TechTakes

The most naked attempt yet at allowing billionaires to live on without the rest of us.

What infuriates me the most, for some reason, is how nobody seems to care that the robots leave the fridge door open for so long. I guess it's some form of solace that, even with the resources and tech to live on without us the billionaires still don't understand ecosystems or ecology. Waste energy training a machine to do the same thing a human can do but slower and more wastefully, just so you can order the machine around without worrying about it's feelings... I call this some form of solace as it means, even if they do away with us plebs, climate change will get'em as well - and whatever remaining life on Earth will be able to take a breather for the first time in centuries.

I've been listening to faster and worse (see https://awful.systems/comment/6216748 ) and I like it so I wanted to give it ups.

(I think this and the memory palace are the only micro podcasts I've listened to. idk why it isn't a more common format)

Amazon Prime pulling some AI bullshit with, considering the bank robbery in the movie was to pay for surgery for a trans woman, a hint of transphobia (or more likely, not a hint, just the full reason).

In other news, Brian Merchant's going full-time on Blood in the Machine.

Did notice a passage in the annoucement which caught my eye:

Meanwhile, the Valley has doubled down on a grow-at-all-costs approach to AI, sinking hundreds of billions into a technology that will automate millions of jobs if it works, might kneecap the economy if it doesn’t, and will coat the internet in slop and misinformation either way.

I'm not sure if its just me, but it strikes me as telling about how AI's changed the cultural zeitgeist that Merchant's happily presenting automation as a bad thing without getting backlash (at least in this context).

TIL musk has a nobel peace prize nomination for this year

Interesting slides: Peter Gutmann - Why Quantum Cryptanalysis is Bollocks

Since quantum computers are far outside my expertise, I didn't realize how far-fetched it currently is to factor large numbers with quantum computers. I already knew it's not near-future stuff for practical attacks on e.g. real-world RSA keys, but I didn't know it's still that theoretical. (Although of course I lack the knowledge to assess whether that presentation is correct in its claims.)

But also, while reading it, I kept thinking how many of the broader points it makes also apply to the AI hype... (for example, the unfounded belief that game-changing breakthroughs will happen soon).

What if HPMOR but Harry is Charlie Manson?

--2025, apparently