someplaceguy

I don't know about that.

There's a famous 2006 Google Research blog post titled "Nearly All Binary Searches (...) are Broken" [1] due to a commonly occurring bug when implementing binary search.

glibc still has that bug [2].

I just asked ChatGPT 4 to write an implementation of binary search in C and it wrote a bug-free version on the first try.

I mean, this is not conclusive evidence, but I find it conceivable that an AI which despite being trained with buggy code, can still incrementally learn what the different coding constructs actually do, would be able to write more bug-free code than what it was trained with...

[1] https://blog.research.google/2006/06/extra-extra-read-all-ab...

[2] https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=2753

> As for autonomous vehicles go you would think we would start with trains.

We did: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Island_Line

This is very cool, especially the automatic proof generation!

That said, I wonder if it would make more sense to use an SMT prover as fallback rather than a SAT solver. The latter requires converting the 32-bit operations into boolean circuits, which might not be the most efficient way to solve the problem considering modern SMT solvers such as Z3 and CVC5 already have built-in efficient support for bit-vectors?

In fact, I believe that's what Alive2 [1] does, which is a similar tool (although with slightly different goals).

I think it might even be possible to make this work for 64-bit vectors with SMT (in most cases).

[1] https://github.com/AliveToolkit/alive2

A pure oxygen atmosphere would completely ignite itself in contact with a spark. So you need to have another gas to dilute the oxygen.

Mars' (almost non-existant) atmosphere is mostly CO2, and you could use that, except that a CO2 level above 10% is lethal for humans and at 10%, it's still too oxygen rich.

Nitrogen has the advantage that it's inert and non-lethal.

> atmosphere can be made from the rocks themselves. There is an effectively endless supply.

Do Martian rocks have significant amounts of nitrogen?

That's impressive, but not as impressive as this: https://twitter.com/InternetH0F/status/1721641836404408536

> > Well, exactly. The less working horses there are, the more expensive and exclusive it would be to ride them.

> So you expect there to be less of us?

Less working people, not less people.

> Imagine everyone who is selling labor today out of a job.

If it's because they don't need it anymore, that's great!

> some places a call is not ended until both sides hang up. Fraudsters use that to call you, give you a number and then when you call back pretend to be answering the phone (complete with ring noises).

WTF? That's completely insane! Where is that?

And please tell me that you can hang up the call if you reboot your phone, at the very least!

> I think you might be overvaluing “authentic human experiences”. It’s a luxury, not a necessity.

Rich people are notorious for seeking luxuries.

> There will also be an over supply of people willing to offer it because they have nothing else to offer in trade for basic necessities.

I don't know, perhaps you are right. I do hope you are wrong, though... :)

Also, I'm hoping if such an extreme situation would present itself, governments would be forced to step in and somehow ensure people would always have their basic needs met by, say, a strategic national AI army dedicated to provide those basic needs.

Speculating is fun, isn't it? lol

> How many working horses are there today vs before automobiles?

Well, exactly. The less working horses there are, the more expensive and exclusive it would be to ride them.

There could be 1 trillion automobiles and I bet you, none of these automobiles would compare to riding a real, live horse.

Similarly, there could be 1 trillion AI robots, they could do everything better than a human, and yet I bet you'd still want to ride (or otherwise experience) a real, live human.

My point is that if automobiles were always better than horses in every way, then nobody would want horses. But even today, with the amazing automobiles that we have, some of which even faster and more reliable than most horses, it's clear that we still want horses.

My question is, if horses were as intelligent as us and they could have their basic needs met extremely cheaply, would they be willing to work at all, apart from the occasional ride? Because the horse labor pool would shrink immensely if they didn't really want to work.

> Machines need power to run.

Did you forget about all the endless solar panels and wind turbines that the AI robots progressively built over the years, for an increasingly cheaper price? Energy is abundant now.

They also built a bunch of AI robot factories, so now we have effectively limitless AI robot labor. Everyone has AI robot assistants/friends now.

> Even if it was super cheap, there is no reason for their owners to share its output with anyone unless they have something to give in return. You know “trade”.

But they have something to give in return. These owners want authentic human experiences, which can only be provided by other people, not AI robots.

Authentic human experiences (or hand-built goods) are thus now much scarcer, since most people don't need to work anymore. They're sort of luxury goods/services. In this world, imagine how much you'd be willing to pay to have an exclusive, authentic house maid or hairdresser for one day, rather than just another AI robot, no matter how good it is.

Or imagine dining at a restaurant where every waiter and every cook are authentic humans, wow! An unforgettable (and prohibitively expensive) experience.

Of course, not everyone could afford that, unless they themselves are willing to provide such a service. Most people would eat at home (with food farmed, prepared/cooked and delivered by the AI robots and drones, of course), or just go to regular AI robot restaurants if they're feeling especially fancy.

Well, that's it, isn't it?

Even if AI can do everything, you'd still want the authentic human experience.

99% of people are far smarter than horses but people still pay to ride horses.

I don't see why someone wouldn't want to pay to... ride me... uh, in a matter of speaking, of course (of course). I mean, look at me.

Because other people don't need to give massages, so you can't pay them to do it.

They already gave one massage, so now they can afford AI-made stuff for the rest of their lives, including AI massages for themselves.

AI labor is effectively free at that point, didn't you get the memo? :)

> So they want you to initiate a manual verification that you really do intend to move such a large sum to prevent that fraud.

Yes, it's hilarious.

One of my banks requires me to do the transaction over the phone if it's above a certain limit.

At which point, you talk to someone in a call center, and they proceed to ask you exactly the same information which you needed to introduce in their web interface to make the wire transfer yourself, and nothing else.

This includes giving your web interface credentials over the phone, which could be heard by someone inadvertently or even phished if you happened to have misdialed accidentally. Or stolen by the call center employee.

It's also great fun to have to spell out 20+ account digits, the names of the other people/companies, phone numbers and email addresses to receive confirmations and even a description of the transaction (fortunately I don't always buy sex toys).

Gosh, how I love to spell out all this information, digit by digit, letter by letter, over a phone call! But since it's for my protection it makes it OK, right? Right? Hello?

And getting progressively more broken, due to increasingly stricter and more numerous laws, and more effective enforcement.

Hell, in Spain you can't even legally pay anything in cash if it costs more than 1,000 EUR. In Greece, the limit is 500 EUR.

> Question you should ask is why would anyone hire you when they can get AI to do the same job.

My guess is that some people will always be stubborn and prefer me over an AI giving them massages every now and then, even if I won't do them as perfectly.

But at that point in time, I think me giving one massage would perhaps be enough for me to retire for life, as long as I can abstain from buying luxury goods or services, i.e. those provided manually by other people (instead of AIs, whose labor would be practically free).

So you think that in a world of AGI, humans will have all our needs met by machines?

Or do you think there will always be space for humans to provide value to other humans, even if machines surpass us in intelligence?

> "The [horse] population peaked in 1910 at 27.5 million, more than 600% higher than in 1840."

Clearly unsustainable, so I'm glad that problem solved itself. Phew! Can you imagine what it'd be like if they continued reproducing like a plague?

Anyway, the real question is: were they happier in 1910 when they were our slaves or are they happier now that they have more leisure?

How do you even measure happiness in a horse?

How do you measure happiness in humans?

Is happiness even real?

What is the meaning of life?

What does "42" mean?

> Ask horses how they're doing these days...

It would be pointless. Do you even know that 99% of horses can't speak English?

Anyway, my own experience tells me they're mostly just horsing around.

A lot more leisure and a lot less work than a few centuries ago...

Good times!

> Bitcoin right now has the bandwidth of a 28.8 modem

You're only considering the bandwidth to monitor/receive transaction confirmations in real-time and not the bandwidth to download the transaction history, which cumulatively grows over time, forever.

It's already at more than half a terabyte, which you certainly can't download over a 28.8 modem.

> At one point single transactions cost more than the space to store the entire chain.

The problem has never been about space, it has always been about bandwidth.

> Normal people don't even need to sync with the main chain if they don't want to.

Sure, but you need to put some bounds on how fast the main chain can grow to ensure that anyone (even the people, say, in El Salvador or the Central African Republic, both poor countries where Bitcoin is legal tender) can verify it if they want to.

> The actual numbers of bandwidth and storage of this argument are so far removed from reality I can't believe people still say stuff like this. It's pure propaganda.

Or perhaps you are privileged and you don't even notice, and therefore you are incapable of empathizing with others who are less privileged than you (in this specific instance)?

In any case, even if you were to ignore this, increasing the block size even by a factor of 100 would not fundamentally solve the problem.

It would still be a pathetically low transaction rate compared to Lightning and it would also certainly constrain Bitcoin usage as it was intended (as a trustless currency/asset).

That's not to say I would be against increasing the block size by a reasonably small factor, but I'm certainly not in a position to judge whether this should be done right now. I think it'd be better to ask the people in those countries, or even poorer ones who might one day make Bitcoin legal tender as well...

> lightning transactions are useless until you sync them with the main network.

This is absolutely false. Why do you even think this??

Heck, have you never seen people buying real world stuff with Lightning transactions in El Salvador?

Are you aware that if you receive BTC over lightning, you can spend them over lightning, with a different party, without hitting the main network?

> Skip the middle man that no one wants.

What middle man? Is the middle man in the room with us?

> no one wants this, it doesn't solve anything

False and false.

15K entities want this (at least, i.e. not counting hosted wallets). And it solves the limited transaction rate, which you were complaining about.

> Every other currency has bigger blocks and never had this problem in the first place.

And when they get moderately popular, the size of their block history becomes prohibitively expensive to download and verify.

All while not really fundamentally solving the problem, but rather only allowing a slightly faster transaction rate which would still not be able to compete with VISA (as an example).

I know you're trolling and I even found your comments somewhat humorous, but I hope you're not misleading yourself (or others) into thinking that you have a valid point here or that your "third layer" scenario is in any way comparable to Lightning in anything except the most superficial ways...

In any case, seeing that I don't have a valid signed BTC transaction from you (because your 3rd layer suuucks), you don't want to allow free exchange between your layer and the upper layers, and I wouldn't want to bother with court litigation even if you were serious, well, have a nice day and good luck with your third layer lol

> I can trade IOUs with a bunch of people in my local cult

Lightning transactions are not based on IOUs.

IOUs can be defaulted upon, while BTC received over Lightning cannot.

Also, you need the cooperation of the other party to redeem IOUs. Lightning transactions don't require cooperation for settlement, they can be settled at any time by any of the parties.

All of this means that the BTC that is exchanged over Lightning is just as valuable as any other BTC, unlike IOUs.

> they aren't money until someone makes an actual USD transaction

That's because your definition of "money" is USD, so your sentence is a meaningless tautology.

It's like saying "raw beans aren't real food until someone cooks them". Uhm, sure, but does that mean raw beans aren't valuable or that you can't easily convert them into food if necessary?

And what's your point even? This point is equally applicable to the first layer.

BTC received over Lightning can easily be exchanged for USD if you want, or (even easier) for BTC in the first layer, so why does this point matter at all?

Ok, so can I now redeem the BTC that you sent me earlier please, so that I can spend them in the first layer (or the second one)? Given that nobody else seems to want to use your third layer.

The fact that I even have to ask you already demonstrates how shitty your third layer is compared to Lightning, not to mention all the other obvious ways in which it's infinitely worse.

> Transactions that don't count and aren't useful to anyone until they become a bitcoin transaction,

I have no idea why you're making such an obviously false assertion.

These transactions obviously "count" and are useful to the entities running those 15K Lightning nodes (many on behalf of multiple customers), which can all transact amongst themselves over the network, even without touching the Bitcoin network (or occasionally doing it just to settle balances).

These transactions have almost exactly the same cryptographic and trustless assurances as normal bitcoin transactions, which are far superior assurances than those provided by traditional payment / money transfer technologies.

> No one cares about it because it is terrible technology that doesn't actually solve anyone's problems

I think you are confusing your own ideas and problems with other people's ideas and problems.

Just because you don't care about it doesn't mean that other people don't (or that even you won't in the future, if your circumstances change).

But just to be clear, unlike the hypothetical "spreadsheet on a desktop" (even with signed transactions), Lightning has more cryptographic assurances than that.

It prevents the parties of a transaction from double-spending balances behind each other's backs.

It also doesn't require trusting the other party once a transaction has (almost instantaneously) completed.

> You lost some of my message.

So what's your point? Your point is that the balance will be reflected in the first layer after some time instead of being reflected after each and every lightning transaction?

What does that have to do with what we were talking about? The point of this thread was how many transactions per time period you could do with Bitcoin, not whether the balance will be public information in real time?

> lightning's examples are always these nonsense situations of paying a single party a thousand times.

It's not a nonsense situation. Micropayments is something you can (trustlessly) do with Lightning but not with traditional payment technologies.

It doesn't mean you can only do micropayments with Lightning.

> A transaction rate that could fit over the bandwidth of a 28.8 modem.

I just told you that Lightning can transact orders of magnitude more than that.

You can do millions of Lightning transactions per Bitcoin transaction.

You are complaining about Bitcoin's transaction rate limit but my whole point is that Lightning allows you to have an effectively limitless transaction rate (under certain conditions, at least), even if it requires occasional Bitcoin transactions to settle balances.

What the heck are you talking about?

None of what you just said makes any sense.

> those transactions don't count

They don't? Then surely you wouldn't mind sending me a few bitcoins over a lightning channel? Pretty please?

> no one needs to send 1000 transactions of single penny

There is no such "single penny" limit.

> then have the exact same problems as everyone else

What problems?

Two nodes in the Lightning network [1] could right now be performing 5M transactions per day and you'd be none the wiser (unless they'd tell you, that is).

And that's just 2 nodes out of the current 15K-20K.

[1] i.e. Bitcoin second layer.