kacey's recent activity
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Comment on Denmark tests humanoid robots in supermarkets to help to ease staff workload at night in ~tech
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Comment on Epic Games reportedly pivoting to “AI first” game development model in ~tech
kacey LinkFigured this would be more appropriate for ~tech, since it's less about games, and more about AI. Also, before you read through my highlighted snippets, please remember that editorial input...Figured this would be more appropriate for ~tech, since it's less about games, and more about AI.
Also, before you read through my highlighted snippets, please remember that editorial input necessarily creates bias. I am not an impartial, unemotional thinking machine. I am, of course, a dog sitting at a desk using BTT (bark-to-text) input. So the things I find salient to an article tell a story of my personal interests and opinions. Please read the article, in other words; this should not be seen as a summary XD
Epic Games is shifting to an “AI first” development strategy for its collaboration with the Walt Disney Company, letting AI models write all the code and guide all the artwork for an upcoming shooter.
[...]
Human developers will be tasked with managing and guiding code and art assets generated by models such as Anthropic’s Claude, according to internal Epic employee messages viewed by Bloomberg. That means “no more hand-written code” and art assets “generated with full AI workflows,” according to the report.
[...]
“We have a huge pivot underway here at Epic, moving developers around to retool for maximum AI acceleration,” Epic CEO Tim Sweeney wrote on social media shortly after the Bloomberg story was posted. “The aim isn’t to do the same stuff with fewer people, but to enable everyone here to build MORE and BETTER stuff, and to bring the benefits to all teams using Unreal.”
[...]
[...] In an interview with IGN in June, Sweeney saw the technology resulting in games with “the possibility of infinite dialogue with a really simple setup for creators,” leading to situations where “small teams will be able to create games with immense amounts of characters and immense and interactive worlds.”
[...]
Epic laid off over 1,000 employees in March, citing a “downturn in Fortnite engagement” as the main reason behind the move. Months later, Fortnite Senior External Development Manager Stephanie Arnette said that “I know everyone’s biggest fear is, ‘Oh my god, AI is going to take all our jobs.’ That’s not our goal. The goal is to make us more efficient.” -
Epic Games reportedly pivoting to “AI first” game development model
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Comment on Software developers are not okay in ~tech
kacey Link ParentRelatively easy != easy. Existing customer base, proven business model, coworkers as a known factor. Switching companies doesn't change that employers negotiate as a bloc, and employees negotiate...It's relatively easy to start a new software company [...]
Relatively easy != easy.
Why form a union to fight with management when you can replace management with your own?
Existing customer base, proven business model, coworkers as a known factor.
And even people who don't want to be management might join a new company with their friends, or just switch companies. The grass is always greener.
Switching companies doesn't change that employers negotiate as a bloc, and employees negotiate as individuals. The mentality of leaving everyone to fend for themselves has gotten us here. For people who're fine with this state of affairs, cool, more power to ya. This blog post examines people who aren't, so my comment is targeted at them, and others who could relate to that situation.
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Comment on Software developers are not okay in ~tech
kacey LinkCtrl-F didn't turn up any results for "union" and only an off-target hit for "organize". RIP to an entire industry which never learned that, in order to negotiate effectively, you need to come to...Ctrl-F didn't turn up any results for "union" and only an off-target hit for "organize". RIP to an entire industry which never learned that, in order to negotiate effectively, you need to come to the bargaining table with leverage (and that leverage evaporates when you become trivially replaceable). Oh well.
Hopefully this is a lesson to every other industry that AI is being forced into. The best time to set up sustainable industries which exclude employer-driven exploitation is yesterday, the next best time is now.
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Comment on Our minds aren’t equipped to handle AI in ~tech
kacey Link ParentOverall agreed! I suppose, I would prefer if LLMs were pulled into disciplines rather than being pushed, if that makes sense: run active campaigns to pair up technologists (or, like, literally...Overall agreed! I suppose, I would prefer if LLMs were pulled into disciplines rather than being pushed, if that makes sense: run active campaigns to pair up technologists (or, like, literally LLMs in a chat interface) with practitioners (educators, admins, maintenance staff, etc.) to figure out where the tools can have an impact, or where minor systems-level changes could help them better leverage the tools. Ideally, those people on the ground could directly influence the design of the tools that would be made for them, instead of diluting their input across reams of meddling middle managers.
In sum: I don't think that Sam Altman or Elon Musk know the first thing about the fields onto which their tools are being deployed, but that doesn't stop them from pushing to do so anyhow. And they'll succeed, since swinging an enormous pile of money in front of nearly anyone in a position of power will get them to agree to anything. It makes a lot of business sense if, for instance, you need to demonstrate your AI business' absurd profitability and lack all morality: blitz entire fields semi-autonomously with your infinite wealth and nearly-but-not-quite useful tools to put all your competitors out of business, then crank the prices up after they're all locked into using your platform.
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Comment on Our minds aren’t equipped to handle AI in ~tech
kacey Link ParentAh, certainly! Similar to my response to creesch, I'd note that my message was laser focused on dismantling the article author's thesis rather than discussing the topic in general. I would say...Ah, certainly! Similar to my response to creesch, I'd note that my message was laser focused on dismantling the article author's thesis rather than discussing the topic in general.
I would say that, IMO, the jury is still out on how best to apply these tools, so I'm not certain about what we should be teaching people even to start with.
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Comment on Our minds aren’t equipped to handle AI in ~tech
kacey (edited )Link ParentJust as an aside, it's not my preference to focus on education. I re-read the author's sprawling blog post (archive link), and "LLMs are bad for the children" is the only concrete critique I could...If you decide to purely focus on education you might have a point.
Just as an aside, it's not my preference to focus on education. I re-read the author's sprawling blog post (archive link), and "LLMs are bad for the children" is the only concrete critique I could find, hence my bringing it up. I would have crafted a more comprehensive argument were this a discussion post, and not a shared link 😅. In point form, the author wrote this:
- Spun a tale to literally interpret statements about the mind == computer as being false, since it's not a Von Neumann or Harvard architecture CPU, ipso facto squishy brain != silicon calculator
- Language != thought, asserted via citation
- Alluding to evolutionary psychology via a metaphorical comparison to hot dogs [1] and calorie seeking behaviour, claims that AI == junk food, and since junk food == bad, AI == bad ("clogging our capacity to develop the knowledge we need [...] to navigate the world").
- Pivots to how this disproves the claim that "AI is transforming education", since per the above framing, you cannot learn via AI methods (metaphorically: you can't make a balanced meal out of hot dogs)
- Dismisses dismissals of AI critique by AI boosters by reframing onto education [2], which is their strongest argument of AI boosters being fallible.
- (my OP; quote about how the children can't read anymore etc. etc.)
- Appeals to nature [3]
- Broad claim that AI assistance for education is invalid since (1) human brain != computer, and (2) some efforts have failed
- Cognitive delegation is bad, but people use it
- Jab at researchers by stating that they reinvented schools
- Discusses school AI bans by various jurisdictions
- Points out that college students have protested it
- Another appeal to nature and reassertion that human brain != computer.
... hence why I was laser focused on education, since their thesis ("AI bad, humans lazy") hinges on it. Anywho.
[professional concerns around LLM usage]
That's actually super interesting! Tbh, as I'm completely out of the software dev industry now, I've been trying to come up with ways to avoid those issues. A lot of them showed up before as coworkers would just copy paste out of stack overflow: we'd end up with insecure package versions (SO suggested it), awful coding practices (it passed tests what more do you want), and so forth. I'm trying to get my personal LLM harness + tooling set up to prevent this stuff programmatically: adding local continuous testing and code coverage enforcement, automated version checking, getting a fresh agent to enforce each code guideline as part of a merge review, etc.
Thinking back, it feels like a supercharged version of the complaints I heard when switching from a majority C++ workplace to a majority Java/C#/insert-memory-managed-language-here workplace: people stopped thinking about what their code did at runtime, and started leaning on the GC to clean up their poor practices. And it worked! The GC (and python/javascript in particular) did more to democratize software development than any amount of re-reading TAOCP or Design Patterns ever could. This is obviously more of a step function than that, but I can't help but see similarities between the two. IMO the largest differences are (1) software development is now critical to the world economy, so smashing a hole in its bottom will have ... side effects, (2) there are a tonne more people to complain now, (3) as a dual to 1, there're trillions of dollars being bet that this is worth hundreds of trillions of dollars, so there's tonnes of incentive to be extra annoying about it.
It really is basic human psychology as far as I am concerned. Our minds are wired to take the easy approach wherever they can, which historically makes a lot of sense.
Maybe? I'd point out that people still play music (despite MP3 players existing), hike intentionally difficult paths (despite cars and bikes existing), and play video games on hard (despite easy modes existing).
My more broad argument from my original post could be rephrased as: when faced with a limited set of resources, and put under pressure to perform optimally with them, people will often find more efficient strategies to accomplish their objectives. However, as those pressures recede, we find ourselves pursuing art, culture, and personal improvement for their own merits (or as part of prosocial exercises), and not in the context of an external framework that demands monetary results (and threatens corporal punishment). Perhaps it speaks to the depths to which those constraints are intertwined with our current socioeconomic systems that we feel personally aligned with them. But I have hope that human nature is not to optimize laziness, and that the false perception of such is a symptom of the world we've constructed.
...
I may have had too much coffee.
[1]
AI poses a similar sort of danger to our cognitive capabilities, by clogging our capacity to develop the knowledge we need – in our heads – to navigate the world. It’s a cognitive hot dog.
The occasional hot dog won’t harm anyone, but it sure will if it becomes a regular meal at lunch or dinner. The same is true for AI — the harm is not from its occasional use, but making it part of our mental diet.
[2]
Whatever the effects of these earlier technologies, never before have we developed and broadly deployed something so explicitly intended to supplant human thinking — that’s what AI evangelists themselves argue.
Look at education. ChatGPT may be the world’s largest learning platform, but students are using it en masse to avoid the effortful thinking [...] (see previous quotes)
[3]
No other species’ brain and body develops over such an extended period as ours, and historically, we’ve complemented that with unique cultural institutions that transmit knowledge from one generation to the next.
P.S. I try not to bring up "cap----ism" anymore since it's a bit of a trigger word that instantly devolves conversations into poop slinging contests, but feel free to substitute it out for "socioeconomic system" or "external framework" if you want to imagine the first draft of this comment.
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Comment on Our minds aren’t equipped to handle AI in ~tech
kacey LinkI think the crux of the author's argument is that LLMs are bad because people use them for offloading both their thought and their acquisition of knowledge? The example they give is for education:...I think the crux of the author's argument is that LLMs are bad because people use them for offloading both their thought and their acquisition of knowledge? The example they give is for education:
Look at education. ChatGPT may be the world’s largest learning platform, but students are using it en masse to avoid the effortful thinking that’s necessary to build their durable knowledge. Evidence continues to mount demonstrating the negative impact of AI tools within education settings (and Gen Z generally hates it). A recent study from China revealed that thousands of students essentially stopped doing their homework once they started using AI (which substantially harmed their learning). There’s even evidence that when students use large language models for supposed learning purposes, they become habituated to relaxing their judgment and critical thinking in other contexts.
I think I disagree pretty strongly? It moreso seems like, if you create a game where students are forced to get a high score by any means necessary or else have their futures taken from them (either via school placement or academic achievement-linked scholarships), they're going to optimize for the presented objective. Presumably, that's why wealthy people bribe their way through the system in some cases, or pay for improved tutoring in others. They aren't learning because it's such a beautiful and wonderful way to embody the human experience, it's so that they can claw their way up out of whatever hole they were born into (see: children pursuing sports with the sole goal of escaping poverty, or joining the military in regions where no other employer exists).
Furthermore, I'd disagree with the notion that delegating thought doesn't happen widely now. People groupthink all the time, and lean on biases or stereotypes just to get through the week. The most common complaint I hear about people w.r.t. doing anything productive for society is that they don't have the spare thought for it: why research electoral candidates; they're all the same and I'm too tired -- I'll just vote the same way my parents did/I did last time. Why look for ways to reduce my carbon impact; it's all so difficult to understand, and there's already too much to do (and some bald guy on the internet said it doesn't work anyways). Why understand why anything doesn't work; it's too complicated, and the most recent attack ad I saw said brown people are causing it anyways.
So yeah, firm disagree that the problem here is the technology of LLMs. It's companies shoving it into every corner of our lives in order to optimize their personal game, which is increasing profits (or increasing the perception of a probability of future profits).
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Comment on ‘Digger’ majorly bombs with $8 million opening weekend, ‘Verity’ scores $32 million debut in ~movies
kacey LinkOh, phew -- I thought that I'd missed a film adaptation of Digger by Ursula Vernon XD. That would've been something worth hauling my butt over to a movie theatre.Oh, phew -- I thought that I'd missed a film adaptation of Digger by Ursula Vernon XD. That would've been something worth hauling my butt over to a movie theatre.
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Comment on Anthropic's IPO prospectus shows sweeping AI vision, surging costs in ~finance
kacey Link ParentUnderstood, and makes sense! As a note, since you bring up legal issues -- w.r.t. contract law, I'd note that there's been some hubbub about lawyers seeing more and more difficult questions come...Understood, and makes sense!
As a note, since you bring up legal issues -- w.r.t. contract law, I'd note that there's been some hubbub about lawyers seeing more and more difficult questions come to them, since the LLMs do a decent job of explaining the basics to people. It's always worthwhile to get a professional in when there are stakes involved, but the LLMs seem capable of flagging issues correctly, at least. Time will tell how many type 2 errors are slipping through.
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Comment on Anthropic's IPO prospectus shows sweeping AI vision, surging costs in ~finance
kacey Link ParentFor now, it can be? And I only note the underlying reason to lend credence to my argument about the generality of this; without context, someone would potentially interpret this as "it makes up...For now, it can be? And I only note the underlying reason to lend credence to my argument about the generality of this; without context, someone would potentially interpret this as "it makes up its mind early, so I have to ask it repeatedly".
I actually had Claude disagree with me the other day, so they're getting better XD
I figure that in the mid to long run, since this is an issue of knowledge, we'll train this out of the system -- the entire point is outsourcing thinking (for better or for worse), it just takes time to figure out how. So it's useful-ish now, as long as one follows a few rules about usage, and it'll be more useful later, when the rules are baked into how it works.
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Comment on Anthropic's IPO prospectus shows sweeping AI vision, surging costs in ~finance
kacey Link ParentYo 👋 all I'd point out is that it's typically wise to start new conversations and compare output between them. Priming the LLM with previous responses can get you the result you'd like....Yo 👋 all I'd point out is that it's typically wise to start new conversations and compare output between them. Priming the LLM with previous responses can get you the result you'd like. Ultimately, a large part of their training process involves trying to figure out what responses get the best ratings from people: that can lead to the LLM being well trained at figuring out what you want, and then giving it to you.
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Comment on Anthropic's IPO prospectus shows sweeping AI vision, surging costs in ~finance
kacey Link Parent(I'm not LukeZaz, but as a note, please consider whether it's doing better in this area because of its inherent capacity or because competent analyses of Enron are overrepresented in its dataset....(I'm not LukeZaz, but as a note, please consider whether it's doing better in this area because of its inherent capacity or because competent analyses of Enron are overrepresented in its dataset. LLMs are capable of reasoning, but they can apply a veneer of plausibility onto all of their output. Context: Gemini will happily hallucinate citations for building codes which don't exist, then when I pull up the document, it will happily note that it invented the citation and justified its response retroactively)
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Comment on Timasomo 2026: Roll Call in ~creative.timasomo
kacey LinkI'm going to attempt to get a gaussian splat + composited model viewer set up in Godot, with some functionality to view and jump between POIs and/or inferred camera locations. This is going to...I'm going to attempt to get a gaussian splat + composited model viewer set up in Godot, with some functionality to view and jump between POIs and/or inferred camera locations.
This is going to date me, but I used to love this tool called Photosynth that Microsoft discontinued from way back in the day. I think it'd be really useful for letting people walk through museums, for example, that they're unlikely to ever see in person (especially if it can be done in VR w/WebXR). Could also be nice for documenting some sites that're being demolished or destroyed so that they can be preserved, in some way, for future generations (e.g. historic buildings, old growth forests slated for clear cutting) and also to preview what could be there (e.g. walking through proposed buildings, looking at them composited onto the landscape, previewing views from parks, etc.).
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Comment on Interview: Firefox’s chief on why he hopes a redesign will help win users from Chrome in ~tech
kacey Link ParentThank you very much for posting that. It put into words how I feel about this dramatically better than I ever could've, and the fact that it's coming from an insider (with fifteen years of...Thank you very much for posting that. It put into words how I feel about this dramatically better than I ever could've, and the fact that it's coming from an insider (with fifteen years of hindsight!) helps preemptively defuse a lot of arguments that I typically see w.r.t. critique of execs in Mozilla Corporation.
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Comment on Announcing the eighth annual Tildes' Make Something Month (Timasomo)! in ~tildes
kacey LinkI'm down; please add me to the list! I've skipped this for a few years, but I think I have the brain space this time around.I'm down; please add me to the list! I've skipped this for a few years, but I think I have the brain space this time around.
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Comment on Trolley problem, again in ~humanities
kacey Link ParentAah, thank you! I couldn't find it on Alex's bluesky account, xcancel.com doesn't appear to exist anymore, and I figured that people who dislike Twitter/X would also be opposed to instagram....Aah, thank you! I couldn't find it on Alex's bluesky account, xcancel.com doesn't appear to exist anymore, and I figured that people who dislike Twitter/X would also be opposed to instagram. Missed the tumblr repost though, which would've been ideal.
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Comment on Trolley problem, again in ~humanities
kacey LinkMostly an aside, but on the topic of the trolley problem, I liked this comic from a while back satirizing it a tad. I don't really have anything to add to the discussion, however 😅Mostly an aside, but on the topic of the trolley problem, I liked this comic from a while back satirizing it a tad. I don't really have anything to add to the discussion, however 😅
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Comment on How SendCutSend is changing the way we build in ~tech
kacey Link ParentHah, same XD I feel like I have all the advantages atm, but I keep getting bottlenecked by self doubt, social anxiety, and an unsupport group, as it were. Baby steps, though! Ultimately the...Hah, same XD I feel like I have all the advantages atm, but I keep getting bottlenecked by self doubt, social anxiety, and an unsupport group, as it were. Baby steps, though! Ultimately the journey should be the goal anyhow; we're all grappling with challenges larger than ourselves these days, so every bit helps.
Agreed! I believe Amazon does something similar for their warehouses already, so there's definitely precedent. It'd also be useful for reducing adverse interactions with staff or general theft in higher risk areas, as well as being able to provide a fuller set of products in a smaller footprint (assuming that the warehouse in the back was designed as compact as possible).