I have to wonder though if the fact Google is generating this text themselves rather than just showing text from other sources means they might actually have to face some consequences in cases where the information they provide ends up hurting people.
Darn good question. Of course, since Congress is thirsty to destroy Section 230 in the delusional belief that this will make Google and Facebook behave without hurting small websites that lack massive legal departments (cough fedi instances)…
All it takes is one frivolous legal threat to shut down a small website by putting them on the hook for legal costs they can’t afford. Facebook gets away with awful shit not because of the law, but because they are stupidly rich. Change the law, and they will still be stupidly rich. Indeed, the “sunset Section 230” path will make it open season for Facebook’s lobbyists to pay for the replacement law that they want. I do not see that leading anywhere good.
To date, the largest working nuclear reactor constructed entirely of cheese is the 160 MWe Unit 1 reactor of the French nuclear plant École nationale de technologie supérieure (ENTS).
“That’s it! Gromit, we’ll make the reactor out of cheese!”
I’m very aware of what the average retail investor has been saying about the need for greater transparency in our markets, stronger regulatory oversight and tougher penalties for market manipulation and criminal behavior. My administration will support the Ape retail rebellion and enact aggressive Wall Street reforms....
If natively fluent speakers of the English language use beg the question in the “wrong” way time and time again, finding the “incorrect” meaning a natural fit with their understanding of the verb to beg, then the “incorrect” meaning may well be the one we should roll with.
The given link contains exactly zero evidence in favor of Orchestrated Objective Reduction — “something interesting observed in vitro using UV spectroscopy” is a far cry from anything having biological relevance, let alone significance for understanding consciousness. And it’s not like Orch-OR deserves the lofty label of theory, anyway; it’s an ill-defined, under-specified, ad hoc proposal to throw out quantum mechanics and replace it with something else.
The fact that programs built to do spicy autocomplete turn out to do spicy autocomplete has, as far as I can tell, zero implications for any theory of consciousness one way or the other.
Kludging an “objective reduction” process into the dynamics is throwing out quantum mechanics and replacing it with something else. And because Orch-OR is not quantum mechanics, every observation that a quantum effect might be biologically important somewhere is irrelevant. Orch-OR isn’t “quantum biology”, it’s pixie-dust biology.
Other ideas we chatted about having at LessOnline include maybe having some discussions about doing research inside and outside of academia, and also about learning from GlowFic writers how to write well collaboratively.
Hmm, a xitter link, I guess I’ll take a moment to open that in a private tab in case it’s passingly amusing…
To the journalists contacting me about the AGI consensual non-consensual (cnc) sex parties—
OK, you have my attention now.
To the journalists contacting me about the AGI consensual non-consensual (cnc) sex parties—
During my twenties in Silicon Valley, I ran among elite tech/AI circles through the community house scene. I have seen some troubling things around social circles of early OpenAI employees, their friends, and adjacent entrepreneurs, which I have not previously spoken about publicly.
It is not my place to speak as to why Jan Leike and the superalignment team resigned. I have no idea why and cannot make any claims. However, I do believe my cultural observations of the SF AI scene are more broadly relevant to the AI industry.
I don’t think events like the consensual non-consensual (cnc) sex parties and heavy LSD use of some elite AI researchers have been good for women. They create a climate that can be very bad for female AI researchers, with broader implications relevant to X-risk and AGI safety. I believe they are somewhat emblematic of broader problems: a coercive climate that normalizes recklessness and crossing boundaries, which we are seeing playing out more broadly in the industry today. Move fast and break things, applied to people.
There is nothing wrong imo with sex parties and heavy LSD use in theory, but combined with the shadow of 100B+ interest groups, leads to some of the most coercive and fucked up social dynamics that I have ever seen. The climate was like a fratty LSD version of 2008 Wall Street bankers, which bodes ill for AI safety.
Women are like canaries in the coal mine. They are often the first to realize that something has gone horribly wrong, and to smell the cultural carbon monoxide in the air. For many women, Silicon Valley can be like Westworld, where violence is pay-to-pay.
I have seen people repeatedly get shut down for pointing out these problems. Once, when trying to point out these problems, I had three OpenAI and Anthropic researchers debate whether I was mentally ill on a Google document. I have no history of mental illness; and this incident stuck with me as an example of blindspots/groupthink.
I am not writing this on the behalf of any interest group. Historically, much of OpenAI-adjacent shenanigans has been blamed on groups with weaker PR teams, like Effective Altruism and rationalists. I actually feel bad for the latter two groups for taking so many undeserved hits. There are good and bad apples in every faction. There are so many brilliant, kind, amazing people at OpenAI, and there are so many brilliant, kind, and amazing people in Anthropic/EA/Google/[insert whatever group]. I’m agnostic. My one loyalty is to the respect and dignity of human life.
I’m not under an NDA. I never worked for OpenAI. I just observed the surrounding AI culture through the community house scene in SF, as a fly-on-the-wall, hearing insider information and backroom deals, befriending dozens of women and allies and well-meaning parties, and watching many them get burned. It’s likely these problems are not really on OpenAI but symptomatic of a much deeper rot in the Valley. I wish I could say more, but probably shouldn’t.
I will not pretend that my time among these circles didn’t do damage. I wish that 55% of my brain was not devoted to strategizing about the survival of me and of my friends. I would like to devote my brain completely and totally to AI research— finding the first principles of visual circuits, and collecting maximally activating images of CLIP SAEs to send to my collaborators for publication.
The feature I am looking forward to the most in comminication apps is having a machine learning model listen to those “quick calls”, generate summary and action items and post them right back in the thread. You get the benefits of both worlds that way.
You know, sometimes I wish my words had touched more lives, but at least I can console myself with the discovery that nothing I’ve written has fucked people up that badly.
Tuesday. Found a cigarette butt in my Solo cup. Couldn’t have been more overwhelmed with the existentialness of it all. Perfect generation moment, absolutely hilarisad. Uwu! Got two tickets to Cancel Me Harder, You Motherfucking Bitch. Playing at the best basement in the whole D-Square, can you believe it? Called up some completely wonderful numbers, but couldn’t find anybody to go with except Roger. Wouldn’t be seen dead with him after that business with Mike, but what can you do?
Wednesday. Cancel Me Harder, You Motherfucking Bitch was the definitive worst. Laugh riot from end to end! Couldn’t have had a better time, even if Roger does still post to X when he should know that Nostr is the future.
Thursday. Found another cigarette butt in last night’s Solo cup. Truth bomb time: what gives, yo? Rode the subway, thought hard about how everyone’s face is just a mask for their true self. Thinking I need to upgrade my avi. It’s completely the season for pixel art! Gotta ask Kevin about the best prompts, so I don’t get something absolutely dreadful.
Friday. Oopsies! Turns out I’ve been leaving the cig butts in my own Solo cups! I couldn’t be more embarrassed, but ChatGPT says that the benzos can’t cause memory loss.
Saturday. Rode the subway to CVS. Bought myself an absolutely dismal new eyeliner, took a selfie with The Bell Curve. Hashtag totes not sponsored, hashtag unfiltered!
Sunday. Oopsies! Those cig butts? Turns out I’ve been leaving them in my own Solo cups! I couldn’t be more completely mortified. I really came in a fluffer that time, but what can you do?
A while back, I set myself the project of figuring out how much of the MIT undergrad physics curriculum could be taught from free online books. The answer, so far, is more than I had anticipated but much less than what we deserve. But working on that, along with a few other conversations, has got me to wondering. We’ve seen...
I thought about assembling a kind of anti-Sequence reading list about quantum mechanics, a view from outside the cult shit that the Sequences try to drown you in, with their bad history, caricatured philosophy and mathematics that ranges from turgid to incorrect. The trouble is that a better understanding is not written all in one place, and even the good papers don’t necessarily convey the everything Yud taught you is wrong emotional hook. The literature does not lead to cracking many smiles, though I did appreciate Adrian Kent’s eel remark in this book review.
Some papers that have a bit more zing than average:
The Google AI isn’t hallucinating about glue in pizza, it’s just over indexing an 11 year old Reddit post by a dude named fucksmith.
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/pictrs/image/70425187-6d2b-4c3b-907f-c71de53919db.png...
Meme coin apes: RFK Jr has your back (x.com)
I’m very aware of what the average retail investor has been saying about the need for greater transparency in our markets, stronger regulatory oversight and tougher penalties for market manipulation and criminal behavior. My administration will support the Ape retail rebellion and enact aggressive Wall Street reforms....
Sam Altman is full of shit (and totally has a thing for Scarlett Johansson) (www.wheresyoured.at)
Wake up honey, new Zitron just dropped....
Neil Gaiman on spicy autocomplete (www.tumblr.com)
Many magazines have closed their submission portals because people thought they could send in AI-written stories....
Remember how ChatGPT totally aced the bar exam? Wow! yeah, turns out that was just a lie (www.nytimes.com)
archive archive.ph/is57b
Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending Sunday 19 May 2024
Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid!...
Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending Sunday 12 May 2024
Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid!...
18+ Honor Levy is the latest from Dimes Square. Truly breathtaking text production.
holy shit, it’s Ready Player One for race scientists...
18+ Vaccinations in Book Form?
A while back, I set myself the project of figuring out how much of the MIT undergrad physics curriculum could be taught from free online books. The answer, so far, is more than I had anticipated but much less than what we deserve. But working on that, along with a few other conversations, has got me to wondering. We’ve seen...