heraplem's recent activity
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Comment on Solo developer rebuilds Adobe Creative Suite in Rust using Claude, releases it free to all in ~tech
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Comment on The mathocalypse in ~science
heraplem Link ParentArguably yes, but it depends on how you use them. My understanding is that OpenAI told their agents to work out the proofs "by hand" first and then formalize the resulting proofs in Lean. I think...aren't these models a nearly perfect way to accidentally come up with proofs so contrived that they do stumble into proving a contradiction?
Arguably yes, but it depends on how you use them. My understanding is that OpenAI told their agents to work out the proofs "by hand" first and then formalize the resulting proofs in Lean. I think that's much less likely to prove a contradiction than telling the agents to work out the proof in Lean and not stop until they prove the result (which they could achieve by proving a contradiction first).
Also, maybe I should clarify what I meant by "it is possible for it to be wrong". In theory, i.e., if the logic-checker is written correctly, then it is actually impossible for it to be wrong, in the sense of "if a proof passes the logic checker, then it is a valid proof". Whenever someone finds a way to prove a contradiction, that's a bug, and it gets fixed. Eventually, it will probably get to a place where it has no such bugs.
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Comment on US Pentagon says the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed in ~society
heraplem LinkThis is the first time one of the White House's performative cruelty stunts has broken through the media in a long time. They must be proud of this one.This is the first time one of the White House's performative cruelty stunts has broken through the media in a long time. They must be proud of this one.
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Comment on OpenAI releases findings on 377 math problems, further roiling field in ~science
heraplem Link ParentThe next frontier there is going to be software both produced and verified by AI. It's probably not worth the time and money for frontier labs to train that capability right now, but there's no...The next frontier there is going to be software both produced and verified by AI. It's probably not worth the time and money for frontier labs to train that capability right now, but there's no reason why they can't get there eventually.
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Comment on OpenAI releases findings on 377 math problems, further roiling field in ~science
heraplem Link ParentSee, I think this just isn't thinking far enough ahead. Give it a few more years, and you don't need humans to have institutional knowledge about how the code works.institutional knowledge over how that code actually works
See, I think this just isn't thinking far enough ahead. Give it a few more years, and you don't need humans to have institutional knowledge about how the code works.
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Comment on The mathocalypse in ~science
heraplem Link ParentThe logic test is a small and battle-hardened piece of software whose job it is to check proofs for logical correctness. It is possible for it to be wrong. People occasionally find ways to prove...Who is writing the logic test, then?
The logic test is a small and battle-hardened piece of software whose job it is to check proofs for logical correctness.
It is possible for it to be wrong. People occasionally find ways to prove contradictions. It doesn't happen very often, and the proofs are usually pretty contrived. You are not likely to just stumble into proving a contradiction.
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Comment on OpenAI releases findings on 377 math problems, further roiling field in ~science
heraplem Link ParentI would argue that while "programming" or "software engineering" may still exist, "coding" basically is over as a thing that humans do. There are still exceptions, it will take time for the impact...I would argue that while "programming" or "software engineering" may still exist, "coding" basically is over as a thing that humans do. There are still exceptions, it will take time for the impact of coding assistants to be felt evenly, etc., but having humans bang out code simply isn't economical anymore for basically any purpose.
"Software engineering" may still exist because we still need to produce software; and, furthermore, that does still want domain expertise. Someone with prior experience as a programmer is, at least for now, going to be better at getting their LLM to do the right thing. But for high-level math, the practical utility is unclear; and when it does have practical utility, it's usually not in merely knowing whether a given theorem is true or false.
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Comment on OpenAI hacked Australia's Medicare portal in ~tech
heraplem Link ParentIn the US at least, hacking into a government computer system is a federal crime regardless of whether any damage was done.In the US at least, hacking into a government computer system is a federal crime regardless of whether any damage was done.
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Comment on The doomsday cult inside OpenAI in ~tech
heraplem Link ParentI think one of the things that makes people suspicious is the simple observation that, despite all their warnings, these people continue to build the thing that they are warning about. I...Yea, I find it rather off putting that there is large group of people who seem rather quick to conclude that the people closest to this technology don't know it the best or can't be trusted to give observations.
I think one of the things that makes people suspicious is the simple observation that, despite all their warnings, these people continue to build the thing that they are warning about.
I understand that they have their reasons (including, but not limited to, uh, money), but it's very hard to convince someone that you are sincere when your actions appear to contradict your words.
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Comment on Steam recently made a fundamental change to indie game discoverability in ~games
heraplem LinkIn a world where it often feels like everything keeps getting darker, Valve is a shining beacon.In a world where it often feels like everything keeps getting darker, Valve is a shining beacon.
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Comment on A beginning for mathematics in ~science
heraplem LinkIt's about as nice a vision as you could hope for, I suppose. In a way, it sort of proposes that mathematicians should become like chess players. I did not see an answer to where the funding will...It's about as nice a vision as you could hope for, I suppose.
In a way, it sort of proposes that mathematicians should become like chess players.
I did not see an answer to where the funding will come from, though.
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Comment on [Poem] Things Artificial Intelligence Can’t Do - Aaron Belz in ~books
heraplem Link ParentOnly speaking for myself here. A better analyst than me would spend a lot of time talking about the body of the poem itself, which has nothing to do with AI. Only the title frames the poem as...Only speaking for myself here.
A better analyst than me would spend a lot of time talking about the body of the poem itself, which has nothing to do with AI. Only the title frames the poem as being "about" AI. But I am a poor analyst, so ...
I take the poem to be a combination of sincerity and irony.
It's sincere, because these are things that AI genuinely cannot do. They are genuinely human things.
It's ironic, because they are mostly depressing things, things that you don't really want to do.
In asking the question "What can't AI do?" the set of "good" answers seems to be shrinking daily. So all that is left are the "bad" answers.
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Comment on How accurate have Ed Zitron's AI skeptic predictions been? in ~tech
heraplem (edited )Link ParentI agree. This is why I don't call myself "anti-ai" even though I completely loathe the technology (and I'm no poser—I've hated it since the mid-2010s). You can't authentically be "anti" something...I agree. This is why I don't call myself "anti-ai" even though I completely loathe the technology (and I'm no poser—I've hated it since the mid-2010s). You can't authentically be "anti" something that you can't meaningfully oppose.
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Comment on How accurate have Ed Zitron's AI skeptic predictions been? in ~tech
heraplem (edited )Link ParentI think that many (most?) people who dislike generative AI aren't completely honest—probably not even to themselves—about the actual reasons they dislike it. I say this because I know why I...- Exemplary
I think that many (most?) people who dislike generative AI aren't completely honest—probably not even to themselves—about the actual reasons they dislike it. I say this because I know why I dislike generative AI, and my reasons only partly overlap with the most common anti-AI talking points. (I don't really consider myself "anti-AI", because I think that's about as meaningful as being "anti-earthquake".) However, I think that you are missing some things.
First, I think you're a bit invoking the Goomba fallacy. You don't know whether anti-AI people are more likely to be developers, support increased pay for artists, be vegans, etc. It's kind of unreasonable to purport to identify hypocrisy in a group of people that you don't really know anything about other than one shared trait.
Second, I think it is unwise to expect any group of people to always be rational about everything. Humans have a status quo bias, so they will perceive a bad change as worse (per unit of "badness") than a bad status quo. So even if the status quo for artists was already bad, people will comparatively overreact to worsening conditions. This is indeed irrational, but it is something that applies to all groups of people.
Third, I have a bone to pick with this particular argument:
Maybe it's on behalf of artists, but where have these people been for the past hundred years? The trope of the starving artist is from the 1800s, and we've been farming out illustration work overseas for pennies on the dollar since the 1950s.
To my mind, painting generative AI as "bad for artists" is a comical understatement. I've gone on at length about this before, so I won't repeat myself, but I really believe that, in the long term, generative AI represents the wholesale obliteration of human-made art. I think that, within a century or two, humans will basically have stopped making art, at least as we currently think of it.
And this goes for everything to do with generative AI. I think it represents a complete transformation of what it means to be human. Humanity has gone through these sorts of changes before, but generative AI is different from all the others in that it's hard to see how it represents anything other than a diminishment of humanity itself. Previous technologies certainly diminished parts of the human experience, but they also opened up new ones. Not this time, I think.
(We had a pretty good run from 1440 up to the 1900s or so, and that resulted in the idea that technological progress was linked to the uplift of humanity. I think even a lot of people who are ambivalent about generative AI still believe this deep down, or at least want to believe it, which is why you see a lot of people say things like "The problem isn't AI, it's the context", which IMO is a thought-terminating cliche.)
Framing it as a matter of mere job loss is underselling the significance of the change. Job loss can theoretically be solved with UBI or some similar mechanism (though I doubt that this will actually happen), but you can't give humans their place in the world back. This is, I think, what is really at the heart of anti-AI sentiment. But no one wants to say it because it's too nebulous to express succinctly and too scary to admit.
I used to love reading old novels. I loved seeing the ways that humans have found meaning throughout history and thinking about they could tell us today. Now I can't bear to do that anymore. When I go back and read those books, I just feel totally defeated. Nothing they wrote means anything anymore.
Again, as a novice in this field, maybe I'm getting something wrong, but isn't that inherently anti-capitalist and therefore inline with the beliefs of many anti-AI believers?
I'm about to make a very speculative and wishy-washy argument, but: this is basically what a lot of FOSS people thought in the early days, and it didn't work out. FOSS was indeed highly disruptive to the tech companies that existed at the time, but it turned out to be a massive boon for big tech in the long run, because it gave them a base of high-quality software that they could use without having to spend any money. (And, indeed, a large base of high-quality code to train models on. In the long run, developers' pro-social behavior was rewarded with the devaluing of their skills.) I can't predict how it will happen—it may have nothing to do with OpenAI and Anthropic, for example—but I believe that generative AI will end up the same way in the long run.
Even though I can't predict the future, I can say that the utility of AI in constructing a repressive society seems pretty obvious. I think the future of civil liberties is extremely grim.
Basically, my perspective, and I think that of most anti-AI people, was succinctly summarized by Walter Benjamin in 1940:
A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.
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Comment on Gamergate but actually in ~games
heraplem (edited )Link Parent"Audience misalignment" is a great way to describe it. I will definitely use this term in the future. There's another layer to it, too. In the 90s and 00s, gaming companies marketed games heavily..."Audience misalignment" is a great way to describe it. I will definitely use this term in the future.
There's another layer to it, too. In the 90s and 00s, gaming companies marketed games heavily to young boys, so much so that they essentially created the synthetic "gamer" identity. In the 10s, gaming companies started to market to broader audiences, and also a greater diversity of voices rose to prominence online. A bunch of anomic young men felt like their identity was being stolen from them. Put that together with the very strange media environment of 2014, and something like GamerGate was probably bound to happen around that time.
I always said back then that the big problem (well, one big problem) with GamerGate was that it lacked a class analysis. The targets of their ire were "cultural elites", when it should have been big corporations. But these young men subconsciously thought of the big gaming corporations as their friends, because they were the source of this "gamer" identity in the first place. And the fact that this was an actual identity partially explains why they were so sensitive to the opinions of game journalists. They demanded to be taken seriously. But at the same time, they wanted reviews to be "objective", which basically just meant that they wanted product reviews, not critical analysis.
GamerGate was structurally very similar to other "paranoid style" movements, like the Know-Nothings and the Red Scare; except it was spiritually even more void, because it was also a phenomenon of consumerist entitlement.
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Comment on Gamergate but actually in ~games
heraplem (edited )Link ParentThis just seems implausible. Big journalism outlets have been on the decline everywhere, not just gaming. It seems far more likely that games journalism has been prey to the same structural...GamerGate is a big reason why the transition in the state of affairs in gaming journalism took place.
This just seems implausible. Big journalism outlets have been on the decline everywhere, not just gaming. It seems far more likely that games journalism has been prey to the same structural factors affecting everyone else.
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Comment on Songs about doing chores / daily routines? in ~music
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
heraplem Link ParentIt took my wife, a friend, and myself about four nights with a few hours of play each night. But having multiple people around really makes this sort of game easier. Depending on how good you are...It took my wife, a friend, and myself about four nights with a few hours of play each night. But having multiple people around really makes this sort of game easier. Depending on how good you are at these sorts of puzzles, I could reasonably see it taking around a week if you're playing alone.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
heraplem (edited )LinkMy wife and I just finished The Incident at Galley House. This is another entry in the mystery game mini-revival that seems to have been kicked off by Return of the Obra Dinn. If you're a fan of...My wife and I just finished The Incident at Galley House. This is another entry in the mystery game mini-revival that seems to have been kicked off by Return of the Obra Dinn. If you're a fan of Obra Dinn, The Case of the Golden Idol, and/or The Roottrees are Dead, then you must play The Incident at Galley House.
Notably, it's published by Evil Trout, the same people that published the criminally-underrated The Roottrees are Dead. I wouldn't say I liked it quite as much as Roottrees, but I'm not sure that's the game's fault—it might have something to do with expectations, and also with the fact that Roottrees was comfy, and this game decidedly is not. Nonetheless, it's a stellar puzzle. I wish I could say more, but the nature of this sort of game is that you can only experience it once.
Like Roottrees, Galley House is actually a remake of an itch.io browser game—specifically, Type Help. (What an awful title!) I went and played a bit of Type Help after finishing Galley House, and the core game is actually 100% identical, except that Galley House adds an additional arc at the end (much like Roottrees did). I actually think that Type Help is in some ways more compelling—pure text gets certain vibes across better than voice acting and visuals—and it apparently made big waves in the interactive fiction community when it was first released. Still, don't let that stop you from playing Galley House, if for no other reason than to support the original developer.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
heraplem (edited )Link ParentWell, there are fans that swear by Mystery of the Emblem, Genealogy, Thracia, Binding Blade, and Sacred Stones . . . I don't think anybody swears by Gaiden. I'm in the same place. I don't mind if...There's a few fans that swear by Gaiden and Thracia
Well, there are fans that swear by Mystery of the Emblem, Genealogy, Thracia, Binding Blade, and Sacred Stones . . . I don't think anybody swears by Gaiden.
So, I don't think I'm a Zelda fan anymore?
I'm in the same place. I don't mind if they felt like Zelda had to change, but I just despise open-world design in general. I wish they had gone in a different direction.
I don't think that the devaluing of labor has ever, even once in all of history, ended well for those whose labor was devalued. I don't see how the correct prior here is anything other than "this will not end well".