TechTakes

"You know, I never defrauded anyone,” says Sam Bankman-Fried

“You know, I never sent the boys across the Isonzo without believing we could win,” said Luigi Cadorna

I predict Sam will lose big on the S&C claims. They have made fuckin bank on this bankruptcy, but also their fees have already been ruled entirely reasonable given the shitshow in question, and the near complete recovery for creditors will make them look even better.

Choice sneer from the comments:

Omelas: how we talk about utopia [by Big Joel, a patient and straightforward Youtube humanist,] [has a] pretty much identical thesis, does this count?

Another solid one which aligns with my local knowledge:

It's also about literal child molesters living in Salem Oregon.

The story is meant to be given to high schoolers to challenge their ethics, and in that sense we should read it with the following meta-narrative: imagine that one is a high schooler in Omelas and is learning about The Plight and The Child for the first time, and then realize that one is a high schooler in Salem learning about local history. It's not intended for libertarian gotchas because it wasn't written in a philosophical style; it's a narrative that conveys a mood and an ethical framing.

That's an unfair comparison, Dippin Dots don't slowly ruin the world by existing (also, they're delicious)

sealAIon

Sealions is a bit more specific, as they do not stop, and demand way more evidence than is normal, Scott had a term for this, forgot it already (one of those more useful Rationalist ideas, which they only employ themselves asymmetrically). Noticed it recently on reddit, some person was mad I didn't properly counter Yuds arguments, while misrepresenting my position (which wasn't that strong tbh, I just quickly typed them up before I had other things to do). But it is very important to take Yuds arguments seriously for some reason, reminds me of creationists.

Think just calling them AI concern trolls works.

I mean that's the fundamental problem, right? No matter how much better it gets, the things it's able to do aren't really anything people need or want. Like, if I'm going to a website looking for information it's largely because I don't want to deal with asking somebody for the answer. Even a flawless chatbot that can always provide the information I need - something that is far beyond the state of the art and possibly beyond some fundamental limitation of the LLM structure - wouldn't actually be preferable to just navigating a smooth and well-structured site.

The Wikipedia editors are on it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45453386

nobody mentioned this particular incident, dude just threw it into the discussion himself

The original article is a great example of what happens when one only reads Bostrom and Yarvin. Their thesis:

If you claim that there is no AI-risk, then which of the following bullets do you want to bite?

1. If a race of aliens with an IQ of 300 came to Earth, that would definitely be fine.
2. There’s no way that AI with an IQ of 300 will arrive within the next few decades.
3. We know some special property that AI will definitely have that will definitely prevent all possible bad outcomes that aliens might cause.

Ignoring that IQ doesn't really exist beyond about 160-180 depending on population choice, this is clearly an example of rectal philosophy that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. (1) is easy, given that the people verified to be high-IQ are often wrong, daydreaming, and otherwise erroring like humans; Vos Savant and Sidis are good examples, and arguably the most impactful high-IQ person, Newton, could not be steelmanned beyond Sherlock Holmes: detached and aloof, mostly reading in solitude or being hedonistic, occasionally helping answer open questions but usually not even preventing or causing crimes. (2) is ignorant of previous work, as computer programs which deterministically solve standard IQ tests like RPM and SAT have been around since the 1980s yet are not considered dangerous or intelligent. (3) is easy; linear algebra is confined in the security sense, while humans are not, and confinement definitely prevents all possible bad outcomes.

Frankly I wish that they'd understand that the capabilities matter more than the theory of mind. Fnargl is one alien at 100 IQ, but he has a Death Note and goldlust, so containing him will almost certainly result in deaths. Containing a chatbot is mostly about remembering how systemctl works.

``Think for at least 5 seconds before typing.‘’ - on the subject of pulling the plug on a hostile AI - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45452743

Read that last one against my better judgment, and found a particularly sneerable line:

And in this case we're talking about a system that's smarter than you.

Now, I'm not particularly smart, but I am capable of a lot of things AI will never achieve. Like knowing something is true, or working out a problem, or making something which isn't slop.

Between this rat and Saltman spewing similar shit on Politico, I have seen two people try to claim text extruders are smarter than living, thinking human beings. Saltman I can understand (he is a monorail salesman who lies constantly), but seeing someone who genuinely believes this shit is just baffling. Probably a consequence of chatbots destroying their critical thinking and mental acuity.

The "unhoused friend" story is about as likely to be true as the proverbial Canadian girlfriend story. "You wouldn't know her."

there's been something that's really been rubbed me the wrong way about jeff in the last few years. he was annoying before and had some insights but lately I've been using him as a sort of a jim crameresque tech-take-barometer.

What really soured me was after he started picking fights with some python people a few years back because someone dared post that a web framework? (couldn't dig up the link) was a greater contribution to the world than S/O? His response was pretty horrid to the point where various python leaders were telling to stop being a massive dick because he was trying to be a bully with this "do you know who I am" attitude because he personally had not heard of the framework so it wasn't acshually at all that relevant compared to S/O.

and now this combined with his stupid teehee I am giving away my wealth guise look how altruistic I am really is a bit eugh

so I got angry

I really hope atwood’s unhoused friend got the actual infrastructural support you mentioned (a temporary mailing address and an introduction letter emailed to an employer is only slightly more effort than generating slop, jeff, please) but from direct experience with philanthropists like him, I’m fairly sure Jeff now considers the matter solved forever

A bit odd to start out throwing shade at the Segway considering that the concept has been somewhat redeemed with e-bikes and e-scooters.

"Provide an overview of local homeless services" sounds like a standard task for a volunteer or a search engine, but yes "you can use my address for mail and store some things in my garage and I will email some contacts about setting you up with contract work" would be a better answer than just handing out secondhand information! Many "amazing things AI can do" are things the Internet + search engines could do ten years ago.

I would also like to hear from the friend "was this actually helpful?"