I thought both of these were actually impossible for Columbia. IIRC the rescue mission was impossible because there were no available vehicles, and the EVA equipment onboard would let them inspect the tiles but they couldn’t actually fix them.
Feel the same way. My Camry is a 2013—recent enough to have a simple display and Bluetooth, but old enough to predate the ‘modern’ infotainment systems.
Believe me, I plan to drive this car until the scrapyards run out of part donors.
You used both phrases in this thread, but those are two very different things. It’s a stretch to say this research supports the latter.
Yes, LLMs are still next-token generators. That is a descriptive statement about how they operate. They just have embedded knowledge that allows them to generate sometimes meaningful text.
New development policy: code generated by a large language model or similar technology (e.g. ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot) is presumed to be tainted (i.e. of unclear copyright, not fitting NetBSD’s licensing goals) and cannot be committed to NetBSD....
You can’t really know when the genAI is synthesizing from thousands of inputs or just outright reciting copyrighted code. Not kosher if it’s the latter.
Just curious, where does the Anti Commercial-AI bit come from? The page linked does not include that term in the title or summary, and from what I understand of the legal situation it wouldn’t make a difference to explicitly mention AI.
The first Neuralink implant in a human malfunctioned after several threads recording neural activity retracted from the brain, the Elon Musk-owned startup revealed Wednesday....
I get that there are better choices now, but let’s not pretend like a straw you blow into is the technological stopping point for limb-free computer control (sorry if that’s not actually the best option, it’s just the one I’m familiar with). There are plenty of things to trash talk Neuralink about without pretending this technology (or it’s future form) is meritless.
If you use LLMs in your professional work, you’re crazy. I would never be comfortably opening myself up to the legal and security liabilities of AI tools.
The issue on the copyright front is the same kind of professional standards and professional ethics that should stop you from just outright copying open-source code into your application. It may be very small portions of code, and you may never get caught, but you simply don’t do that. If you wouldn’t steal a function from a copyleft open-source project, you wouldn’t use that function when copilot suggests it. Idk if copilot has added license tracing yet (been a while since I used it), but absent that feature you are entirely blind to the extent which it’s output is infringing on licenses. That’s huge legal liability to your employer, and an ethical coinflip.
Regarding understanding of code, you’re right. You have to own what you submit into the codebase.
The drawback/risks of using LLMs or copilot are more to do with the fact it generates the likely code, which means it’s statistically biased to generate whatever common and unnoticeable bugged logic exists in the average github repo it trained on. It will at some point give you code you read and say “yep, looks right to me” and then actually has a subtle buffer overflow issue, or actually fails in an edge case, because in a way that is just unnoticeable enough.
And you can make the argument that it’s your responsibility to find that (it is). But I’ve seen some examples thrown around on twitter of just slightly bugged loops; I’ve seen examples of it replicated known vulnerabilities; and we have that package name fiasco in the that first article above.
If I ask myself would I definitely have caught that? the answer is only a maybe. If it replicates a vulnerability that existed in open-source code for years before it was noticed, do you really trust yourself to identify that the moment copilot suggests it to you?
I guess it all depends on stakes too. If you’re generating buggy JavaScript who cares.
That’s significantly worse privacy-wise, since Google gets a copy of everything.
A recovery email in this case was used to uncover the identity of the account-holder. Unless you’re using proton mail anonymously (if you’re replacing your personal gmail, then probably not) then you don’t need to consider the recover email as a weakness.
I’ve enjoyed Mark Rober’s videos for a while now. They are fun, touch on accessible topics, and have decent production value. But this recent video isn’t sitting right with me...
I think it’s more the dual-use nature of defense technology. It is very realistic to assume the tech that defends you here, is also going to be used in armed conflict (which historically for the US, involves in many civilian deaths). To present the technology without that critical examination, especially to a young audience like Rober’s, is irresponsible. It can help form the view that this technology is inherently good, by leaving the adverse consequences under-examined and out of view to children watching this video.
Not that we need to suddenly start exposing kids to reporting on civilian collateral damage, wedding bombings, war crimes, etc… But if those are inherently part of this technology then leaving them out overlooks a crucial outcome of developing these tools. Maybe we just shouldn’t advertise defense tech in kids media?
I’m still a big fan of D for personal projects, but I fear the widespread adoption ship has sailed at this point, and we won’t see the language grow anymore. It’s truly a beautiful, well-rounded language.
Also just recently a rather prominent contributor forked the entire compiler/language so we’re seeing more fragmentation :/
I have studied computer architecture and hardware security at the graduate level—though I am far from an expert. That said, any student in the classroom could have laid out the theoretical weaknesses in a “data memory-dependent prefetcher”.
My gut says (based on my own experience having a conversation like this) the engineers knew there was a “information leak” but management did not take it seriously. It’s hard to convince someone without a cryptographic background why you need to {redesign/add a workaround/use a lower performance design} because of “leaks”. If you can’t demonstrate an attack they will assume the issue isn’t exploitable.
I don’t believe that explanation is more probable. If the NSA had the power to compell Apple to place a backdoor in their chip, it would probably be a proper backdoor. It wouldn’t be a side channel in the cache that is exploitable only in specific conditions.
The exploit page mentions that the Intel DMP is robust because it is more selective. So this is likely just a simple design error of making the system a little too trigger-happy.
Sigh… I’m getting tired of the Valve apologetics in every thread. They make good products, yes. They also abuse their market share to implement anticompetitive policies. The first doesn’t absolve them of the second.
Truth is, no one has any idea what it would look like if there were actual competition among the PC games platforms. Steam may be the best possible world, or maybe we don’t know what we’re missing.
To learn more about Steam’s anticompetitive practices:
CSGO cases pulled $1 billion revenue in 2023. The steam store brought in $8.5 billion in that same year. That’s a 30% cut of all sales traffic on steam vs. in-game loot crates on a single title.
Loot boxes pull insane numbers. And yes they exploit children and problem gamblers. Love to see so many Valve fans downvote you :/
“Platform Most Favored Nation”. It’s a type of clause in platform/marketplace agreements that prohibit a seller from listing their product for a lower price on a different sales platform. Specifically, it prevents selling on a different marketplace with lower fees (e.g. Epic Games or a publishers own website) and passing the difference as savings to the consumer.
Yep. Because honestly, Steam is better than Epic in almost every way. When you want to buy a particular game X, you get a lot more from your purchase if it’s on Steam (workshop, friends, multiplayer, etc.). There is strong inertia and network effects that keep us all preferring Steam.
Epic can’t compete with the Steam experience. But if Epic was able to list everything 18% cheaper (the difference in fees between Epic and Steam)—then they would rightly be able to compete on price.
You have to have never seriously engaged with the details of the Valve monopoly if you think that’s what we are upset about.
We know Steam is an amazing storefront—I buy my games there because it’s the best experience for the cost. But Steam charges a premium. And despite taking smaller cuts, competing platforms like Epic cannot actual pass those cost savings to consumers because Valve is strongarming game publishers into fixing prices.
I said no such thing. Please come back to this later with a fresh mind, and remember how wrongly you interpreted what was actually said for the sake of trying to fire off a quick response.
But if you’d rather disengage altogether then it is what it is. Cheers.
Epic Games Store—which is trying to undercut steam at a 12% fee—still list games at the same price as on Steam because of Valve has strongarmed publishers into fixing the prices. If Epic is charging 18% less but Valve is stopping publishers from reducing the game cost by that much, how is that not blatantly anti-competitive and anti-consumer?
enshitifies
Oh good, you are familiar with Cory Doctorow. He has an article on how Amazon abuses their position using the exact same playbook Valve uses.
I understand, a good instinct to have. Unfortunately I have read so much in such a piecemeal way I cannot really compile a specific list. But I can point you to where “evidence” can be found. I don’t expect you to read any of this, but if you want to evaluate Alexander’s views further it will help:
The New York Times did a piece on him that does a good job outlining Alexander’s ties to and influence on Silicone Valley. Probably the best actual piece of journalism on him.
There used to be a reddit community (/r/SneerClub) that would read his (mountainous, as you point out) posts and pull out errors and misteps to “sneer” at, but that’s been dead since the API revolts. The old posts are still up. Basically you had a club of people that spent years finding (cherry-picking, mind) the juicy bits for you.
You may find some passing reference to Alexander is one of Émile Torres’s articles or interviews on the subject of TESCREAL, but probably nothing substantial.
If you spend time on communites like LessWrong and the EA Forum, you will see heavy reference to and influence from Alexander’s writing among members.
A lot of what I say comes from my experiencd spending way too much time following these socisl circles and their critics online. Unfortunately, the best way I know to see for yourself is to dive in yourself. Godspeed, if you choose to go that way.
Edit: of course, reading his work itself is a great way , too, if you have time for that.
Good choice on reddit. As much as I love a good 'ol sneer, there’s a lot of jargon and clowning to wade through. There are a lot of genuinely solid critiques of his views there, though.
I appreciate you doing your due diligence on this, but I’m not really sure where to keep this discussion going. I still stand by my original comment’s warning. Reading Siskind is probably not going to corrupt an unassuming reader to immediately think XYZ bad thing. His writings tend to be very data heavy and nuanced, to his credit.
Is he Hitler 2.0? No, far from it.
But he shares a set of core assumptions with the other ideologies, and the circles between his community and the other communities have large overlap. If you start with one, it’s likely you encounter the other. If you start to think like one, it’s a small jump to start thinking like the other. (From experience).
In my opinion, anyone encountering Siskind for the first time is well-served by an understanding of TESCREAL—which they are likely to encounter in either his posts, its comments, or linked material—, and its critiques—which should help them assess what they encounter through a critical lense.
That’s more or less what I wanted to give caution about, which may or may not have come across correctly.
(Not that his stuff is entirely innocent either, but beside the point)
Fanatical and humble bundle (the good old days) are good examples.
Incidentally Wolfire Games—the studio that founded Humble (but no longer operates it)—is currently in class-action litigation against Valve for this very issue.
I don’t know what you say “non-discounted”, cheaper is cheaper no matter what.
The Steam Distribution Agreement AFAIK allows temporary sales on other platforms to undercut Steam, but requires the “resting” price matches that on Steam. By specifying “non-discounted” I meant to indicate that although sales do exist on other platforms, the normal price of an item always matches on Steam. A quick few spot checks show the non-sale price of games on Humble, Steam, and Fanatical are equal.
“Cheaper is cheaper” kind of overlooks the core issue. Ultimately a publisher on Epic Games Store—which has a fee of 12% instead of Steam’s 30%—can have a lower price for a game as part of a promotion, but can’t just sell every game 18% cheaper always without violating Steam’s terms and being risk being de-listed.
Steam doesn’t get a cut from keys sold in perfectly legal thirth party stores like fanatical, humble or gmg. Epic does not sell steam keys so obviously no.
Okay, gotcha. Yeah, I misunderstood. For Steam Keys it’s pretty clear that Valve should be able to control the price since they provide the services after that key is purchased.
But the PMFN applies to all copies, even those distributed outside of Steam (e.g. the direct-from-publisher option I mentioned). Last time I was in a thread on this, another user found the following in the complaint (page 55) from the Wolfire v. Valve case mentioned above:
TomG also explained to another game publisher that the publisher should “[t]hink critically about how your decisions might affect Steam customers, and Valve. If the offer you’re making fundamentally disadvantages someone who bought your game on Steam, it’s probably not a great thing for us or our customers (even if you don’t find a specific rule describing precisely that scenario).” In that same thread, TomG responded to a question by stating: “we usually choose not to sell games if they’re being sold on our store at a price notably higher than other stores. That is, we’d want to get that lower base price as well, or not sell the game at all."
In response to one inquiry from a game publisher, in another example, Valve explained: “We basically see any selling of the game on PC, Steam key or not, as a part of the same shared PC market- so even if you weren’t using Steam keys, we’d just choose to stop selling a game if it was always running discounts of 75% off on one store but 50% off on ours. . . .”
Boeing, NASA say Starliner astronaut launch will move forward despite spacecraft helium leak (www.cnbc.com)
Average U.S. vehicle age hits record 12.6 years as high prices force people to keep them longer (www.nbcnews.com)
Mapping the Mind of a Large Language Model (www.anthropic.com)
I often see a lot of people with outdated understanding of modern LLMs....
Sperm count fall could be due to microplastics, new study finds (www.euronews.com)
The tiny plastic particles were found in all 23 human testes in a new study, and all 47 testes from pet dogs....
NetBSD bans all commits of AI-generated code (mastodon.sdf.org)
New development policy: code generated by a large language model or similar technology (e.g. ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot) is presumed to be tainted (i.e. of unclear copyright, not fitting NetBSD’s licensing goals) and cannot be committed to NetBSD....
[OpenCritic] Homeworld 3 Reviews (80 Top Critic Average 75% Critics Recommend) (opencritic.com)
-IGN 8 / 10...
First human brain implant malfunctioned, Neuralink says (thehill.com)
The first Neuralink implant in a human malfunctioned after several threads recording neural activity retracted from the brain, the Elon Musk-owned startup revealed Wednesday....
Stack Overflow bans users en masse for rebelling against OpenAI partnership — users banned for deleting answers to prevent them being used to train ChatGPT (www.tomshardware.com)
Proton Mail Discloses User Data Leading to Arrest in Spain (restoreprivacy.com)
'Vortex Cannon vs Drone' - Mark Rober shows off tech from a "defense technology company that specializes in advanced autonomous systems". That seems bad
I’ve enjoyed Mark Rober’s videos for a while now. They are fun, touch on accessible topics, and have decent production value. But this recent video isn’t sitting right with me...
Productivity of Rust teams at Google (programming.dev)
Slide with text: “Rust teams at Google are as productive as ones using Go, and more than twice as productive as teams using C++.”...
Unpatchable vulnerability in Apple chip leaks secret encryption keys (arstechnica.com)
The attack has been dubbed GoFetch: gofetch.fail
Steam :: Introducing Steam Families (steamcommunity.com)
Valve announced a replacement feature for both Family Sharing and Family View. Currently in beta....
12 months of record ocean heat has scientists puzzled and concerned (www.nbcnews.com)
In 2018 a group of Valve staff tried to figure out just how efficient they were being—and found they were making more money per head than Apple, Facebook, and nearly every tech giant out there (www.pcgamer.com)