istewart

About half of it (~150 pages) That’s not a card! That’s a book!!! If they can’t get this simple classification right, how am I supposed to trust their probabilistic text extruder?

I think we can call it, "Goose value 71" is officially the peak of the bubble

We've discussed before the influence of David Chapman and his Tibetan Buddhism among TPOT, but it's worth also noting the fairly big notoriety and footprint that San Francisco Zen Center has in the Bay Area and northern/central California more broadly. Anyone who ends up in the Bay and goes looking for "alternative" spirituality with a relatively rigorous grounding is likely to encounter some aspect of SFZC or its outreach pretty quickly. To say nothing of enduring idol Steve Jobs' association with the practice. It might seem surprising from the outside, but given the facts on the ground, I'm not surprised that dashes of Buddhism got roped into the techbro stew.

Note, of course, that Chapman's Tibetan lineage is something notably different from SFZC's lineage, and that the parent institutions can't be held totally liable for misinterpretations by lay practitioners and dilettantes. (Myself being one of the dilettantes!)

Directly comparing Scientology-speak to the beliefs and practices of the rationalists and their offshoots seems like it should be a ground-floor understanding of the whole mess, but perhaps that sort of blunt simplicity is what some folks on the margins need to avoid being sucked all the way in.

Yah and sign up for their newsletter too

high end medical equipment like it was another AI powered furby knock-off

Bbbbbut making high-end medical equipment profit margins on cheap Furby knockoffs is the new Silicon Valley ideal!

A step up from last week's uncritical fluffing of Aella, and the hard target on Pinker is nice, but still kinda highlights how the publication grows out of semi-parasocial social media crushes and grievances. I'll take it, but they've still got a ways to go to convince me that they're not gonna turn out to be Neo-The Atlantic 2029

This situation is the first time I've become aware that there was a longtime Dimes Square hangout called Kiki's. I'm gonna go ahead and consider that a mental health check that I happily passed

Oh, OK, cool. Let me know how the chatbot handles temperature management, stock rotation, allergen cross-contamination for seafood, all that good stuff.

I keep on saying that there will be at least one more AI bubble before 2045, because apparently that's the latest date Kurzweil gives for his Singularity™ (can't be arsed to go reread his book and double-check, my copy was a PDF that came via the high seas 5 computers ago anyway)

Zefram Cochrane is supposed to invent warp drive in 2063, these guys need to be moving their timelines forward, not backward!

Dude why do we even need or want AGI?

We need salvation but it won't come via rapture this decade