balooga's recent activity
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Comment on What's the deal with the popcorn button? in ~food
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Comment on I made a mistake, I started using Reddit again in ~talk
balooga Link ParentGood callout. This definitely seems like a case of a mod blindly trusting a tool with little regard for how it works or how false positives might arise.Good callout. This definitely seems like a case of a mod blindly trusting a tool with little regard for how it works or how false positives might arise.
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Comment on Movie of the Week #27 - Fargo in ~movies
balooga Link ParentYes, each season is a whole new cast, setting, and story. I’ve only seen the first couple seasons and really enjoyed them. I started watching season 3 (I think) and wasn’t feeling it, so I bailed....Yes, each season is a whole new cast, setting, and story. I’ve only seen the first couple seasons and really enjoyed them. I started watching season 3 (I think) and wasn’t feeling it, so I bailed. But @Mais has me wanting to give it another go now.
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Comment on I made a mistake, I started using Reddit again in ~talk
balooga LinkUgh, that mod interaction is infuriating to read. I’m curious, do you use a VPN? Reddit has been cracking down more on those lately. If your account has been detected using the same public IP as...Ugh, that mod interaction is infuriating to read. I’m curious, do you use a VPN? Reddit has been cracking down more on those lately. If your account has been detected using the same public IP as other users, that might have tripped the ban evasion flag. (I say that not being familiar with how the system works, it’s just speculation.) As an always-on VPN user I’ve personally noticed an increasing number of sites blocking me, not just Reddit. It started with the streaming services like Netflix but is now spreading to the rest of the web.
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Comment on ChatGPT provides false information about people, and OpenAI can’t correct it in ~tech
balooga Link ParentHas anyone ever put that to the test in court? Obviously bootlegged movies come in all different flavors of MPEG and those would all be in violation, but I feel like a file so grotesquely...Has anyone ever put that to the test in court? Obviously bootlegged movies come in all different flavors of MPEG and those would all be in violation, but I feel like a file so grotesquely compression-mangled that it bears minimal resemblance to the original might get a pass. Or should get a pass. In my estimation LLMs would fit in that category, if one were to use this argument against them.
But I don't know how you'd quantify how much compression turns something into a distinct work. There's clearly a spectrum between one JPEG of Quality 100 and one of 0 (which I think is likely be be a plain gray field with no resemblance to the source image). I don't think anyone, when pressed, could codify into law where the line should be drawn. And of course it's even harder when you're talking about a language model instead of a bitmap image or video.
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Comment on AI video won't work in Hollywood, because it can't make small iterative changes, former Pixar animator says in ~movies
balooga Link ParentWell put. I’m constantly reading hot takes that are either hype-filled nonsense or weirdly dismissive of the whole field. The truth, as usual, is somewhere in the middle. But people seem to have a...Well put. I’m constantly reading hot takes that are either hype-filled nonsense or weirdly dismissive of the whole field. The truth, as usual, is somewhere in the middle. But people seem to have a tendency toward the extremes with this particular subject.
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Comment on ChatGPT provides false information about people, and OpenAI can’t correct it in ~tech
balooga Link ParentOh nice, this is exactly what I was picturing. Thanks for the link! I can see how scalability is a problem if they need GPT-4 to process GPT-2. I don't think all the investor capital in the world...Oh nice, this is exactly what I was picturing. Thanks for the link! I can see how scalability is a problem if they need GPT-4 to process GPT-2. I don't think all the investor capital in the world is going to buy enough compute to climb that hockey stick curve. But I bet, given some time, new solutions will crop up. I'm picturing new model formats with annotations or hooks built into them to help facilitate inspection, or some crazy AI-written toolsets/optimizations to lessen the resource draw. It's pretty fascinating, regardless.
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Comment on ChatGPT provides false information about people, and OpenAI can’t correct it in ~tech
balooga Link ParentIt’s lossy compression. Think about a JPEG of the Mona Lisa. Let’s say you saved the file with a Quality of 100. It looks pretty good, no one would dispute that they’re looking at the Mona Lisa...It’s lossy compression. Think about a JPEG of the Mona Lisa. Let’s say you saved the file with a Quality of 100. It looks pretty good, no one would dispute that they’re looking at the Mona Lisa when they view it. But if you save it with a Quality of, say, 20 or less… it’s but an echo of the picture you started with. Blocky artifacts, color bleeding, just general horrible “cursed” degradation. And no one would argue that it’s a faithful reproduction of the original.
I think LLMs are kind of in the middle, they look great at first but when you zoom in you start to notice all the little blurry bits and abstractions that weren’t present in the training data but have been inserted by the compression/decompression process.
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Comment on ChatGPT provides false information about people, and OpenAI can’t correct it in ~tech
balooga Link ParentHalf-baked thought I had while reading this, but I’ll share it anyway: My lay understanding of the shape of these models is that they are massively complex multidimensional arrays that map the...Half-baked thought I had while reading this, but I’ll share it anyway: My lay understanding of the shape of these models is that they are massively complex multidimensional arrays that map the weights (relationships) between concepts (expressed as clouds of numeric tokens). Which is a particularly abstruse way to represent information. All kinds of connections are made between things that seem unrelated to a human observer, but the training process’s pattern recognition has an eye for detail that is simply unprecedented. And that’s why LLM output seems so uncannily human, because it has learned even the nuances that we miss.
Anyway, what if you trained a model on a model, on the raw tensor data? Could you create an LLM that understands how to navigate those complex token relationships at a mathematical level? With the goal of that model being to produce instructions for modifying that raw data in specific ways, more surgically than a human can? Essentially teaching an AI to lobotomize itself.
Imagine you could give it a prompt like “Write a patch for
model.foothat removes all specific knowledge of typeXinformation without disturbing knowledge about the semantic concept ofXin relationship to other fields of study” or something. The specific prompt would have to be engineered very carefully. The AI would then produce a script that modifies the model file to make those specific weight adjustments. If that approach is viable, I imagine you could also prompt it to add guardrails around specific concepts, including hallucination as a whole (teach it to simply say “I don’t know” when the right internal conditions are met indicating a low confidence threshold).I’m sure the actual solution wouldn’t be so easy but I’m curious if anyone has done research in this direction.
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Comment on Germany’s robotic stores must rest on Sundays, too in ~news
balooga Link ParentThe former. How people choose to spend their time should not be the purview of the government. A population is a tapestry of different views and traditions regarding work and rest. This isn’t...The former. How people choose to spend their time should not be the purview of the government. A population is a tapestry of different views and traditions regarding work and rest. This isn’t something that should be unilaterally imposed on everyone.
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Comment on Germany’s robotic stores must rest on Sundays, too in ~news
balooga Link ParentWhat’s the purpose of that law? It sounds like some sort of compulsory sabbath. I’m sure there are a lot of benefits to having a guaranteed day off every week, allowing workers more leisure time...What’s the purpose of that law? It sounds like some sort of compulsory sabbath.
I’m sure there are a lot of benefits to having a guaranteed day off every week, allowing workers more leisure time and a bit of breathing room in their day-to-day schedule. One doesn’t have to be religious to agree that practicing sabbath can be beneficial in lots of ways. I just don’t see where the state has any business mandating it for everyone.
I assume, especially since this has been on the books for several generations, that it’s a fully pervasive part of German culture at this point. Seems like the kind of thing that Germans would defend because it’s a normal (perhaps cherished) feature of life in that country, and they’d say that I as an outsider don’t understand or am speaking out of turn. And that’s probably right.
But I still think that just as a matter of principle, this sort of legislation doesn’t have any place in modern liberal democracies.
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Comment on The tech baron seeking to “ethnically cleanse” San Francisco in ~life
balooga Link ParentThen you’ve got middle-agers like me who are so painfully aware of the Dunning–Kruger effect and riddled with imposter syndrome that we plateau and are suddenly unable to meaningfully progress in...Then you’ve got middle-agers like me who are so painfully aware of the Dunning–Kruger effect and riddled with imposter syndrome that we plateau and are suddenly unable to meaningfully progress in our tech careers while the 19yo “10x programmers” code circles around us for half the pay.
Sorry for the angst, didn’t mean to suck you all into my midlife crisis. But I think there is some kind of flywheel effect at play here, where this industry rewards “that type” of person and casts aside folks like me.
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Comment on Last Week Tonight full episode library coming soon to YouTube in ~tv
balooga LinkI’d guess episodes of a current events show like this have a pretty short shelf life. How much of that back catalog does anyone actually want to rewatch?I’d guess episodes of a current events show like this have a pretty short shelf life. How much of that back catalog does anyone actually want to rewatch?
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Comment on How GM tricked millions of drivers into being spied on (including me) (gifted link) in ~transport
balooga Link ParentI went looking for the request form for the driving data Verisk has on me, and found this: The most recent Internet Archive snapshot of that URL was two days ago and does not include this message,...I went looking for the request form for the driving data Verisk has on me, and found this:
Verisk no longer receives driving behavior data from automakers to generate Driving Behavior Data History Reports. Verisk no longer provides Driving Behavior Data History Reports to insurers. If you’re interested in receiving a copy of your Driving Behavior Data History Report, please click on the link at the bottom of the page. The driving behavior related data Verisk can offer you will vary by auto manufacturer. See table below.
Auto Manufacturer Verisk stopped receiving driving behavior data to produce Driving Behavior Data History Reports as of General Motors March 18, 2024 Honda April 9, 2024 Hyundai April 9, 2024 The most recent Internet Archive snapshot of that URL was two days ago and does not include this message, so it seems to be brand new.
I'm the owner of a Kia, which is not mentioned here... but Hyundai is. Not sure what to make of that. But I'm relieved that apparently Verisk isn't harvesting from them (even if maybe they were previously). I also requested my report from LexisNexis, the other confirmed data broker in this situation, and was pleased that when it arrived it contained nothing related to driving behavior.
Assuming there aren't other, more secretive data brokers in the mix, that should take care of things for me. Except that the car manufacturer (Kia in my case) still likely has their own copy of my data. This EFF page has links for where you can request a report from each automaker, and/or request deletion of whatever they have. Sadly, at least in Kia's case, they appear to only be honoring requests from residents of states with GDPR-like laws in place (CA, CO, CT, UT, and VA). Since I don't live in any of those places, fuck me I guess.
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Comment on I grew up in Michigan but currently live in Georgia. My GF and I are looking at buying a house, and both states have first time home buyer incentives, but they're income based. in ~finance
balooga Link ParentOh thanks, I bookmarked your comment so we can take a deeper dive when we are ready for next steps.Oh thanks, I bookmarked your comment so we can take a deeper dive when we are ready for next steps.
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Comment on I grew up in Michigan but currently live in Georgia. My GF and I are looking at buying a house, and both states have first time home buyer incentives, but they're income based. in ~finance
balooga Link ParentMakes sense, figured it was worth asking. Lot of details to learn when pursuing home ownership for the first time.Makes sense, figured it was worth asking. Lot of details to learn when pursuing home ownership for the first time.
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Comment on I grew up in Michigan but currently live in Georgia. My GF and I are looking at buying a house, and both states have first time home buyer incentives, but they're income based. in ~finance
balooga LinkI’m in a similar situation but married. Would the advice be the same for me or does the marriage change things?I’m in a similar situation but married. Would the advice be the same for me or does the marriage change things?
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Comment on All the good email clients go to hell in ~tech
balooga LinkI use Thunderbird and it’s… fine? I’m not the person you should talk to about it because I hate email and generally avoid it as much as possible. But Thunderbird isn’t trying to be flashy or...I use Thunderbird and it’s… fine? I’m not the person you should talk to about it because I hate email and generally avoid it as much as possible. But Thunderbird isn’t trying to be flashy or charging a subscription, it’s not syncing my creds to the cloud, it’s not shoving more ads in my face. No weird corporate office workflow stuff. It gets the job done. I get warm fuzzies from using Mozilla software. I’ve used Thunderbird for, probably decades? And I haven’t had any real issues with slowdown or bugs during that time.
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Comment on A casual chat with ChatGPT about the prosperity of humanity in ~humanities
balooga LinkI think you got a left-leaning response because you gave it a left-leaning prompt. Conservatives don’t want to “steer humanity” toward goals, or they wouldn’t frame it that way at least. If you...I think you got a left-leaning response because you gave it a left-leaning prompt. Conservatives don’t want to “steer humanity” toward goals, or they wouldn’t frame it that way at least. If you asked it a question about “preserving values” or “defending culture” or “upholding personal liberty” you’d get Republican talking points.
ChatGPT is a really fancy auto-complete. What you get out of it is a direct continuation of what you put into it.
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Comment on Two years to save the planet, says UN climate chief in ~enviro
balooga LinkThis may be the most 2024 idea I have all year, but it's time for a gritty live-action reboot of Captain Planet and the Planeteers. Make it a big-budget HBO series. Replace the "mother earth" Gaia...This may be the most 2024 idea I have all year, but it's time for a gritty live-action reboot of Captain Planet and the Planeteers. Make it a big-budget HBO series. Replace the "mother earth" Gaia character with some sort of digital platform that amplifies the voice of the people... maybe keep Gaia as the AI personification of our collective will. Captain Planet himself is not a superhero, but an ecoterrorist vigilante whose whole thing is identifying the (actual) responsible parties who have the power to fix things, and making it personal for them. Lots of closeups of bloodied billionaires cowering in corners, swearing they'll do right thing so they won't get visited by the Captain again.
I'm half joking, but we've been waiting for the polluters to stop, or be stopped, for decades. Recycling and driving EVs aren't going to fix anything on the global scale. The problem is in the hands of a few, people who possess the power to improve things but refuse to use it on meaningful change. Who will hold them accountable? If only there was some way to crowdfund a resistance movement, since governments and corporations are failing us. I'd prefer if that weren't ecoterrorism or some kind of extra-legal action, but what else is there? At least a big TV show would get a new kind of conversation started.
"Popping" back into this thread to echo the thanks. I picked up a Whirley-Pop, Flavacol, and some specialty popping oil and OMG my popcorn is so good now. I'm enjoying a bowl as I type this, and I just realized I never voiced my appreciation here. That random comment of your is legit one of my favorite moments in Tildes history.