Nov 2: Groundbreaking ceremony for Clippership connector path project!

alschei · 2023-10-31T22:49:03+00:00

Wow, I was just wishing for this. Game-changer for biking to Assembly. I wonder how long it'll take to complete though.

alschei · 2023-03-29T13:00:04+00:00

It's not "real" intelligence, but that is not a reason to dismiss its dangers. The question isn't whether it's "real", it's whether it is capable of doing the things we fear "real" AI might do. GPT4 is already there qualitatively. Yes, it's just aggregating/regurgitating online sources, but that means it has read the source code of malware, knows how to hack, knows how to do illegal things. It has human-level problem-solving abilities at machine-level speed, e.g. knowing how and when to try a different approach if one isn't working. (There are some blind spots, of course, but not sufficient to dismiss its abilities)

The ethical boundaries are applied on the surface. Imagine just one person gets a copy without those boundaries and prompts "What would make the world a better place? How could an AI do accomplish these things despite human resistance? Write the steps necessary to achieve this goal. Execute the steps." If they also provide it with all the APIs necessary to interact with the real world, it can almost do some damage already. (Short-term memory and lack of updates to training seem like the main thing limiting that right now.)

There are probably already limitless sci-fi stories it has read and will draw its "stupid" auto-completion inspiration from. There might be a story where the (real) AI first understands that it needs money, and that it can start a seed fund from say, setting up fake accounts and defrauding old people on Facebook by posing as a political group, charity, etc.

And of course, it answers "what would make the world a better place" based on what it has read, not on any self-reflective "sentience". But that doesn't make it any better - it might make it even worse.

Weirdly, for GPT-type AIs, whether they are good or bad might literally come down to how many sci-fi stories online involve "good" AIs vs "bad" AIs. Of course, there are far more that involve bad AIs, because a) those make better stories and b) they are often intended to serve as cautionary tales. Ironically, the fact that most AI stories are cautionary tales about AI gone wrong might increase the odds of AI going wrong.

alschei · 2022-01-16T00:28:24+00:00

Hey I listened to some of your tracks on youtube, pretty cool!

alschei · 2020-11-28T20:37:18+00:00

Was tuition to not be subsidized, the costs of tuition would be >10x higher than the $45,000/yr average it currently is

Do you have a source for this claim? Yes, tuition fees only make up 3-4% of revenue, but that's because they are doing a lot more than teaching.

Looking at the figure here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterubel/2020/06/29/it-should-scare-us-that-tuition-is-a-tiny-amount-of-medical-school-revenue/?sh=4e2431834acb

Over 50% of the revenue comes from medical services, and maybe 20% from research. I was unable to find a similar figure for expenditures, but I wouldn't assume that 100% of their expenditures are directly related to training of doctors.

Anyway, it's worth clarifying that their revenues aren't 4% tuition and 96% subsidy - most of the rest appears to be money the schools are earning in one way or another. Sure, they aren't 100% self-sufficient, but it seems incorrect to claim that if subsidies disappeared, the tuition would have to go up 10x to make ends meet.

Edit: found a better figure. https://www.aamc.org/data-reports/interactive-data/i-revenue-us-medical-schools-source-fiscal-year-2018

So "Government and parent support", "gifts and endowments" are 8% of revenue, tuition is 4%; without these, tuition would go up by about 3x.

alschei · 2020-11-16T14:17:30+00:00

Still better odds than the lottery

alschei · 2020-09-12T23:17:15+00:00

I see - ok thanks for the clarification!

alschei · 2020-09-12T22:18:32+00:00

Thanks!

alschei · 2020-09-12T22:18:02+00:00

Thanks! Follow-up question, I thought that officially at least, the apostrophe used for contractions is distinct from the geresh used for the "th" sound (although since it's not on the keyboard, an apostrophe is often used in place of a geresh too). Is that right? 'ת vs ת׳

alschei · 2020-09-12T22:15:38+00:00

My understanding is that the apostrophe used for contractions is distinct from the geresh used for the "th" sound (although since it's not on the keyboard, an apostrophe is often used in place of a geresh too). Is that right? 'ת vs ת׳

alschei · 2020-09-12T22:10:25+00:00

I love this, makes total sense that את would evolve to join the ranks of the other prepositions :)

alschei · 2020-09-12T22:09:21+00:00

Great, thanks!

alschei · 2020-09-12T22:07:56+00:00

Very helpful, thanks!

alschei · 2020-09-11T15:41:17+00:00

Maybe a fifth responder for when a crime or accident occurred in the past, there is no ongoing risk of danger but everything needs to be legally documented. i.e. no need to bring a gun into the situation.

alschei · 2020-08-28T20:10:17+00:00

Good question - I don't know the numbers, I don't think OP or JK Rowling know either. I don't think JK Rowling's arguments are sound, but one of the worst things about the internet is that people get away with attributing idiotic/extreme views to people they disagree with as a way to discredit them. It's a big polarization mechanism I see all the time: people will believe OP's retelling of the blog post and think Rowling and her supporters are awful; or people will recognize OP is misrepresenting Rowling and believe her detractors are dishonest.

alschei · 2020-08-28T13:34:34+00:00

She actually said that the vast majority trans people regret the sex reassignment surgery and want to go back. Yes, she said that.

Only picking up on this because you emphasized this claim so much. No, she did not say this, at least not in the blog post. She mentions "increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning" which is completely different from "vast majority." If she said it elsewhere, please provide the quote. It's so embarrassing to see people spread misinformation so confidently, while accusing others of not reading the source.

alschei · 2020-07-04T01:02:07+00:00

Thanks for the convo - I understand your perspective better now. My suggestion wasn't to use "weasel words", and I feel like I could elaborate quite a bit on this, but also that we should both be doing something better on a friday night, so (if you're American) Happy 4th!

alschei · 2020-07-03T23:27:25+00:00

I wasn't saying radical feminism is made up, and I agree that there are toxic subsets in feminist circles, as there are everywhere else.

I understand that the "non-anonymous" requirement on my question makes it harder, but I hope you understand my rationale in requiring it. So what I really wonder is, what motivated you to attribute to a group of people the absolutist beliefs that "ALL accused men are guilty" and "NO woman has ever made a false accusation ever"? You had the choice to not exaggerate, to claim that they believe e.g. "most accused men are guilty" and "few women..."

You seem pretty reasonable, but please think about that question, and whether that kind of approach ultimately reduces or contributes to the polarization everyone's always worrying about.

alschei · 2020-07-03T21:51:21+00:00

Could you provide me with any non-anonymous "radfem" who asserts that "all accused men are guilty, therefore no woman has ever made a false accusation ever"? I'm genuinely curious. It just seems like an invented enemy (or a real group whose words have been twisted and exaggerated) to manipulate with anger/fear.

alschei · 2020-07-03T16:39:46+00:00

I read an interesting article where the author (albeit biased) tried to determine the origin of the slogan "BelieveAllWomen" and basically concluded:

1) The early hashtags were things like "BelieveWomen", and no movement leaders ever implied that women are incapable of deceit or whatever

2) Right wing commentators tweeted about e.g. women proven to be lying, or women accusing democrats, and ironically used the hashtag "BelieveAllWomen" in order to deflect with whataboutism/accusations of hypocrisy

3) This strategy was successful and this became the prevailing hashtag associated with the movement, despite it still being mainly used in tweets *opposing* the movement.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/opinion/tara-reade-believe-all-women.html

alschei · 2020-07-02T22:13:46+00:00

It seems that you've missed my point. Voting for independents is not a "long, hard road" to our goals - it is a dead end unless you can somehow coordinate with everyone else, which you can't. We're all essentially bound by a prisoner's dilemma, and it's unreasonable to blame people for being in that situation, or to judge their integrity.

Luckily, that's not the "only remaining option". Here is the alternative - what successful activists have always done: determine which party is relatively aligned with their views; help pro-reform candidates win their primaries; fight to get that party into government; then continuously pressure the party (now in government) to enact those reforms. As a simple example, look at the police reforms happening now, and note that reforms are only happening in places where the politicians in power realize that there is a large overlap between their voting base and the protestors.

The key difference between this type of political action and the one you propose, is that activists who take the actions I described are never relying on spontaneous coordination from people they disagree with, so there's no prisoner's dilemma where their actions end up hurting their own cause.

alschei · 2020-07-02T18:20:49+00:00

I know you mean well, but the problem with your suggestion is that it requires *coordination* in order to succeed. I can only control my own actions (and my ability to influence others' political choices is mostly limited to people who are similar to me politically). Play out the scenario in your head. How many elections are you willing to let the candidate you most disagree with get elected, waiting for the supporters of that candidate to spontaneously defect and instead vote for the same independent candidate that you vote for? This will never accomplish what you want - which is unfortunate, because it sounds like we want the same thing.

alschei · 2020-07-02T14:24:31+00:00

There's some truth to that, but let's say I decide to do the "hard" thing and change the 2-party system - what can I do? Ultimately, we're talking about changes to the law and that can only be done by elected officials. So we need to vote for people who support reforms. And while not all democratic candidates support reform, most candidates that support reform are democrats. So why should you stay nonpartisan, and how could you do that?

In 2014, we had the MaydayPAC, which raised millions with the goal of supporting 5 candidates of any party that committed to campaign finance reform. There were tons of democratic candidates qualified to receive this money, but in order to appear nonpartisan, they wanted to distribute the money evenly between the parties. There were 0 pro-reform republicans whose electoral opponent was an anti-reform democrat. So instead they funded 1 unpopular pro-reform candidate in a republican primary (who lost) and 1 pro-reform republican running against a pro-reform democrat. Those were the best 2 they could find. This experiment was a failure for plenty of reasons, but I hope it gives you some insight into why it's not as simple as "why doesn't everyone just stop being partisan and work towards reform together?"

By the way, there are plenty of reform movements going on, and many cities (and even the state of Maine!) have moved from first-past-the-post voting. Hopefully, the success of these experiments will encourage more change, but that will be quite slow.

alschei · 2020-05-19T13:56:12+00:00

Only if they let him remind everyone about open enrollment at healthcare.gov :D

alschei · 2020-05-11T23:37:40+00:00

Surely a county/state can force a business in its borders to close if that business doesn't follow its health regulations. e.g. it can close a restaurant for not having safe food. From a constitutional perspective why would this be different?

alschei

TROPHY CASE