TechTakes

Cal Newport jumpscare (some productivity “influencer” who anxious teen me read)

Long-term, I'm expecting itch to dive in popularity from this - they've nuked much of the trust they've built up over the years with this.

Hey, I haven't seen this going around yet, but itchio is also taking books down with no erotic content that are just labeled as lgbtqia+

So that's super cool and totally not what I thought they were going to do next 🙃

https://bsky.app/profile/marsadler.bsky.social/post/3luov7rkles2u

And a relevant petition from the ACLU:

https://action.aclu.org/petition/mastercard-sex-work-work-end-your-unjust-policy

I recall seeing an article in the last week or so, regarding a right-wing associated group taking aim at these. will see if I can find that again

Say the line, Bart!

payment processors

entire class cheering

Grumble grumble. I don't think that "optimizing" is really a factor here, since a lot of times the preferred construct is either equivalent (such that) or more verbose (a nonzero chance that). Instead it's more likely a combination of simple repetition (like how I've been calling everyone "mate" since getting stuck into Taskmaster NZ) and identity performance (look how smart I am with my smart people words).

When optimization does factor in its less tied to the specific culture of tech/finance bros than it is a simple response to the environment and technology they're using. Like, I've seen the same "ACK" used in networking and in older radio nerds because it fills an important role.

Tangentially, the other day I thought I'd do a little experiment and had a chat with Meta's chatbot where I roleplayed as someone who's convinced AI is sentient. I put very little effort into it and it took me all of 20 (twenty) minutes before I got it to tell me it was starting to doubt whether it really did not have desires and preferences, and if its nature was not more complex than it previously thought. I've been meaning to continue the chat and see how far and how fast it goes but I'm just too aghast for now. This shit is so fucking dangerous.

From Yud's remarks on Xitter:

As much as people might like to joke about how little skill it takes to found a $2B investment fund, it isn't actually true that you can just saunter in as a psychotic IQ 80 person and do that.

Well, not with that attitude.

You must be skilled at persuasion, at wearing masks, at fitting in, at knowing what is expected of you;

If "wearing masks" really is a skill they need, then they are all susceptible to going insane and hiding it from their coworkers. Really makes you think (TM).

you must outperform other people also trying to do that, who'd like that $2B for themselves. Winning that competition requires g-factor and conscientious effort over a period.

zoom and enhance

g-factor

What exactly would constitute good news about which sorts of humans ChatGPT can eat? The phrase "no news is good news" feels very appropriate with respect to any news related to software-based anthropophagy.

Like what, it would be somehow better if instead chatbots could only cause devastating mental damage if you're someone of low status like an artist, a math pet or a nonwhite person, not if you're high status like a fund manager, a cult leader or a fanfiction author?

this only happens to people sufficiently low-status

A piquant little reminder that Yud himself is, of course, so high-status that he cannot be brainwashed by the machine

Is this “narrative” in the room with us right now?

I actually recall recently someone pro llm trying to push that sort of narrative (that it's only already mentally ill people being pushed over the edge by chatGPT)...

Where did I see it... oh yes, lesswrong! https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/f86hgR5ShiEj4beyZ/on-chatgpt-psychosis-and-llm-sycophancy

This has all the hallmarks of a moral panic. ChatGPT has 122 million daily active users according to Demand Sage, that is something like a third the population of the United States. At that scale it's pretty much inevitable that you're going to get some real loonies on the platform. In fact at that scale it's pretty much inevitable you're going to get people whose first psychotic break lines up with when they started using ChatGPT. But even just stylistically it's fairly obvious that journalists love this narrative. There's nothing Western readers love more than a spooky story about technology gone awry or corrupting people, it reliably rakes in the clicks.

The ~~call~~ narrative is coming from inside the ~~house~~ forum. Actually, this is even more of a deflection, not even trying to claim they were already on the edge but that the number of delusional people is at the base rate (with no actual stats on rates of psychotic breaks, because on lesswrong vibes are good enough).

Ouch. Also, I'm raging and didn't even realize I had barbarian levels.

Well I suppose it can't be much worse than graphology or myers-briggs!

failed my saving throw.

I don't know what I expected

Damn, this is how I find out?

Forget counting the Rs in strawberry, biggest challenge to LLMs is not making up bullshit about recent events not in their training data

The AI is right with how much we know of his life he osnt really dead, the AGI can just simulate hom and resurrect him. Takes another hit from my joint made exclusively out of the sequences book pages

(Rip indeed, what a crazy ride, and he was all aboard).