elcritch

This is annoying. Similar with "context poisoning". LLMs can be highly productive... until they're "poisoned" with contradicting inputs / guidance.

I read this a lot, do you have examples of this? Last year the code produced by LLMs was pretty sloppy, but recent SOTA models seems pretty good to me. I'm curious if I'm missing something or it's folks using different models or difficulty levels.

Terrance Tao is GOATed.

That’s what I got from reading about a third of that exchange.

I mean that’s clear from reading anything about the dude, but to _experience_ it so to speak is different.

A true mark of brilliance is someone who makes something difficult seem easy by framing it just right.

In this instance ChaGPT is just expanding upon his prompts. Not to diminish, it’s amazing what it’s capable of.

No, it's more like you're being overly literal. As a field the technology is developing. Just like people might say "in the 60's integrated circuits developed quickly".

The parent wasn't referring to individual LLMs developing, but that overall new SOTA LLMs models are increasing in capabilities in ways similar to how human children do.

Rather the difference of cost of Claude is pretty incredible. Then again, I guess they gotta make it rain while they can.

Yes, but Parrots don't mimic the stages of learning speech development like children do. They just memorize a phrase.

These SOTA LLMs aren't trying to mimic existing children's drawings, but interestingly they're following somewhat similar progression that human children do as they develop.

Nim gives me similar performance to C++ in generally half the LOC.

For example I had Codex port Kiwi Cassowary C++ to Nim: https://github.com/elcritch/kiwiberry

Interesting, at first I though you mean the active red-light therapy things. I've seen that a lot on Instagram.

Might have to try that myself. Do you still use your phone/tablet/etc or does it also encourage you to use them less?

Good points, if I am careful about caffeine and do all of that it's not unmanageable. Being outdoors and camping and getting good physical activity is the best I found. But it's a struggle for me.

> Also have the same experience fighting depression-like symptoms and anxiety. It just takes a lot of time and is difficult. Some people just don't have these problems and I do but this doesn't mean I am genetically attuned to be like this and I can't do anything. It is just difficult.

Should I mention that "neurodivergence" and different sleep pattern genes have a large co-morbidity? E.g. many people with anxiety / ADHD / dyslexia / depression / etc have a very high likelihood of having delayed sleep or other genes.

Well that sucks, given I have a gene variant related to delayed sleep according to 23andme.

Last year I did an experiment of sorts while unemployed for a time and found that if I just slept and woke when tired that my sleep time would naturally recess and eventually "flip" after about a month.

My entire life I've wondered why I feel incredibly tired and found waking up so difficult. Turns out that if you follow your bodies dominant sleep cycle it's a synch to wake up. Unfortunately, it doesn't work with modern life very well.

We have plenty of solutions for spent fuel storage as well as recycling fuel now. We just have NIMBY folks who protest it because they’re scared of “nuclear”.

It's additionally not clear that TFA is a copy of the Climate Casino (CC) post.

It's on the same topic, possibly spurred by the CC. Yes it uses the same graph (which I presume CC also didn't make), but otherwise the content and writing is very different. It's less detailed, possibly LLM written, but also more approachable.

I guess re-posting about a salient topic is now just "AI copyright theft".

Not with modern fail-safe designs.

The data centers are spurring new investment and building of nuclear power plants, which are going to be critical infrastructure for any stable and reliable carbon neutral power generation future, IMHO.

The underground roundabout is cool, but that art work sits somewhere between "meh" and slightly disturbing.

Yeah it's sorta of fascinating. Likewise now cells phones are faster than supercomputers from two decades ago and everyone can afford one. Meanwhile hardwood furniture is much more expensive now that it's usually in the "rich peoples" category.

From what I've read, the little plastic baubles part of buttons are cheap, it's the electrical wiring harnesses and assembly that are expensive part of physical controls.

Better robotic weeding drones using lasers or spray guns to kill weeds. We can still get high yields and cut back on weed killers and possibly pesticides if they can do pests too.

Great info, and seems less likely cash grab than some.

Still a scam can include other "deceptive schemes" – maybe he's just trying to get fame or plain old attention.

I meant rebuild civilization for myself, say lost in Alaska or something. Though maybe there's a market for tablets with all the youtube survivalist, building, and technology re-creation out there. ;)

With Starlink, a smartphone, and a solar charger I’d have access to enough YouTube videos to rebuild civilization. Literally.

There’s enough to go from building any type of housing to building your own steel forge. It’s amazing.

My generation would prepare in advance for outing. We’d print the route from MapQuest. ;)

Starlink is manufacturing the satellites at scale. They’re likely to cost not much differently from large ground based 5G towers at some point. The antennas are “digital” so no expensive mechanical systems needed.

> But the material is the same, and this notion that somehow, today's boys and young men are worse for this exposure than their predecessors is insidious and deeply ignorant.

No what's ignorant is ignoring the prevalence and nature of modern online pornography. Hopefully you realize that having the worst of what previous generations might've been exposed occassionally to by copying grainy VHS videos is literally a few clicks away now.

Much like social media it's pushed constantly onto them (well all us men). It's a giant predatory industry with a very addictive product.

It's not a reputation thing because it's about how destructive it is to society as a whole to both men and women. It's a very different sort of destructive behavior than previous generations might've had.

> hugely unjust to the overwhelming majority of young men who flinch from the idea of hurting a woman in bed or out of it

There's lots of great young guys out there. How about we not regress due by allowing new rampant destructive influences. That's my perspective.

We're seeing huge upticks in "incels" and "red-pilled" young men now. IMHO that's largely influenced by pervasive (mysoginist) pornography.

Even then, apparently young women don't agree with you as recent polls show young women don't view men favorably anymore [1]. So apparently something, or many things, are going wrong.

1: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/women-men-fe...

Well true, that's possible. The sensors and compute are relatively expensive and tractors are already highly automated. Plus a small tractor can be relatively inexpensive and optimized for the mechanics of the task!

I'm thinking more of the small tasks that are often needed. Mending fences. Pulling weeds. Feeding chickens. Running off coyotes. Lots of things.

Mock it we might now, but 12 acres and (not too distant future) open weights AI models capable of driving open source robots for farm labor would be huge.

No need for huge expensive purpose built tractors. Even if they’re slow you could have half a dozen running 24/7.

It could provide independence for anyone with a modicum of resources.

Perhaps try reading the report linked in the third paragraph of the news article?

It's at: https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/resource/pornograph...

To quote from that report:

A literature review of 19 academic papers, drawing on multiple methodologies since 2005, conducted by the Government Equalities Office (GEO) to assess the relationship between pornography exposure and negative behaviours towards women and girls found that pornography use had a statistically significant association with attitudes supporting violence against women (with violent pornography showing an even stronger association). [44] A meta-analysis of 9 studies found a significant association between pornography use among adult men and attitudes supporting violence against women, such as ‘rape myth acceptance’. [45] The association was found to be significantly stronger for violent pornography than non-violent pornography. Other studies involving young adults, including Peter and Valkenburg (2009) [46] and Hald et al. (2013), [47] have found that past pornography exposure among young males is significantly associated with less egalitarian and more aggressive attitudes towards women. This is particularly worrying when young people are being exposed to pornography.

I don't think it's a "reputation" issue, more of a what they're being exposed to and what it's normalizing. From studies I've seen it's a significant percentage (from a random Google search [1]):

The review talked to young people aged 13 to 19 and surveyed 1,000 young people aged 16 to 21. Over 6 in 10 (64%) said they had seen online pornography. Of these:

    1 in 10 (10%) of nine-year-olds had seen pornography
    3 in 10 (27%) of children had seen pornography by age 11
    Half (50%) of children had seen it by age 13
    4 in 5 (79%) had seen violent pornography before the age of 18, with the report stating “young people are frequently exposed to violent pornography, depicting coercive, degrading or pain-inducing sex acts”.

1: https://www.fpa.org.uk/rshe-for-teachers/uk-online-child-sex...

Practically speaking there's not much difference since there's a large amount of violent or extreme pornography which also teaches boys that directly or indirectly. It also teaches girls that it's "ok" cause they see it online.

There's many studies and organizations who publish warnings about violent pornography and young adults:

Dr Ruth Weir of City St George's, University of London, said extreme porn had been "normalised online" and was now "playing out in young people's relationships". [1]

1: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8e82pwyg33o

How is that different than pervasive pornography though? Many young boys now think it’s normal to ask girls for sexual acts before having ever kissed a girl.

Not really, it was based on the belief of the ability and dignity of the individual.

My mind goes more to the Cultural Revolution in China where millions were killed or starved because a bunch of college students decided that the enemies were the “five black categories” who were enemies of “the people”.