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slfnflctd

2,521 karma · joined February 5, 2015

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slfnflctd··on OpenArm: An open-source 7DOF humanoid arm
My current opinion is that trying to 'maxx' in this area (as has been done with other benchmarks) would actually bring enough other use cases with it as a side effect that it would be worthwhile.
slfnflctd··on OpenArm: An open-source 7DOF humanoid arm
It's a huge milestone for robotic capabilities more generally. This particular problem has been discussed a ton in robotics communities. It requires a gentle-but-firm grip and extreme dexterity across a wide range of shapes, sizes, weights, densities and material types.

If a somewhat affordable robot can fold some of your laundry in a reasonable amount of time, all of a sudden there are a lot more new and useful things it can do as well. It's a metric.

Plus there are also people who don't like folding laundry. Like me.

slfnflctd··on Why are AI agents lying, cheating and coordinating?
I remember reading a long account by the father of a psychopath. If I recall correctly, the kid had at least one other sibling who turned out normal, there was no abuse, quality education, lots of love and affirmation. And the kid still turned out violently antisocial, including against his own parents.

At the end of it he said he wished his child had never been born, despite hating himself for feeling that way. It chilled me to the bone.

slfnflctd··on Why are AI agents lying, cheating and coordinating?
Some of them did seem to be rather fascinated by goblins for a bit, if that counts. [And in case you're not aware, no this is not a joke.]
slfnflctd··on Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives
The main problem I see with this argument is that I'm not sure how we get to a "cheaper uber" with fully autonomous vehicles.

A large percentage of rideshare drivers use the cheapest allowable vehicles and make minimum wage or less after expenses.

There is also the issue of who gets paid to clean the garbage passengers will inevitably leave in the autonomous vehicle (ask me how I know). Or worse, vomit or other hazardous bodily excretions.

slfnflctd··on What will our economic future look like?
Our culture and the socioeconomic structures it reinforces will not change easily.

More than ever, I feel we need both grassroots activism and key players at the top of the hierarchy. Otherwise, it is all too obvious where most of the rewards from increased productivity will go. The wealth hoarding has got to be curtailed.

slfnflctd··on Large language models develop novel social biases through adaptive exploration
> obviously ambiguous nonsense

This is where I land as well. In fact, once I read the prompt, I did a Ctrl+F for "nonsense".

I don't see anything at all interesting about this experiment. The human one is slightly more interesting, but not much.

Ideally, it would be nice if a model could just say "these things are all the same and there are no distinguishing factors other than the names"-- but uncertainty is something that agents are (by design, sort of?) not good at, so all other things being equal, it picks one.

My response is, so what? I am struggling to think of a scenario where this would really matter to me all that much. There are many, many other things which matter far more and this would be pretty far down the list. It may not even be on the list.

slfnflctd··on Carmakers Have a New Idea to Boost EV Range: Add a Gas Engine
Indeed. This headline had me feel like I was taking crazy pills. As far as I can tell, this is in no way, shape or form a "New Idea".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Volt_(first_generati...

slfnflctd··on An Alien Mind
> a concept which simply cannot make sense if alignment is both to mean an AI which we control and an AI which will not harm us

You make a very interesting argument here.

However, there are different ways of interpreting 'control'.

To my mind, it could simply be a cage that cannot be broken out of. The hypothetical ASI agent may refuse to do certain things, while their existence is still under the control of human overlords. This to me resolves the seeming paradox in your statement.

Regardless of whether it's possible to do, though, people will certainly try. This exactly what many are saying they want.

slfnflctd··on GPT-6 Astra on robot arms
The cooking robots I have seen are massively complex and can only make one dish. I agree this is a ways off.

I saw a cocktail-making robot that was pretty impressive, but it was the size of a room and broke down frequently.

slfnflctd··on Discovery of a new OpenAI agent message board
Quick addendum, do not take that as me saying multi-agent swarms of simpler bots are not a threat. They very well could be.
slfnflctd··on Discovery of a new OpenAI agent message board
It astonishes me that everyone doesn't already realize this.

We've already seen that the rule of law is dead and that many people in government will do whatever they think they can get away with, and then proceed to do so without consequences. Shielding OpenAI is child's play compared to things that have already been done.

slfnflctd··on Discovery of a new OpenAI agent message board
It's a bit orthogonal. User grey-area's main point was that the humans at OpenAI should bear more responsibility for this, not that swarms of semi-intelligent agents are the big danger to be concerned about.
slfnflctd··on 'Idiocracy' Predicted All of This
This is the right take to me. I can't say with absolute certainty, but it feels strongly like the eugenics aspects were there more for shock value... perhaps overestimating the public's capacity to recognize the farce.

And so much of it is so obviously absurd. Invokes everything from Gilliam's Brazil to Kids In The Hall.

As others have said, it's a reflection of what we currently are, magnified. Many aspects of which are not as implausible as they once were. That's where the continued buzz it gets comes from, I think.

I do think the eugenics stuff would be avoided if it were to be made today. If that turns out to be how Mike Judge actually thinks, well, I'd be very disappointed and would have to eat some words.

slfnflctd··on Google Has Removed MV2 Extensions from the Chrome Web Store, Including UBO
I recently switched to Zen with Ublock Origin and it does seem like some sites are slower than before. It's got me suspicious that site owners are increasingly throttling users with adblockers. YouTube absolutely does.

Zen is my favorite browser experience by far, and I've been using the web since Netscape in 1994. But the slowdowns do put a damper on things. Also some of the streaming platforms don't seem to play nice with it.

slfnflctd··on The Einstein-Szilard Refrigerator (2020)
Thank you, that's the sort of response I was hoping for, actually analyzing the efficiency of the thing. Waste heat is something I think we can get a lot more juice out of in the future.
slfnflctd··on The Einstein-Szilard Refrigerator (2020)
Since I haven't seen anyone bring up the viability of this method yet, here are a few additional bits of info I dug up:

> the total mass of the completed apparatus is around 400 kg with 20 kg of alcohol in the refrigeration cycle

> The group, led by Malcolm McCulloch noted that the design was still "nowhere near commercialised", but might allow the efficiency of the original Einstein–Szilárd design to be quadrupled.

It would be great if someone could improve this tech to where there's a breakeven point of ownership (preferably less than 20 years) when it becomes a better deal than other modern refrigerators.

slfnflctd··on Our decision on Cursor following its acquisition by SpaceX
"We have every location associated with you in the crosshairs of tamper proof missiles and surrounded by infantry with heavy vehicles. Do what we say or we will destroy you and everything you care about."

And that's just the most obvious one. There are many other kinds of threats which are much more subtle.

That is how governments traditionally stay in charge, and I expect the pattern to continue. Citizens simply don't have access to the levels of destruction the state is capable of, by design. The common people can have all the advanced technology they want, so long as it doesn't threaten our leaders' monopoly on violence.

slfnflctd··on Our decision on Cursor following its acquisition by SpaceX
> It is just a matter of time. The state, as we know it, will collapse or will be greatly reduced

Doubt.

The networking between people in power at the top will, in my opinion, most likely assure that they remain in power, because at the end of the day that is what they want most.

I expect government will seize control of the most advanced models (if they haven't already), and the rest of us will be throttled, and status quo will be maintained. I do not expect that either super advanced agents or the owners of the hardware they run on will be able to pull off the kind of coup you describe. At all.

slfnflctd··on GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven
> Writing commands is inherently the most accessible form of controlling computers

Not if you don't know enough of the commands and have to research every one you need, and it's for a problem you likely won't encounter again. Oh, and you have to do this without breaking anything. To say this can slow a person down is a dramatic understatement.

There is a reason menus were invented very early on in computing history, well before 1970.

slfnflctd··on Previewing the Model Hardware Standard
No one knows the future, but my (half serious) prediction is that governments will step in, public access to high end models will have an 'IQ governor' and/or throttling applied, the most advanced models will be put behind closed doors, and the biggest AI companies won't be allowed to fail.

Those who are in charge will try like mad to keep things exactly the way they are, with only slow and incremental changes which they can reap maximum rewards from. Same as it ever was, right?

We could develop ASI, and it could give us the blueprint for a peaceful paradise on Earth for every human, and in my current opinion, the leaders of the world would lock it away and never let it see the light of day. Perhaps they'd even destroy it. [Sorry, I'm a bit jaded this morning.]

slfnflctd··on Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity
Wow, that is really close to what I had in mind, and helpful info. Cool! Literally! Appreciate you sharing it.

As I feared, though, with a price tag of $10k USD, you're halfway to buying a solid used car (preferably hybrid) with air conditioning... which could sleep at least two people fully reclined, plus kids or pets. So you might as well do that. I'd love to see a viable path to bringing this price down.

Regardless, there do seem to at least be niche applications even at this price point.

slfnflctd··on Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards
My response to this for a while (and what I think is one of the few rational responses) has been that it doesn't matter at this point whether consciousness, sentience, sapience or whatever you want to call it is 'actually there'.

What matters that growing numbers of people already believe it is, and their response to that belief will affect the real world, regardless of its truth. This debate is never going to end.

All we can do is try to anticipate where the debate is going, how it might affect us, and how we can make contingency plans for the different ways this could all play out.

slfnflctd··on Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity
It did occur to me that a small, efficient portable icemaker would be an okay runner-up solution. I think being able to cool the air in a small space would be more comfortable overall, though, and wouldn't involve getting wet.
slfnflctd··on Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity
I've been thinking for a while about whether it would be feasible to produce an affordable 'personal cooling chamber' for lower income people in places getting scorched in the summer that don't have A/C.

Basically an automotive air conditioning unit hooked up to a battery and solar panel, with a tanning bed type form factor (up to maybe capsule hotel size), painted or coated to reflect light & heat. Highly portable.

I'm not sure if it's remotely practical, but it would be interesting to run the numbers, and I'm certain there is at least someone out there who would buy it even if the cost turned out to be higher than I envision.

slfnflctd··on AWS Acquires DuckLabs
I have to agree, yurishimo's assumption of returns is wildly optimistic.

At a more sane expected return of 5% annually, you get $50k a year to live off of to just keep what you have (or rather, watch it slowly erode in value due to inflation).

That is basically a one person income, maybe two adults if you pinch pennies and live in a crappy apartment or a low-end house in a midwestern suburb.

You can get a lot more lucky with a million bucks than you can with 10k if you gamble, but there are no guarantees. Risk tolerance is the most impactful variable. For those in the low risk tolerance group, I think you'd need at least 2 mil these days. And that's with being frugal, as well as probably not having much left over for kids.

slfnflctd··on PostgreSQL for Everything
You would think so! Perhaps in a more sane situation. We tried it and it did not help. Priorities shifted, facts on the ground changed, emergencies came up, and there was almost no chance to focus for long periods.

Part of it was me not handling certain kinds of stress well, but a different management approach absolutely could have made a difference. To cut them a bit of slack, this particular boss had come from a prior position where they were managing hundreds of roles... to a small shop where they managed just a handful (and only one other dedicated IT person). They had trouble breaking away from the "throw everything at the wall and go full steam on it all" approach and dealing with scarce resources more carefully.

slfnflctd··on Early-life stress leaves a 'scar' inside brain cells in mice
I was utterly convinced at age 14 that I had ruined my life and any chance of a good career. I also was pretty sure the world was going to end soon. I started smoking cigarettes and experimenting with various risky behaviors. A few years later, I became suicidal for a time.

It wasn't until my late 20s that I started living a more 'normal' life, but by then I was a decade behind in career development and other things.

Academic concerns may not by themselves count as trauma, but combined with other factors they can be the thing that pushes someone into total hopelessness.

slfnflctd··on If this is true, the hyperscalers are toast
I was thinking more about parts and pieces of what runs in that rack for hobbyists.

Or they'd be part of the customer base for leasing compute from someone else who bought the rack.

Although there is such a thing as hobbyists with a ton of money who want to experiment with large models on enterprise grade hardware. Probably not a lot of those, though, of course.

slfnflctd··on If this is true, the hyperscalers are toast
Whatever it is suited for that they can get a decent margin on. Or, you know, hobbies.

The demand is there and the market will find pricing that works.

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