4,782 karma · joined July 2, 2013
Given how much time I spend teaching people how to use AI effectively, I humbly disagree.
AI slop is not using AI effectively.
> like adults didn't need to take a semester in AI-usage
… especially adults
> so why should children need such a thing?
So that the scope of merits and demerits of the tool are explicit from the start, and this understanding can evolve along with the tool.
Tell me you’re young without saying you’re young.
Those headline rates were not the rates actually paid.
The quantity and scope of tax write offs at that time were substantial and often generous. The tax reform act of 1986 lowered the headline rates and substantially reduced the scope of deductions.
As such, referring to that “high taxation” era as some sort of halcyon days due to the tax rates is quite misguided.
If you ever want to hear a tax accountant get excited, talk to one who was practicing in the 80s. The stories you will hear…
Assuming $20 for a typical paid trip, I’m guessing $800 would be closer to what they would charge for 2 free rides a day within SF.
$400 might be were it ends up when it’s widely adopted and a mature product — probably in the “budget” category of a segmented market.
Her story does not jibe with any of my experiences, direct or indirect, with law enforcement in Japan.
It’s not something I worry about.
What I, and many of my peers, excel at is taking vague inputs from end users and putting them into actionable specs. Often times this requires considerable education of the end user.
AI might be able to suggest best practices, but getting someone from malformed ideas into an actionable path forward is a very human thing.
Sure, tech-savvy lucid thinking clients with time on their hands might not need my services any more at some point, but… yeah… that’s not my client base.
I get paid to solve business problems. Everything I’ve done in the past could have theoretically been done by my customers, but it wasn’t. AI removes a small amount of the friction for a small portion of the market, but that’s just not a market-wide phenomenon.
“Super smart, super savvy, highly-motivated, and prefer to spend time instead of money” does not describe most business owners.
That’s just my 2 cents…
Hmmm… maybe. I think not. It really depends on your other claims below, with which I mostly disagree.
2. Most entry level jobs for current graduates in white collar fields. (See hiring rates for these positions)
Maybe a small amount. Entry level white collar jobs have a low hiring rate for other reasons, imho.
3. Thousands of layoffs (mostly attributed to AI use, while not 100%, the Anthropic's specific marketing push has a huge influence on this - unlike OAI and other labs)
What they say and what the actual reasons are not the same, imho. Correcting for over hiring is the actual main reason.
4. All low-code products/startups
Low-code and no-code products in the hands of someone who doesn’t have a developer’s mind and/or experience usually ends up as a mess, and quickly becomes an unusable mess.
I know of exactly two people who have done successfully used AI to make a low-code/no-code product. One is just highly motivated and wicked smart. The other did a minor in CS a long time ago (works in a different field). Everyone else shows me a pile of garbage and asks me how to fix it (answer: throw it away and start from scratch).
5. Web agencies who did small websites for local businesses
As with 4 above, the only site a local business can make for themselves is one that functions as a business card… at best. Usually it looks more like a business card that a kindergartner made. They simply don’t understand what makes a website good for their business, therefore they cannot direct AI to make it for them.
There’s a lot to criticize about AI, imho, but these aren’t on the list.
Simple example… they get others to do the work while they reap the rewards. That’s clever and lazy.
Short answer — there are lots of chargebacks and (sometimes) fraud around this content. Vanilla payment processors don’t like high rates of chargebacks and fraud.
> Also why PornHub and OnlyFans are immune to religious lobby?
They use a high-risk payment processor that takes a much higher cut of each sale (basically as insurance).
The AI output you are referring to mostly seems to refer to “AI slop”. It’s not hard to argue that AI slop sucks.
There is a lot that AI does that has created joy for me or people around me:
- whimsical profile pics for online profiles for me, family, and friends
- writing e-mails for community groups — good for a family member who doesn’t have the most sociable writing style
- automating data capture and organization
- automating scheduling with multiple and variable constraints
- catching obvious errors that somehow still happen (e.g., off by one errors)
- filling in gaps in analysis either due to gaps in knowledge or simply an oversight
These are sample of things that I have done or helped people do in the past week, and the results have been well-received.
Maybe I’m part of that solution that you propose, but I have used words similar to “biggest change since…” (I usually say spreadsheets, but I don’t think “Industrial Revolution” is wrong).
Fwiw, I don’t think the result will be dystopian the way most people seem to think that it will. I firmly believe that meat space interactions will gain much more traction, and that will change the way we live and work.
Mostly fear mongering or law breaking that is commonly punished throughout the world.
In order:
- nonsense, unless heated argument includes assault or disturbing the peace
- stealing… yes, it’s a crime. Usually handled with an apology and repayment if charges are brought. Completely overlooked if it was an actual one-off accident.
- overstaying visa - also a crime. Self-reporting to an immigration office will usually lead to a light punishment of “return home and 1-year re-entry ban”. People who live in Japan on tourist visas and do short visa runs are scrutinized carefully.
- grabbing umbrella or bike - fear mongering. This happens all the time. If it comes to a head, just apologize. I will say that there is a bit of an art to umbrellas and bikes — either embrace the musical chairs, or take actions such that it is less likely to happen to you.
The vast majority of folks who get detained in Japan either did something particularly obvious (DUI, violence with a weapon, etc.), or they had been warned multiple times about illegal behavior.
Sometimes the crime they are busted for seems trivial (e.g., Al Capone and tax evasion in the US), but there are other more serious crimes that they have been involved with or expected to be involved with.
I have literally never heard of any innocent person being detained in Japan, but I’ve seen it happen multiple times in the US (esp. for peaceful protesters).
That said, I know of many cases in Japan for which very guilty people were given appropriate warnings rather than detention and prosecution, and behavior changed.
I’m guessing either she didn’t understand the warnings, or she didn’t follow their guidance.
Simple example, they may have asked her to follow a procedure before leaving the country, and she didn’t because she “thought it was over”.
The law enforcement machine in Japan doesn’t like to arrest people. 99% of the time or so, it only arrests when they have an open-and-shut case and/or the person had been warned multiple times.
Maybe this has changed in the age of social media influencers, maybe this is different for black people, but Japanese cops have always taken the discrete approach with me and the folks I’ve known (both Japanese and non-Japanese).
I’m guessing you don’t know many lower income people.
Not only are credit cards generally not part of the picture for these folks, but often they don’t even have bank accounts.
Whatever the stated reasons are is one thing.
The biggest issue is that a network of BYDs in the US would be a massive intelligence coup.
It will never be permitted unless the intelligence aspect is addressed… if it can be.
It’s currently just as bad but in a different way, imho.
The ability for labels (or whoever owns the rights) to wantonly invoke automated DMCA copyright strikes and demonetization on social media channels like YouTube is borderline criminal to me.
Their lobby did a great job getting them more than they deserved (specifically with regards to the facilitation of capricious invoking of DMCA), but the abuse of the rules limits the growth of the creator economy in very unhealthy ways.
This is the exact line of inquiry that I took.
I asked why they didn’t just offer the toxic person a buy out or just fire the person and take the hit.
And…
1. They did offer a buy out. The person refused. The person was towards the end of their working career, and backdoor comms revealed that the person felt like they had quite a few years left of earning potential.
2. Then why not fire and pay the price? This turned back into the issue of the legal team not having the capacity to handle a case like the one they would have. The person would basically be retired and bitter and would make harassing the company legally their full time job — one that would probably yield decent dividends. Remember, the person was not looking for an equitable outcome — it was an identity issue.
Ultimately, they decided to put the person in a differ department, don’t give them any power, but give them something to do that was at least marginally productive. The person was placed under a super chill person and coasted to retirement.
It’s hard to tell if the path taken was financially optimal, but it was certainly close. That said, the path they took led to far fewer strains on the legal and executive staffs. I’m guessing that was actually worth a lot.
In certain domains, this has already happened.
> Sounds like the company in the latter example really screwed up
Interesting. I think they made an unfortunate but sound decision based on their circumstances.
> but how does that connect to disclaimers?
It doesn’t directly.
> Is it just an example of malicious behavior?
Yes. It’s an example of how absolutely bat-shit crazy people can behave in ways that can tax a company’s legal team. Having folks use a disclaimer will almost certainly lighten some of this load in terms of defending against folks who weaponize online comments made by employees.
Disclaimers aren’t there for folks who are thinking and acting rationally.
They are there for people who are thinking irrationally and/or manipulatively.
There are (relatively speaking) a lot of these people. They can chew up a lot of time and resources over what amounts to nothing.
Disclaimers like this can give a legal department the upper hand in cases like this
A few simple examples:
- There is a person I know who didn’t renew the contract of one of their reports. Pretty straightforward thing. The person whose contract was not renewed has been contesting this legally for over 10 years. The outcome is guaranteed to go against the person complaining, but they have time and money, so they tax the legal team of their former employer.
- There is a mid-sized organization that had a small legal team that had its plate full with regular business stuff. Despite settlements having NDAs, word got out that fairly light claims of sexual harassment and/or EEO complaints would yield relatively easy five-figure payments. Those complaints exploded, and some of the complaints were comical. For example, one manager represented a stance for the department to the C-suite that was 180 degrees opposite of what the group of three managers had agreed to prior. Lots of political capital and lots of time had to be used to clean up that mess. That person’s manager was accused of sex discrimination and age discrimination simply for asking the person why they did that (in a professional way, I might add). That person got a settlement, moved to a different department, and was effectively protected from administrative actions due to it being considered retaliation.
There may be credible journalists at some major print newspapers, but I don’t think there are many people who actually believe that any major US-based journalism outlet defaults to credible any more.
The MAGA base does not care about the international reputation of the US. They lean heavily towards isolationism (irrationally, imho).
This is very much untrue in terms of being a soldier in a high-functioning military.
Technically, you’re not wrong (at least for lighter weapons). That said, there are many more physically demanding things that are involved in doing infantry things (which is what you’re describing) other than running and pulling a trigger (and ideally hitting the target).
> or do all those technical jobs.
Depends on the job, but much more likely.
The vast majority of the jobs in the military are not infantry or infantry-type jobs, so I can see a lot more scope for drafted women who aren’t cut out for infantry doing these things.
Could you please explain the how and why of the mechanics of this process (edit: from the perspective of the lender)?
It seems like the lender is taking a massive sucker bet.
Or is the reality that the lender gets repaid the vast majority of the time, and we only hear about the bad outcomes?
I will go out on a limb and suggest that they are probably happy that you’ve self-selected out of the process.
I’m not saying your expectations are unreasonable, but you have higher expectations than most consumers, and that ultimately becomes a pain in their ass.
Obviously request a reasonable accommodation and sue if you don’t get it.
/s
Data does not support your sense.
Most students do not have good time management skills, usually because they have no models and/or have not been taught these skills.
Furthermore, continuous feedback, whether graded or not, has been found to be more effective than one-shot feedback.
Evaluation and assessment is a complex topic towards which many people (not necessarily you) want to take an overly simplified approach.
There are trade offs for any system that is chosen. The organizations providing the grades have to decide what their priorities are (e.g., time, accuracy, etc.).
Only rubes think this.
The formal education at most elite universities trends towards quite bad, with a few exceptional classes.
The access to resources (academic, social, professional, etc.) at universities is phenomenal, but this only matters if the student uses those resources (most don’t).
Elite colleges typically have a great education, but they are usually just as expensive as elite universities, but with much less prestige — they are only “worth it” (if you’re looking for value) as a stepping stone to something else.
> This obviously doesn't make sense from an educational perspective. If education is good for you, why make it unaffordable and out of reach?
If someone chooses to go to an elite school while not understanding the value prop (or lack thereof), that’s on the applicant rather than the school.
> Low cost colleges are supposedly inferior and not everyone gets to become "an educated well rounded individual".
Low cost colleges serve an important function, and imho it’s just as easy to be “an educated well rounded individual” at one of these schools. They may not be as prestigious, but the value of most average or better universities and colleges is largely based on the efforts made by any given student (which trends towards being very low effort).
Sort of.
1. It’s a place where capital can make friends with capable people who will be willing to work for them later.
2. It gives the smart and ambitious “commoners” enough exposure to elite social circles such that they can learn and adapt some/most of the social standards (if they choose to do so, which most don’t). This is important, as all the brains in the world won’t do you much good if you don’t fit in, especially when it comes to the bigger money positions.
3. The social shibboleths between the two groups are very real, and it usually takes less than 5 minutes hanging around someone to know which group they are in. There can be some false signals about being higher status, but those are hard to sustain for very long.
Note that many “commoners” who go to elite schools end up hitting a glass ceiling in their 30s or so due to focusing on being smart and a skill person rather than being a socially savvy person. The social people will be able to make it rain later in life, and the skill people just get shifted around as needed.
This is a great narrative for folks who want to be fatalistic.
From my view:
- Much of what you call “nobles” and “commoners” are more about values than blood. Yes, “noble” values are difficult to develop if you’re not born in that class. That said, these values are easier to learn and develop today for a wider group of people than has ever been true in the past.
- Some people think the “noble” side is all rainbows and unicorns. The noble class is shedding its weak non-stop. It may take a generation or two before a branch of a noble family becomes common, but it happens often, and it’s a source of great consternation to that branch when it does.
> What’s sophisticated are the layers of ideology and falsehood that made people believe that aristocracy was dead.
Did anyone actually think the aristocracy was dead?
The relative power of the aristocracy dipped a bit mid-20th century, but what they may have temporarily lost in economic power was gained in social and political power.