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tempestn

14,602 karma · joined August 2, 2012

Hey, I'm Nathan, founder of autotempest.com and searchtempest.com. Feel free to get in touch. Email is my first name at either of those domains.
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tempestn··on We Won't "Just Hang Out"
There are likely valid points made here, but I think the conclusions are considerably too strongly held. For one thing, it's already clear that humans value the achievements of other humans outside of their pure economic value. We are impressed by the athletic, artistic, and intellectual abilities of other humans, even in fields where we are surpassed by machines or computers. Cars have been faster than humans for a century, but we still value Olympic sprinters. Computers have been superior at chess for decades, but we've all still heard of Magnus Carlsen. AI can now produce art that only the most talented humans could hope to replicate, but most of us aren't particularly interested, because there's no human mind behind it.

So assuming we did somehow manage to create a post-scarcity world, I think people would still want to learn and to improve their skills. And we would still value those skills. There would also still be work to do; work that either people do because they want to, and/or that we don't want computers doing for us. Much of it work that in today's world is undervalued.

In that utopian world, there would also be room for hobbies that could fill some of the human need to produce value that work currently does. Lots of people would love to be able to learn a craft or play a sport but don't currently have the time, money, or energy to do so.

I have plenty of concerns about the impacts of AI on the world, but IF we do somehow manage to get the good outcome where it truly is transformative and the benefits manage to be at least somewhat evenly distributed... well, I agree that we won't all just hang out, but I do think we'd be ok.

tempestn··on Gemini 4 Carbon
> Building on Gemini 4 Argon, which was launched two weeks ago, Carbon illustrates the pace at which we’re pushing the frontier forward.

This has to be an intentional echoing of the "pace the frontier" language?

tempestn··on Woman charged with computer fraud due to scam CashApp account being in her name
Yes, although the punishment shouldn't be the same as for crimes like eg. theft.

As for why, two main categories of reasons. First, for the good of the person themselves. By making it illegal, the state then has the authority to compel some sort of action. For a first 'offence' this could simply be sleeping it off in the 'drunk tank' (or in a hospital bed if necessary). For repeat offences, an escalating scale of compulsory treatment. Basically if a person is regularly passing out in gutters, it's likely only a matter of time before they kill themselves, so being nudged, then coerced, then ultimately compelled into treatment would likely benefit them. Of course, this relies on avenues for treatment rather than simple punishment being available.

The other reason is for the rest of society. People do not want to walk down streets where people are passed out in gutters. They will either feel compelled to try to help - which can be, or at least feel, risky, given that intoxicated and/or mentally ill people can be unpredictable - or they may feel badly for not doing anything. Regardless, if it's a regular thing, it will encourage people to avoid the area where they're likely to encounter such things. That will impact local businesses, residences, etc., leading to an overall decline of environment and services for everyone.

tempestn··on Woman charged with computer fraud due to scam CashApp account being in her name
If the article is correct, I was surprised that the lawsuit doesn't appear to include CashApp. Definitely appears they were negligent here as well.
tempestn··on Woman charged with computer fraud due to scam CashApp account being in her name
She kind of can do that in the form of a settlement offer for her lawsuit.
tempestn··on Woman charged with computer fraud due to scam CashApp account being in her name
It's unfortunate, but one problem with free public transport absent other changes is that then it becomes de facto free shelter, which degrades the service for people using it as transport.
tempestn··on Facebook Pages require paid subscription to post more than two links per month
Your local community also probably doesn't know or care a lot about water purification, power distribution, standardized shipping, or the myriad other technologies that make society work.
tempestn··on Facebook Pages require paid subscription to post more than two links per month
Is your sole measure of value whether you personally use a thing?
tempestn··on Facebook Pages require paid subscription to post more than two links per month
That's fine, but the original question asked why people respect devs who work at Meta given they haven't contributed anything. (It didn't explicitly say devs, but when meta employees are getting respect around here, that's who's being discussed.) Your parent reply demonstrated that they have in fact contributed a lot, so there are obviously some accomplished developers working there.

It's certainly possible to see the company as a net negative for society while also recognizing those contributions. One could even argue that that could simultaneously be the case, while the net effects of some particular devs working there are positive (though I could imagine reasonable arguments on both sides of that one).

tempestn··on Dogs seem to agree with humans that 'bouba' is round and 'kiki' is spiky
I believe that this is how your brain works, but it's far from universal. I've certainly never made anything like either of those number associations, nor do I associate most abstract memories with physical places (though I am familiar with the memory palace technique).
tempestn··on Tesla Roadster
Yeah, very unlikely at most tracks. Perhaps at drag strips, but I doubt that too. If it ever exists it'll be a trick for rented tracks or runways.
tempestn··on Tesla Roadster
No, I decelerate as I'm landing, similar to what the car did. Obviously it's not literally jumping with legs, but surely you agree this was "more like jumping" than it was controlled falling, which was what I was responding to?
tempestn··on Tesla Roadster
More like jumping. It was clearly able to lift off from the ground.
tempestn··on Tesla Roadster
No, but people will definitely buy the thrust version for the track, if it's ever built. (And assuming most tracks and drag strips even allow using the thrusters, which I doubt.)
tempestn··on Tesla Roadster
That would make sense for the rocket version. I have my doubts it'll ever be more than this demo though.
tempestn··on Do dentists know what they're doing?
Well, first of all, if it were possible to do these scans on everyone, we would be able to better study what things that show up actually do benefit from treatment, and which are better to ignore.

Absent that, it would be a matter of judgment. Some people do get fairly extensive annual physical exams, so there is data out there. For each issue the scan found, it would be a matter of researching and making a judgment call on whether the risk/benefit weighs toward action. I would prefer to make those decisions with as much information as possible vs just remaining ignorant and hoping the things I don't know about are best left alone.

tempestn··on Do dentists know what they're doing?
I can, because I've been that person. I got a blood panel done recently. Didn't hear anything back from my doctor because everything was in the OK range. But I still wanted to actually understand the results. And yes, I could have spent time researching what each individual market meant. Or I could ask an LLM, which gives me the same information in seconds. Now obviously if I planned to take an action like starting a supplement or something based on that information I would verify it, but the LLM is still providing value there.
tempestn··on Do dentists know what they're doing?
I think I disagree with your base premise. Evolution isn't magic, and its existence doesn't mean that the human organism is perfect. Even if the process of evolution itself were perfect, for one thing it has nothing to say about the health of the organism after child-rearing is complete, whereas we probably care quite a bit what happens to us at that point.

There's also no reason to believe that every treatment has trade-offs. Many do, but the claim that every treatment necessarily causes some damage in order to treat other damage is provably false. The most straightforward example I can think of is treating something like a vitamin deficiency. But there are plenty of more significant treatments that don't do any appreciable harm while providing significant benefit. Removing a precancerous skin legion, for example.

All that said, my previous comment was not advocating for unnecessary treatments. It was advocating for taking all available information into account when deciding on a treatment plan (or lack thereof). The fact that many treatments involve trade-offs does not seem to me to be a counter-argument.

tempestn··on Do dentists know what they're doing?
Are you concerned about privacy or bad advice? If the latter, you don't have to blindly just do whatever the LLM suggests.
tempestn··on Do dentists know what they're doing?
But surely the mistake is doing the unnecessary treatment, not getting the information in the first place. In the above hypothetical where I could get an impossibly detailed full body scan result for free, I would absolutely do it.

I understand that in practice getting more information often leads to unnecessary treatment, so that in some cases the real world results are better if less investigation is done. But that's not inevitable; it depends on the choices made as a result of that information.

tempestn··on Yes, and
There is of course also a middle road, where you make not necessarily bespoke, but niche software. The former can also lead into the latter.
tempestn··on Opus 5.5 agents discover two room-temperature magnetic semiconductor candidates
Citation needed.
tempestn··on Loss of cell identity drives human aging: Two new papers
It makes me concerned on many levels, but perhaps also more hopeful. It was inevitable that we would eventually develop AI if we didn't go extinct first, and while there are myriad risks and challenges, there is also massive potential, which seems like it could be a source of hope. As the earlier comment said, the only way that therapies like these could be remotely viable on any kind of near to medium timeframe would be with AI assistance, and this is just one example.
tempestn··on Nazi Germany had no hope of making an atomic bomb, uranium cubes reveal
Yes, obviously they were talking about nukes in the beginning of the comment, but not in the part you referenced before.

> we're out of other weapons except these which seems wildly illegal to use especially on civilians

> https://apnews.com/article/iran-lamerd-us-prsm-lockheed-mart...

> Imagine if Putin was using those on Ukraine civilians but US uses them no problem?

Emphasis mine.

tempestn··on Nazi Germany had no hope of making an atomic bomb, uranium cubes reveal
Why did Churchill want it shut down?
tempestn··on Nazi Germany had no hope of making an atomic bomb, uranium cubes reveal
You should submit that as a post, if you haven't already. Fascinating read.
tempestn··on Nazi Germany had no hope of making an atomic bomb, uranium cubes reveal
I read your parent to be saying the opposite. That more people would be upset if Putin were using weapons like these, but no one cares when the US does. (Speaking of the Lockheed PSM, not nukes.)
tempestn··on Nvidia wants to put a watchdog chip next to every AI agent
I largely agree, but I think he's right about one thing: AI reducing the demand for junior developers is temporary, and a new crop of "AI native" juniors is going to turn that around. Software is almost certainly a Jevons good, and however much AI improves development efficiency, I think we're always going to want discerning humans managing it. Right now it's mostly seniors who have the skills to adapt and take advantage of what current AI is offering, but young people who learned the profession in the presence of AI will be well positioned to do the same.
tempestn··on Owed a billion dollars in Nvidia stock
Apparently he parted with the 15k shares at some point though, so presumably whatever price those were sold for is what all 25k would have been sold for, had he received them.
tempestn··on Owed a billion dollars in Nvidia stock
It seems to me that if OP had been granted 25k shares instead of 15k, he would have sold 25k shares instead of 15k. So even aside from the statute of limitations, the damages would be something like the value of 10k shares in 1993, perhaps plus 30 years of interest.
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