indirection's recent activity

  1. Comment on 'The report's so stupid': The DNC 2024 autopsy is roiling US Democrats in ~society

  2. Comment on 'The report's so stupid': The DNC 2024 autopsy is roiling US Democrats in ~society

    indirection
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    I’d like to see people vote for the Democrat, because obviously it’s still important to vote for a bad candidate over a worse candidate… But protest every DNC event, harass officials (legally and...

    I’d like to see people vote for the Democrat, because obviously it’s still important to vote for a bad candidate over a worse candidate…

    But protest every DNC event, harass officials (legally and constructively, i.e. with an out if they act in constituents’ interest), send and vote for outside candidates in primaries, until one-by-one they’re replaced by members more in-touch with the average voter. I simply can’t imagine them operating when almost their entire base is against them, every public appearance is protested, every unmoving figure is slandered; and the more staffers replaced the easier it gets. Don’t hesitate to harshly criticize Democratic Party members even if you want people to vote for them over Republicans: some people will still be confused, but I believe that’s inevitable, because the member will be harshly criticized anyways by Republicans, and you’re helping by (again) explaining that a bad candidate is better than a worse candidate.

    And perfect is the enemy of good. I’d prefer a candidate with a strong economic policy whose social policy is basically “live and let live”: I think (besides being easier to elect) that would help minorities, who are often poor, more than a strong social policy.

    9 votes

  3. Comment on How I feel about LLM (AI) writing in ~tech

    indirection
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    I agree with everything you said, except I find most LLM writing immediately apparent, and not strong. Even LLM writing disguised enough to not be apparent would be OK…maybe not as good as...

    I agree with everything you said, except I find most LLM writing immediately apparent, and not strong. Even LLM writing disguised enough to not be apparent would be OK…maybe not as good as authentic writing, but it must be semi-authentic because it must stand out from other LLM writing in its time.

    Fortunately most of this writing is also apparent to automated tools (at least Pangram). So a tool that filters LLM posts and comments, if it doesn’t already exist I’m sure someone (maybe I) will make eventually. I’m aware that almost certainly some LLM writing will pass the filter, but again, it’s a significant improvement if obvious writing is hidden.

    3 votes

  4. Comment on Mark Ruffalo and Matt Stoller: This merger can, and should, be stopped in ~movies

    indirection
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    IP loss is bad. But even though Paramount would own CBS and CNN, there are many other left-wing news stations. If the politics shift, I expect most of the audience to migrate.

    IP loss is bad. But even though Paramount would own CBS and CNN, there are many other left-wing news stations. If the politics shift, I expect most of the audience to migrate.

  5. Comment on Mark Ruffalo and Matt Stoller: This merger can, and should, be stopped in ~movies

    indirection
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    Should it? Paramount is paying $111 billion for a film studio and dying news company. The IP is a big loss, but the money given to Warner Bros execs could fund new organizations well for a long time.

    Should it?

    Paramount is paying $111 billion for a film studio and dying news company. The IP is a big loss, but the money given to Warner Bros execs could fund new organizations well for a long time.

    3 votes

  6. Comment on Do you play knock-offs of celebrated indie games? in ~games

    indirection
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    This reminds me of the Threes and 2048 controversy. Threes is a simple game, released 6 February 2014. 2048 is a derivative of (another derivative of) Threes, released 9 March 2014. 2048 achieved...

    This reminds me of the Threes and 2048 controversy.

    Threes is a simple game, released 6 February 2014. 2048 is a derivative of (another derivative of) Threes, released 9 March 2014. 2048 achieved much more popularity, and is free whereas Threes is paid. The Threes developers have called 2048 a rip-off.

    Personally, I think ideas (especially simple ones like Threes) should not be protected like IP. I think the only thing that should be protected is likeness, i.e. nobody without permission can make something that could be confused with the original. For example, Notepad++ for Mac was called out by Notepad++, IMO rightfully so. Now they've renamed to Nextpad++, which doesn't absolve their guilt, but I think if they originally stuck with that name and design there'd be no issue.

    Instead what should happen, is when a game (or other media) closely resembles an earlier one, then those aware of the later media should be made aware of the earlier media. So people who are aware of 2048 should be aware that Threes executed the concept first (though they can stick with 2048 if they like the gameplay more and don't want to pay). The less resemblance, the less awareness is justified; the more someone likes or invests in something, they more they should know its inspirations.

    11 votes

  7. Comment on "CEO said a thing!" journalism in ~tech

    indirection
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    Even worse: “mayor of [town in the middle of nowhere] [who belongs to the opposite political party] says something dumb”. There are over 19,000 mayors in the US, some are bound to be idiots. Same...

    Even worse: “mayor of [town in the middle of nowhere] [who belongs to the opposite political party] says something dumb”. There are over 19,000 mayors in the US, some are bound to be idiots. Same with spokesperson, high school principle, etc. At least Trump accurately represents his party.

    9 votes

  8. Comment on The cognitive dark forest in ~tech

    indirection
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    I think this alludes to the Target pregnancy scandal, which was debunked. People have been saying "AI can predict human behavior" since that article (from 2012). Unprofitable disasters like the...

    The platform will know your idea is pregnant far before you will.

    I think this alludes to the Target pregnancy scandal, which was debunked.

    People have been saying "AI can predict human behavior" since that article (from 2012). Unprofitable disasters like the Metaverse, unappealing advertisements, and lack of strong evidence make me skeptical.

    Before LLMs, a company couldn’t just absorb your idea and ship it. Ideas needed programmers, and programmers worked in meat-space-and-time, i.e. they were a limited resource, expensive and slow.

    Before LLMs, big companies absorbed and shipped ideas from smaller companies after launch: this famously happened in 1998 with Watson/Sherlock for Mac OS. Another example is Trader Joes ripping off smaller brands, by faking interest in stocking to get product samples. Nowadays, I most frequently see big companies steal smaller companies' ideas via acqui-hire (e.g. OpenClaw and Moltbook).

    I think it's unlikely a big company would steal an idea before it demonstrated success; such an idea may not succeed at all, and big companies tend to avoid risk, plus there are many other promising ideas. Meanwhile, acqui-hiring or outright buying a rising startup is relatively cheap for a billion-dollar company, though life-changing for the startup founder(s); most deals are in the single- to triple-digit millions.

    11 votes

  9. Comment on Nvidia CEO declares AI could start, grow, and run a successful technology company worth more than a billion dollars—excerpt from Lex Fridman Podcast in ~tech

    indirection
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    Here's where they discuss AGI in the transcript and video. Specifically, Lex defines AGI as "able to essentially do your job", then clarifies he means Jensen's job by saying "run, no, start, grow,...

    Here's where they discuss AGI in the transcript and video.

    Specifically, Lex defines AGI as "able to essentially do your job", then clarifies he means Jensen's job by saying "run, no, start, grow, and run a successful technology company that’s worth...more than a billion." And Jensen says yes, then..."It is not out of the question that a Claude was able to create a web service, some interesting little app that all of a sudden, you know, a few billion people used for 50 cents, and then it went out of business again shortly after". Then Jensen explains that AI won't take people's jobs but assist them, because it can do some but not all of their tasks.

    I think this touches the deeper issue on debating whether LLMs are AGI. AGI isn't clearly defined, and any specific definition can be subverted by something that technically fits but doesn't feel like it's AGI or vice versa. I think it makes more sense to instead figure out and debate what LLMs can and can't do.

    For example, LLMs seem good at short tasks that involve surface-level concepts even across disparate domains, but struggle with long tasks that involve niche concepts (i.e. not in training data). I don't think the latter makes LLMs "not AGI", because the former tasks can require some generalization and novelty in output (LLMs can generate output that isn't verbatim from their training data); but it makes them unable to automate most real-world tasks, which require unwritten knowledge learned through experience.

    5 votes

  10. Comment on Digg has shutdown (again) in ~tech

    indirection
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    They blame LLM spammers, yet the shutdown post is riddled with "it's not X, it's Y" and other LLM tropes. (They also blame lack of organic attention. Nobody wants another social media, especially...

    They blame LLM spammers, yet the shutdown post is riddled with "it's not X, it's Y" and other LLM tropes.

    (They also blame lack of organic attention. Nobody wants another social media, especially one without any clear advantages.)

    11 votes

  11. Comment on Executing programs inside transformers with exponentially faster inference in ~comp

    indirection
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    For a while I've dreamed of something like this, but with my basic knowledge of LLMs I didn't know it was feasible. Despite this, I found the article very readable (casual tone, explains things,...

    TL;DR

    Language models can solve tough math problems at research grade but struggle on simple computational tasks that involve reasoning over many steps and long context. Even multiplying two numbers or solving small Sudokus is nearly impossible unless they rely on external tools.

    But what does it take for an LLM itself to be as reliable and efficient as a computer?

    We answer this by literally building a computer inside a transformer. We turn arbitrary C code into tokens that the model itself can execute reliably for millions of steps in seconds.

    The model does not call an external tool. Instead, it executes the program directly via its transformer weights, producing an execution trace token by token and streaming results at more than 30k tokens/sec on a CPU.

    The key technical idea is a new decoding path for execution traces that turns the model's attention lookups from linear scans into queries that take logarithmic time, enabling millions of correct execution steps inside a single transformer run.

    For a while I've dreamed of something like this, but with my basic knowledge of LLMs I didn't know it was feasible. Despite this, I found the article very readable (casual tone, explains things, and lots of interactive visuals).

    Can the model learn to do pruned symbolic execution? Can it learn to explain its execution trace in English? I imagine this can make LLMs great debuggers, who use it to run code while "understanding" what is happening enough to know exactly where execution deviates. Maybe this can also help improve the LLM's world model, if during inference the LLM runs a world simulation; or if the LLM can run programs with ambiguous "natural" parts, itself can become a world simulation (or any other program with seamless ML integration).

    3 votes

  13. Comment on Getting global age assurance right: what we got wrong and what's changing in ~tech

    indirection
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    Discord can accept credit cards, at least in the US, because they are only given to people over 18.

    Discord can accept credit cards, at least in the US, because they are only given to people over 18.

    4 votes

  14. Comment on Opinion piece: I am a 15-year-old girl. Let me show you the vile misogyny that confronts me on social media every day. in ~life.women

    indirection
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    The point of anonymity is that if an authoritarian government sees your post, they can't shoot you in the face, because they don't know it's yours. Just because authoritarian governments can form...

    The point of anonymity is that if an authoritarian government sees your post, they can't shoot you in the face, because they don't know it's yours.

    Just because authoritarian governments can form in its presence, doesn't mean that in its absence, they can't form easier and in a worse form. Every government in history has been massively corrupt at some point: I can't imagine a government with complete control over information not eventually becoming dystopian. Maybe with the help of AI and/or a smarter division of power, we can form a government responsible enough to wield that power, but we must figure out what and how to get there.

    ETA: Another issue is that it's practically impossible to criminalize harassment, because it can be subtle and only apparent to the target. One reason we have new slurs like th*t and not just w*hore is because the former get past filters set up to block the latter. Public forums have trouble simply detecting harassment; to convict someone, you can't just suspect that they're guilty, you must prove it "beyond reasonable doubt".

    In the meantime, I think there should be private spaces, and getting into those without access (which may require ID), or bypassing their automated filters, should be illegal. Then, children should only be given access to these spaces. That would prevent the worst forms of abuse, and I think no bots and effective bans would significantly reduce harassment and general toxicity. But adults should be allowed to access the larger anonymous internet.

    9 votes

  15. Comment on Ladybird chooses Rust as its successor language to C++, with help from AI in ~comp

  16. Comment on The malignant degradation of trust in scientific work in ~science

    indirection
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    The scientific method is the general process "question, research, hypothesize, experiment, analyze, conclude, repeat". It can't be broken, although people can do it wrong, e.g., by misinterpreting...

    the scientific method is somewhat broken in the West (or at least, in the US), largely thanks to Capitalism

    The scientific method is the general process "question, research, hypothesize, experiment, analyze, conclude, repeat". It can't be broken, although people can do it wrong, e.g., by misinterpreting their experiment and making unsupported conclusions.

    I like to think of capital "S" and lowercase "s" science. The former is science culture, including academia and research branches in companies. The latter is, effectively, the scientific method, and more generally, how we discover truth through observation. Capital "S" Science is what you're referring to, and I agree it's corrupted. Lowercase "s" science is incorruptible, because the truth is incorruptible: no matter how much you believe something false, or try to convince others, it's still false (and sometimes the truth doesn't matter, but in the long run it usually does).

    Something that would address both the corruption within and attacks on capital "S" Science, is training people to use the scientific method, and more generally critical thinking. People can "do their own research" and make conclusions that are reasonable and correct, if they know how. The problem is that it's very hard. Nobody is immune to bias and shortcuts in reasoning, and critical thinking isn't something you teach/learn like a mundane fact, it's something you train/practice because one must apply it every time they reason.

    15 votes

  17. Comment on Passing question about LLMs and the Tech Singularity in ~tech

    indirection
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    Anthropic employees use Claude to code Claude: https://www.anthropic.com/research/how-ai-is-transforming-work-at-anthropic. The study indicates that it's increasing code output, but I'd be very...

    Anthropic employees use Claude to code Claude: https://www.anthropic.com/research/how-ai-is-transforming-work-at-anthropic. The study indicates that it's increasing code output, but I'd be very skeptical, not only because it's from Anthropic but because the data is self-reported. More credible studies have demonstrated developers being less productive with AI agents like Claude Code, but I'm sure it depends on the person. Anecdotally, I mainly use Claude Code to write boilerplate, and I'm fairly confident it saves me more time than I spend writing the prompts and extra time debugging, because the boilerplate is easy to verify.

    This means we may be getting to the singularity faster, but the curve isn't steep at least yet. You can't ask an LLM to improve itself 1000 times to get a super-LLM: there may be 1000 minor fixes and niche optimizations, but we almost definitely need at least one more breakthrough to get from a top-tier model (e.g. Opus 4.5) to human-level AGI, and current LLMs aren't discovering breakthroughs.

    Well, actually...in a sort-of breakthrough, Erdos problem #728 was solved "more or less" fully autonomously by AI using a novel technique. The significance is discussed in the linked thread, most of which goes over my head, but my understanding is the AI still needed human assistance. More generally, cutting-edge researchers like Terrace Tao are using LLMs and reporting benefits, but (like with code) I haven't seen an explosion in discoveries, because the LLMs still need human guidance.

    And something you may be interested in: what would happen if you asked Claude Code to improve a codebase 200 times? Someone did that and wrote about it. It's a short blog post, so rather than restating I recommend you read it. The tl;dr and relevance here is described well by its last sentence: "oh and the app still works, there's no new features, and just a few new bugs"

    9 votes

  18. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~society

    indirection
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    We should forgive people for what they've done decades ago, that they apologized for and seem to be different about, regardless of their race or gender. The solution isn't to exclude white men...

    I find it hard to imagine that we would be having this conversation at all were Platner anything other than a fit middle-aged white guy who dresses like a stock photo of a “real man.”

    We should forgive people for what they've done decades ago, that they apologized for and seem to be different about, regardless of their race or gender. The solution isn't to exclude white men from such forgiveness, it's to include everyone else. That means we should forgive Platner.

    People today have issues forgiving others and accepting them despite their flaws. That doesn't mean forgetting others' transgressions or allowing them to repeat, or accepting others' flaws. See this description of "Christian love" from another thread; it should be used on bigots instead of trans people, but the method (shun someone until they repent, then re-invite them) is OK, certainly better than "cancel indefinitely". I'd actually prefer something more lenient, embarrassing and shaming people without fully excluding them; but the main point is, we can and should have zero tolerance for bigotry while accepting people who are formerly bigoted, since even close-minded small towns have zero tolerance for "sins" while accepting people who have "sinned".

    The Democratic party's real issue isn't that they're too radical or too centrist, because politics isn't one-dimensional. The Democrats should be more "radical" in that they should be more blunt, confrontational, and active (as the author says). But I really think they should tolerate and forgive people much more, even if that makes them more "centrist", and that's not the same as tolerating or forgiving specific words and actions.

    3 votes

  19. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~society

    indirection
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    I agree that the backlash towards trans issues is misleading, but it's not impossible to defeat. The solution is general honesty. I'm sure most voters would pick a pro-trans candidate over an...

    I agree that the backlash towards trans issues is misleading, but it's not impossible to defeat. The solution is general honesty.

    I'm sure most voters would pick a pro-trans candidate over an anti-trans candidate, if the pro-trans candidate was obviously better in other ways. They wouldn't believe Republican distortion of Democrat trans views, if Democrats seemed honest.

    The real reason that Trump won is that most people's lives weren't better during Biden's presidency than Trump's, and most Democrat politicians (including Biden and Harris) were very dishonest. Hence why centrist and right-leaning voters didn't favor Democrats over Republicans, and nothing Democrats said shifted their perception more than negligibly.

    Harris not speaking about non-binary people did, and Democrats openly rejecting trans issues would, actually damage the party's appearance further. Voters know that Democrats support trans people, the question is whether they have moderate "live and let live" support or Republican-propaganda "enable sexual assault" support. Unfortunately (as you note), even outright stating the former and giving the most centrist trans-friendly policies (e.g. no women in competitive sports) while explicitly disavowing anything further, won't convince many people. Because (as stated), Democrats have spun and outright lied so much, anyone not far-left doesn't believe anything they say anymore; especially when it contrasts their prior statements and the perceived effects of their prior policies.

    That makes the situation seem pretty grim, but I don't believe most centrist and even moderate right voters like or believe Republican politicians either. The economy is still getting worse for the average person, and barring some miracle where Republicans fix that, voters will get sick of them. Eventually they'll start listening to Democrats again, simply because they're unhappy with the status quo and Democrats are an alternative (unless a third party rises).

    Granted I'm bad at persuasion, so maybe it's not even worth saying. But my lesson to Democrats (am I a Democrat?) is: if you cannot improve people's lives, your policies have unintended consequences, and you have unpopular goals, at least be honest. Write and promote a detailed plan for when you're elected ("Project 2027" and "Project 2029"), then follow it. If the plan differs from what voters want, explain why if you think voters will understand, otherwise just admit it; the popular opinion for some policies is wrong and ignorant, voters don't know how the world works at a large scale, I say this as a voter myself. If part of the plan is infeasible or impossible (e.g. struck down by courts), apologize, then ask voters for next steps, and either do them or (again, being honest) admit you won't. Speaking of, the plan should be feasible and contain actions ("I'll create a fund for small businesses"), not outcomes ("I'll restore the middle class"); and although most voters won't care, the specific details of the actions should be somewhere, at least for you to prove to yourself that the plan really is feasible.

    Voters are so disillusioned by lying politicians, I suspect even a candidate who's authentic but has terrible policies would be elected over the current ones (I suspect that helped Trump get elected). But even if voters don't intrinsically prefer honesty, it's important because it makes people in the other party actually listen to you. If the Democrats build credibility, they'll have no issues clarifying their policies and fighting Republican distortion, on trans rights and everything else. And I imagine Democrats would build credibility by being honest even when it embarrasses them, and taking concrete stances on policies that will alienate both some of their party and "centrists" in the other party, because taking any concrete stance on some policies will alienate many people. This includes being honest about trans rights, but they're only a small part; if the Democrats rebuilt credibility on trans rights it will mainly be from being honest about other policies.

    7 votes

  20. Comment on Millennials: How do you feel about nostalgia pandering? in ~talk

    indirection
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    Nostalgia can be good, but in pure form it's never as good as the past itself. I'm nostalgic for software and the internet of the 2000s, and people who grew up before me are probably nostalgic for...

    Nostalgia can be good, but in pure form it's never as good as the past itself.

    I'm nostalgic for software and the internet of the 2000s, and people who grew up before me are probably nostalgic for software and the internet of the 1980s. But 2000s-style software and websites today aren't the same, because the culture surrounding them is different, and because we've been desensitized.

    Instead of just trying to recreate the past, I think people should combine the best of the past, present, and experiment (for the future). The best "nostalgia" isn't pure nostalgia, it's integrating aspects from the past that have temporarily gone out of favor but are once again useful, and combining them with something completely new.

    7 votes