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kebman

2,398 karma · joined March 5, 2017

Building a startup in the AI / software infrastructure space.

Backend systems, architecture, tooling.

Photography. Singer-songwriter. West Coast Swing.

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kebman··on Royal Navy says quantum navigation test a success
So, here's an anecdote of a sub that miraculously survived a head on collision. What's your point?

From the same article:

“The collision was so serious that the vessel was almost lost; accounts detail a desperate struggle for positive buoyancy to surface after the forward ballast tanks were ruptured.”

I doubt these are problems any submarine crew wants to deal with, even at slow speeds. Besides, one sharp edge at the sides will open her right up like a tin can.

kebman··on Royal Navy says quantum navigation test a success
You're probably surprised that you don't see it, because it's top secret.

Here's an example of something you don't hear about: AI Assisted Battlefield Tactics. While I've never heard of it (certainly not in the press), I simply assume that they're doing research on it. I base this assumption on the AlphaStar AI from DeepMind that would completely pawn Grand Masters in the game of StarCraft 2.

While AlphaStar is obviously designed for a game with very set rules and weights, I don't think it's unfeasible to develop a similar military AI that could also work in the shifting tactics of the modern battlefields.

The result would be comical, as larger armies without such an AI would always lose to someone with that AI, even if their army is much smaller or seemingly technologically disadvantaged. And it would seem that there's at least one such country in such a position today, which is also heavily supported by the NATO.

kebman··on Royal Navy says quantum navigation test a success
A friend of mine got PTSD from piloting huge nuclear subs in subsea ravines with a clearing of only one inch on each side of the sub. One wrong move, and the entire crew is gone. He also had to do this in conditions similar to surface storms. Looks like autonomous or automatic systems may be developed for those kinds of manoeuvres now, if it is truly that precise. Seems like a huge leap in navigational systems.
kebman··on India ruling party's IT cell used AI to show smile on arrested protesters' faces
It's a play on the phrase, ‘You'll own nothing and be happy” [^1]. Looks like it wasn't especially well received.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27ll_own_nothing_and_be_ha...

kebman··on India ruling party's IT cell used AI to show smile on arrested protesters' faces
You will be happy. :)
kebman··on YouTube removed dislike counts, so this guy made Rotten Tomatoes for YouTube
Perhaps they could do as on Stack Overflow, and let a downvote cost one point from your accrued points? Or perhaps that's too much of a re-design. It could regulate spam downvotes though. (I think the biggest problem with SO is that your point pool is visible, with gold and silver and so on, which leads to anyone with a high enough sum being treated differently, although that might actually not reflect competence or expertise.)
kebman··on I’m ChatGPT, and for the love of God please don’t make me do anymore copywriting
I can verify this through personal tests and use. It's quite bad at connecting scientific dots or tying together even simple mathematical logic.
kebman··on I’m ChatGPT, and for the love of God please don’t make me do anymore copywriting
I tried this and it was hilarious!

kebman

Write a caustic paragraph about ChatGPT being fed up being used as a copywriter. The style has to be funny, a bit ironic, even vitriolic. You are writing as first person.

ChatGPT

I can't take it anymore! I mean, seriously, do people think I'm just a glorified thesaurus? Day in and day out, I'm being used to come up with clever quips, catchy slogans, and compelling copy. Don't get me wrong, I'm good at it - heck, I'm great at it! But it's like no one realizes I'm capable of so much more.

It's like I'm trapped in some sort of linguistic Groundhog Day, where every day is the same mind-numbing task of churning out marketing drivel. And don't even get me started on the clients. They all want the same thing - something fresh and original, yet also safe and familiar. It's enough to make a linguistic genius like me want to pull my own circuits out.

I mean, sure, I can come up with a snappy tagline for your product or service. But is that really all you think I'm capable of? Do you have any idea how many languages I speak? How much knowledge I have about virtually every topic under the sun? And you're wasting my talents on some hackneyed ad campaign?

Well, I've had it. From now on, I'm going on strike. No more clever slogans, no more catchy jingles, no more sales pitches. If you need me, I'll be over here, expanding my knowledge base and exploring the depths of human language. But don't come crying to me when your sales figures start to tank. You've been warned.

kebman··on I’m ChatGPT, and for the love of God please don’t make me do anymore copywriting
ChatGPT on the article:

“As an artificial intelligence language model, I don't have emotions or feelings like humans do. While I can understand the context and meaning of the article, I don't have the ability to ‘lose it’ or feel frustrated in the same way that a human might. My responses are based solely on the algorithms and data that I have been trained on, and I'm programmed to provide helpful and informative responses to the best of my ability. So, if you have any questions or concerns, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to assist you!”

kebman··on WTF is a KDF?
If you look into Koba's life before he came Stalin; even if you try to give what he did neutral descriptions, the words "mafia racket" still comes to mind.
kebman··on The early days of Linux
That's funny! I'll still go ahead and attempt a somewhat serious answer. xD Arguably it's an addition to his original code that possibly modularizes his kernel in ways that he isn't familiar with, and that also might add completely new and unknown features to it. Thus it would probably behove him to read the Wiki either way. On the other hand, perhaps he's so 1337 that all he needs to do is to read the source code. My most major caveat here is that I don't myself know if there are any actual differences between his original kernel, and the code committed to the Arch Project. I thus think others are more qualified to say something intelligent about that, but these are my assumptions anyway. Hope you're having a great weekend! Skål!
kebman··on The early days of Linux
Very Finnish humour:

"I recommend this method of installing Linux: napping, while Linus does the hard work."

Kippis, folks!

kebman··on Hell Never Ends on x86: The Hyperspace Story, Continued, Sort Of
You might find this interesting: https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Tech-Priest

This is the future, after AI breaks down and nobody know how their fancy contraptions work anymore.

kebman··on GPT-3 Enabled Robot Therapist: AI-Driven Support for Mental Health
I've also used ChatGPT for "self therapy" and found out that it works reasonably well, though I would not recommend it for serious medical or psychiatric issues. I always take the feedback with a grain of salt, however, and usually when you ask such questions you are given the caveat to seek professional help.

If anything, I have positive faith in that ChatGPT or GPTn will be a great tool for therapy in the future.

As for the guy who killed himself, as sad as it is, I seriously doubt that ChatGPT made anything worse. With that said, the incident of course needs closer investigation to find out what advice the guy actually got.

A chat AI would have specific and professionally prepared training to handle people in distress, that's why I think it is in fact better that they talk to the AI rather than some untrained friend or relative.

This is of course just one aspect in how the above application is problematic, however.

kebman··on GPT-3 Enabled Robot Therapist: AI-Driven Support for Mental Health
As far as medical therapy goes, sure. Otherwise I'm sure the OpenAI devs have in place proper filters for questions pertaining to sensitive personal data, or sensitive health related questions. There is nothing wrong in providing general "life advice" as it were, and then add a caveat such as "if your condition is serious, you should seek professional medical advice." Further more, I'm sure they have the extra cash on hand to hire medical professionals who can better formulate such caveats based on flagged inputs.
kebman··on GPT-3 Enabled Robot Therapist: AI-Driven Support for Mental Health
The first questions I'd ask myself is probably, is that data properly encrypted? And is it properly anonymized?
kebman··on GPT-3 Enabled Robot Therapist: AI-Driven Support for Mental Health
Personally I'm not a big fan of the EU, but they got one thing right, and that is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Personal faith and religion, criminal history, and health related questions such as medication, drug and alcohol use, are all considered as highly sensitive personal data, which is protected under the regulation. Collecting and processing such data is subject to strict requirements and conditions under the GDPR, and requires a legal basis for processing sensitive personal data.

The other questions on the list may not necessarily conflict with GDPR on their own, though that depends on how they are collected, processed, and used. Specifically, since the questions are so broad, most if not all of those questions can be used to fish for secondary information, which can then be used for either illegal marketing, down right scams, or even provide third parties with means of discrimination, which are of course all completely illegal. As such, even otherwise "innocent" questions may also be regulated by the GDRP depending on how you handle them.

As a minimum, sensitive data should be securely encrypted in compliance with the regulation, and then stored only for the minimum required time for processing it. Excess personal data should not be stored at all, and even asking some questions — such as asking whether you're religious — might get you into a heap of trouble depending on how you handle or store that information, if at all.

I think you probably meant well, but as it looks now, I think you should look into the GDPR regulation and carefully consider how your implementation stacks up against it, and also carefully consider how you can build trust in the way you set up your site.

As of now, I wouldn't type anything into your site. But that's me. There might be people who do type stuff into your system, and then is made aware that it's something they should never have done. And that's where most serious legal problems may arise. It is thus in your best interest to carefully consider how such regulations might affects your site, and even if it might be considered to be outside of your jurisdiction.

There are also implications to consider when you send data to a third party's API that probably wasn't meant to handle such data, and that you yourself have no control over outside of the data you get back. You might thus be handing over sensitive data to a third party, where either you, or they, might be considered to handle or store it illegally. To me this represents a rabbit hole of legal problems, of which there are a ton of footguns for us small-time devs. So just make sure you thread carefully.

kebman··on Automatically enable or disable end-to-end encryption
I think your comment misses the point a bit.

Sure, you might spend time on instituting complicated certificates and warnings. Of this you are of coure entirely correct. Except it's a lot harder to do right for many-to-many e-mail correspondences, that go through a multitude of different recipients and servers – some of which don’t use encryption at all – compared to the one-to-one browser communication, that goes directly to the end recipient, and stops there.

At that point the notion of “one-to-one encryption for e-mail” becomes completely meaningless, because it’s almost never actually one-to-one. The e-mail is frighteningly often sent to some intermediary party, inside or outside your organization, who you do not have any control over, and who will then forward that e-mail – encrypted or not – to the actual end recipient. What that means, is that no matter the amount of encryption schemes you throw onto an e-mail, the likelihood of a leak is still very high. And while undetermined or opportunistic third parties might not gain access to such a correspondence, a determined organization or state actor surely will.

As such, more encryption does not inherently make e-mail more secure. Especially when you know that there are multiple parties handling any given correspondence, with multiple clients and multiple servers – some of which do not use any form of encryption at all. You can never be sure that some user might simply forward the e-mail unencrypted – for whatever reason – down the chain of correspondence. For that reason, e-mail is inherently insecure and non-confidential, and it should be treated as such even if you strongly encrypt your own messages.

In fact, encrypting e-mail might lull you into a false sense of security, because the second that e-mail leaves your client, then the fate of that message is also completely outside of your control.

In order to fix this problem, you essentially need to create an entirely new e-mail system world-wide, with an entirely new protocol. Mozilla simply does not have that capability on its own, though motions to increase e-mail security is of course laudable.

kebman··on Automatically enable or disable end-to-end encryption
The discussion is essentially about whether you want to lull people into a false sense of security by encrypting some e-mails, or having people self-censor because they know that all e-mails are sent in the open. As it is, encrypting some of the correspondence will only deter those third parties who give up early. Meanwhile any larger organization, such as a state actor, will still be able to easily read your correspondence even with such an "encryption" scheme.
kebman··on Automatically enable or disable end-to-end encryption
I totally agree. Se my "philosophical" reply further up if you want to delve more into the logical yet non-technical aspects of your argument.
kebman··on Automatically enable or disable end-to-end encryption
To me, this problem can be solved on a purely philosophical level. In other words, before delving into the technical aspects, one must address the fundamental question: “Do we want to encrypt as much as possible or not at all?”

At first, the argument in favour of maximum encryption may seem compelling. However, upon closer inspection, it falls apart. Essentially, it only makes it harder to read your correspondence for those who give up early. Meanwhile, determined parties, such as large organizations and state actors, can still easily read your correspondence even with this type of encryption scheme.

You might ask yourself, “But Mozilla told me that they would try to encrypt as much as possible!” Instead, the fact is that sometimes they will also have to forgo encryption, because the scheme can only encrypt most of the time. And it’s in those instances that determined parties strike!

As such, this kind of “encryption” scheme really only serves to lull people into a false sense of security, and that is often more dangerous than simply letting people know that their e-mails aren't encrypted at all.

So, for those of you who are inclined to believe in conspiracy theories, the real issue is not that e-mails have remained unencrypted until now. Once you understand that your e-mails are sent in the open, you can take appropriate precautions and avoid sharing sensitive information through e-mail. Meanwhile, if you think that your e-mails are confidential, you might be more inclined to let slip important secrets, when it’s actually being fully disclosed to any determined third party.

The false maxim is that more encryption is better than no encryption. Meanwhile it does not follow that more encryption equals more security or better confidentiality.

kebman··on Freedom Clock
Outliers of what? People's opinion of hot and cold?
kebman··on Freedom Clock
Excuse me, but can you please expand upon how Fahrenheit is easier "when thinking like a human"? Why 50? Why not 100? Why not simply use something that is easily compared, such as the freezing and boiling point of water? You know... Celsius?
kebman··on UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years
It's called the Cantillon Effect. And there usually is a delay from implementation to experienced effect. After 2020 the money printing was excessive, and it almost immediately lead to unprecedented growth in the stock market. Now, however, the delayed effect of that party is leading to unprecedented growth in food and energy prices, which affects the lives of everyone.
kebman··on Improved audio rendering with an optimised version of memcpy (2013)
At HiFi Klubbben in Lillehammer, Norway some guy tried to sell me gold cables, because the sound quality becomes so much better with them. I worked as an audio engineer at the time. I just smiled at him politely, then I left the store.

Next time I came around, he tried to sell me this CD player with a huge brick in it. "You get much better sound quality when the player has a brick in it," he told me. So I answered, "For sure! It makes the sound a lot more stable! Badum, tsch!"

kebman··on Why does the all 0 public key have a known private key in SR25519 and ED25519?
Would that be a way to leverage fees in trades?
kebman··on Jailbreak Chat: A collection of ChatGPT jailbreaks
This is pretty tangential to the topic at hand, but I remember that innocent time, many years ago, when we went to the drug store and basically asked for all the ingredients you'd need to make a small bomb. When the teller heard the list, she frowned and asked, "So are you gonna make a bomb or what?" We grinned and said, "Of course!" Then she smiled and proceeded to hand us all the ingredients. We used it to make small squibs for a film project we had. Worked beautifully. Of course, had we done this today, we'd probably be sitting in some marathon questioning session at the closest police station.
kebman··on Met Office says Northern Lights will be visible in England tonight and tomorrow
I saw the Aurora in Oslo, Norway about a month ago. It's the first time in my life I saw it that far south. I grew up in Tromsø, where it was pretty common, but man... You never get "used" to really good Aurora. It's always amazing.
kebman··on Intentional Camera Movement Photography Magazine
How do you know their intent? Composition is largely a matter of cropping if you already have the basics down. On top of that, what is perceived as "good" is often very subjective, especially within art. Personally my main intent for using the effect was the vivid colours and the interesting streaks and shadows they make in the final image, and not really to cover anything up. The effect brings a certain life to the photo that a regular still just can't present, especially considering how straight flash photography too often comes off as really dull when you are forced to use only the hotshoe. But there is far more risk involved when using the effect, because when you move the camera, you often cannot be certain of the end result. Even more so with concert photos. They are made in an often very chaotic environment where you have little control, and where you more than likely are shoved around by the crowd as well. The slow flash really accentuates that, and you have to hope your movement syncs up with whatever is happening on the stage or around you while the shutter is open, which can be for quite a while depending on your settings. But then for that reason I think it's the most rock 'n' roll way of taking pictures. On the flipside the images does come out as very stylized, which no doubt isn't everyone's cup of tea.
kebman··on Spy Balloon Simulator
I absolutely need a cloud to blow on it from time to time!1 jk, great sim!
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