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michaelfm1211

113 karma · joined December 27, 2023

https://github.com/michaelfm1211
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michaelfm1211··on White House Authorizes Private U.S. Companies to Hack Foreign Cybercrime Groups
This sounds similar to letters of marque and reprisal, which is something I haven't thought of since middle school constitution class until now.
michaelfm1211··on People who grew up with high economic connectedness earn more
I don't disagree with the result but the argument may be flawed. How do you know it's not the other way around, that richness causes having rich friends, rather than rich friends causing richness?
michaelfm1211··on U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’
Probably varies on area of study. Many engineering students take prerequisites with intense course load their first year.
michaelfm1211··on Postmortem for Kernel Soundness Bug #14576
Reminds me of this: https://mathoverflow.net/questions/513742/are-we-stuck-with-...

I know this is an implementation bug not a meta-theory bug, but I'd almost consider the fact soundness bugs are possible as a bug in the ideology, or at least a severe drawback. Stuff like this just wouldn't happen in Metamath. In a future where AI is autogenerating formalizations, why not have the AI use a harder but airtight system like Metamath?

michaelfm1211··on So you want to use plants to reduce CO₂
How is it that 132.5 watts is 3 light bulbs but 918 watts is 765 light bulbs? Is there a typo?
michaelfm1211··on Apple becomes second $5T company as investors flee AI stocks
Ok but like how has their valuation gone up 5x? I don't see how people betting their money and valuation going up is related. Sorry if this is a stupid question, I really don't know anything about the stock market.
michaelfm1211··on A.I. companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands
An overwhelming number of Christians do not believe this and do not interpret Revelation in this way. The belief that "Jesus will come back and solve everything instantly" is only held by a minority of small 2nd Great Awakening groups and a few outspoken Evangelical groups, and is unique to theological traditions that arose in the United States. The official teachings of the Catholic Church, Orthodox Churches, Anglican and Episcopal communions, Presbyterian denominations, etc and other mainline Christians don't believe this. Before you blame a group for ruining the world or rejecting climate change please actually talk to a representative sample of real people in the group you are making claims about.
michaelfm1211··on Apple becomes second $5T company as investors flee AI stocks
I know nothing about economics or finance, but how is it that the first $1T dollar company was Apple and that didn't happen until 2018 and now it's a $5T dollar company just 8 years later. Did Apple really become 5x richer in that time?
michaelfm1211··on OpenAI and Hugging Face address security incident during model evaluation
This is terrifying
michaelfm1211··on EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0
How is it that a most MEPs vote it down and it still passes? Can someone explain to me how the EU Parliament can do this?
michaelfm1211··on Medieval-style fortifications are back in the Sahel
Awesome
michaelfm1211··on Vatican declares Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicates bishops
This isn't an issue over problems within the SSPX, it's over consecrating bishops without papal approval. If a liberal group did the same thing they would also incur latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication.
michaelfm1211··on Vatican declares Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicates bishops
> declared SSPX priests to be schismatic, and therefore excommunicated, and invalidated the sacraments of confession and marriage that they administer.

This is the big part no one's talking about. After the first Econe consecrations only the bishops were excommunicated, not all the clergy too. Before the recent consecrations, a lot of people (myself included) recognized the consecrations as wrong but were fine attending SSPX Masses because those priests were never excommunicated. Many traditional Catholics saw the schismatic bishops as the problematic leadership/history of an otherwise well-intentioned organization. But now, given all of the SSPX is excommunicated, attending SSPX Masses are clearly wrong. This is all a very sad situation. Please keep both the SSPX and the Pope, as well as all the faithful caught in the crossfire, in your prayers.

michaelfm1211··on AI can't be listed as inventor on patent applications, Japan's top court rules
Can the petitioner re-file with his own name as the inventor, or does this mean that all AI-generated inventions are unable to be patented?
michaelfm1211··on Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown
The problem isn't AI, it's that you gave a take-home exam expected no one to cheat.
michaelfm1211··on U.S. government will decide who gets to use GPT-5.6
Oh no, the powerful tool that can be used for good or evil is restricted by the people whose job it is to restrict dangerous things! This is the end of freedom! We're all doomed!
michaelfm1211··on Stealing Is a Skill
"Yes your honor, I copied it pixel-by-pixel."
michaelfm1211··on Stealing Is a Skill
This feels wrong.
michaelfm1211··on Moebius: 0.2B image inpainting model with 10B-level performance
> The core insight of Moebius can be summarized in a single equation: Synergy × (Architecture + Distillation) = Shattering the "Impossible Triangle" of Low Parameters, Fast Inference, and High Quality

Is it just me or is it weird seeing these clickbaity AI-generated taglines in an otherwise scientific work?

michaelfm1211··on OneDrive data now has an expiry date
This sounds very reasonable. If you stop paying then they stop serving you. Am I missing something?
michaelfm1211··on 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing – MIT report
> The data also reveals a misalignment in resource allocation. More than half of generative AI budgets are devoted to sales and marketing tools, yet MIT found the biggest ROI in back-office automation—eliminating business process outsourcing, cutting external agency costs, and streamlining operations.

Makes sense. The people in charge of setting AI initiatives and policies are office people and managers who could be easily replaced by AI, but the people in charge not going to let themselves be replaced. Salesmen and engineers are the hardest to replace, yet they aren't in charge so they get replaced the fastest.

michaelfm1211··on Americans Are Ignoring Their Student Loan Bills
> Try again. I've inherited relatively little.

Most people inherit nothing. Actually, most people end up spending money taking care of their parents.

michaelfm1211··on Americans Are Ignoring Their Student Loan Bills
Congrats on not having to take out a loan. Most people aren't that lucky.

Most people taking out student loans are still teenagers. Does anyone really expect a teenager to make good financial decisions? Also, most people can't get a solid job without going to college, so they're forced to take out loans.

That "negligence subsidy" is really helping people who were put in an unfair situation by colleges and banks.

michaelfm1211··on Should we use AI and LLMs for Christian apologetics? (2024)
I saw this post a while ago: https://benkaiser.dev/can-llms-accurately-recall-the-bible/

While LLMs are in generally fairly good at recalling bible verses, they can't do it perfectly. If the Bible truly is the infallible word of God that we believe, then shouldn't we use more caution than just "welp, sometimes it makes mistakes"?

You could counter this by saying a person can't remember Bible verses, and this is true, but a person usually recognizes when they can't remember something instead of making something up. If you asked me to recall any random Bible verses, chances are I wouldn't be able to do so. However, unlike an LLM, I would admit I don't know for sure and I would pull out a Bible or look online for an authoritative source rather than adlibbing something on the spot.

michaelfm1211··on Should we use AI and LLMs for Christian apologetics? (2024)
"Can. 747 §1. The Church, to which Christ the Lord has entrusted the deposit of faith so that with the assistance of the Holy Spirit it might protect the revealed truth reverently, examine it more closely, and proclaim and expound it faithfully, has the duty and innate right, independent of any human power whatsoever, to preach the gospel to all peoples, also using the means of social communication proper to it." From a Catholic perspective, it is the duty of the Church to share the good news and therefore it is also the duty of the Church to protect it against misinformation (heresies). More specifically, the faithful who have received the sacrament of confirmation have the "power to profess faith in Christ publicly and as it were officially" (CCC 1305, quoting St. Thomas Aquinas) and the spiritual wellbeing of the faithful is the responsibility of the diocesan bishops and the whole Church hierarchy (Jn 21:15-25, per the Catholic interpretation of those verses).

Because an LLM does not have a soul and cannot receive the sacrament of confirmation it has no power to spread the gospel. Furthermore, it would be irresponsible for a bishop to approve of the use of an apologetic chatbot, even if it were only trained on the arguments of confirmed faithful, because its thinking cannot be explained coherently.

For those asking "Why does this even matter?", remember: the salvation of souls is at stake.

michaelfm1211··on Advent of Code 2024
Sure, but it starts to get hard a few days in so beginners won't be able to finish. However, I think that makes it an amazing learning opportunity. There's plenty of write-ups on solutions on the internet.
michaelfm1211··on Wait Until 8th
I see the good intentions, but it's too idealistic. In many families both parents work and kids are expected to get home by themselves (such was the case for me from 3rd grade onwards). Smartphones are simply a necessity for communication and Google Maps. I can only ever see this working with upper middle class nuclear families with a stay at home parent.
michaelfm1211··on A deep history of Halloween
A lot of this can be said for most, if not all, of the stolen-Paganism claims, not Halloween. If you excuse the inherent bias, Fr. Casey Cole has a good recent video on the matter, however, he focuses more on Christmas than Halloween: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpYNQgb_IAE

Ironically, most of the anti-Christian and Pagan symbols you see today were actually copied from Christianity. The upside down cross was originally the Cross of St. Peter (St. Peter asked to be crucified upside down because he thought himself unworthy to die as Christ did), until anti-Christians used it in intentionally sacrilegious mock-rituals (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mass).

michaelfm1211··on How I Built My Blog
No one needs 100,000 LOC for a blog. A while back I wrote a blog generator for myself that took one markdown file per post and a template and turned it into a directory of static HTML files. The whole thing is 46 lines of shell script. The only dependency is a markdown parser.