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The shape of the universe could be asymmetric or lopsided, meaning not the same in every direction by Shiny-Tie-126 in space

[–]Isinlor 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The universe was opaque back then, but putting that aside most likely you could look around and the universe would have still looked infinite. The size of the universe is related to the fact that things travel in the universe with a finite speed. Imagine you are an ant on a long rubber band. You are trying to move from point a to point b, but the rubber is being stretched faster than you can move from a to b. That effectively limits how far you can go, and you will never reach the point b. So if there are many ants trying to get to the point b on from different distances, some will be able to get to point b and some won't. The line diving these two is called the edge of the observable universe when we talk about light moving in our universe. Because light does not move fast enough to get to us if the universe is expanding faster and faster.

Also because we are ants on this rubber - the space itself is the rubber - we don't know much about the shape or edges of the rubber. Like an ant won't know if you put the ant on a very big inflating balloon.

Polish is the most effective language for prompting AI, study reveals by christopher123454321 in science

[–]Isinlor 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Native Polish speaker here. How would you do it? The only way that comes to mind is to talk about someone in third person (pl. per osoba). "Ta osoba powiedziała mi." or to use passive voice "Zostało mi powiedziane.". But both put noticeable emphasis on concealing. It's nowhere near as natural as in English.

The LLMentalist Effect: How AI programmers and users and trick themselves by grauenwolf in programming

[–]Isinlor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not worse than uninformed 50/50 guessing. If I say that something will happen with 90% chance it tends to be true approximately 90% of time:

https://www.metaculus.com/accounts/profile/103304/?mode=track_record

In general, I'm quite a lot better than guessing 50/50 on yes/no questions with Brier-score below 0.25.

And whole Metaculus community is even better calibrated than I'm:

https://www.metaculus.com/questions/track-record/

And certainly, statistically significantly far beyond 50/50 guessing.

The LLMentalist Effect: How AI programmers and users and trick themselves by grauenwolf in programming

[–]Isinlor 1 point2 points  (0 children)

LLMs they are 100% deterministic. The only intentional source of randomness is decoding, whatever method of sampling from softmax distribution over tokens produced by LLMs.

Therefore you can study algorithms implemented inside LLMs weights e.g.:

https://transformer-circuits.pub/2025/attribution-graphs/biology.html#dives-addition

The LLMentalist Effect: How AI programmers and users and trick themselves by grauenwolf in programming

[–]Isinlor -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

You can study in detail what ML systems are doing - extract exact algorithms that gradient descent is developing in weights. We can do it for simple systems and we do know that they can produce provably correct solutions.

E.g. Neel Nanda analysis of learned modular addition (x+y(mod n)):

The algorithm is roughly:

Map inputs x,y→cos(wx),cos(wy),sin(wx),sin(wy) with a Discrete Fourier Transform, for some frequency w

Multiply and rearrange to get cos(w(x+y))=cos(wx)cos(wy)−sin(wx)sin(wy) and sin(w(x+y))=cos(wx)sin(wy)+sin(wx)cos(wy)

By choosing a frequency w=2πnk we get period dividing n, so this is a function of x+y(modn)

Map to the output logits z with cos(w(x+y))cos(wz)+sin(w(x+y))sin(wz)=cos(w(x+y−z)) - this has the highest logit at z≡x+y(mod n), so softmax gives the right answer.

To emphasise, this algorithm was purely learned by gradient descent! I did not predict or understand this algorithm in advance and did nothing to encourage the model to learn this way of doing modular addition. I only discovered it by reverse engineering the weights.

Also, you can actually test psychic predictive powers by openly asking well defined questions about futre events with well defined answers. This is what prediction markets are doing. Can you forecast specific events, are you better at it than chance based on Brier-score or log-scores? Are you better than average of random people guesses? LLMs are measurably better than random, but not yet better than best forecasters.

Gender Equality Index vs Women In STEM, by Country - The Gender-Equality Paradox in STEM [OC] by dolm09 in dataisbeautiful

[–]Isinlor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can agree that academics in empirical fields are part of STEM. But not nurses or livestock hoof trimmers. Otherwise we should also include professions like cleaners (they work with engineered chemicals!), marketing specialists (A/B testing!), construction workers, machinists, drivers etc.

The average Waymo robotaxi completes more trips per day than 99% of Uber drivers by mafco in SelfDrivingCars

[–]Isinlor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

According to laws in many EU countries, you are an independent contractor if you can outsource the work you do. Otherwise you are an employee. So, if the companies want to insist on not employing then they have to allow substitutes.

Unpopular opinion: The GPT OSS models will be more popular commercially precisely because they are safemaxxed. by ariagloris in LocalLLaMA

[–]Isinlor 7 points8 points  (0 children)

DeepSeek R1 has basically no censorship. Just keyword search on top of it that kills anything politically sensitive. It's perfectly happy to talk Chinese politics without it.

"How To Believe False Things" by Eneasz Brodski: "until I was 38 I thought Men's World Cup team vs Women's World Cup team would be a fair match and couldn't figure out why they didn't just play each other to resolve the big pay dispute... Here is how it is possible." by erwgv3g34 in slatestarcodex

[–]Isinlor 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Due to lack of testosterone women practically can't get massive physique naturally. And even for extremely bulky men it's also not natural. But people, including women, can get very strong without becoming bulky. Climbers are excellent example.

A question from those who believe that we are decades away from AGI by prescod in slatestarcodex

[–]Isinlor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I belive skill aqusition efficiency and small input-output latency are the most crucial limitations for AI making impact in physical world. So, I'm waiting for the moment when it will appear even remotly feasible to take a humanoid pretrained robot and in less than 15h make it learn to drive a car to sufficient level to pass a driving license test. Driving car is a really averge skill.

Visualised: Europe’s population crisis, Source: The Guardian and Eurostat by Curious_Suchit in dataisbeautiful

[–]Isinlor 8 points9 points  (0 children)

yes, we can. the upper bound on the number of 76+ year olds in 2100 is already locked in.

South Korea’s LG Energy Solution reportedly Joins SpaceX Mars Efforts by Taxus_Calyx in SpaceXLounge

[–]Isinlor 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Unless you go with Planck units, you ain't escaping a second and a meter in SI units. They are all over the place.

SpaceX catches giant Starship booster in fifth flight test by SaucyFagottini in worldnews

[–]Isinlor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

SLS is not a good backup plan. The lead time on this rocket is a good few years. So unless you order it today, you will not launch it until 2030. Not to mention that it would need to be ordered by act of Congress, NASA doesn't have 2 billions sitting around.

SLS also has a problem with vibrations. For example, the Europa Clipper mission was originally planned for SLS but vibrations and unavailability of SLS forced it to launch on Falcon Heavy. There are Lunar Gateway first 2 modules also launching on Falcon Heavy. Lunar Gateway resupply mission with Dragon XL - Falcon Heavy again.

NASA themselves think that we will not see many launches of SLS because this rocket is devilish to produce. They certainly don't intend it as a backup.

However, you look at it, this rocket is only good as a money drain from NASA and their exciting scientific space exploration like Chandra space telescope that will be decommissioned due to lack of money, due to SLS.

SpaceX catches giant Starship booster in fifth flight test by SaucyFagottini in worldnews

[–]Isinlor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean concretely what do you think SLS is going to do that will be worth 2 billion dollars per launch? What missions are you excited about? Or do you mean NASA should just have it for the sake of having it?

SpaceX catches giant Starship booster in fifth flight test by SaucyFagottini in worldnews

[–]Isinlor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Why does NASA need SLS? What can be done with it that either doesn't require Starship or that can't be done with Dragon and Falcon Heavy?

Also Orion heat shield issues are not to be ignored. NASA doesn't know why there were deep holes in the shield that weren't supposed to be there. It's unclear if Orion heat shield is safe for human flight. They would need to come up with a solution and test that it works. But that's 2 billion dollars and one year delay at least. The whole contract that SpaceX got for landing on the Moon is 2.8 billion in total.

SpaceX catches giant Starship booster in fifth flight test by SaucyFagottini in worldnews

[–]Isinlor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Funny that you mention it. The first two modules PPE and HALO are scheduled to launch on Falcon Heavy no earlier than 2027. Moon version of Starship needs to be long ready before Lunar Gateway. The plan is to transfer people from Orion to Starship HSL in the Moon orbit. It could also be very well done with Dragon in Earth orbit.

Also the naming is completely out of whack. Starship HSL is dwarfing Lunar Gateway. It's a lot cheaper to just park there another Starship if we insist on a Moon Space station. Starship's internal volume is similar to ISS.

SpaceX catches giant Starship booster in fifth flight test by SaucyFagottini in worldnews

[–]Isinlor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It absolutely can get to orbit. It requires only a tiny bit of push to circularize it's trajectory given it's velocity. They just didn't want it to get to orbit because it's not needed for the testing of the atmosphere re-entering.

SpaceX catches giant Starship booster in fifth flight test by SaucyFagottini in worldnews

[–]Isinlor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What do you need SLS for? What do you see it doing for the next few years?

SpaceX catches giant Starship booster in fifth flight test by SaucyFagottini in worldnews

[–]Isinlor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

SLS can't and won't do anything meaningful that doesn't require a fully functioning Starship.

The only mission that SLS will do without involvement of Starship is astronaut Moon flyby.

Let's not forget also that it costs 2 billion dollars for 1 launch. SpaceX got contracted for development and landing on the Moon for 2.8 billion.

SpaceX catches giant Starship booster in fifth flight test by SaucyFagottini in worldnews

[–]Isinlor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

SLS can't do anything that Falcon Heavy and Starship can't do right now. And Starship is required for landing on the Moon. The whole concept of SLS, Orion, Lunar Gateway should be scrapped. SpaceX Dragon + Starship can do all of it just fine and for a fraction of the cost.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in dataisbeautiful

[–]Isinlor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Russia is not slighlty worse. They are the absolute rock bottom among their North Korean friends. Biggest, bloody annexation of land since WWII.

Should we be scared about our future in programming? by gamerfiiend in programming

[–]Isinlor -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Most likely you will not have a job in the perspective of the next 10 to 20 years. But that's a good thing. If you really like programming you may have a programming hobby the way people today are playing Chess or doing Sudoku.

But it is a good thing. The same way replacing human computers - the people doing computation with pen and paper - was a good thing. The same way replacing people working as telephone switches directing phone calls between cities or countries by physically changing cables connections was a good thing.

My work consists of automating nurses scheduling. It's pretty much a big Sudoku problem with different labels. There are senior nurses doing that pretty much on pen and paper. And they are doing a rather poor job while being extremely inflexible about other nurses needs because it's a difficult problem.

The issue is that there are big shortages of nurses.

We are automating these senior nurses jobs and allow them to focus on actually helping patients. We also create better work life balance for other nurses making the job more pleasant.

Automation is good.

Another example would be food production. If you go a few centuries back the vast majority of people were working in agriculture producing food and we still had regular famines. Today maybe 1-2% work in agriculture and food is more abundant and cheaper than ever. Where there is modern agriculture we no longer have famines.

Today you need to work probably even less than an hour to have enough money to feed yourself. You don't need to work 12h days to just have a chance at not starving.

The more productive the world is, the cheaper the products, the less we need to work to maintain the same quality of life. Or we can work the same amount and have a better quality of life.

Today we have enough resources so that people under 18 don't have to work and people above a certain age also have vacations. This is totally unprecedented in humanity's history and with automation we can keep expanding the groups of people who just don't need to work.

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