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ponow

221 karma · joined October 4, 2016

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ponow··on Tiny Little Office
Upvote for prescription
ponow··on Rats Play DOOM
Then make your own world where you don't benefit from the knowledge gained by means you don't approve of. This world is not that world.
ponow··on Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws
Legislation is much worse than organically derived common law, for the common law comprises decisions that apply to particular conditions with all their details while the former are mere idealizations.
ponow··on Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws
Yes, I would argue that it would be better for more to have been incarcerated, for that would bring greater focus to injustice and the law would be changed. Selective enforcement interferes with the feedback mechanism that would otherwise make the law work better.
ponow··on Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret
Categorical rejection of alternatives is premature without context.
ponow··on PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program
Federal funding of research is un-American.
ponow··on Go is still not good
Go was a response, in part, to C++, if I recall how it was described when it was introduced. That doesn't seem to be how it ended it out. Maybe it was that "systems programming language" means something different for different people.
ponow··on Is Chain-of-Thought Reasoning of LLMs a Mirage? A Data Distribution Lens
I'm happy enough if I'm better off for having used a tool than having not.
ponow··on Is Chain-of-Thought Reasoning of LLMs a Mirage? A Data Distribution Lens
Meaningless? The participation in a usefully predicting path is meaning. A different meaning.

And Gemini has a note at the bottom about mistakes, and many people discuss this. Caveat emptor, as usual.

ponow··on Is Chain-of-Thought Reasoning of LLMs a Mirage? A Data Distribution Lens
> LLMs are [...] sophisticated simulators of reasoning-like text

Most humans are unsophisticated simulators of reasoning-like text.

ponow··on The great displacement is already well underway?
Could it be that your particular position required more ongoing learning, and that has kept you better prepared for a changing world?

What fraction of positions require that ongoing learning, or at least to that degree?

Also, consider many other jobs, are they doing their job, and the doing of their job itself provides the experience that makes you a more valuable worker? Or is the doing of the job basically a necessary distraction from the actual task of preparing yourself for a future job? What fraction of humanity actually takes on two jobs, the paying job and the preparing-for-the-next-job? Might doing the latter get you fired from the former? Most importantly, is doing that latter job getting more important over time, that is, are our jobs less secure? If so, is this what is an improving economy, rising, as it were, with GDP?

ponow··on NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions
These are welcome changes, as the practice of DEI (not it's idealization) is actively discriminatory and intolerant of dissenting views. Let competence be the only metric.
ponow··on NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions
False. Mass accumulations of capital allow exploratory research without a clear path to commercial benefit, but it's a cherry on top, a kind of motivator for researchers.
ponow··on NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions
It's ironic that the much more significant ultimate success of deep learning happened despite a lack of government funding, if Hinton is to be believed. The 90s were a neural net winter, and success required faster computation, a private success.

I lose zero sleep at the prospect that there would be zero government robotics research funding. If the advantages are there, profit seekers will find a way. We must stop demonizing private accumulations of capital, "ending" billionaires and "monopolies" that are offering more things at lower cost. Small enterprises cannot afford a Bell Labs, a Watson Research, a Deep Mind, a Xerox PARC, etc.

ponow··on NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions
Yes, reduce, even end government research.
ponow··on Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google
As if centralization with one big company weren't enough, now we're not even satisfied with one country, but a block of them. Yikes.

Nope, run in the opposite direction. Unsuck from any teat.

ponow··on Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)
Unless you bound compensation, a proclamation of "non-profit" rings hollow.
ponow··on Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
None of that is combatting sexism, but reality.
ponow··on Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
We need one title one owner. Shared ownership is confusion. Governmens shouldn't run interference between managers and stockholders.
ponow··on Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
Developing defence capacity is a basic responsibility. Humans can scream foul if they lose out to machine hybrids or extraterrestrials.
ponow··on Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
Brevity informs diction.
ponow··on Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
If you have to force something, it is. And it's being forced. If we made more white play in the NBA it might seem clearer.
ponow··on Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
Don't commit the crime if you can't handle it. It's a punishment.
ponow··on Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
No, it's equal outcones, or worse, turn the tables. Racist hiring aka affirmative action illustrates this.
ponow··on Time for a code-yellow?: A blunt instrument that works
So your angle is just to let ChatGPT fill that space?
ponow··on Time for a code-yellow?: A blunt instrument that works
Our ancestors suffered greatly with far greater inconveniences.

Rather bourgeois remark. Unsurprising that that developed countries' populations are in question with gatekeeping like that.

ponow··on Updates to H-1B
But then the narrative of "there aren't enough qualified people" collapses, and H1-Bs unjustified.
ponow··on Updates to H-1B
> Determinants, Gaussian elimination, etc.

Umm, not in Pennsylvania government high schools, not typically. Not by a long shot.

ponow··on Updates to H-1B
Linear algebra is not a universal requirement for CS and EE.
ponow··on Updates to H-1B
Define "qualified".
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