What we call AI today is nothing more than a statistical machine: a digital parrot regurgitating patterns mined from oceans of human data

Prove to me that this isn’t exactly how the human mind – i.e., “real intelligence” – works.

The challenge with asserting how “real” the intelligence-mimicking behavior of LLMs is, is not to convince us that it “just” is the result of cold deterministic statistical algoritms running on silicon. This we know, because we created them that way.

The real challenge is to convince ourselves that the wetware electrochemical neural unit embedded in our skulls, which evolved through a fairly straightforward process of natural selection to improve our odds at surviving, isn’t relying on statistical models whose inner principles of working are, essentially, the same.

All these claims that human creativity is so outstanding that it “obviously” will never be recreated by deterministic statistical models that “only” interpolates into new contexts knowledge picked up from observation of human knowledge: I just don’t see it.

What human invention, art, idé, was so truly, undeniably, completely new that it cannot have sprung out of something coming before it? Even the bloody theory of general relativity–held as one of the pinnacles of human intelligence–has clear connections to what came before. If you read Einstein’s works he is actually very good at explaining how he worked it out in increments from models and ideas - “what happens with a meter stick in space”, etc.: i.e., he was very good at using the tools we have to systematically bring our understanding from one domain into another.

To me, the argument in the linked article reads a bit as “LLM AI cannot be ‘intelligence’ because when I introspect I don’t feel like a statistical machine”. This seems about as sophisticated as the “I ain’t no monkey!” counter- argument against evolution.

All this is NOT to say that we know that LLM AI = human intelligence. It is a genuinely fascinating scientific question. I just don’t think we have anything to gain from the “I ain’t no statistical machine” line of argument.

Obligatory SMBC: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2009-12-11

That’s perfect. You already know your lines!

After having a lot of sysvinit experience, the transition to setting up my own systemd services has been brutal. What finally clicked for me was that I had this habit of building mini-services based on shellscripts; and systemd goes out of its way to deliberately break those: it wants a single stable process to monitor; and if it sniffs out that you are doing some sketchy things that forks in ways it disapproves of, it is going to shut the whole thing down.

It is fully possible, quite likely even, for models to both be “more accurate than humans” on average while at the same time suffer occasional “accuracy collapses”.

Actually

Crush both apples with the blunt side of the knife. Divide applesauce equally.

“Absolutely, rest up” is more than sufficient in 99percent of cases

Internal monologue: "But wait, will it come off as impolite if my reply is this short? I better add something about how I’m sad to hear that they are sick. And maybe also something that I hope they will get better soon. Hmm… how do I say that without sounding like I expect them to be better soon-- that they can and should feel allowed to recover at their own pace? But, now it sounds as we don’t need them at work-- I also want them to feel missed. Also, is there a risk they take ‘rest up’ wrong?, as if it is their fault they are sick because they haven’t rested enough?-- I’d better soften up that formulation. Then, how do I start this email? ‘Dear x,’ seems too formal, maybe ‘Hey,’ – no, that sounds like ‘Hey listen up!’; maybe I’ll just skip the greeting to make it feel more like a casual conversation. Do I still sign the email? With “Regards?”, “Best regards?”, “Sincerely?”, “With wishes of swift recovery?” Should I also cut the email footer to make it seem less formal? What if they need to forward this to show that they have my permission? In that case the formal footer is probably useful… etc. etc.

I very much understand wanting to have a say against our data being freely harvested for AI training. But this article’s call for a general opt-out of interacting with AI seems a bit regressive. Many aspects of this and other discussions about the “AI revolution” remind me about the Mitchell and Web skit on the start of the bronze age: https://youtu.be/nyu4u3VZYaQ

John Oliver had a segment on this that may help convince people that it is real: https://youtu.be/3kEpZWGgJks

What you describe is more or less the Nordic economic model, except the basic income. Corporate abuse is low, because it is not unthinkable to “not work” in response to such abuse, but also because unions are strong. Nevertheless, a lot of people still work a lot, so it doesn’t completely change the work/life balance oddity op is posting about.

These two are not interchangeable or really even comparable though?

For GNU Make, yes they are. These are fully comparable tools for writing sophisticated dynamic build systems. “Plain make”, not so much.

[cmake] makes your build system much, much more robust, far easier to maintain, much more likely to work on other systems than your own, and far easier to integrate with other dependent projects.

This is absolutely incorrect. I assume (although I have never witnessed it) that a true master of cmake could use it to create a robust, maintainable, transferable build system. Very much like there are people who are able to make delicate ice sculptures using a chainsaw. But in no way does these properties follow from the choice of cmake as a build system (as insinuated in your post), rather, the word we are looking for here is: despite using cmake.

I apologize for my inflammatory language. I may just have a bit of PTSD from having to build a lot of other people’s software through multiple layers of meta build systems. And cmake comes back, time and time again, as introducing loads of obstacles.

Cmake

Thanks for giving the link and making this an easy 1-click thing. Just donated.

On the topic of things to never forgive Redhat about, aren’t there other things that are more pressing? Like, inventing a whole scheme to circumvent the idea of the GPL license via service contract blackmail?

I couldn’t agree more. If there only was a somewhat user-friendly setting that allowed the oom killer to be far more aggressive, killing or freezing processes as soon as their memory use starts to affect system responsiveness, and just tell me this is what has happened.

ADA should be the lawful good.

Bash is chaotic neutral.

Java is lawful neutral.

Javascript fits ok as chaotic evil.

Move ASM to neutral evil.

And maybe f77 as lawful evil.

On this topic: I currently have installed on my phone and computer: slack, zoom, MSTeams, element, discord, Facebook messenger and signal to communicate in various projects and friends. What is this madness?!

SAAB Gripen: Am I a joke to you?

https://www.saab.com/products/gripen-e-series

That’s On Me, I Set the Bar Too Low