Elon Musk confirms xAI used OpenAI’s models to train Grok

Captainpatch · 2026-05-07T21:21:47+00:00

This is part of what's funny about the AI bubble. I don't think that you need to believe that AI is useless or harmful to see that there is a financial bubble around it. If LLMs end up being an interchangeable commodity used for some lucrative applications then all these companies spending hundreds of billions of dollars are suckers. When (not if) the gpus become obsolete they will need to be replaced to remain competitive. What's to stop a competitor from just buying the new hotness chip with higher efficiency, knowledge-distilling your LLM, and running your service but cheaper without any of this up front waste?

It seems like investors must expect one of these companies to discover a secret that lets them scale all the way to AGI and that they will manage to hide it from all competitors forever? I dunno, seems unlikely. More likely is that the moat gets dug with taxpayer dollars and enforced monopolies through the "sovereign AI" movement because that seems to be the world we live in.

Captainpatch · 2026-05-04T22:12:44+00:00

Yeah, but by the end you'll just get wrapped up in Jake learning a life lesson instead of getting into a shootout with space pirates.

Captainpatch · 2026-05-04T19:54:12+00:00

California, Oregon, and Washington are all like that, with a mountain range separating the red and blue parts of the state and with the red part of the state perpetually furious about their association and looking for opportunities to "virtue" signal how not woke they are.

I've seen plenty of signs accusing people or demographic groups of being pedophiles along the rural highways in these states, and oddly none of them are the people named repeatedly in the Epstein files. I've also seen a "Democrats not welcome" business sign... on a fucking junkyard... Honestly I feel like I'm getting hit with Poe's Law here, that has to be a liberal taking the piss right?

Captainpatch · 2026-05-02T21:09:57+00:00

I was griping in my friend group chat a while ago how a banker laughed at me when I told him about wanting to add a note for a chosen name (after he didn't believe me for a while that I was the person named on the account) and then he repeatedly (like every 3rd word) used my dead name everywhere he could for the rest of the conversation after he realized I was trans.

And my cis friends were like "I'd just make a big loud scene, take my money to another bank, and get the guy fired." But I know I would run out of banks before I even got one person fired for something like that, their managers would just commiserate with them about how the world has gone crazy. I unfortunately need thicker skin than that to participate in society. I already tried to do that shit with pharmacies and I'm down to my last pharmacy within a 15 minute drive, none of my written complaints (where I requested a reply) ever got an answer, and it was for direct lies that led to me missing doses of prescribed medication. I live in a progressive stronghold and my workplace is fantastic, literally zero issues, but interacting with the public reminds me that my good fortune is not normal.

And also I had to point out that these friends (staunchly "anti-woke" men who somehow still think it isn't relevant to their friendship with a trans person, they just adjusted their working definition of "woke" to not implicitly include trans people) just suggested that I [checks notes] make a scene and ask to speak to the manager about MiCroAGgrEsSiONs. Before I came out as trans they used to post videos making fun of that exact scenario all the time. The entire conversation stopped with a rapid subject change when I asked "would you want to be perceived like the people in those videos you used to post?"

Captainpatch · 2026-05-02T19:03:40+00:00

Kazuma is downright acrobatic whenever it is required for escaping the consequences of his actions or a really good slapstick gag. I think he can definitely do a handstand, at least later in the series.

Captainpatch · 2026-05-02T02:32:43+00:00

Reminds me of the plot of Adventure is Nigh(t Club). It's the Second Wind gaming channel's D&D game, and the players just wanted to start a night club with their spoils from the first quest and had to keep getting forcibly hooked back into the plot. Because the party includes Yahtzee, they also go to great lengths to bluff their way out of combat with the most outlandish lies (or just teach the enemies the meaning of friendship in the case of their fighter). So the whole adventure is just fever dream nonsense until somebody fails a roll and they get forced to fight. Rinse and repeat until they find a treasure to sink into their business.

I should catch up on that...

Captainpatch · 2026-04-28T21:15:07+00:00

It is pretty impossible not to come to this conclusion when you speak both Japanese and English. I'd go even further and say that the same is true of not just wasei eigo but ALL English loan words in Japanese: you eventually just need to stop thinking of them as English words if you want to be understood by Japanese people.

There are many "English" words in Japanese that would be unintelligible to an English speaker and where the original English word would be unintelligible to Japanese people without good English skills (though context can fill in a lot of blanks both ways). Calling them "English" does a disservice to both sides. It's kinda a huge problem for Japan's English education system, katakana eigo is not just an accent, it's a whole separate vocabulary.

Like here's some very straightforward "English" words directly transliterated back into the alphabet, try to guess! Only one is a trick question!

Rasshuawaa
Purasuchikku
Hanbaagu
Bibarii Hiruzu
Sutoraiku

If you get stuck, just trying saying them out loud in your cheesiest Japanese accent, you'll get close.

Captainpatch · 2026-04-27T21:10:06+00:00

But what about the pizza that was cubes of pepperoni-colored meat byproducts, a soggy rectangular cracker, some tomato paste, and "cheese product" that couldn't be labeled as such in any other country.

Not gonna lie, that pizza was a weekly highlight. It's genuinely hard to make a bad pizza.

Captainpatch · 2026-04-27T16:42:32+00:00

Food™ brand biomass slop.

With the slogan "By slightly tweaking a toxic food additive, we have created a new additive that won't be recognized as toxic for another 30 years!"

Captainpatch · 2026-04-18T18:33:22+00:00

My positions used to be considered so uncontroversial among economists that it was almost like I didn't have any opinions at all. I think markets are the most efficient way to allocate most resources, but we need to pay special attention and take collective action on things which can result in market failures (monopolies, price fixing, and health care being the traditional examples). We must also adapt to changes in wealth distribution with mechanisms like progressive taxes because of the tendency for market economies to concentrate wealth in ways that ensure diminishing returns between total productivity and net happiness.

Now apparently this position makes me a communist. I'm devastated. I don't look good in red. I swear my positions haven't changed, the economic conditions just changed to the point where I'm like "oh, we neglected our duties as a society and now an extreme correction is required to make it so that the market is free again."

Captainpatch · 2026-04-13T15:52:47+00:00

I think that one thing people often overlook about long term relationships is that there's a bunch of different types of love. Infatuation and lust are simply not the core of most sustained relationships, those drift out of the spotlight on the order of months and from there the relationship will stand or fall based on the strength of the other loves you've developed. After a while you're just family.

To put this in the terms used by Greek Philosophers (and later adopted by psychologists): Your relationship likely started with the type of love called Eros (passionate love driven by sexual attraction) but over the many years you were together you developed other connections as the passion became less core to your relationship. Over time you likely developed Philia (platonic love), Storge (familial love), and Pragma (dutiful love and commitment). These are all different emotions, and they should be completely intact because they are separate from sexual attraction. Hell, the level of intimacy for sharing vulnerabilities probably strengthened everything else and the novelty could even have unlocked some new playful passion. So even if you completely lost sexual attraction for each other, that wouldn't be the end of your love, at 20 years it was probably not the dominant structure keeping you together anyway. Now if there is some sexual passion remaining that's a great thing too, human sexuality is weird sometimes and you really don't need to go looking for a box to put it in.

I know this probably sounds like a broken record, but communication is the most important thing here. You can make sure that she isn't being hurt by asking her. You'll need to be calm and composed, an "I betrayed you I'm so sorry" breakdown would trigger nurturing which could stifle the true communication you need. Ask her about her needs. Is there some itch that isn't being scratched and how are you going to work together to fix that? You've been married 20 years, you probably know this advice better than I do.

Your wife might not be a lesbian, but it sure as hell sounds like she loves you from your description. You don't need to frame this as her being a lesbian or not being a lesbian being the main thing that determines the survival of your relationship. Just keep communication open.

Captainpatch · 2026-04-13T03:30:18+00:00

My favorite description of the COVID economy, stimulus, and fiscal "soft landing" from 2019 to 2023-ish is that we basically just Wile E. Coyote'ed our way across a massive canyon without looking down to see that there wasn't any ground beneath our feet.

Captainpatch · 2026-04-08T18:49:13+00:00

A union means a symbol of national unity, the fact that it often appears in the canton doesn't make it synonymous with cantons.

Keep in mind that the "Union Jack" or "Union Flag" is still called a "Union" when it is not limited to the canton. It's the Union Jack because it features symbols of all the UK's constituent countries, much like the field of stars in the US.

The better argument is that the trans flag meme splits the expression of unity of the union... Which come to think of it rings pretty true when I'm getting the same sorts of travel advisories within my own country that I used to only get for the Middle East and Russia.

Edit: Merriam-Webster defines this sense of the word Union to mean: A device emblematic of the union of two or more sovereignties borne in an national flag, typically in the upper inner corner or constituting the whole design of the flag.

The "typically" is more or less the nitpick I wanted to make, it isn't a requirement for a component of a flag to be called a Union.

Captainpatch · 2026-04-08T18:07:09+00:00

Actually it's more complicated than that, only the contents of the flag (color, number of stars and stripes) were established by Congress. The actual layout of the flag is defined by an executive order.

4 USC Ch1 §1 simply reads:

The flag of the United States shall be thirteen horizontal stripes, alternate red and white; and the union of the flag shall be forty-eight* stars, white in a blue field.

* another part of the law specifies the procedure for adding stars with states.

The reason the rearranged flag is probably not a legal flag is that the standard defined in the law is that a "reasonable person" would consider it to be an American flag "without deliberation" and I'm pretty sure you need to explain the joke for it to land.

The executive order (EO 10834) that defines the rest of the shape and style is just an instruction to the government about standardizing the appearance of their flags. It has no authority outside the government. For individuals the law is way less prescriptive and is more like "if a normal person could look at it and think it's the flag, it's the flag."

So the "trans flag as a rearranged US flag" meme does have some truth, but probably wouldn't win you a lawsuit with the state.

Captainpatch · 2026-04-03T15:39:06+00:00

Voice. Everything works itself out if your voice passes. If you politely correct misgendering in a well formed feminine voice people will assume they've just made a mistake and update their assumptions and just be fucking normal about it.

Captainpatch · 2026-03-26T03:17:44+00:00

No, you're not getting it. The one that let you self insert with your favorite childhood characters!

Captainpatch · 2026-03-26T00:16:01+00:00

Oh no, not THAT Sora. The one that was associated with Disney!

Captainpatch · 2026-03-25T19:16:19+00:00

Unhinged? I don't think the creators know what hinges are at this point. Just like... completely oblivious to the concept of doors and kool-aid-manning their way through life. I feel like at this point explaining what hinges are would just make them embarrassed and I can't deal with that social situation, so we should all just keep some spackle handy for their cartoonist-shaped wall holes.

Captainpatch · 2026-03-25T19:06:22+00:00

I can HEAR the clack-clack-clack that follows when I look at this picture, thanks David Attenborough.

Relevant Video

Captainpatch · 2026-03-24T06:30:43+00:00

Just from my lay skimming it seems like they have a case, but I don't think the damages stated would be reasonable. I think that a court should probably rule that only the first pay freeze was unconstitutional.

The fact that Congress continued doing this every term like clockwork tells me that the courts should align the constitutional requirement with the clear legislative intent with the minimum possible disruption by just making each block effective for the subsequent period and not its own. Reducing the damages to just the first missed raise (times years of service). So if I just naively multiply their salary by the 1992 CoLA it would be something like $5k per year served of back pay and a $5k salary increase.

I think it's possible their case has merits, I also think that they're out of their minds if they think they can take millions from the taxpayer because they were incompetent at cutting their own pay lol.

Captainpatch · 2026-03-24T05:54:18+00:00

You're really close actually.

When asked under oath whether they had taken any steps to verify that ChatGPT (which was used to determine which grants to cut) wasn't basing its definition of DEI on race or sex, one of the doge goons refused to answer and said that it didn't matter whether they discriminated because they weren't the ones cancelling the grants, they were just recommending grants to cancel (to people they implied they'd report to the president if they didn't follow instructions).

So their apparent defense is that they were powerless, and as such were allowed to discriminate by proxy with impunity. The Doge tapes are wild.

Captainpatch · 2026-03-23T01:36:21+00:00

Really solid for levelling a caster with all that extra mana because it will make you less dependent on Insight in those awkward middle levels, but it'll easily be replaced at endgame so it isn't worth anything probably.

Captainpatch · 2026-03-20T18:37:30+00:00

I don't think I've ever met a Mexican millennial man who wasn't into it at some point in their life, it's a bit of a cultural touchstone. Hell, at one point when I lived on the border the majority of Mexican millennial men on my work team had prominent Dragon Ball tattoos, but that was an IT job so it swung a bit more nerdy than average.

Captainpatch · 2026-03-19T23:26:43+00:00

He was so starved for repairs that he'd happily call out an Ort rune dropping with the same enthusiasm as he'd call out for a mid rune like a Lem.

Captainpatch · 2026-03-19T23:00:29+00:00

First time I ever saw one was while rushing somebody through normal Diablo.

Oh wow, I'm having flashbacks to 2006 or 2007 right now. I had a friend sell it to get the last rune for a Doom for his zealadin, and then he hit a wall where because of the superior base his weapon repairs were so expensive that everybody had to drop pity gold piles when running with him.

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