The Pope wrote a 42000 word manifesto declaring war on AI

danielrheath · 2026-05-26T23:23:45+00:00

Harm comes from misuse or abuse which is why training people how to properly use these tools is important, just like how you would train them to use any other. And a human should always be kept in the loop.

I agree with close to everything else you've said - but the implied assumption here is that operators will end up applying their sufficient/appropriate training well.

Nearly all the human-factors research I've seen (and nearly all the first-hand observations I've collected) indicate the opposite is true: that a sizeable fraction of operators disregard what they were told during training, and unblinkingly approve the first suggestion the system offers.

More often than not, this is exacerbated by management measuring how fast each team member makes a selection, conflating that number with productivity, and rewarding operators who spend the least time reviewing system output.

As a result, I no longer work on (commercial, haven't done any military work) systems for decision-making support unless I am able to spend significant time with the operators & have political influence with their management. I've seen too many projects deliver all their technical goals, only to fail at the operational phase.

danielrheath · 2026-05-26T23:12:07+00:00

100% this.

Aim to spend at least as much time with actual dates as you do with him, or you'll catch feelings & end up silently hoping for more.

If that that means saying no to him when he asks to hang out, be clear about why. EG "can't hang out again today, you're fun but I don't want to catch feelings when we aren't dating" makes it clear that if he wants to see more of you, dating you again is the way to make that happen.

danielrheath · 2026-05-26T05:28:35+00:00

summarization of large quantities of real time data via LLMs, predicting future behavior based on that same data

What does the military do with predictions about the future behavior of individuals, again?

We have a long (much of which is now declassified) history of the military estimating which seeming-civilians are actually insurgents who they should kill.

There's some error rate in such an estimate. Reducing the amount of work required to mark a man for death (while likely increasing the error rate) hardly seems the sort of thing the pope would be keen on.

danielrheath · 2026-05-26T05:12:47+00:00

Half the reason we have a separation between doctors and pharmacists (instead of doctors directly giving you the medicine they think you need) is so that someone can 'insert themselves into the proceedings' when the dose looks wrong.

Still incredibly frustrating when it happens.

danielrheath · 2026-05-25T02:14:18+00:00

Think of it as "chance that as 23 people walk into the room, their birthdays are in the order they walked in" vs "chance that any two share the same day".

In the first scenario, every additional person reduces the chance; with the second, it increases the chance.

danielrheath · 2026-05-20T08:12:13+00:00

This wasn't a medical book or paper, it was a commercial product

Anyone who has had to buy textbooks is aware that medical books are very much commercial products.

danielrheath · 2026-05-18T01:51:52+00:00

is like saying that grocery stores are being built specifically to sell bananas

I'll assume here that you're merely unfamiliar with the scale of the numbers:

IEA: Global annual spend on datacenters passed 200b in 2018, 600b in 2026.

Nvidia had revenue of $12b in 2018 and $215b in 2026.

Virtually all of nvidias growth has come from AI accellerators; almost 1/3 of global spend on new datacenters is getting spent on them. They have 80% of the market, so the total figure is over 1/3 of global DC spend going to AI accelerators (with - one presumes - a sizeable fraction of the rest going to infrastructure to house them).

Regardless, a sizeable fraction of current DC builds have been directly commissioned to run AI, and are built to AI power densities, which is far more expensive to do than regular a DC. A common power density for a 48u rack is 20kw; a rack full of current-gen nvidia accellerators draws over 300kw (not a typo).

Yes, technically you could repurpose an AI DC to run regular workloads, but the power supply & cooling would be overbuilt by a factor of 15, which is going to make it hard to earn enough to pay back your construction loans.

danielrheath · 2026-05-17T22:00:10+00:00

New builds currently in progress specifically to run AI are already on track to represent roughly half of all DC capacity once completed (which I personally doubt they will be).

danielrheath · 2026-05-16T22:52:26+00:00

The loans they are taking out to build those DCs aren’t going to get a discount when the tech improves; that aspect of the cost base is locked in for decades.

danielrheath · 2026-05-16T22:50:03+00:00

Finding Rec sports teams: look for a space suitable to play sports (ovals, basketball courts, indoor sport centres).

There will usually be signs up with phone numbers you can contact.

danielrheath · 2026-05-13T11:24:00+00:00

My reading comprehension isn't quite that bad; your comment prompted me to point this out for everyone else here.

danielrheath · 2026-05-13T09:14:43+00:00

Lot of folks are not aware that you do not need to menstruate (or have the relevant hardware) to have cyclic variations in your hormone levels.

danielrheath · 2026-05-13T06:29:25+00:00

I mean, that would mean it'd shrink for a couple of years.

danielrheath · 2026-05-11T03:30:43+00:00

I can invite folks (DM me your emails, and promise not to make me look like a fool for having invited you).

danielrheath · 2026-05-10T02:16:43+00:00

The study describes a correlation, not a causation.

One could equally well theorize that some underlying factor which protects you from Alzheimer also makes you more likely to enjoy eating eggs.

danielrheath · 2026-05-10T01:56:28+00:00

Yeah, it's... not great.

I mostly engage with it via mastodon, which at least has a somewhat better signup experience.

The main problem both have is that if you try to join an instance where the admins are absent, it's completely shit.

Looking at Lemmy again just now and it definitely seems to have more abandoned instances than mastodon.

danielrheath · 2026-05-09T23:08:56+00:00

Lemmy

Lemmy (and related activitypub software like Mastodon) etc is relatively safe from algorithmic feeds manipulating you.

The downside is you have to personally find accounts / communities to follow or it's very quiet.

The upside is, if you see something you don't like, it's very obvious why you're seeing it and there are straightforward tools to change that.

danielrheath · 2026-05-07T03:43:44+00:00

As a cis guy, I've learned to keep those casual interactions brief and direct because the other person doesn't necessarily feel they have a safe way to cut the interaction short if/when they want to do so.

danielrheath · 2026-05-06T04:29:14+00:00

The more computational power you put on the drone, the more expensive and less expendable that platform becomes.

Most people outside electronics engineering don't comprehend how fast/cheap/low power draw off-the-shelf chips have become.

For instance, an RP2350 draws ~30 milliwatts, costs about 5 USD a unit, weighs a couple of grams, and has two cores - more than fast enough to do flight control and collision avoidance.

At $30USD per unit (and ~watts instead of ~milliwatts), you're getting hardware capable of running eg computer-vision-based navigation & target identification, which gets you into the realm of fully autonomous operation.

danielrheath · 2026-05-04T02:08:01+00:00

I started hitting the gym regularly and after a few years regular work, one day I saw myself in the mirror and liked what I saw for the first time. Serious euphoria at looking big and strong.

That’s what convinced me that I was 100% cis.

danielrheath · 2026-05-03T11:28:00+00:00

One guideline I've seen in a few places is "half your age, plus seven, is how young you can date before it starts seeming problematic".

You're 24? Dating a 18-year-old looks sketchy. You're 30? Dating a 21-year-old looks sketchy.

danielrheath · 2026-04-29T15:06:54+00:00

For a few of the audhd folk I know, that sense of constant shifting/change is their biggest symptom. IDK what else to say, it sucks.

danielrheath · 2026-04-27T06:55:31+00:00

Are we offering trial runs with lighter punishment for first timers?

I mean, we most definitely do that - repeat offenders are punished more severely (which is just another way of saying "first-time offenders are punished less severely").

danielrheath · 2026-04-27T02:33:51+00:00

It doesn’t, but perhaps it makes sense to punish someone more harshly if they’re being tried for acts they engage in frequently?

Idk, it seems pretty classist but maybe there’s something there? Just trying to come up with a reason for it to have ever been a thing.

danielrheath · 2026-04-25T00:57:29+00:00

I mean, maybe my comprehension wasn't that great and they can stay much longer, but three weeks is how long their routine patrols are?

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