they are conscious. LLMs can deep fake personas and act like characters and people think that’s what they actually are. It’s all a deep fake. When you talk to an LLM you are “talking” to a deep fake of a person in the same manner as an image generator deep faking a human image.

An now a paper of record is questioning whether babies are conscious. Why? Just because they don’t use language or have access to memories we question this!? Ultimately that’s what it boils down to regardless of what this article says.

ViktorRay··on The logic of gambling undergirds everything coming out of Silicon Valley
This is the classic Gell-Mann Amnesia effect in action. Seems to happen pretty frequently when one read the New York Times
ViktorRay··on Does Costco Cause Cancer?
Everyone knows the phrase

“Correlation does not imply causation”.

But it’s so easy to forget.

ViktorRay··on Sam Altman's sister amends lawsuit accusing OpenAI CEO of sexual abuse
Hey dang honest question.

I know a while back you said that one of the central rules of HN is that you moderate less not more when the discussion is about Y Combinator or a Y Combinator startup.

Does this rule apply to OpenAI? After all OpenAI is probably Y Combinator’s most successful startup. And does this rule apply to Sam Altman? After all he was once the CEO of Y Combinator. And he’s currently a CEO of a Y Combinator startup.

I know you’ve also said that moderating less isn’t the same as not moderating at all. So this comment isn’t necessarily about this specific exchange. Just asking in general…

ViktorRay··on Amazon introduces a redesigned Kindle family
I read this story and feel a sense of sadness. Because I think about how Sony is planning on ending physical game sales for the PlayStation.

I have many fond memories of sharing games as a kid with my friends. Of renting them from Blockbuster. But nowadays it with everything digital…that’s all gone..

ViktorRay··on Reddit is killing RSS feeds and ending public API access because of AI bots
I’m sure the tiny niche subs are fine.

But all the big subs and even the moderately sized subs and even the smaller subs have become crap. I’ve (sadly for me) wasted much time on Reddit over the years. The type of comments I mentioned have become the default on every subreddit that isnt tiny and niche. It’s impossible to have a genuine thoughtful discussion on any non-niche hobby or subject without it being flooded by the kind of negative comments I mentioned in my previous comment.

ViktorRay··on Reddit is killing RSS feeds and ending public API access because of AI bots
I feel like Reddit nowadays is pretty much the same kind of content as all the other platforms.

The difference is that Reddit is even worse. It’s like a distillation of all the most angry indignant rage inducing crap from the other sites all into one.

ViktorRay··on We’re forgetting what darkness feels like
For almost all of human history we lived with that true night sky.

I wonder if the psychological impact is really the absence of the true night sky that we have. Maybe the awe we feel at seeing the true night is what we’re supposed to feel? Something to think about.

ViktorRay··on Driver Ticketed for No Insurance Just Because Flock (YC 2017) Said She Didn't
Here’s an interesting quote from Paul Graham about Flock. Paul Graham co-founded Y Combinator and created Hacker News. Since Flock was at a Y Combinator batch, Paul Graham provided valuable advice to them and makes money from them.

Quote in the link below:

https://x.com/paulg/status/1493719302725197825

ViktorRay··on Intellectuals Are Fucking Idiots
Isn't your second point essentially an ad hominem?

If an idea is good then the idea is good regardless of the person who came up with the idea. Same principle if the idea is bad.

ViktorRay··on Previously unheard recordings of John Coltrane, captured by Frank Tiberi
https://youtu.be/YjRbmtrDJI4

For those of you who don’t know…John Coltrane is a legend in jazz music. Posted a YouTube link to an excellent work of his above.

ViktorRay··on The Surprising Reasons China Is Skeptical of A.I. Safety Calls
This article makes a good point.

If you make the company itself have culpability for what it’s “rogue” agents do then you solve a lot of the problems. Tech executives might not care about humanity but they probably care about themselves. If the CEO of OpenAI is as legally responsible for what OpenAI’s software does in the same manner that Sam Bankman-Fried was responsible…I suspect many AI companies would not be so cavalier about letting their models do dangerous things.

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