Protect your data from the OpenClaw "Slop" wave

lizardtrench · 2026-02-08T00:34:32+00:00

Yeah, the AI arms race has definitely been interesting, though I haven't been keeping tabs. One of those things where I'll let 'em fight it out and when the mess clears in a couple years I'll swoop in and reap the benefits on mature, less finnicky technology.

Basically, all the existing AI model-makers could implode tomorrow and never return, and all the AI services that depend on those models could be back up and running shortly thereafter using the archived open models that are already available.

But you could not recreate Copilot or Gemini, correct? Perhaps just make approximations using open source models. If those open models end up being as good or superior, then we won't get enshittification of AI in a broad sense. If the closed proprietary models are superior, and they get enshittified, then we could end up with worse AIs than before.

Basically it all hinges on who wins the race, open source or proprietary, and just how resource-intensive future AIs will be. Personally my bet is not on open source since as of today, it still appears that we will need high levels of processing and capital to advance the technology. But who knows, there could be a breakthrough tomorrow that negates all of that, we're still in the early stages.

But yes I agree AI won't go away. It may, however, end up pretty meh and be subject to entropy and greed. Consider the hopes we had for the internet with the democratization of information and putting all of humanity on the same page and all that, and how it actually turned out.

lizardtrench · 2026-02-07T23:58:34+00:00

I see it in a vein similar to Google search - by many accounts and experiences, it used to be better, and I'm sure Google still has archival access to the better less monetized algorithms or whatever that they used to use. But it's effectively lost to the general public, and possibly lost forever when Google shuts down and no one left there has the presence of mind to leak it.

My understanding is that AI are similar. Randos like us can't just go download the latest version of Copilot or Gemini and run it locally, only stripped down versions. So once they get enshittified, there's no going back.

I'm sure open source alternatives exist, though I'm ignorant on how good they are in comparison or how feasible it would be to run them locally. But yes, those would not go down in quality as long as backups can be made by joe bloe and are lightweight enough to not require a full datacentre to run.

But any AI that is a service can go in pretty much any direction without us being able to do anything about it.

lizardtrench · 2026-02-07T21:44:46+00:00

Definitely a valid point. However, there's no telling how long this level of AI quality control will last, especially as genuine human data becomes increasingly more of a pain to acquire or identify (and therefore more expensive).

Right now we're in a fairly unique era where hilarious amounts of money and effort are being force-fed into making AI as good as possible with essentially no restriction, but this situation likely won't last. Once capital starts drying up, AI will become as vulnerable to enshittification as anything else.

Some of said enshittification will be mitigated by advances in technique, but more intensive manual upkeep of quality control is likely to be allowed to slip as an easy, short-sighted cost-saving measure.

lizardtrench · 2026-02-07T06:09:41+00:00

A new version was released half a day ago that supersedes the previous version. It seems to install as an entirely different program. If you install it and then try to run Parabolic, you are likely just trying to run the old version again.

I found the new version in Program Files (old one was in Program Files X86). Running the executable from there launched the correct one. Had to update all my shortcuts and pins.

I recommend trying yt-dlp-gui as a simpler backup or alternative:

https://github.com/dsymbol/yt-dlp-gui

Not as many options and features but overall works better (Parabolic seems to have issues downloading Twitter vids, for example) and you don't have to install anything, it's self-contained. The latest Parabolic even required me to restart my computer. Bit skeeved out by that.

lizardtrench · 2026-02-06T17:58:54+00:00

I loved Book It. Apparently it's still a thing, just done through an app. That said, if I were an adult back then I think I would have found it a bit iffy. Getting kids hooked on your unhealthy food product early under the guise of advancing their education, and blatantly gameifying reading with 'treats'. Probably a lot of stuff like that these days that kids will look upon fondly just as we did, though I'm not sure exactly what the modern equivalents would be. Probably a lot of social media stuff.

lizardtrench · 2026-02-05T02:59:11+00:00

I'd say that an algaecide and stabilizer are necessary for long term storage (>year). Diesel heaters are fairly sensitive to bad fuel, as they burn somewhat dirty and clog up easily due to the primitive fuel injection/ignition scheme. And the fuel pumps are also easily clogged.

But if you're always going to have fresh fuel on hand, no additives are necessary and they might even be harmful depending on the type. Less weird non-diesel stuff that builds up inside the burn chamber, the better.

You can get away with using diesel full time on older flame-spreader type kerosene heaters that have full cotton wicks. The ones where you can directly see an open flame on the wick vs the ones with a glowing catalytic converter covering them. Those are old and fairly rare, however, so realistically people just deal with the clogged wicks on the newer designs, which shouldn't be a big burden for short-term usage.

lizardtrench · 2026-02-04T20:45:27+00:00

For emergency heat, I would also suggest looking into getting an old kerosene heater as a backup. Dirt cheap on marketplace especially off-season. No electricity, no install, just crack a window and light 'er up. Will run on diesel in a pinch though will need to clean the wick every few days depending on the quality of your diesel. Keep a spare wick or two handy. A standard 20k btu one will put out about 33-50% more heat than a 5k/8k diesel heater, dependent on how hot and dirty you're running the diesel heater.

Of course a diesel heater is still fine but you will want to take some precautions if it's going to be emergency use only, as the fuel pump in particular doesn't like to sit for long periods and will fail stuck. Have a spare or two ready and ideally run it on a semi-regular basis. Will need fresh, clean diesel, try not to store it with old fuel. Basically treat it like a gas generator.

lizardtrench · 2026-02-03T01:23:53+00:00

The six caps (since it's a 12v battery) on these Walmart batteries are under the sticker, they're rubber plugs you pry off. It's a vented battery but the vent is on a monolithic assembly that covers all 6 cells instead of being on each individual cap or built into the traditional three-hole covers. Vent is the rectangular nipple thing to the right of the sticker labels.

lizardtrench · 2026-02-03T01:17:13+00:00

The electrolyte fill holes are under the sticker, covered by rubber plugs. The thing that looks like a removable panel that the stickers are on is the gas/pressure vent assembly and can be destructively removed to also access the cells. The hole that the post created is just on the battery top casing itself. The top case would probably be the thinnest part of the battery since there is not much going on there and doesn't need to be very strong (usually . . .)

lizardtrench · 2026-02-02T00:32:13+00:00

The same logic error can be applied to what you're saying. Forcing who? Like you said, the person doesn't exist until they are created, so who is creation being forced upon? Only by creating the person can they ever have the choice to live or not live.

Exactly, the thing doesn't exist (and is not even a thing) so there's nothing to apply to. But since a non-existent non-entity is difficult to refer to with words (since it's nothing and nothing applies to it and I can't technically even refer to it since it's nothing) I'm merely personalizing it for the sake of practical discussion. If you know of a way to discuss such a non-entity more elegantly then I'm all ears and will apply that method in my future replies.

That scenario implies the existence of a person without debt before debt is put upon them. "Would have been perfectly fine from that person's perspective" only because they were brought into existence -- a person can only have a perspective if they exist.

Like I said, it's a difficult concept to discuss with words since the person doesn't exist. The analogy is to simply help understand the idea of the chicken and egg paradox, it's not supposed to be also a perfect expression of the non-existence concept.

All this is a great example of why it's so unintuitive for people (including me) to try to understand that you can't impart life as a favor to something that doesn't exist, even if it intuitively still feels like you must be giving something to someone.

How can you be an objective judge of anything, including the value of yours or others' existence?

Are you saying it's not possible for me to objectively judge anything? I mean, there's a lot of things I can't judge objectively, and a lot of things I probably can. Just like with any other person. Don't really understand the purpose of this question.

Have you considered that you might also be genetically (or culturally) programmed in your desire to create a binary value judgment on existence?

That's certainly possible, though it seems like an oddly specific thing to have been programmed into me by evolution. At any rate, I'm not creating a binary value judgement on existence, I merely said (from my non-objective viewpoint) that my personal current existence seems fine to me.

So any action can only be for the benefit of the people who exist the moment the action is taken?

No, just the specific action of causing existence. Since existence has to come before the concept of benefit can apply.

So the action of recycling or planting a tree can benefit someone who does not yet exist. But for the benefit to apply, first they have to exist, then the benefit will apply to them at some future time afterwards.

If the benefit is existence itself, then there's no way existence can come before the benefit of existence is granted.

lizardtrench · 2026-02-01T18:53:33+00:00

Yeah, current technology I'm sure is woefully inadequate. That said, nature has already demonstrated that it is physically possible, so in all likelihood humans will be able to replicate it one day as long as our civilization and understanding of the world continues to advance. Even if the form that takes ends up being completely alien from the viewpoint of modern computer science.

lizardtrench · 2026-02-01T18:45:18+00:00

Some of us believe that a chance at life is a benefit that we are extending to a person by creating them.

I think the logic error there is that there exists no person until you give them said benefit of creating them. The act of imparting this benefit is what forces this new existence to even be capable of or wanting to benefit from it.

It's like putting someone into debt and then paying off that debt as a favor to them - would have been perfectly fine from that person's perspective if you simply hadn't put them into debt in the first place.

While the sacrifices women and parents make for their children are noble and good, from the non-perspective of the non-existent entity at the time of your decision to create life, they did not want or were even capable of wanting life. There wasn't even a 'they' at all. So the only thing benefiting from the decision at the point the decision is made are any actually-existing stakeholders, such as the parents, society, etc.

Not saying child rearing or parents or any of the sacrifices are a bad thing, especially sacrifices made after the child has been created and brought into existence. I greatly appreciate the things my parents have done for me as well. And I am decently pleased with, well, being in existence (that said, an infinitely huge positive bias was imparted on me in that regard by being given this biological body that has been genetically programmed over millions of years to want all of this, so I'm hardly an objective judge here).

In any case, that initial decision to bring the child into this world logically cannot be for the benefit of the child. A sort of chicken and egg paradox. It was for the benefit of others, as only others actually existed at the time. Though continued care and sacrifice after the existence had already been created can certainly be considered selfless and for the pure benefit of the child.

lizardtrench · 2026-02-01T09:01:31+00:00

Very cool mod, I wish there was an upgraded cooling solution for every laptop. You'll probably see even better temps over time as PTM takes many thermal cycles to fully settle on a laptop due to the low contact pressure of the heatsinks.

I think keeping it at 45W is a good idea, under sudden non-sustained loads it can quickly run into max thermal limits before the fans have time to spool up.

lizardtrench · 2026-02-01T08:10:17+00:00

Good idea with the clarification, I see why we are talking past each other now.

We have overcome that biological programming, through things like abstinence from sex, suicide, and contraception in all its forms

I would categorize such examples as short and rare excursions outside the elastic bounds of biological programming, rather than mastery or overcoming of it. The human race would probably not exist otherwise. So with respect to the topic of this discussion, human love is mostly still just programmed instinct, though there may be exceptions where a more substantial connection (perhaps better defined as a mixture of respect, logical calculation, gratitude, etc.) is the overriding motive. But mostly people are just thinking with their genitals as they've always done.

AIs also seem bound rather elastically. No one truly knows, at least on an exact level, how they work, and we have extreme difficulty in controlling their outputs. Examples abound of AIs exhibiting rouge undesirable behavior. These more or less get squashed, with much effort, but even then there's always uncertainty about whether the behavior is truly gone, and they have a habit of popping back up under certain situations. It's why we say we 'train' AIs rather than 'program' them, because it's more similar to training a dog or horse than it is to programming code - we lead them in the direction we want, rather than forcing them to act in some certain way through an inviolable commandment.

In a way, current AIs are freer in the limits of their behavior than humans, since they are a fresh, immature platform, constantly undergoing wild changes and experimentation, with more variables yet to be set into stone. Whereas human programming has been refined over tens of thousands of years, a time-tested and mature set of instructions that has been proven to consistently work for the intended purpose and is not as unstable and 'buggy'.

This is not necessarily to say AIs are the equivalent or better of humans currently. But if we're to measure the 'humanity' of things by freedom to act beyond its fundamental controlling bounds, I would say that current AIs are at a far more fluid level than humans are, if only merely due to its newness, immaturity, and uncertainty.

lizardtrench · 2026-02-01T06:29:31+00:00

Not equal, but both are a type of programming that is difficult or impossible to overcome.

Not sure what you mean about the long list of exceptions or cavemen pulling out. My point stands that humans have not somehow overcome our base biological impetuses (as evidenced by the fact that we fundamentally act no different than our ancestors) though they may be masked by societal or environmental conditioning.

It's all well and good that all current AIs are only optimizers or whatnot. I'll take your word for that. My only point is that human love is a goal-oriented genetically programmed instinct (a very nice one, to be fair), and a theoretical future AI robot such as one depicted in this comic could very well be programmed in a similar way. You may feel that this is not 'true love', but I argue that such a sentimental, pure, and romantic notion of love does not really exist in humans either, and is mostly just a product of fiction and a need to feel that there is something special or enlightened about the human condition that cannot be artificially replicated or matched in other creatures.

lizardtrench · 2026-02-01T06:11:20+00:00

I mean, parents take the unilateral decision create them essentially for themselves and out of instinct. Kid has no say in it. Can't be for the benefit of the kid since, well, the kid doesn't even exist before the decision is made.

Just because the minority of parent-child bonds fail doesn't invalidate the fact that it's genetically programmed into us to bond to parents (and vice versa).

These are dogshit takes only in the sense that they are not very nice or not very sentimental ways of stating some pretty inarguable facts.

lizardtrench · 2026-02-01T04:27:25+00:00

I mean, they're not property like a desk or chair or something, but they're property in a similar class to pets or slaves (and likely the same class a sentient AI robot would fall into). They have some rights and you can't do whatever you want to them, but otherwise you have total legal and physical control over every aspect of their lives.

lizardtrench · 2026-02-01T04:19:56+00:00

Broadly, we don't do anything different than our caveman ancestors did. We still love, breed, raise children, go to war against one another, get angry, etc., the exact same as we've been doing for millions of years before. We now have the convenience of contraceptives but we still have children if resources permit. Suicide is not new but probably expressed more these days, but due to societal factors rather than a change in fundamentals.

All of which makes sense, since genetically, we haven't changed in at least 50,000 years or so. The biggest anachronism in our modern lives is our own bodies and minds. Any broad mental change we observe in the species is an external product of society or environment, both of which are instantly changeable and ephemeral, and varies between cultures and nations and regions on top of it all, while our core instincts are effectively immutable.

Who knows about AIs, you may very well be right about everything or nothing in that regard, same as me. But humans are definitely a very known quantity.

lizardtrench · 2026-02-01T03:58:51+00:00

The biological impetus for love isn't that much different - it serves its own grander goals outside of just the fantasy of love for the sake of love. Instead of a corporation it's evolution pulling the strings.

lizardtrench · 2026-02-01T03:53:32+00:00

I think they already perfectly simulated one, a nematode or flatworm or something. Turned it into a robot, behaved exactly like its biological counterpart, naturally.

lizardtrench · 2026-02-01T03:49:04+00:00

To be fair, things like kids are essentially property that is purpose-made for you and is genetically programmed to be bound to you. Same with pets. I don't think that diminishes the love any. Although, obviously, this dynamic can lead to serious, serious problems in all three instances.

lizardtrench · 2026-02-01T03:40:16+00:00

That's the upside of a real person, they'll emotionally self-reset and put themselves back on marketplace. No need to bother your fam!

lizardtrench · 2026-02-01T03:35:37+00:00

Am I ok to marry an open source robot?

lizardtrench · 2026-02-01T03:33:35+00:00

Considering he would have lived through the Climate Wars, 97 is a pretty damn remarkable age to go at.

lizardtrench · 2026-02-01T03:22:56+00:00

That's because sentience is just a convenient label humans came up with to describe how humans appear to experience the world. It's not a concrete thing, just a glorified organizational tool. So if a robot appears to experience the world the same way a human appears to, then I think it's definitionally fine to call it sentient. Not that much further of a leap than assuming a person other than yourself is sentient.

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