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throwaway49849

135 karma · joined January 30, 2024

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throwaway49849··on AI Determines Sex of Person from Brain Scans
>They are saying that this result will not resolve the disputes, because it doesn't address the core thing in dispute: that there are meaningful differences that people actually care about.

That's not their claim. Their claim is that there is some flaw ("confounding thing") in the study. They then go on to say that men and women's brains are "indistinguishable." Well, of course you will automatically assume there is a flaw if that is your belief.

throwaway49849··on AI Determines Sex of Person from Brain Scans
I believe this is a clue to where the GP post is coming from: we can't, therefore the study must be flawed.
throwaway49849··on Why Some of Apple's Biggest Fans Are Returning Their Vision Pros
Whoops, yeah you're right. I forgot for a moment that people who buy one of these things are probably posting everything that they do with it.
throwaway49849··on Sora could ruin peoples lives
I know what you mean, but there are plenty of mundane and labor-intensive tasks in art too. Ever try to make background characters or landscapes for a video? It's stuff that nobody pays attention to, but it still has to look plausible. Real artists will use Sora as a tool to automate those tedious tasks, so they can focus on storytelling.
throwaway49849··on Why Some of Apple's Biggest Fans Are Returning Their Vision Pros
That means that for the 9 people interviewed that returned the devices, Bloomberg would have had to contact 900 AVP buyers just to find those 9 (1%). Either that, or the ratio is off.
throwaway49849··on Why Some of Apple's Biggest Fans Are Returning Their Vision Pros
Who is "they"? The content creators that you allude to are not the people in the article.
throwaway49849··on Jeffrey Katzenberg Says A.I. Will Eliminate 90% of Artist Jobs on Animated Films
There will still be a job for animators, at the very least. They'll flesh out the armature (skeleton) animations, and AI will paint over it, like a style transfer. Imo human-driven animation will stay around for a bit longer because of the nuance of movement and connection to storytelling.
throwaway49849··on It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU
It's funny that this post is considered dupes of those 2, but those 2 are not dupes of each other.
throwaway49849··on It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU
I'm sure you can find conflicting information, but here is a data point that aligns with my own experiences:

"Human contact is becoming a luxury good." https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/23/sunday-review/human-conta...

>Also, how should a tech company that makes money from selling gadgets react to this purported trend?

That's like asking what cigarette companies were supposed to do when we found out cigarettes cause cancer.

throwaway49849··on It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU
Collecting patents is not proof of a great idea.

Exhibit A: Google's patent on a "sticky car" that is covered with adhesive, to stick to pedestrians when you hit them https://patents.google.com/patent/US9340178B1/en

throwaway49849··on It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU
The AVP is one of the most out of touch products I've ever seen from a respected brand, and I can almost hear Steve Job's scathing criticisms of it, based on everything I know about him. Not to mention, it goes against the increasing trend of less screens and less tech. The fact that it got made and is being pushed so hard as the next step in computing, is bonkers.

So to me, it contributes because it is another data point that the leadership has compromised its ability to consistently make forward thinking decisions.

throwaway49849··on It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU
The creation of the Vision Pro, and now this direct assault on the open web, makes me believe that Apple is no longer has the vision to lead the industry effectively. It's a shame because it has enormous momentum behind it, which means every bad decision, like this one, will be felt be millions of people for years.
throwaway49849··on OpenAI completes deal that values the company at $80B
See my edit above, I never said "a few pennies" or "a few cents", I said "cents" intended as a relative contrast to "millions." We don't know how much a company is worth if it is expected to be immediately destroyed upon purchase, so if "dollars" or "10s of dollars" is more palatable to you, feel free to mentally substitute that instead.
throwaway49849··on Show HN: Natural Language to SQL "Text-to-SQL" API
It's an incomplete solution.
throwaway49849··on OpenAI completes deal that values the company at $80B
>You think the total valuation of all companies divided by the total number of people comes out to a few cents?

No, where did I say that? The person I was replying to wants to share OpenAI's value specifically, so I only mention OpenAI. Also, I didn't say "a few cents", I said cents, intended as a relative contrast to "millions."

>The US GDP per capita was $80k in 2023. The global GDP per capita is $13K.

Yes, and the US per capita GDP would drop to $15.8k if the "excess" was redistributed to the rest of the world. But now everyone is equal, regardless of what they do, right? Is this fair?

>Even if you were to split up the valuation of OpenAI for every single person in the world, everyone would be getting $10.

That's not how it works and I think you know that. Where does this tangible $10 come from if there is no buyer? Or do you think someone is willing to spend $80B on a company which is then immediately destroyed because the money is taken from the shareholders and sent to everyone else? There would be no company left. Do you think that the very idea of this impending dissolution-upon-purchase wouldn't lower the value of the company drastically?

>what point are you actually trying to make?

That it's silly to suggest redistributing OpenAI compensation.

throwaway49849··on I'm an Old Fart and AI Makes Me Sad
No need to be condescending about it. I mentioned the Simpsons because the author referenced the Simpsons.
throwaway49849··on I'm an Old Fart and AI Makes Me Sad
It's like the Monkey's Paw from the Simpsons: you can have a program that understands what you mean, but you can't understand how it really works.

It's just another tool in the toolbox. Personally, I think we've reached the limits of "computers do exactly what you ask them to do, to a fault." I'm interested to see how the opposite direction works out for us.

throwaway49849··on Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose
A social contract is not defined by a LICENSE file.

Developers are under no obligation to create new software for a hostile company's products. Let's see how many vision pro apps get created if Apple keeps shitting on open standards.

throwaway49849··on Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose
I don't mean to imply that the OSS maintainers are owed anything, because I don't believe that. There is still a social contract without anyone being owed anything. You haven't really given an example of why you don't think it exists.

Also, to what do I owe the honor of you creating a username based on mine, specifically to reply to me?

throwaway49849··on Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose
The social contract has been that these big companies benefit from the free work of open source maintainers, and they continue to work together to support open standards. This latest maneuver from Apple, while well within their rights, is a big FU to everyone who builds and maintains the software that they depend on. They've broken the contract by continuing to hobble open web tech.
throwaway49849··on Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose
>PWAs aren’t really in Apple’s financial interest to begin with, so f-it

Translation: Apple hates developers who believe in open tech, despite being built on mountains of foundational open tech, like every other company.

throwaway49849··on Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose
The amusing thing is that on-homescreen PWAs were the only way iOS supported web push notifications. They could 100% do it in the browser, like every other browser does. But they won't, because they're openly hostile to open web technologies.
throwaway49849··on British intelligence able to read and flag private Snapchat messages
The people that gravitate towards positions of unrestrained power often seem to have an authoritarian bend. If there's an opportunity to use their power to be a hero, that will scratch the itch, but in the absence of that opportunity, they seem to readily turn their power on the rest of us.
throwaway49849··on Torching the Google car: Why the growing revolt against big tech just escalated
The next time you see someone romanticizing the aesthetics of some antisocial behavior that you find repulsive, then you'll know how it feels to be on the other side of this discussion.
throwaway49849··on Torching the Google car: Why the growing revolt against big tech just escalated
You're romanticizing violent antisocial behavior into some kind of art form. Maybe you should see this from the perspective of a young family trying to raise their children here.
throwaway49849··on Show HN: Natural Language to SQL "Text-to-SQL" API
Wouldn't the AI-generated query need knowledge of the CTE that will be wrapping it? How would the CTE prevent arbitrary joins, or access to tables that use the fully-qualified `schema.table`? And couldn't somebody execute any arbitrary function on the SQL server? Example `pg_sleep(9999999)`.
throwaway49849··on Show HN: Natural Language to SQL "Text-to-SQL" API
I see. Just so I'm clear because this is important, if I set the confidence threshold very high, does it mean that my customers cannot create a malicious query? I don't want them deleting data or accessing rows that they're not allowed to.
throwaway49849··on Show HN: Natural Language to SQL "Text-to-SQL" API
Can I trust the generated output SQL? I want to turn something like this into a frontend for my customers to use.
throwaway49849··on The happiest kids in the world have social safety nets
The existence of a budget is NOT proof that the expenditures in the budget are priced accurately. If it was proof, then there would never be instances of companies defrauding the taxpayer through government contracts.
throwaway49849··on The happiest kids in the world have social safety nets
>your criticism of the article is an argument in favor of the article.

I never criticized the article, which is about social safety net and child happiness. I'm criticizing the claimed taxation level required to have nice things.

Wasteful/not wasteful is mostly orthogonal to high/low. If high taxes, in a wasteful system, results in happy people, then that means you can get the same result for less. Meaning people get the same benefits, while keeping more income. Or more benefits, for the same taxes.

People seem to think that high taxes correlated to happiness is evidence of a non-wasteful government, but it's not. Happiness is not the only metric that matters. If it was, then being happy with corruption would be a virtue.

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