Architeuthis

joined 2 years ago
[–] Architeuthis@awful.systems 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

(No spoiler tags because it's just background lore for Dune that's very tangential to the main plot)

Dune - after catastrophic wars between humans and AIs, computers are forbidden.

That's a retcon from the incredibly shit Dune-quel books from like 15 years after the original author had died. The first Dune was written well before computers as we know them would come in vogue, and the Butlerian Jihad was meant to be a sweeping cultural revolution against the stranglehold that automated decision-making had achieved over society, fought not against off-brand terminators but the entrenched elites that monopolized access to the setting's equivalent to AI.

The inciting incident semi-canonically (via the Dune Encyclopedia) I think was some sort of robo-nurse casually euthanizing Serena Butler's newborn baby, because of some algorithmic verdict that keeping it alive didn't square with optimal utilitarian calculus.

tl;dr: The Butlerian Jihad originally seemed to be way more about against-the-walling the altmans and the nadellas and undoing the societal damage done by the proliferation of sfba rationalism, than it was about fighting epic battles against AI controlled mechs.

[–] Architeuthis@awful.systems 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (6 children)

It's been ages since I read Hyperion but I think it's one of those settings that start out somewhat utopian but as the story progresses you are meant to realize they are deeply fucked.

Also I had to look up Camp of the Saints, and I think complaining about living there may be a racist dog whistle.

edit: So apparently it really is a huge racist shibboleth, which makes me wonder if it's common for grok to recommend it and nobody noticed because it's kind of obscure.

[–] Architeuthis@awful.systems 18 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

I mean even if you somehow miss the whole computers are haram aspect of the duniverse, being a space peasant ruled by psychic tyrants still hardly seems like a winning proposition.

[–] Architeuthis@awful.systems 2 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Nothing in the article suggests he is a programmer, or that being a programmer is inherently fascist.

[–] Architeuthis@awful.systems 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I think mostly by websites colluding to track your browser's fingerprint so facebook/meta can maintain your behavioral profile and sell it back to them.

[–] Architeuthis@awful.systems 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Children really shouldn't be left with the impression that chatbots are some type of alternative person instead of ass-kissing google replacements that occasionally get some code right, but I'm guessing you just mean to forego I have kidnapped your favorite hamster and will kill it slowly unless you make that div stop overflowing on resize type prompts.

[–] Architeuthis@awful.systems 21 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It should be noted that the only person to lose his life in the article was because the police, who were explicitly told to be ready to use non-lethal means to subdue him because he was in the middle of a mental episode, immediately gunned him down when they saw him coming at them with a kitchen knife.

But here's the thrice cursed part:

“You want to know the ironic thing? I wrote my son’s obituary using ChatGPT,” Mr. Taylor said. “I had talked to it for a while about what had happened, trying to find more details about exactly what he was going through. And it was beautiful and touching. It was like it read my heart and it scared the shit out of me.”

[–] Architeuthis@awful.systems 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Hey now, there's plenty of generalization going on with LLM networks, it's just that we've taken to calling it hallucinations these days.

[–] Architeuthis@awful.systems 17 points 3 months ago

EA Star Wars pitch

image transcriptionZach Weinersmith skeeted: Movie idea:

Effective Altruism Star Wars, in which it's OK to be a Sith as long as the majority of your earnings go through vetted charities.

‪Plod‬ skeeted: And when the Death Star explodes it's due to fraudulant accounting

‪tiedoton‬ skeeted: Building endless swaths of droids that do nothing but continuously experience bliss to offset any suffering caused by the Empire.

Not sure if that would be done by the Empire or the Rebellion

[–] Architeuthis@awful.systems 16 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Engineering/Adoptive: Adds eval tests to flag hallucinations

Oh look another one who secretly solved hallucinations.

[–] Architeuthis@awful.systems 13 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Kind of a nitpick but there has never been anything other than AI for automated transcription, OCR and speech recognition have been fundamental use cases for neural networks, and dev-kits to deaf kids is honestly kind of an honest mistake well within the known limitations of that technology.

LLM based audio transcription however does get goofy because apparently when it mishears stuff it might compound the error by, you guessed it, making more shit up: Researchers say an AI-powered transcription tool used in hospitals invents things no one ever said

[–] Architeuthis@awful.systems 9 points 3 months ago

Could be this will be mostly a vehicle for them marketing their AI writing coach.

Maybe wapo is an AI startup now.

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