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fumblebee

1,313 karma · joined October 15, 2020

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fumblebee··on GPT-4
> Just a few weeks ago they released a tool to "detect" ChatGPT. Obsolete already?

I've seen so much hype around these tools. Not only are they theoretically unsound, they're downright dangerous and equip folks with spurious confidence. Going forward, the default assumption should be that the content you're looking at is fake unless you have sufficiently high trust in the source.

fumblebee··on More than $70B wiped off crypto market in 24 hours as BTC drops 8% below $20K
Local transfers in many jurisdictions are instant or near instant [1]. UK based FPS is just one of many.

International transfers are certainly not instant - Wise originally innovated a cheaper and faster solution to this problem, but that crown is fast vanishing as rivals heat up their offerings (Atlantic Money, Revolut, amongst others).

BTC is a valid alternative to these options. My real gripe is the on/off-ramp between FIAT and crypto. That's where the fees are in my experience.

[1] https://www.gbm.hsbc.com/-/media/gbm/insights/images/scheme-...

fumblebee··on Visual ChatGPT
This feels different.

In the case of recommendation systems, the unconscious consumer is wholly unaware of the witchcraft occurring on the backend.

OpenAI's ChatGPT, Midjourney, HuggingFace, and their kin, are commoditising a technology that was historically resigned to hidden artefacts, whose input was limited to system calls, not user calls.

fumblebee··on Stripe faces $3.5B tax bill as employees' shares expire
I'm curious, why even have the 10 year expiry cutoff? Is there a regulatory ask that this be the case, or is there logic I'm not seeing?

Hindsight is ofc 20/20, those contracts have long since been set in stone, but I can't help but think Stripe (and maybe other future companies) could have saved themselves a $6bn headache by not having the expiry in the first place.

fumblebee··on How Britain ceased to be a computing superpower
https://archive.ph/mu0pK
fumblebee··on You just gotta tell a good story
This writing style was popularised on LinkedIn, and has the unaffectionate nickname "broetry". A quick search serves up this definition:

> Broety is a style of writing, often popular on LinkedIn, that uses line breaks after every sentence to create long posts that tend to drive high views and engagement. These “broems” usually follow a standard formula: A clickbait-style “hook.” Followed by a somewhat unrealistic conversation.

fumblebee··on What Is Anglish?
This reminds me of London slang, or what I now know is called "Multicultural London English"[1], which I was introduced to when I moved to London. A friend asked me:

> "Ey, wagwan fam, bare man gwarn dis flick, whatchu sayin'?"

Translated, this means:

> "Hey, how are you? Some folks are headed to the cinema. Would you like to join?"

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multicultural_London_English

fumblebee··on North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year
When you see an economist.com submission on HN, typically the top comment is a morally dubious but ever so helpful archive link to get around the paywall.

In this case: https://archive.ph/SUYp1

fumblebee··on Why China Didn’t Invent ChatGPT
Maybe also - though cause/effect is hard to tease out - the rise of English as the dominant language in scientific and academic communication played a part here (surely buoyed by US global standing and the destruction of Europe during the war(s)). Some interesting factoids:

> This graph showing the number and percentage of research papers published in English / Non-English [1]

> Newton’s Principia Mathematica was written in Latin; Einstein’s first influential papers were written in German; Marie Curie’s work was published in French. Yet today, most scientific research around the world is published in a single language, English. [2]

> Since the middle of the last century, things have shifted in the global scientific community. English is now so prevalent that in some non-English speaking countries, like Germany, France, and Spain, English-language academic papers outnumber publications in the country’s own language several times over. In the Netherlands, one of the more extreme examples, this ratio is an astonishing 40 to 1. [2]

[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/4c61e2a0-f5fe-4851... [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/08/english-...

fumblebee··on U.S. food additives banned in Europe
If, in this context, we're defining crazy as disturbing and unpalatable, then I struggle to see how "Food manufacturers are a powerful lobbying group and additives make a significant difference to profitability" _isn't_ crazy. The statement is factually accurate, but wow-oh-how messed up is it that by means of lobbying, they have the power to harm consumers to increase profits. (And no, I know this phenomenon is not limited to the food lobby)
fumblebee··on WHO: No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health
I'm sure many folks here will be familiar with Andrew Huberman. If not, I highly recommend listing to his podcast, The Huberman Lab Podcast. Relevant to this discussion is his brilliant episode on alcohol [1]: "What Alcohol Does to Your Body, Brain & Health". Boy, was this episode a life-changing listen for me. The conclusion is the same as the linked study, that no level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health.

[1] https://hubermanlab.com/what-alcohol-does-to-your-body-brain...

fumblebee··on PayPal to lay off 7% of its workforce, about 2,000 employees
I stand corrected!
fumblebee··on PayPal to lay off 7% of its workforce, about 2,000 employees
To be clear, PayPal is not a bank. But they will absolutely perform everything you mentioned here, and I agree with your assessment.
fumblebee··on How Russia dodges oil sanctions on an industrial scale
https://web.archive.org/web/20230130015330/https://www.econo...
fumblebee··on Ask HN: What are those strategic skills to master for the next 5, 10 years?
From the perspective that “AI will eat everything”, Tyler Cohen suggests that this will weed out the mediocre creatives (developers, artists, musicians, whatever). Put another way:

> The returns to factual knowledge are falling, continuing a trend that started with databases, search engines and Wikipedia. It is no longer so profitable to be a lawyer who knows a large amount of accumulated case law. Instead, the skills of synthesis and persuasion are more critical for success.[1]

As well as being simple “exceptional”, returns to being extroverted in the workplace will increase. Those who can show they’re distinguishable from bots will prosper.

Tl;dr: focus on interpersonal skills and persuasion.

[1] https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/12/wh...

fumblebee··on Mobile phone fraud: 'They stole £22,500 using my banking app’
Hm, I have Revolut and they do have a web app, though they are certainly mobile-first, but not mobile-only.

In any case, this is a nice strategy to hedge.

fumblebee··on Mobile phone fraud: 'They stole £22,500 using my banking app’
From the article, it suggests that the thieves “shoulder surf” the victims until they see them type in their device pin, then after pickpocketing either use that same pin for the app, or search through notes for sensitive passwords and the like.

> I should congratulate the thieves on accessing his Barclays account though. I was a customer of Barclays for many years but simply got fed up of constant technical errors preventing me from accessing my own funds.

This is certainly one way to keep your money safe! Bravo, Barclays

fumblebee··on Mobile phone fraud: 'They stole £22,500 using my banking app’
Do people here consciously think about this sort of fraud, and how do you secure yourself against it? (e.g. biometric locks on email accounts and notes?)
fumblebee··on If you find this world bad, you should see some of the others (1977) [pdf]
Off topic, but the first illustration in the post is by Robert Crumb; for anyone who hasn't seen the documentary on him, titled "Crumb"[1], you're missing out!

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109508/

fumblebee··on ChatGPT Is at the Peak of the Hype Cycle
If you were to take a handful of trending tech from the past decade, and plot peak hype against utility, I'd wager ChatGPT and related technologies would rank pretty favourably. Crypto and VR have gone through similar hype cycles but the utility falls short.

ChatGPT has it's shortcomings, but I've found myself returning to it over and over again. Then consider what this technology will look like in a few years time and the conclusion is that, imo, the hype is justified.

fumblebee··on My Rattling Window
My plan for peaceful slumber was thwarted just last week when the old sash window above my bed rattled intermittently throughout the night. Too knackered to get up and fix it, too conscious to sleep soundly. I woke up early and exhausted, and jammed a wedge in the window gap as soon as I had the energy. The next night I slept like a baby.
fumblebee··on OpenAI starts testing ChatGPT premium
> Wordsmithing is annoying and not really productive work

True in the context of sitting at a desk and writing. But during a quickfire conversation, I find it incredibly satisfying talking to someone who crafts vivid imagery and uses wicked turns of phrase. I wonder how much LLMs like ChatGPT et al will help or hinder our ability to wordsmith in realtime. Will there be a measurable "ChatGPT" effect on literacy skills in 20 years time, I wonder.

fumblebee··on How to Write English Prose
> "There are few if any passages in the works of Sir Thomas Browne that I do not find thoroughly delightful"

The opening sentence is a perfect example of how to write English... if you want it to lack clarity. Double negatives like this leave the reader having to spend time working out the positive meaning of the sentence.

fumblebee··on Europe's largest deposit of rare earth metals discovered in Sweden
How fortunate we are that silicon is so abundant.
fumblebee··on VALL-E: Microsoft’s new zero-shot text-to-speech model
New scam incoming...

> Scammers get hold of someone's voice which is synthesised in ~real-time whilst they're on the phone with that person's mother, asking them to transfer them some emergency funds to a new bank account.

We won't be able to trust digital sound, digital image, digital text, and soon digital video. We need proof of authenticity / proof of authorship / proof of humanity!

fumblebee··on VALL-E: Microsoft’s new zero-shot text-to-speech model
The difference is that nukes and - in most countries - guns are harder to find. Regulation is easier when you have more centralised distribution channels. Code is infinitely replicable at marginal cost, and so highly accessible once it's open source.

While I agree with you that the net effect of such technology will be negative, there's no way regulation can keep up.

fumblebee··on Why a global recession is inevitable in 2023
https://archive.ph/YcqHG
fumblebee··on Pop2Piano: Pop audio-based piano cover generation
Unbelievably cool. Great job.

Tangentially — apologies if this is the wrong thread for this —, I know this is distinct to AI generated music (the melody here is a one-to-one mapping between the input song and output piano), but I’m curious when folks here think when the first totally generated artist will go mainstream with chart hits and millions of “followers”. With both an AI generated avatar and AI generated music. And no, not like Gorillaz who simply had fake cartoon personas.

If you believe the argument floating around that content we consume in the future will be hyper individualised to the point music/tv will be generated just for us, then maybe never. IMO that runs counter to shared idolatry that people seem to crave, seems to me just a matter of time.

fumblebee··on Algorithms to Live By – The Computer Science of Human Decisions
The Alignment Problem was a stand out read for me this year; it should be required reading for anyone training and deploying ML models. Incredibly well researched and chockablock with real world examples.
fumblebee··on SpaceX Pulls Off 3 Orbital Launches in 34 Hours, Smashing Its Record
I don't mean to come across as patronising or holier-than-thou, but regardless of what you think about someone, reductive name calling is antithetical to civil discourse.
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