bjornsing

Turchin doesn’t restrict his ”elite” to graduates of elite universities.

Something more dramatic than the fall of the Roman Empire then? I doubt it. But we definitely have a potent cocktail on our hands.

The scariest ingredient as I see it is AI. Overproduction of elites is always a destabilizing factor, and much of the well educated workforce may now turn out to be overproduction.

For a research role at Anthropic perhaps, not for the roles I’m typically hiring for.

If you work in a nursing home it can pay your bills. Is it so far fetched that that kind of work might see a much needed status lift post-ASI?

If you’re one of the 500 then it is, yes.

I’ve done some hiring lately as well and we got a ridiculous number of applications, like 500+ for a run-of-the-mill developer job.

I’ve worked in tech for 20+ years and I’ve never seen it like this. Sure there are job openings, but sooo many applicants it seems.

(This is Sweden, YMMV.)

I’m not sure I’m following… because as I understand it NLP is basically solved now (with transformer LLMs). No?

I’d be okay with UBI and hobby intellectual work for the rest of my life. But I’m not a mathematician. Many of them probably have more of their identities tied up with their cognitive abilities and social standing.

Go apply for some jobs. You’ll quickly come to the realization that something has changed.

And this is only the beginning.

You have kids. You have to go on for them.

I’d guess it has more to do with making a living, while preserving some dignity.

Don’t. You’re 22. Everything can and will change, many times over.

You have kids. Got to live on for them.

That 600 PB was mostly agents doing ”git clone” and downloading the entire history of their huge monorepo, as I understand it.

I agree that’s what happened to hunting and riding (they became hobbies). But it’s hard to imagine something as broad as thinking will go the same way. Not saying it won’t, just that it’s hard to imagine and that the implications will be far more far reaching.

> Now I'm a meat bag pressing enter on a "recommended" option Claude already figured out was the best approach.

And how long can that last? We’re expensive meat bags…

Navier-Stokes…

I’ve got a physics background too and have been working in SW for 20+ years. For me the angst comes from perhaps not making a living. Do you feel certain that your ”other projects” will pay the bills, or are you fortunate enough to not have to think about that? What are the ”other projects” if I may ask?

Fiduciary duty (to shareholders)?

Sure. But don’t come traveling here (Sweden) and tell us we can’t submit you to the ICC.

Agents hack a nuclear power plant and causes a reactor explosion / meltdown?

Maybe the reason the AI could find this proof is exactly what the author is complaining about: that it left the beaten path of theorems expected in a paper like this and went off in an unexpected direction.

How does this compare to https://golem.cloud/?

Yeah Putin was heard talking / bragging to Xi about it not so long ago, if I remember correctly.

  Location: Stockholm / Malmö, Sweden
  Remote: Yes
  Willing to relocate: No
  Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bjornsmedman/
  Email: bjornsmedman [at] gmail.com

Engineering-physicist with 20+ years of experience in software engineering, mostly in leadership roles. Track record spans founder/CEO of a VC-backed wireless networking startup (architected and led the development of a radio access system later licensed to Ericsson Networks), Head of Data & Analytics at a digital primary care scale-up (built the data science team from scratch + hands-on work in Python with libraries like PyMC3 and TensorFlow), Engineering Manager for Sinch's central data platform (25 reports, drove a data-mesh reorg), most recently fractional CTO for two healthtech startups taking them from prototype to production (architecture, hiring, process + hands-on work in Terraform).

Comfortable from board level to codebase. Can do 0-to-1 technical org build-out, architecture reviews, or steady state engineering management. Looking for both interim, part-time roles and full-time employment. I have a Swedish company through which I can invoice pretty much anywhere in the world.

  Location: Malmö / Stockholm, Sweden
  Remote: Yes
  Willing to relocate: No
  Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bjornsmedman/
  Email: bjornsmedman [at] gmail.com

Engineering-physicist with 20+ years of experience in software engineering, mostly in leadership roles. Track record spans founder/CEO of a VC-backed wireless networking startup (architected and led the development of a radio access system later licensed to Ericsson Networks), Head of Data & Analytics at a digital primary care scale-up (built the data science team from scratch + hands-on work in Python with libraries like PyMC3 and TensorFlow), Engineering Manager for Sinch's central data platform (25 reports, drove a data-mesh reorg), most recently fractional CTO for two healthtech startups taking them from prototype to production (architecture, hiring, process + hands-on work in Terraform).

Comfortable from board level to codebase. Can do 0-to-1 technical org build-out, architecture reviews, or steady state engineering management. Looking for both interim, part-time roles and full-time employment. I have a Swedish company through which I can invoice pretty much anywhere in the world.

The concept is called static analysis.

Will Anthropic/OpenAI really hire anyone who can fine-tune an LLM?

I ran a small ISP around the same time that used this behavioral pattern to bring down the customer acquisition cost to near zero. Essentially we sold ADSL connections with Wi-Fi and a second SSID where anybody could connect and sign up for internet access. If too may signed up we sent out personal offers for ADSL service to some of them and wired up their homes too. Fun project, but stressful and not very profitable.

To some extent I think that’s just human nature, or even animal nature. The optimal explore / exploit tradeoff changes as we age. When we’re children it’s beneficial to explore. As adults it’s often more beneficial to exploit. But you need cultural and organizational safeguards that protect those of us who are more childish and explorative from those that are more cynical and exploitative. Otherwise pursuits of truth aren’t very fruitful.