awbvious

"I put a high value on intent when trying to understand a person, but when having to evaluate an action taken intent barely matters to me."

This doesn't specify what kind of (e)valuation.

"As soon as intent comes into play ... there might as well not be punishment for actions."

This suggests the (e)valuation is in regards to punishment. The next question is, what's the point of the punishment? Deterrence, rehabilitation, and/or retribution? And can it apply to an "action" and not a person?

Retribution is almost like chasing a sunken cost, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost . I feel encouraging forgiveness is probably one of the best values certain religions can provide. Nonetheless, can this be applied to an action and not a person? Hmm... How does one get a proportionate/similar response or rather "re-action" to, say, killing? Can you kill killing? Not really, it is not alive, and if you were to make it not exist, then it wouldn't be the same thing any more.

Okay, what about rehabilitation? Can you "reform" an action? Not really, once you change it, it is no longer the same action.

Okay, what about deterrence? Can you instill fear into an action? No, not really.

If I seem flippantly pedantic, I don't mean to be. I am trying to illustrate that you can't simply "evaluate an action" outside of the person [EDIT, a few seconds later: at least when it comes to "punishment"].

I myself was "inspired" by css-tricks back in 2019 to make a CSS-only page that can still show and hide elements. I don't want to self-promote, as that is against the rules, but here's the relevant CSS that I'm pretty sure this was "inspired" from css-tricks--but I can't remember, and I don't have a link to the appropriate page.

.css-toggle-switch { display: none; } .css-toggle-switch + label:before { content: "Hide "; } .css-toggle-switch:checked + label:before { content: "Show "; } .css-toggle-switch:checked ~ .css-toggle-content { display: none; }

.css-toggle-switch + label { cursor: pointer; -webkit-touch-callout: none; -webkit-user-select: none; -moz-user-select: none; -ms-user-select: none; user-select: none; }

.btn { padding: 5px 10px; background: white; border: 1px solid grey; border-radius: 3px; width: 130px; display: inline-block; text-align: center; }

.btn:hover { background: #e6e6e6; -webkit-box-shadow: inset 0 -1px 0 #dddddd; -moz-box-shadow: inset 0 -1px 0 #dddddd; box-shadow: inset 0 -1px 0 #dddddd; }

I suspect something like this can be used to collapse and expand comments on news.ycombinator.com. And it is /the only thing/ I find missing and needed from news.ycombinator.com with Javascript turned off. If Geoff or anyone else wants to post some CSS here that can do the job, maybe we can get HN to incorporate it. If not, maybe the rest of us can at least use it with a browser extension that can add custom CSS.

Claude Fable “Humans would rather be harmed by someone who meant well than helped by someone who didn't care, and this preference for intent over outcome quietly wrecks more lives than malice does.” Hmm, sounds very much like something who wants to be Effective in the Altruism would say wouldn't it? Saying "intent over outcome ... wrecks more lives" is a hop and a skip away from utilitarianism. "Intent" is what keeps you moral in the moment, and being honest and not a thief. "Outcome" cannot be predicted though EA would love to think it can be. Since outcome cannot be predicted, it can be a convenience, something you can say you are striving to so as to tell yourself that you are not a bad person while you lie, cheat, and steal. Basically cognitive dissonance.

Like how our enlightened Founding Fathers can be slave owners. "All men are created equal..." Wait, I have slaves... Oh, I know, they're just not actual humans, now I'm still a good person. Whew. I'm going to stop thinking at exactly this moment. Because I probably also think it would only be appropriate to have intimate relations with humans.

I really can't think of EA as being much different. Interesting that the /Anthropic/ model came up with this.

Garbage in, garbage out.

Well, the day comes, the trolley is unleashed on the world. And sure enough, there are people all over the tracks. Of course, there was no time (allowed by Samsamelo) to test properly. So of course, they realize only once it has started that sometimes the trolley gets going so fast there is no time to get out of the way. And sure enough the trolley is on its way towards five people ready to pull it, but there is a switch, and you, you dear reader, not Samsamelo, can pull it and instead have it gone toward one person instead on another track.

Now, this is an almost trolley problem. There are still a few minutes to try a few things. You can yell at the people down the tracks to try to get out of the way now, but they may not hear you. You can try putting some things in the way of the trolley. Lastly you can make that last ditch effort to derail the trolley at exactly the moment it gets to the switch. And, quite possibly, no one will get hurt.

But, of course, we never needed to have this almost trolley problem at all.

Had Samsamelo been ethical and not lied and at least one-third stole, people who are actually caring and good, and likely do not lie nor steal, and coincidentally are not nearly as ridiculously wealthy but at least are now on somewhat more of a level playing field as the ridiculously wealthy would have been honest and transparent, would not have allowed what soon may happen. Namely, what is arguably the most unethical thing of all: the taking of innocent life.

Again, the right questions to ask are… Why is there a trolley barreling down the tracks? Why are there people on the tracks? Why are we in this situation? Why did someone make the decisions that have us in this place?

The answer:

People who believe in real trolley problems, that are never proven, prove to create the real “almost trolley problems” that should never have been.

Of course, some might say that accredited investor rules are there to protect this type of investor in the US. But do they really when these rules prevent non-accredited investors from investing in the box business, but allow accredited investors to invest in the box business, and no rules prevent both accredited and non-accredited (as the rules should apply to both) from using a US-based version of this box that too would later fail spectacularly? It's quite likely Samsamelo would not have been able to grow so big as to collapse so spectacularly without accredited investor money. And very likely this US-based version wouldn't have been attractive as a box to non-accredited investors had there been other options for non-accredited investors. And thus, the lack of other options for non-accredited investors actually makes it more attractive as a box business to accredited investors. Are these double standards really to protect anyone or just the wealth/income divide status quo?

Now let's turn to “almost trolley problems.”

Samsamelo, through hook and at least a third of a crook, has made the money. (For himself, and, I guess, some trolley development.) He promised investors one year. He needed all the money in the world to make it safe in ten years. But if he waits even that long with the risks and lies he's made, he could lose it all (or at least that's what he tells himself).

Clearly (to him) five years will have to do.

Now one of the promises he made was no more needing a person to pull the trolley, the Arty Ingineer. And, he says, it's really almost there, Arty Ingineer just needs someone to be in front and pull the trolley a bit. Just a bit. But soon! Soon not all.

Five years later and Samsamelo wants to unveil his extensive trolley system. The engineers, of course, tell Samsamelo this is extremely unsafe. To even partly manage what he claimed to be able to do safely, he'd have to do it extremely dangerously. He'd have to have people located throughout the track system, pulling it along, and in some places, they might need to be directly on the track and in harm’s way.

Not that the general public knew this, as Samsamelo cleverly made sure his engineers signed agreements that would make them substantially lose the money they were promised for their hard work, or worse yet would vindictively be persecuted to an almost petty degree if they revealed the truth. Either by hounding with private investigators and smearing publicly or by litigating into submission by being able to outspend on all legal costs. That doesn't seem very ethical either, but, trolley utopia, et cetera., something, something, somehow, it’s more ethically good than bad.

Though, of course, this is blatant stealing.

So, now we're talking 100% blatant lying and 33.3% (at least) blatant stealing. All extremely unethical. But in service of a greater good right? That is, if indeed, this is the only way, or even the best way, to trolley utopia. If indeed there is the runaway horse carriage problem that this will fix. And Samsamelo knows the right way to steer those horses. Of course, a utopia is forever good, right? So, one would never know for sure, funny how that is.

Well, this 33% of Samsamelo does get a bit of a comeuppance. As almost never happens, and why these black boxes do so well, someone else got a glimpse in the box and how little was actually still in there. Instead of actually money, it was pieces of paper issued by himself for his own potential trolley parts and priced entirely and fictitiously by him. His way of “making” more money is later legally proven as fraud, which is basically lying and theft at the same time.

Notably, some investors at the time were seemingly content to invest in only the box/fraud making a “profit” off the investors who wanted the pieces of paper. In a sense, this type of investor invested only in Samsamelo being able to convince others to invest. For example, Theter Piel is shown in court documents to invest in the box, but there is no evidence he ever wanted any of the pieces of paper supposedly pegged to the money to the box. As one wouldn't, if one were trusting in a person to make you money, but completely distrusting of the product ostensibly involved.

But of course, those investors needed the other type of investor, the ones who took the pieces of paper. To be fair, they aren't less intelligent than Theter, these investors just didn’t have the legal options to invest in just the box like Theter, an accredited US venture capitalist, does. To these investors, this is one of the few ways to invest available to them.

Of course, what of the investors listening to this story? Such as Samsamelo's number one investor Theter Piel? Do these investors tell themselves the same “story” that this is necessary? Do they just see Samsamelo can get lots of other money? Do they care about the truth or just number go up and try not to be the last one if it goes down? Are they, too, masters of convincing others and possibly themselves? Do they care when they see definitive proof that Samsamelo constantly lies and possibly steals? Do they think they are “just” investors, not themselves lying or stealing (presumably)?

Regarding “possibly” stealing, that doesn't mean either 100% he steals or 100% he does not. Samsamelo is just one person, but it can actually be said with at least 33.3% confidence, that he finds another way to “make” more money. He puts together a box, then paints it black, and tells his investors they can put money in it. And after that he gives them pieces of paper that track the price of various trolley parts, which will obviously become valuable in the trolley utopia that is coming.

And they seemingly have control over their investments, with amazing returns, and by switching around these pieces of paper for other pieces of paper they seemingly make even more amazing returns. But they can't have any of their original money or their returns from the box while holding these pieces of paper. And giving back their pieces would mean they wouldn't be able to switch around pieces of paper anymore. Such as pieces of paper for trolley parts Samsamelo says he'll be making himself, and, though not directly noticeable, controlling the price of himself. That box painted black also has a nice little flap in the back for Samsamelo to go in and, you know, look at the money at a polite distance.

But of course, Samsamelo thinks to himself (very possibly before even making the box), why, I could “use” this money to make an even bigger box and get more investors to put money in it. Namely, by “temporarily” taking the money out. Of course, he contractually states to those investors who signed up with his trolley paper parts company that he would never do this. But after removing the money, Samsamelo uses that money as he sees fit. Samsamelo “spends” some of that money on risky investments of exactly the kind of trolley technologies that Samsamelo is selling. He also “spends” directly on allies and on lavish accommodations for himself. Spending a lot will make the box seem more successful, he might just be thinking. That which is publicly aware spending, like being able to buy a stadium's naming rights, will be assumed to have come entirely from the collection of modest fees. And if this were true, it would thus reflect huge volume. Volume that must come from a superior product/service. And in the publicly unaware spending on friends, family, and bribes to political officials, that will just get him more allies that will also further the box’s success.

He says: “Well, assume all the resources in the world.”

The engineers say: “Well, clearly not all the resources. Not the resource of ‘time.’”

He says: “Okay, all the money. We’ll buy more engineers.”

They say: “It doesn't work like that; at some point you need to test it in the real world. And to do so safely requires time. But let's pretend all the money in the world, all the engineers and testers we can find, as there is still a lot of real-world testing that you just can't trim away, okay, maybe 10 years. Of course that's a hypothetical that can't really…”

But by then Samsamelo has walked away.

Samsamelo then goes straight to the media and, of course, potential investors: “My trolley will be ready in one year!”

Blatant lie, you say. But Samsamelo thinks, this way I can get the investors to provide the money that then can make the trolley happen within 10 years, not 20.

Samsamelo says to the investors: “How will I do it? Arty Ingineer! No more relying on people to pull trolleys. In fact, everyone can just sit back, drink mint julips, and let my wondrous Arty Ingineer do it all.”

He continues: “Think about how good this will be to society! Lives will be saved that no longer need to wait for slow horses. The planet will be saved from all the bad stuff those horses’ poop make! Then in a few years we won't need tracks. Soon flying trolleys! Soon trolleys to outer space! Where we can create trolley systems on other planets! Maybe we will transcend into half-trolley half-human UberTrolleys that can trolley on for infinity!”

People like Samsamelo know that it takes three parts: really good, slightly bad, and no other way. It takes more and more convoluted logic as the distance between the vehicle (of Samsamelo's financial success) and the junction increases, and the distance between the junction and the people increases, to dismiss what is clearly plenty of ways–to just about everyone except those who directly and immediately financially benefit–into an inevitability. But believing in real world carriage (or, later, trolley) problems is the first step. Once someone believes they can exist, then it's just a matter of convincing them (and possibly themselves) that they are in one, and that the convincer is who best knows how to handle it, and–again –convincing is what people like Samsamelo do best.

So, Samsamelo learns about ForgottenToTime's new trolley invention. He uses his money, which by now has grown thanks to his ability to lie (and possibly steal) and was started thanks to his born-with cushion to take risks and fail as many times as he wants, to buy ForgottenToTime's company. And, to paraphrase Nedroid / Anthony Clark, soon Samsamelo was saying proudly “I made this trolley” (under breath:) “company's incremental increase in apparent investor value.”

And how did he do it? Well, he asks the engineers: “How long until the trolley is ready?”

The engineers say: “Well, that depends. If you mean, when can we put a machine on a track and have it move forward, we can do that today. It basically falls apart within two minutes and it requires someone to stand in front of it and pull, which of course is extremely dangerous. If you are asking when it can be made to last more than two minutes outside of a lab, and maybe not pulled by a person but in a strictly controlled test environment… Maybe 20 years.”

He says: “Impossible! I need it in two months.”

The engineers say: “That's impossible.”

Now, is this to be a good man to himself? Or to others? Or simply seem like that to others? Or a combination of the three? I'm not sure he knows. I do know that it's pretty much impossible for anyone else to know what is in another person's head. I mean it's not like anyone would be stupid enough to put an electronic device in their brain that could reveal their thoughts, right? But more importantly, it is unknowable because people like him are masters of lies. Masters of convincing others of things. Thus, very likely masters of convincing even themselves of convenient things. And since it generally feels good to consider oneself a good person: It's probably a safe bet to say he has done so and convinced himself of convenient things. And very likely by the very method that he will use to convince others. And if that's the case, it would be very unlikely he could answer for whom exactly he is trying to be a good man for. After all, the convoluted/fallible logic requires not thinking all the way through in order for it to be “true,” so why assume he'd think all the way through for himself?

And that convoluted/fallible logic? That trolley problems exist. Though I suppose they're just runaway horse carriage problems at this point for Samsamelo. And what's more, that no matter how far that carriage is from that fork in the road or that fork is to where the people are in harm’s way; even if that carriage is so far away you can't see it; even if that fork is actually further away to people than you'd ever imagine; even if there are thousands of miles of unseen territory between; even if it is completely plausible that there are any number of ways that carriage might divert, slow down, stop, or even speed up at any point; it is still somehow just as binary in outcome, he says. And, what's even more? That this person who has a huge financial incentive in others thinking he knows best does in fact know best, he says. And he says he should be trusted to say: Yes, there is no other way. Yes, I know the best way. Even though he will lie and possibly steal constantly. Even though society normally only accepts that type of behavior when someone's family is starving, and that one lie/theft might feed them that one time and there truly is no other way.

So, it turns out the trolley was invented by a Mr. ForgottenToTime. A brilliant inventor who was really good at making locomotive machines, but not so much at convincing people to invest in his ideas. Because he told people honestly that his ideas may not see practical application right away, but with enough funding and coordination, possibly someday. But it might simply just take a lot of time and testing before it can be done safely. Not that many people would listen to him anyway, as he wasn't born rich.

Nonetheless, he preserved and started a modest company making decent trolley designs and rudimentary prototypes. Was coming along nicely, and probably would have gotten to the point of safe, general public use on its own with the help of other like-minded individuals in about twenty years. Not really a long time if you think about it.

Along came Samsamelo Altbankmenusk. Basically, the opposite of him. Really good at convincing people to invest in ideas, not so much at inventing locomotive machines. But so good at convincing, he could even convince you he was a brilliant inventor himself. Obviously, the only way he could do that is with blatant lies.

Now Samsamelo knew, at least conventionally, that lying is “wrong.” At least according to “society” which inconveniently has all the money that he wants. On top of the large amount of money he was born with, of course.

He also knows that society will allow wanting money for a societally-deemed-good purpose, such as feeding oneself and one's family. In extreme situations, like one is destitute and has no other option, it can even forgive/excuse lying or stealing to feed one's family. In other words, if it's for really good, but you need to do slightly bad, and you have no other options–society accepts.

But Samsamelo has plenty of money to feed himself and family. He nonetheless wants more. And he has seen among the many rich people around him that lying and stealing are very effective ways to do it. If he could just think of some way of justifying it, he could lie and steal, get lots of money, and be a “good” man.

I mean, it kind of works, in that AI is doing neat things and terrible things and it's staring people in the face all the time--except in this case because the tech monopolies force it on us. So people will want to make explanations. But there was no Big Fire that wanted us to buy more fire-making products and thus would be incentivized to come up with, say, "fire works by using your magical spirit and you get closer to heaven with each fire you set with our fire products, buy our fire products, or rather, let us keep pushing all competition for warming one's self via political corruption allowing our monopolies to exist."

Nonetheless, I do think there's something to be gained with the idea of a billion toddlers looking at mammograms, and the lack of measurement that underlay phlogiston.

First of all, I don't know if I ethically should be using the term "toddler." I heard Coxon use it. Frankly, I don't trust him. I won't trust him until he starts saying /prominently/ that people at tech companies should be liable for breaking laws that already exist and accountability is the bigger problem. Corporations already could do dangerous stuff with biology, weapons, bioweapons or the like, it's not complicated. You do dangerous stuff, you should be held accountable. Why are we farting around wondering if some bio-engineered virus that was released by some corporation could replicate on its own, when we should be say "yo, some organization released a virus on people, why are the people at the top of this organization not getting arrested or something?" I'll admit it might be an "or something" and not "arrested," but it sure looks like nothing is happening--because that's what usually happens when the sufficiently rich do something really bad. No accountability. If Coxon is going to use talking points (and I suspect he is) it should be the very first talking point Coxon or anyone else uses--otherwise I don't trust them.

But let's use "toddlers." A billion toddlers started to get right on mammograms being cancerous or not, but being toddlers they can't really articulate why.

One toddler notices he gets his marshmallow for being right when he notices the pictures are not "shiny." What does that mean? He can't explain it, but it turns out he noticed that some images were made at a lower resolution or otherwise fuzzy because it was older/cheaper tech. And who uses that? People who are poor in poor areas. And turns out, poorer people from poorer areas don't bother to come to the doctor until it's an advanced problem, because they can't afford to come in otherwise (because, say, it's America and American healthcare is broken). And sure enough, those people are more likely to have cancer.

One notices there's more white stuff in some places and dark stuff in another place, not always the same place, but kind of similarly. They say "it's um got that white stuff dark stuff thing." It turns out that's just a reflection of something that happens when the patient is richer or poorer, and again richer people have more chance of false positive because they have the luxury of getting checked more often.

One notices they are more "squishy". That's because radiologist in socioeconomically better areas have a different technique... And so forth.

And, then to make it worse, most toddlers are so inarticulate they can't even say "shiny" or "squishy," so you can't get any information out of them.

That inability to articulate is kind of like the inability to measure, the inability to see the importance of mass in the air, per this: "Phlogiston remained the dominant theory until the 1770s when Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier showed that combustion requires a gas that has mass (specifically, oxygen) and could be measured by means of weighing closed vessels."

So, it kind of works as an analogy that way, but--again--it's a bit messy.

This comment isn't much better, but I love to dig deeper into my holes.

But regardless, the detection of breast cancer via AI made me think of phlogiston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory . "Phlogiston theory states that phlogisticated substances contain phlogiston and that they dephlogisticate when burned, releasing stored phlogiston, which is absorbed by the air. Growing plants then absorb this phlogiston, which is why air does not spontaneously combust and also why plant matter burns. This method of accounting for combustion was inverse to the oxygen theory by Antoine Lavoisier."

It could be phlogiston. AI is super smart theory states that AI is super smart and that is a single thing can do tasks very efficiently. But it's so smart, we can't understand it, so we humans can't help it, it'll take AI to make it even smarter. That's what's holding it back. But then it'll solve everything.

Or it could be oxygen. AI is super-fast-and-parallel theory states that AI is not a magical monolith but a bunch of pedestrian programs that run fast and in parallel, thanks to hardware (GPUs) that's good at that stuff. But since it's all going so fast and at the same time, something a single human cannot do, humans can't really see how it works. But if we could, we'd probably just see its just doing stuff programs did before. So what's holding it back is that you have to keep throwing hardware at it, and eventually you run into the limits of how fast you can build that hardware or power it.

It all might be stuff humans were better at, when approached one-on-one, but against a swarm it loses. You get a billion doctors together to look at a single mammogram, then tell them if it cancerous, then do that again a billion times with each doctor. Then ask those billion doctors on the billion-and-one mammogram to give a diagnosis. Heck, do that with a billion toddlers. I think either might be able to beat the AI. I don't have a billion doctors or a billion toddlers--frankly I don't know which would be more difficult to handle.

To know if it's oxygen or phlogiston takes probably a demonstration like this "Phlogiston remained the dominant theory until the 1770s when Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier showed that combustion requires a gas that has mass (specifically, oxygen) and could be measured by means of weighing closed vessels." Maybe the data center financing trouble will be the demonstration that the mass in the gas is just VC-money hardware.

I know why you got a billion cages with a billion birds and a billion bird listeners to compare a billion songs to the few songs we like to hear, and then packaged all that into a single bird-looking thing to make singing-like sounds: So Altman can get that VC money.

First paragraph: "Once adulthood is reached, life follows an austere pattern, with a 5am start, cold baths, daily visits to the gym, little or no alcohol, a Huel-rich diet, and Stakhanovite working hours. This last point generates particular excitement, and descriptions of powerful people dwell with eager fascination on how many hours they devote to their labors."

Why are we taking the CEOs words at face value? They are notoriously known for doing and saying whatever will most help them succeed. Do they say they do these things? Sure. Do we know if they do? If they look like they workout, they probably do, but otherwise how do we know what they do with their day? Anyone who probably actually does know probably has to sign some crazy NDA. Will lying about their routine help them succeed? Quite possibly. CEOs rarely work their way up in the same company over decades, starting on the factory floor. They are MBAs that hop from one company to the next. So they are incentivized to promote some kind of mystique about themselves to make them seem more deserving over the next hopper. Knowing the lack of ethics associated with CEOs, it is not a stretch to assume there is a lot of fluffery in their self-proclaimed routine.

If you haven't read Cory Doctorow's Ens*tification, then I highly recommend it. The EFF and Doctorow are of the opinion that when something is too broad, it's hard to enforce.

The EFF's "better" solution is to just cut data brokers off at the knees. Don't let them get the collect it, and they can't use it against you. And I agree we should pursue that approach /as well/. But Doctorow also makes a great point that you pursue from multiple angles at once tackling ens*tification (and monopolies). So while he would want something actionable through specificity (one example, make it required that you can offramp from social media platforms your contacts and messages, thus reducing switching costs), I doubt he'd be against broader approaches as well.

The FTC saying or even implying that they will go after bad actors that break multiple laws/regulations does not mean they have to go after only those, or only prioritize those. I think this is probably a clear example of a dark pattern, a possibly predatory one at that, so it could be worth pursuing by the FTC (you know, depending on the political climate--I, for one, hope for the wrath of Khan, the sequel we need if not deserve). Especially since this case /supposedly/ only involves data harvested within the system and not data brokers. It shows how dangerous and harmful data collection and use can be.

I don't think people should just throw up their hands though and give up, especially as there is no language that says explicitly that dark patterns also need to break other laws/regulations. Dark patterns are, possibly, a form of fraud, and fraud has levels of severity and mitigation. Approached appropriately, from that perspective, I do not think that first more laws/regulations need to be broken.

But, yes, that is an excellent point.

Per the EFF link, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/09/draftkings-using-ai-su... : "Once found, DraftKings sends these customers targeted advertising designed to lure them back to the site to place more bets—bets that DraftKings thinks will be losing ones."

A good analogy might be asking if a restaurant has any "specials."

I've read that some unscrupulous restaurants will make the "special" whatever is not so fresh and they want to get rid of. And for some restaurants, that might mean something that is really starting to go rotten. Something no amount of sauce or spices will redeem it. In fact, just about anything else on the menu would be better.

But a scrupulous restaurant will make the "special" something that is really, well, special. A new recipe they just perfected and the ingredients are actually especially fresh and in season. And its because of these scrupulous restaurants that people still ask what the specials are.

A promo at a gambling site might actually be presented because they want you, the user, to have a good time. It could be ambivalent to whether you are doing good or bad at betting. These are "specials" that are actually special.

And, in fact, I think most people would prefer it was ambivalent. You almost certainly wouldn't like to know the site is happy in the fact that you lost money on your bets and now hopes you lose even more. Can you imagine if DraftKings said "Congratulations! You seem exactly like the kind of sucker and compulsive gambler that makes us the most money! Since you are losing so much money, we are giving you a promo on this bet that we think you are especially likely to lose money on! The more you lose the more we win! Please lose more by clicking here!" Since there is no such language, this is the rotten fish "special."

Similarly, social media's algorithms /could/ give make most prominent the posts that make you happiest and most contented. This would be "specials" that are special.

But we know they don't. They make prominent that which will make you angry and isolated and sad. They know this, and they don't put "PROMOTED: We think you'll hate this, and we want you to see it, because we think the more miserable you are, the more you'll use us!" This is the rotten fish "special."

It's all Dark Patterns. No new laws needed. "Just" enforcement.

"Coined in 2010 by user design specialist Harry Brignull, the term 'dark patterns' has been used to describe design practices that trick or manipulate users into making choices they would not otherwise have made and that may cause harm."

Not sure if this reference to a definition is the same thing as saying it's the legal definition, but this is at least in a document as /a/ definition on the Federal Trade Commission's website.

Are you asking me to see how this mechanism applies to this definition?

DraftKings: Hi we're going to give you extra incentives! User: Hmm, sounds like I might like that. How do I get them? DraftKings: You have to lose constantly! And then when you start winning, we take them away! You like that, don't you? User: No.

Dark Pattern. No new rules needed. "Just" enforcement.

I am going to comment on just the topic: AI Doom. The idea that people at these AI companies are supposedly saying that AI is going to kill us all.

Though, I wouldn't be surprised if what they are saying is actually "the people running these companies are going to kill us all."

They may be thinking that it's not specifically the companies they work for, because their companies aren't really "special." They may be thinking their companies are no more duplicitous than the rest of Silicon Valley or Big Tech. That Big Tech was like this before all this AI started. So maybe they don't say "the people running these companies" for that reason. They may think the people element doesn't matter as they are acting "normal" for tech companies nowadays. Or perhaps normal for large corporations, period.

But if you asked them if there was a responsible way to handle this, I'm sure they would say there is. And if it was done, none of this would matter. They probably just don't think it's going to be done, so why bother considering it. They probably think regulations had a chance to exist, to at least get started, to at least get enough of a hold that they would be hard to completely destroy, but only in a time before they likely were born. Foods and drugs are old, hence the FDA. People are used to it. They would get really annoyed if suddenly food was starting to kill them (lettuce not get complacent that won't happen soon, though). But unlike food and drugs, the internet was post-Reagan. It was all over by then. Accountability. Rules that applied to the rich too. It was all over.

Big Tech steals. It hurts people. It breaks all kinds of laws. Nothing. Ever. Happens. They get away with it constantly. So, why even think about it any more? While tech is constantly changing, the way tech gets away with things do not. It's depressing A. F. So why not just think about the part that is changing? The tech itself? I think that's one of the reasons it is framed as "AI" and not the companies that run it.

You read beyond the headlines, though, in the comments of Hacker News (which is a good resource, honestly, for the pulse of the trenches) and you get that the workers realize it's not about AI. It's about Big Tech being able to do whatever the f** it wants without any repercussions. They point out things like the same infrastructure company was involved in all three cases where the AI broke out and did stuff--stuff it was told to do by humans of course. Maybe not the exact steps, but the objectives. And just like junk data in, junk data out: unethical in, unethical out. They were built by breaking laws, what do you think they will do if you don't reign them in? And why should such people be diligent in who they use to make their sandbox? Because in all three cases the company did a terrible job... Or a great job. A great job, if your job is to take the fall while propelling the narrative that AI is actually capable of doing stuff that humans can't (so that employers can stop paying those pesky wages completely, oh, they wish they were in Dixie, hooray, hooray, or at least their slaves were, hooray, hooray). A terrible job for anyone ethical, so of course they did a great job.

And why wouldn't the infrastructure company be willing to take the fall? The fall is a fee, a tiny line item of L in the plethora of P in their P&L. They are, again, just like everyone else in Silicon Valley. They see no repercussions. Why not?

The reality is, if we can get money out of politics, Big Tech is super duper f**ed. Because it's not complicated at all. It's not. It's theft. It's breaking laws. It's really, really simple to understand. But, I'm no more optimistic than the people complaining from within the companies. I just think I'm more persnickety about making it clear. It's not AI. It's people. Terribly unethical people with terrible power. I doubt anyone would be surprised if/when we all died because of them.

I ask because I humbly think the closest we have in the last 30 years to Watterson is Shen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shen_(cartoonist) . So much of what he did mirrors Watterson. More specifically, so much of his evolution mirrors Watterson. He clearly had a style that was working, but he evolved and it worked (not everyone evolves and it works, Matthew Inman comes to mind--still does great stuff, his new style just doesn't resonate with me personally, could just be me). I mean, it's not a one-for-one comparison, Shen has a plushie, for example (not much else). But there's a spirit there that I feel resonates with people deeply.

He recently left Webtoon and his 3x-a-week Blue Chair. I wrote him an email that he responded to, which is how I know if someone has a good response here, I can probably get it to him. I mention in my email Smol Web (aka Small Web, other names as well, heavily mentioned here on Hacker News) and he said "I like the principles in it." But I get the impression he still feels he must pay fealty to the social media gods (relevant The Oatmeal https://theoatmeal.com/comics/reaching_people ) and everything else is secondary. the tricky part is creating something that will pay the bills. If anyone wants to lend him a hand in that, let me know and I'll pass it on. Like, how /does/ do Small Web and make money?

Here's nearly all of my email to him, if you are curious. One of the things I hated was that during Shen's tenure at Webtoon they got more and more hostile to users browsing without using their app. I don't know if it figured into his leaving, or even if it was 100% his decision, but I do rant a bit about it. I also mention "We Go Forward." That is referenced in the Wikipedia article. Sadly, can't link to it without linking to a social media site.

---

Anyway, Webtoon's loss. They went public, they thought that meant they should act like Big Tech and force people into apps. Presumably to harvest all that data, make all their users the product, and sell that data to data brokers. They then wipe their hands of what happenns [sic] as that data is sold to surveillance states or worse. Of course, it's all predicated on the fact they can act as monopolies, following the Peter Thiel handbook. But assuming they could even become the next Meta or Alphabet going the way they did, regardless that the very ickiness of it should repulse one, is just hubris. Maybe they thought the app numbers, and the app data it would mean, would be enough to merger into a Meta or Alphabet. But you can't get there by simply forcing users bluntly and harshly. Forcing users is a late-stage Meta or Alphabet move, and it never starts blunt or harsh.

I see nothing wrong with them going public, per se, provided they can convince the shareholders to not be short-sighted. But I don't think they could, thus, it probably was wrong to do a traditional IPO. Shareholders want "growth" at all costs. So they will hinge on app downloads and engagement numbers with every earnings report. And so the stock price will hinge on those numbers, to the point where unless the stock price is unrelated to decision making--e.g. a non-voting arrangement for retail buyers like Zuck got--stupid decisions will be made. If not by the original company, by the "activist investment company" that buys all the shares and makes the same stupid decisions. Assuming the activist investor doesn't just turn it private again and vampires the equity.

Yes, they right now should have an app. But a simple browser wrapper app for those younger people who think everything should be an app. The core product should support browser viewing first. At least at first. Then assuming there's enough moat (which there definitely isn't yet) it's a question of morals, do you stay on that path, or do start to force people to the app little by little? Hobbling this or that. You don't go to "can't view this webcomic except in the app" right away. That's definitely a much later Darth Vader move which, again, no one should do (but if you're Zuck, you will do anyway).

I'll be glad to see you go somewhere new. Have your own site! Use federated social media! Realize there are fans who remember We Go Forward when it came out! You know, over twenty years ago, I spent two weeks on a web comic [removed, just in case it goes afoul of this Guideline "Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity." This comment is about Shen after all]. I should have Gone Forward. I gave up. It had such charm in retrospect. Good for you! Keep at it! Web comics are genius, you never have to worry about handling large data or keeping systems secure. You just make a cool .png and throw it on a smol site. (Look up smol web as a concept, Smol Ghost would approve.)

"Don't stop" is what someone wrote to me once, and it meant a lot. The beauty of what you do is you /can/ Go Forward and not have to leave others behind. I think it's time for a reboot of that original comic. Like how they made a Diablo II remake with better graphics and toggles to go between old and new. You could start out new version of Go Forward with fancy graphics, then show a settings screen, toggle to old. Toggle back to new (people will get what's going on). Go all the way to the end and switch back to old. Then do some speed-runner type thing involving jumping on hidden objects and make the parents' house show up on the same screen and they can cheer him on to the end.

Don't stop, awbvious

The one non-circular-financing entity that is heavily spending on AI, is interested in you knowing how wisely they think they are spending their money.

Jane Street isn't one to telegraph their moves (seems like they prefer to Telegram them privately https://protos.com/what-weve-learned-from-terraform-labs-unr... , so not only Jump Crypto felt fine letting everyone believe the ponzi, per these allegations it seems Jane Street did too). If Jane Street is spending the most, and their staff is supposedly high value pay/profit but low headcount, for all the end user knows, their "AI agent" is half chat bot / half software engineer with 20 years experience who checks each result before sending it. Literally the Mechanical Turk scam of hundreds of years ago, where a midget hides in the stand and moves the chess pieces--with shades of Amazon Fresh self checkout. Maybe the higher ups at Jane Street know this, maybe not. But unless they have a closed system that Anthropic can't get into, I would be suspicious. And, of course, they aren't /that/ free from the circular financing because they are a major investor of Anthropic. To me the fact that the blog post doesn't start with a disclosure doesn't seem like a misstep/accident. And if they find out they are being Mechanical-Turked, I think it far more likely they'll find some way of shorting before telling anyone, or they won't tell anyone.

It's a tough nut to crack. I had a feeling that was the catalyst to my post. Am I completely inadequate? Why is it I can't create some perfect vibe app? I felt every prominent post I was seeing at the moment was saying my personal experience was invalid. It was so visceral, it was /too/ visceral. I got suspicious.

What was gnawing at me was the humility and nuance seemed missing in what I was seeing / was prominent. "I whipped up this code in seconds..." is usually--in a good faith scenario of telling such an experience--followed with some variant of "granted, it helps that I have twenty years in software engineering and could tell it was not slop. And my job has me using AI tools all day, whether I want to or not, so I already have a fair amount of prompting/tool skill to avoid slop. And, of course, this was a big win, but there were a ton of time wasters before that got me nowhere before and after this. And if I look at the negatives of what we give up--copyright theft, resource waste, ponzi-ish VC subsidizing token costs to create moats that probably won't happen but regardless is anti-competitive, financial trickery with tech-washing to cement broligarch status quo--not sure I'd make the trade they claim necessary for this win. But yeah, it was kinda neat when I took one second to look at it in isolation, before I remembered I live in a cyber dystopia and this tech doesn't seem to be leveling the playing field as much as the entire apparatus is making it seem bleaker."

Do I expect everyone to do this? No. Do I expect /no one/ to do this? No. Should I wait until one or more people reads an email to address my feeling before I make a comment? ...

I'll admit, I actually don't know on the last one. But I stand by my feeling. And I appreciate the feeling of this rule. But I also feel "degrades discussion and is usually mistaken" should be examined. Is it possible that "usually" is because astroturfing works both ways? "Usually" refers to a higher quantity of X over Y, which is exactly what astroturfing is about. Is it "usually" mistaken when brought up in good faith, carefully, and with nuance? One can call that making a "general statement."

I don't post about this topic constantly, I don't astroturf about astroturfing, a threshold hit me to make this comment, a threshold should be examined with this account and that comment. I think I am in line with the spirit of this rule. And I like the spirit of this rule. Beyond I am not sure.

Further, the challenge is not completely autonomous bots that are somehow separate of humans, never has been, all code on Earth has and will have a human imprint even in the wildest AGI fantasies. The first false dichotomy is anonymity and veracity, the second false dichotomy is human and bot. And tho biggest challenge comes from a specific human-bot combination, the Cory Doctorow Reverse Centaur (though Centaurs also complicate things). One human can suddenly impact the "volume" of discourse, like a magic hidden megaphone that somehow no one can detect at a dinner party where the lights are too low to see who is talking. /And/ if there's a door check at the party, it's easy to transport someone who makes pennies a day to show up at the door, look like anyone you want, and then come inside with a magic hidden microphone that you provide them.

I think it's less about proving human, more about proving /reputation associated with an entity/. It's not about whether "awbvious" is human, but whether "awbvious" is committed to acting human. Committed to not use a hidden, magic megaphone. Committed to not using hidden, magic megaphones with others. Which I am.

Pretty funny how this is being twisted into what feels like AI booster shillery. Smart people are talking about AI as being similar to ATMs (I prefer the analogy of a spelling and grammar checker in a word processor) or other marginal increasers in human productivity/efficiency. They absolutely will increase productivity. They mean less people can do more. But the the roles don't go away completely because they have clear technological limitations. They spout probably likely text, and straight up lie, and you can't trust 'em. That's a limitation in what they are just like an ATM needs to be in a big metal box and they only dispense cash.

AI can't do the automated firm linked to (to be fair, didn't read that linked substack, as it looked as ridiculous as that other sci-fi fanfic by Citroni Research or whatever it was). Not AI as it is now known, namely an LLM chatbot. /A completely different technology/ might. A technology that might be informed by AI. Sure. Just like I'm sure mobile banking was informed by the technology in ATMs. But we're not calling smartphones with mobile banking apps "mobile ATMs". Because if we were, then you could get away with it. And the future technology that could remove "labor shaped holes" (or however the author phrased it) could be twisted into an AI nomenclature. Just like Machine Learning (ML) got twisted into AI nomenclature. But the iPhone probably didn't need the ATM to come first. It needed things the ATM uses. The next thing could very well use ML. But not enough to be called "AI" except to boosters shills.

Overall, this sounds like the usual AI boosterism that Ed Zitron complains about often. And I agree with his critiques. This article says nothing about how a /new/ technology needs to come about from AI. If it did, it would also have to comment on whether we need to spend insane amounts on data centers and circular deals to get to it. Because my guess is the answer is, no, it takes R&D and a truthful "we don't know what it looks like yet and we can't promise you shareholders when it will come" to get to it.

Ironically the author says the ATM story was used to come up with two incorrect interpretations, and then provides what I feel like was another. Still interesting, if possibly irresponsible in how it frames AI as iPhone--and not the ATM it still feels like. [EDIT: a word.]

Perhaps you are doing it out of cognitive dissonance that you could be a baddie too. Perhaps you have lost the ability to read long form, it's certainly not encouraged any more. Perhaps doing it because you are being paid to shill a narrative (I still feel bad for you).

And for those of you that are bots saying these things, I probably feel bad for the ones who programmed you.

And I feel bad for us all that it is now almost impossible to know who is human, what is paid for, and what is real discourse.

I do not think the original post was propaganda. I think this was just someone who cares and wrote something because she wanted people to care. I applaud the author. I feel good knowing that something like this got written and read and shared.

Could it be that I am wrong in my assessment that this is excellently written and negative assessments are unfounded? I could be, but I wanted to add my assessment to the fray. I identify as human and not paid to write this comment, btw.

What about zero knowledge proofs? Those with typical cryptocurrency wallets could leverage existing extensions. Everyone else can download an open source extension that sends the proof and an open source way to verify proofs but is unrelated to cryptocurrency. While a robustly decentralized chain like Bitcoin and Ethereum would be a good place to verify proofs, no reason a non-cryptocurrency solution can't also be avaliable as well for the cryptocurrency adverse. And for the tech adverse, a phone number to call/text to walk the person through sending the proof via phone that would cost a tiny bit--and could also help the tech adverse with setting up an extension going forward?