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ctrl-alt-zen

1 karma · joined November 5, 2016

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ctrl-alt-zen··on Vibecoding isn't as fun as writing code by hand
“Most likely better” is carrying a lot here. Risk matters to my customers and having a 1% chance of erasing a production DB or inserting a typo squatting malicious dependency that exfiltrates and enables ransomware is not acceptable for those customers. They don’t care how you built it, but they do care that you know how it’s really built which is antithetical to vibe coding. Vibe coders can be very smart, but they are in “trust, don’t verify” mode.
ctrl-alt-zen··on Meta's Muse Is an Adorable Privacy and Security Dumpster Fire
I see a lot of validity in your reply, but I think there is still nuance in how these priorities are expressed. How would you compare this issue to the Flock backlash, for example?
ctrl-alt-zen··on 'Stunning' percolation proof solves decades-old puzzle about phase transitions
No, I don’t think NewJazz misread you at all. I find the response appropriate and agree with it. Perhaps you weren’t as clear as you intended to be?
ctrl-alt-zen··on 'Stunning' percolation proof solves decades-old puzzle about phase transitions
You condemn rose-tinted glasses and romanticism, yet write the following fact-free love letter:

“LLMs over the next century (probably in China given the retrograde impulses dominating both sides of the political aisle in the US) will likely assist (if not autonomously) solve cancer and other diseases, invent new alloys and forms for manufacturing, automate away all labor (including most if not all military service), travel farther into our universe than any human ever plausibly could, and other breakthroughs.”

Do you have a response to the threat of cognitive surrender and cognitive debt as a second order effect from heavy LLM use and how that could undermine humanity’s ability to steer these correlation engines toward your preferred hypothetical outcomes without AGI?

ctrl-alt-zen··on To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks
Congratulations, you just discovered moral relativism why even bother if __bad thing__ exists? Why shouldn’t I sell opiates when doctors can prescribe oxycontin and fentanyl? Throwawaytwice won’t care about hurting me and mine with their choices, why not preemptively strike throwawaytwice? Where’s the bottom?
ctrl-alt-zen··on What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard
I think you’re a great grandparent and gave my son the same thing at 10 plus encouraged my daughter to practice knife skills whenever she can with appropriately sized blades and powerful shears. I can’t imagine nerfing the world for kids that age and then expecting them to learn how to gauge risk appropriately a few years later when they start driving and taking on major decisions. I do understand keeping the knives out of school, but that seems like a simple oversight that should have no police involved unless actual danger occurred.
ctrl-alt-zen··on Using AI to write better code more slowly
Yeah, agreed. “Cognitive surrender” is one way of describing that loss of personal faculty. I don’t think AI proponents are acknowledging second order effects of letting your mind interact less and less while requesting more and more complexity built for you without adequate verification.
ctrl-alt-zen··on Alberta to hold referendum on whether to remain in Canada
Thank you for a factually and legally grounded take on this. Lots of comments seem to think this has zero precedent or applicable legislation and just want to make it up as they go, much like the poorly informed and inarticulate separatists here in Alberta.
ctrl-alt-zen··on Alberta to hold referendum on whether to remain in Canada
By glossing over all the details as “surmountable” you are illustrating how easy it is to ignore critical complexity. Debt includes concepts like “what does independent Alberta actually own or have to go into debt to purchase if major assets within its borders are literally Canadian federal property or connected to existing treaty rights?” This answer makes or breaks the entire proposal and does not have an easy or obvious solution.