dinfinity

> But how can you not love Costco?

I got my law degree there!

I like money.

> AI improving itself

This is the thing to look for in 2027, imho. All the big AI labs have big projects working on research agents, also specifically into improving AI (duh) and I expect a lot of that to get out of the experimental phases this year.

Next year they actually get to do a lot of work and I think we will see the first big effective architectural change co-invented by AI.

> It takes five minutes to just stop being depressed, it takes 5 minutes to just stop being addicted

Would you place all the responsibility of drug addiction on drug dealers?

Yes, their practices are predatory, but it is essential to remind the addicts that ultimately change comes from within themselves. They need to change something.

> Our bodies use drastically less power too.

To be fair, we compute a lot slower too. No way in hell are you (or I) able to produce 'tokens' at the same speed as current models.

It'd be interesting to see an actual comparison of humans and AI performing the same (cognitive) task and measuring the amount of energy that was used.

> If anything, I'm incredibly hopeful for newer generations. They'll probably mostly be fine, like most of us were.

The current state of the world begs to differ with "most of us being mostly fine". Critical thinking skills and the ability to make wise decisions among the various electorates seem to be in a incredibly shitty state.

Anecdotally, Gen Z-ers as a whole are definitely not better at this; they're easily swayed by flashy memes, TikToks and other forms of disinformation. Where younger people used to have a more society minded, leftist lean (before ultimately becoming jaded), they more than ever side with right wing populists from a young age. Not all of them, but a much larger chunk than before.

Another important angle is that the ire of the public falls specifically on people. Google is stepping on the gas just as hard as the other AI companies, but they don't have an uncharismatic CEO drawing in tons of hatred and scrutiny.

We live in an age where influential companies with notable figureheads are seen as evil incarnate and influential companies without notable figureheads as, well, you know, the same old same old greedy companies. It just so happens that the most influential AI companies have notable figureheads, so almost everybody fucking hates them and thinks they're up to no good (whatever they do). Truth is that for most of those companies, taking away the influence of their hated CEO and doing away with their ramblings will change absolutely nothing about how that company operates.

"Demand is surging due in large part to data centers dedicated to artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, and as homes and businesses use more electricity and less fossil fuels for heat and transportation."

It would be informative to know what the 'AI' part of it is, because now it just seems like engagement bait.

Your reply leans on the observation that there are still small shops in the HVAC market specifically and that there are still markets without full consolidation.

Yes, there is a difference in markets and yes, the height of the barrier of entry makes a big difference in how fast consolidation happens. Yes, regulation can heighten the barrier of entry (but also lower, although less common).

You see instances, moments in time, and conclude that the systems don't evolve in a certain direction. I say that 'Big HVAC' will in the future outcompete all the small shops; that it hasn't happened yet says nothing. You said "a smart technician can buy a van, print some flyers, and steal their customers", but this is only true if they can do so more cost-effectively. Your example leans on the consolidated company doing their job terribly, rather than more efficiently than the small shops. It is true that a low barrier of entry reduces the leeway such a consolidated company has in treating their customers badly, but it is not a guarantee. People regularly do choose the big boys over smaller outfits for a variety of reasons (liability, chance of warranty, etc.).

> By your logic, the world would have stopped at Sears, Blockbuster, and IBM. Yet, the first two aren't even a thing in 2026 and I don't want to comment on the IBM of 2026.

You're naming companies in industries that have become even more consolidated than when those companies were the behemoths. Don't you see that "some big player existing" isn't a stable end state? I never said that being big guarantees survival. Big fish can be eaten by even bigger fish. Yes, there can be disruptors, but they very quickly gobble up the entirety of the previous players to become an even bigger player. It's about market share distribution as a whole. Companies simply have a constant incentive to cooperate, merge, and consolidate to extract higher profits from customers. That never goes away by itself. That is not immoral, but it is amoral. They are behaving rationally and in their self-interest.

Think about what price-fixing, cartels and generally 'market-distortion' is. It is nothing more than cooperation for mutual benefit between companies, which is why it keeps happening over and over and over and over again. It sucks for the customers and society, but for the companies it is fully rational.

You need to seriously think about what happens if all government regulation goes away. Don't handwave it. Really think about it. And I don't mean "they'll dump toxic waste on manatees to raise profits" (they will, but that is not the point). I specifically mean anti-trust regulation and regulation that impacts the barriers of entry to markets. Think about the evolution of players in the markets and what they would do to become fitter (increase profits). Do you really, really don't see consolidation happening? You talk about Silicon Valley as being untouched, but we've had years of the main startup strategy being to work towards being bought by one of the deep-pocketed tech giants. Consolidation was the explicit goal.

I guess the best way out of this would be to have a data driven visualization of the distribution of market share among producers and its evolution through time, to see to what extent such consolidation actually happens. Somebody should vibecode that. Maybe using a frontier AI model made by a local mom and pop shop (zero barrier of entry from government regulation there! :-P).

Always the same nonsense. Simple question: do you think in a fully free market, without any governement intervention, those mom and pop shops would not be bought up or merge?

The truth is that consolidation is an attractor. If it hasn't happened yet in a market, it will. Economies of scale give an undisputed advantage. If there is anything I'm upset about, it is about deluding people by vilifying the only thing that prevents feudalism (and massive abuse of humanity for profit) from happening.

> That has always been the beauty of free markets - it's self healing and calibrating. You don't need a big powerful overseer to ensure things are right.

If by "self healing and calibrating" you mean 'evolve to a monopoly and strongarm everybody to do exactly what you want whilst removing all pressure on the quality of your product', then yes, that is the "beauty" of free markets.

That is the stable state of free markets. Antitrust regulation and enforcement only barely manages to eke out oligopolies and even then they are often rife with collusion and enshittification.

Bigger UUVs, also called LUUV and XLUUVs.

> Are you oblivious to the fact that cruise missiles can loiter?

At which point we more commonly call them drones or loitering munition. Even using a broad definition, 95% of what technically could fall under cruise missiles is of the traditional non-loitering kind. Same goes for torpedoes.

> Longer ranger UUVs is equivalent to "even bigger torpedoes".

The term UUV covers an enormously diverse set of devices, from fullblown autonomous nuclear subs to tiny industrial inspection drones.

Narrow-mindedly handwaving new technology into bins you're already familiar with and approaching them as such is exactly the type of cognitive failure that lies at the basis of the phrase "generals are always fighting the last war".

Since you are being willfully ignorant, haven't properly addressed the answers I gave you and are throwing out ad hominems I will not spend any more time on you.

> A drone of this type and a cruise missile are literally the same type of thing, they just occupy different points on the capability spectrum.

You have a "this type" in your mind. I do not. Even then you're wrong. A drone can loiter and is thus not "literally the same type of thing" as a cruise missile or torpedo.

> What is this hypothetical property of a UUV that is superior to a torpedo? [...] It still has to cross some long span of water with enough speed and a large enough warhead and a guidance package capable of finding the target.

The huge advantage of drones (besides relatively low cost) is not how they cover the distance, but their flexibility in getting to the target, striking with high precision. An underwater drone can technically even circle the target before striking it at its weakest point (although this isn't going to work well if the target is at full speed).

> What kind of vessel are you going to use to bring these UUV within range of the target?

Bigger UUVs. Note that 'within range of the target' is also much higher for UUVs versus torpedoes, easily 160km for UUVs. Note that ambushes with these UUVs may also be an option, if they can loiter or just lie on the sea floor.

That's like equating a cruise missile with an aerial drone (which is nonsensical).

Now I'm not saying defense against UUVs is impossible, but plenty of defenses against torpedoes don't work against them.

Note also that part of the approach of drone warfare is sheer quantity. Stopping 1 may be trivial, stopping 5 may be doable, but stopping 20 simultaneous ones might already be too hard to do consistently and repeatedly.

> The base scenario in recent war games

January 2023. Specifically focused on an invasion of Taiwan. And the analysis report hardly mentions drones. Not saying it isn't useful info, but it is in essence not much more than an educated (but outdated) guess. Using terms like "showed that" is thus highly unwarranted.

> Those are substantial losses but assuming all the losses were f35(they were not) even at current non wartime production rates the United States could replace that in a few years time.

You make that sound as if it is not that much, even though the losses (were theorized to have) occurred within a matter of weeks. If anything, it strengthens the point that F-35 production is going to be inadequate in a longer-lasting conflict.

You do realize that underwater drones exist and have been successfully used against Russian ships, right?

That's a non-answer. You're comparing it within its category when the point of contention is specifically and explicitly that its production can't match that of drones etc. In a broader sense the entire category of manned fighter jets can't scale to keep up with drone production.

Ukraine produces thousands of drones a day, including interceptor drones.

A valid question is how the investment in drone warfare is best balanced with that in traditional warfare, but that is besides the point of the difference in scaling production.

> No one is fire-bombing cities yet

That was mainly the Americans, British, and the Germans, not the USSR.

Also, what makes you think they could in this war? Do you think they can send bombers over Ukranian cities and drop a shitton of ordnance?

The Russians aren't deploying nukes; that is the only actual 'restraint' to date.

> the f35 can be built at scale

Really? Can you indicate how many can be produced yearly?

> I have no idea but the article didn't really make any convincing arguments about it.

It did.

It pointed out that the bases from which the F-35s would have to operate in a war with China would be very vulnerable:

"The concentration of high-value equipment and personnel at each operating location makes the F-35’s basing problem qualitatively different from that of simpler aircraft. The loss is not just one jet but the capacity to generate sorties from that site."

It pointed out that you can't produce F-35s at scale, which fucks you in the long run:

"At over eighty million dollars per airframe, with Lockheed Martin delivering fewer than two hundred aircraft per year across all variants and all customers worldwide, there is no surge capacity waiting to be activated and no precedent for accelerating a program of this complexity on wartime timelines. When one side can produce weapons by the hundreds and thousands — missiles, loitering munitions, and one-way attack drones — while the other relies on small numbers of exquisite platforms, the advantage shifts toward the side with scale."

The key message of the article is simply this (which should not be "weird" to anyone):

"The corrective is not to abandon the F-35 but to redefine its role. A smaller fleet should be reserved for the missions that truly require its unique capabilities — penetrating advanced air defenses, gathering intelligence in contested environments, and orchestrating distributed networks of unmanned systems. The marginal procurement dollar should shift toward platforms that are cheaper to build, easier to replace, less dependent on vulnerable forward infrastructure, and expendable in ways that manned fighters are not."

> I am sure people will take issue with this comment but look at the relative restraint of Russia in Ukraine [...] vs, say, WWII.

They have been bombing civilian infrastructure, abducting children, torturing and executing civilians and POWs, executing deserters or wannabe deserters the entire fucking Ukraine war. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_the_Russo-Ukrain...

Restraint, my unbleached asshole.

You largely ignored what I said and displayed exactly the fallacious behavior I was pointing out. Again, Y2K was not a problem because people 'freaked out' (took the problem seriously). Similarly, AI will only not be a problem due to people that spend time and effort to mitigate its issues, not due to people like you pretending that because nothing went seriously wrong in the past, nothing automatically will this time (because you "just don't see the basis for it").

> I try to not be fatalistic. As I was trying to argue, it's historically inaccurate and it doesn't actually change the outcome.

This is false. Being fatalistic and 'panicking' can definitely influence and thus change the outcome. Your logic is similar to what is (incorrectly) used to dismiss the Y2K-problem, for instance: Looking back it seems like there was no need to panic, but that is only because a lot of people recognized the urgency, worked their ass off and succeeded in preventing shit from going horribly wrong.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preparedness_paradox

Your handwaving is doing harm by lulling people into a false sense of security. Your initial comment amounts to "Ah, it'll be fine, don't worry about it. We'll adapt, we always have.", even though you provide absolutely no arguments specific to this enormous force of insanely rapid change in an already incredibly unstable fragile world. We might adapt, but it will require serious thought rather than handwaving and leaning back; even then it might come with massive societal upheaval and a lot of suffering.

I agree, but that was not the point of contention.

I did not downvote you. I argued why your model of what the future will look like is wrong. That point still stands.

We are the horses, though.

At some point those became almost fully obsolete in a productive economical sense (they're just fancy toys now, basically). No 'raising the ambition' is ever going to change that. They are what they are and they can do what they can do.

I don't know about you, but if the something in "we'll find something to do" is becoming a toy for AI or very rich people, I'm not exactly hopeful about the future.

Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.

Your logic equates to "there will always be jobs for humans to do", which is naive. Remember that we're counting down in the number of things we do better than inorganic stuff. At some point our bodies (admittedly impressive when compared to other animals) will be surpassed in enough aspects that there isn't anything where we can provide enough value to live off.

> If you think being a guide dog doesn't require intelligence, you're delusional.

I see you dropped "sniffing out drugs" as a task requiring intelligence, that's a start.

> It can use it's innate intelligence to sense danger

So sensing danger requires intelligence? Bacteria can sense danger.

> navigate around obstacles it's never seen before

Not intelligence, but dexterity. Only if it has to solve a puzzle does intelligence come into play. And dogs suck ass at solving puzzles. Some birds are somewhat decent at it, but still very far removed from what an LLM can do.

> communicate with other humans through barking

Yeah, Timmy fell down a well, right? Perfect example of 'intelligence' and something you'd prefer a dog over an LLM /s

> I can't tell if you're trolling at this point. Llms are also trained and therefore are based on repetition and conditioning.

That is a fair point, but remember that your training examples were "sniffing for drugs" and "being a guide dog", both of which are very much in-distribution training (guide dogs only do a very specific very small set of things and require a lot of training to even be able to do those).

But for the sake of argument, let's say that there are some tasks requiring intelligence where you would prefer a dog over an LLM. Answer me this: Roughly what percentage of distinct tasks requiring intelligence would you prefer to have a dog over an LLM? For each task, imagine that failure to complete the task will cause serious harm to your loved ones, so the stakes are high.

Sniffing for illegal drugs requires wit? Right.

And 'trained' clearly means it is not something based in intelligence, but in repetition and conditioning.

Answer the actual question.

So are animals trivially executing a complex program or are they 'analyzing' a complex problem?

LLMs can (more often) successfully find solutions for far more complex problems than animals can. So where does that leave us?

Complexity does not require intelligence. Modern computers (even without AI) and technological systems do incredibly complex things and I'm quite sure you would not call those systems (again, without AI) intelligent.