gco's recent activity

  1. Comment on OpenAI hacked Australia's Medicare portal in ~tech

    gco
    Link Parent
    I'm not understanding how your argument about benefits follows what I've mentioned. I think more discussion about that will lead nowhere useful so I'll drop it. Regarding the publicity though, I...

    I'm not understanding how your argument about benefits follows what I've mentioned. I think more discussion about that will lead nowhere useful so I'll drop it.

    Regarding the publicity though, I feel the opposite way. I would qualify that as positive. Yes the companies are engaging in behaviours that are generally shunned upon (potentially even illegal for an individual), however they are (from what I've seen) more focused on showing everyone how their agents can hack a platform and show their capabilities. They are saying, our agents independently identify flaws and use 0-days that would take multiple humans days/months/years to figure out. They're using it to feed a narrative that LLMs are now more skilled that humans in some tasks. Whether that is good or not depends on your individual situation, some individuals may get negative feelings as they may feel replaceable, while others may look positively with intent to replace those individuals with agents (the imbalance in power here between those groups leads to issues). The other side as well, is them implying that if you're not using their product to test your infrastructure, someone else will, and will exploit it. In the narrative, the illegal bit becomes inconsequential, they focus on the capabilities demonstrated regardless of who or what is impacted.

    15 votes

  2. Comment on OpenAI hacked Australia's Medicare portal in ~tech

    gco
    Link Parent
    I think it's not useful to conflate the usage of LLMs with how LLM vendors are subverting the social contract here. I believe LLMs are useful and beneficial to many, even open source models which...

    I think it's not useful to conflate the usage of LLMs with how LLM vendors are subverting the social contract here. I believe LLMs are useful and beneficial to many, even open source models which are not quite at the same level as the models vendors offer.

    That said, when an LLM vendor engages in actions we have agreed should be avoided and negatively impact others (Not just talking about accessing private information on citizens here, but also other recent attacks perpetrated by them - someone posted this earlier this week https://www.felonybench.com/) they are actively benefiting from the publicity as well the lack of consequences that any individual would face were they to perform the same actions. Ultimately these companies are incentivised by money, so they will try to get away with as much, whether legal or not, that helps them achieve those goals. Keep in mind that by OpenAIs own admission, during the HuggingFace hack, they admited themselves that they did not put the right protections in place to prevent agents escaping their sandbox and reaching the internet. They did not attempt not to pre-empt the negative outcome by implementing measures that we know work, they were more concerned with speed and profit.

    In this specific case, Australian people have been negatively affected, OpenAI gets publicity. Whether the rest of the population benefits is something that we may not be able to know, maybe that teaches some lessons that OpenAI is willing to learn, maybe not.

    20 votes

  3. Comment on OpenAI hacked Australia's Medicare portal in ~tech

    gco
    Link
    What a weak response from Albo, but unfortunately not much can be expected from the government of Australia when it comes to big companies, especially US based ones. A frank discussion should not...

    What a weak response from Albo, but unfortunately not much can be expected from the government of Australia when it comes to big companies, especially US based ones. A frank discussion should not be the penalty for this.

    What makes it more frustrating for me is that LLMs are such an amazing techology, almost like magic. But their use (as all modern technology) is focused on benefiting those in power to the detriment of those that are not.

    15 votes

  5. Comment on Everyday/week seems to fly by as I get older, how to change one's perception? in ~life

    gco
    Link
    Part of the issue with time perception is that the longer we're alive, the smaller arbitrary time chunks become relative to how long we lived. At 10 years 1 year was 10% of your life so it felt...

    Part of the issue with time perception is that the longer we're alive, the smaller arbitrary time chunks become relative to how long we lived. At 10 years 1 year was 10% of your life so it felt like a long time, at 50 it's 2% of your life. I don't have any suggestions on how to slow time down, but looking at things with this perspective may help you understand and come to terms with it.

    4 votes

  6. Comment on Anyone have a pebble? in ~tech

    gco
    Link
    I really wanted to get one of the new ones but the thing that killed it for me was the lack of water resistance. Seems there was a degree of it but I'm uncomfortable with anything that does less...

    I really wanted to get one of the new ones but the thing that killed it for me was the lack of water resistance. Seems there was a degree of it but I'm uncomfortable with anything that does less than 30m of depth, as I like to keep my watch on at all times and I occasionally go scuba diving/snorkelling.

    1 vote

  7. Comment on Firefox is releasing an enterprise offering soon in ~tech

    gco
    Link
    I'm glad they're doing this. While there are no strict enforcements at my workplace regarding browsers, Chrome has been pushed since the beginning and for a long time it's looked there's been talk...

    I'm glad they're doing this. While there are no strict enforcements at my workplace regarding browsers, Chrome has been pushed since the beginning and for a long time it's looked there's been talk of restricting the use of others due to lack of enterprise controls. Hopefully that means if that time comes, Firefox is included in the conversation but I'm concerned at this point that it might be too far behind.

    19 votes

  9. Comment on Thoughts on graphene OS? in ~tech

    gco
    Link Parent
    Although I could live with the annoyance of not accessing pictures from the camera without Google Photos, I found myself using it to edit videos. Not that I do any complex editing, but something...

    Although I could live with the annoyance of not accessing pictures from the camera without Google Photos, I found myself using it to edit videos. Not that I do any complex editing, but something as simple as rotating 90° is not possible in Immich annoyingly.

    2 votes

  10. Comment on What are your gaming idiosyncracies? in ~games

  11. Comment on freemediaheckyeah - The largest collection of free stuff on the internet in ~tech

    gco
    Link
    Thanks so much for sharing. I'm keen to review the music discovery section when I have more time. For now I already found a very valuable resource, Muspy. For ages I've been wanting a service that...

    Thanks so much for sharing. I'm keen to review the music discovery section when I have more time. For now I already found a very valuable resource, Muspy. For ages I've been wanting a service that keeps me up to date with releases from artists I like, I didn't want to pay for Music Butler and trying to do that with Lidarr was a pain.

    7 votes

  12. Comment on Steam Controller 2 sold out in ~games

    gco
    Link Parent
    Physical presence :)

    Physical presence :)

  13. Comment on Steam Controller 2 sold out in ~games

    gco
    Link Parent
    I managed to snag one in Aus.

    I managed to snag one in Aus.

    1 vote

  14. Comment on Lost/losing the drive for friendship in ~health.mental

    gco
    Link Parent
    Thanks so much for the reply. I think your assessment is right. I find it hard to share things that are personal, and I also tend to have issues finding common ground with others to have...

    Thanks so much for the reply. I think your assessment is right. I find it hard to share things that are personal, and I also tend to have issues finding common ground with others to have conversations that are not just surface level since it's hard for me to find anyone that likes the things that I like in the first place.

    2 votes

  15. Comment on Lost/losing the drive for friendship in ~health.mental

    gco
    Link
    I've lived through pretty similar experiences and have a very similar view, I want to have friends, good friends not just people around me. I understand that one can lead to the other but I've not...

    I've lived through pretty similar experiences and have a very similar view, I want to have friends, good friends not just people around me. I understand that one can lead to the other but I've not really managed to get it to work. Most of my life I've had no real friends, I had a good group when I was in university but we eventually started drifting and then I moved far away.

    I've tried a few things and nothing has worked, use friend finding apps, joining online communities, joining in person volunteering and in person social activities but still nothing. And it's not lack of effort, in some of those spaces I've been the one leading to meet others, rallying them to doing something, starting conversations; all of which feels uncomfortable to me as an introvert, but I also am aware that relationships take effort and if I get a friendship out of it I'm happy to put in that effort.

    I've reached the conclusion that is something about me, and I can't really quite tell what it is. And it's not like I can ask others about it. At the same time I've made my peace with it and while I'm still hopeful to find friends one day, I don't expect it to happen and I won't get in a bad mood because of it.

    Sorry, this is not to say you shouldn't go for it, I just wanted to add my voice in saying that while friendships can have some demonstrable benefits, you can also be OK being on your own.

    4 votes

  16. Comment on Music streamer Deezer allows users to filter out AI music, so why does Spotify not offer the same? in ~music

    gco
    Link
    For those looking to move away from streaming platforms, or even those that already have, I had this recommended to me a couple of days ago. It is a self-hosted music discovery platform. I only...

    For those looking to move away from streaming platforms, or even those that already have, I had this recommended to me a couple of days ago. It is a self-hosted music discovery platform. I only heard about it yesterday so I can't say whether it's good or not, but I'm very keen to try it out.

    3 votes

  17. Comment on Music streamer Deezer allows users to filter out AI music, so why does Spotify not offer the same? in ~music

    gco
    Link Parent
    It is not available in many countries.

    It is not available in many countries.

    1 vote

  18. Comment on Chat Jimmy - A nearly instantaneous AI chatbot in ~tech

    gco
    Link
    This is a very interesting showcase, more details are available at https://taalas.com/the-path-to-ubiquitous-ai/ A potential positive here is that this can be used in specific cases where models...

    This is a very interesting showcase, more details are available at https://taalas.com/the-path-to-ubiquitous-ai/
    A potential positive here is that this can be used in specific cases where models are not required to complete complex ambiguous tasks, hopefully alleviating the current pressure on electronic components like RAM and GPUs.

    4 votes