lelio's recent activity
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Comment on Who gets the Steam Frame? Did Valve pick you for the first wave? in ~games
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Comment on What lesser-known sci-fi reads do you recommend? in ~books
lelio Link ParentThis is one of my favorite series. I always warn people that it needs a little patience though. KSR in general is one of my fav writers but his plots usually feel meandering, exploratory, chaotic,...This is one of my favorite series.
I always warn people that it needs a little patience though. KSR in general is one of my fav writers but his plots usually feel meandering, exploratory, chaotic, character, and world driven. Rather than paced for excitement.
Also, I really don't like the first chapter of red mars. It jumps ahead to the middle of the story and drops into some drama that I don't understand. It feels vaguely political, which is fine (The convention stuff later is one of my favorite parts) but I have no context for anything at this point. So I'm just bored and skeptical.
Once they go back to the actual ship on its way to mars and the training etc. I'm fully in.
Each book takes me months to get through on rereads, but they are so deliciously dense with ideas. Little communities living in interesting ways.
I sometimes recommend starting with Antarctica. It's almost a prequel, but really its own standalone thing. It's barely sci-fi. It really feels like a bite size version of the books. If you like it and want more depth: Mars trilogy.
If you want even more politics and earth ecology: Science in the Capitol.
If you want a better paced but still packed with ideas generation ship single novel: Aurora.
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Comment on I don’t feel like I’m a creative person. How could I fix that and get ideas? in ~creative
lelio LinkCAD design is one of my favorite creative outlets as well. Creativity can be functional problem solving. Think about something useful you could do with the pillars. If you move existing furniture...CAD design is one of my favorite creative outlets as well.
Creativity can be functional problem solving. Think about something useful you could do with the pillars. If you move existing furniture against or around the pillars you aren't losing space. If a chair is sitting right next to a pillar it no longer seems like its in the way right? or a bookshelf or a mirror, etc. You might be able to get away with putting a screw in and hanging stuff off it. When you move out you just put a little spackle or wood filler in the screw hole.Sometimes it helps me to just do something even if I know I wont like it. Just do something cheap and easy first. Then live with it for a bit. Looking at something I don't like and coming up with better solutions is usually easier for me than trying to create something from nothing.
If I've tried a bunch of things and thought about a project for days and I'm just going in circles. Sometimes I'll put it out of my mind, take a break and have some weed while I read a book. Usually at some point I will look up and just casually realize a simple solution that I love and has been staring me in the face the whole time.
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Comment on Who gets the Steam Frame? Did Valve pick you for the first wave? in ~games
lelio (edited )Link256GB Kit and straps, invite email and ordered on 9/22 Shipping email on 9/25. It shipped from ontario, CA , pretty close to me. This morning tracking showed eta today 11-2pm "out for delivery"...256GB Kit and straps, invite email and ordered on 9/22
Shipping email on 9/25. It shipped from ontario, CA , pretty close to me.
This morning tracking showed eta today 11-2pm "out for delivery" then at 2 it changed to 3-6pm , then at 6 it changed to "Reschedule Delivery Requested, This package is being held for a future delivery date." . I didn't request anything. Maybe that just means the driver didn't get it to it today? Hopefully Monday. First world problems.
Edit: now it's saying it's scheduled for delivery on Tuesday 9/29 . Could valve have asked them to delay it for some reason?
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Comment on Who gets the Steam Frame? Did Valve pick you for the first wave? in ~games
lelio LinkJust got the purchase email : "Please confirm your Purchase Information for Steam Frame 256GB Kit" It had a link I was able to add to cart and order. I think it said 6-10 days to ship. I added the...Just got the purchase email : "Please confirm your Purchase Information for Steam Frame 256GB Kit"
It had a link I was able to add to cart and order. I think it said 6-10 days to ship. I added the strap package. the foam package was "sold out" . Tomorrow I'll probably order the camera thing. -
Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
lelio Link ParentI didn't know this existed! thanks. I loved the fold and also read it first. It was a ride, at first i was disappointed with the book because i went in expecting harder scifi for some reason and...Terminus
I didn't know this existed! thanks.
I loved the fold and also read it first. It was a ride, at first i was disappointed with the book because i went in expecting harder scifi for some reason and it felt like all the genre stuff was a bit hand wavy. then I readjusted to the half satire, lovecraft ghostbusters vibe. and really enjoyed it. -
Comment on Who gets the Steam Frame? Did Valve pick you for the first wave? in ~games
lelio LinkOn the 17th I got "You're officially in the reservation queue for Steam Frame 256GB Kit" Nothing else since. Until I saw this thread I assumed that meant I lost the lottery, but apparently that's...On the 17th I got "You're officially in the reservation queue for Steam Frame 256GB Kit"
Nothing else since.Until I saw this thread I assumed that meant I lost the lottery, but apparently that's the good email?
I've been using a vive for 10 years so I'm looking forward to an upgrade. Mostly for beatsaber. -
Comment on Help me choose a small electric car in ~transport
lelio LinkLook into a chevy bolt, 2022-2023. I shopped for an new electric vehicle in 2022. I ended up getting a kia EV6 but I have a family so wanted more of a wagon size, Plus I like something fun to...Look into a chevy bolt, 2022-2023.
I shopped for an new electric vehicle in 2022. I ended up getting a kia EV6 but I have a family so wanted more of a wagon size, Plus I like something fun to drive. The bolt was my maximum practical option on the spreadsheet, affordable, reasonably reliable, could technically fit the family, had a hatchback. everything we needed. it was just a little too boring for us.
Some of the 2022 bolts were part of a battery recall, but that should be taken care of by now and might even mean their batteries are newer. Other downside are the battery packs are supposed to do badly in cold weather, meaning the range is reduced. They also don't charge that fast.
I would only recommending getting an EV if you can have some kind of home charging situation. Public charges are still a pain in my experience. But a regular wall plug, extension cord type of situation is fine, just let it charge slow overnight. I think Its better for the battery anyway.Starting in 2022 every bolt has: automatic emergency braking, forward collision avoidance, pedestrian detection, automatic high beams, and lane-departure warning, plus lane keep assist before that it was an option. buying used in the 1-5 years old range is pretty reasonable. you can get lease returns, etc.
Any car in the last 5 years should be pretty safe and have those types of safety features at least as options.An EV mini 2020-2024 would be not as practical but fun option. its a little less reliable, and more expensive to repair, has a much worse range than the bolt, and also charges slow. But honestly I might still have the mini over the bolt. I think It looks nicer. The steering is probably nice and tight and you feel the road. All the ICE mini's I've driven had a nice spry stiff feel when driving them, the EVs are probably the same. The bolt was more smooth and comfortable without feedback. Its worth driving and seeing which feels better to you.
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Comment on Anthropic's Dario Amodei calls for AI oversight, joined by Sam Altman and Elon Musk in ~tech
lelio LinkI'm in favor of regulation. But this is at least a little bit of regulatory capture. These are 3 of the biggest players. Regulations can protect incumbents.I'm in favor of regulation. But this is at least a little bit of regulatory capture. These are 3 of the biggest players. Regulations can protect incumbents.
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Comment on Where do we go from here? (Regarding AI) in ~tech
lelio (edited )LinkGreat prompts! I'm scared and excited. I'm a freelance industrial technician. Like a handyman for factories. I tend to work on old or custom equipment that is critical but has no support. I learn...Great prompts!
Do you feel concerned about AI or are you still unconvinced?
I'm scared and excited.
Do you think AI will take your job? Why or why not?
I'm a freelance industrial technician. Like a handyman for factories. I tend to work on old or custom equipment that is critical but has no support. I learn how it works so I can fix it. Or I make custom mods to those machines or create bespoke machines to replace them.
I think its plausible that an AI could do my job one day. But I think that would mean we could scale it to manufacture any physical product with no human involvement. At that point I just hope I'm living in The Culture or something like that.
I'm not worried about it in the short term.Are you considering a career change or any other big life decisions because of the changing world?
10-15 years ago. I built two custom machines for a customer. I used off the shelf parts like ballscrews, servos, PLCs, touchscreens, etc. I had to build my own steel frame, covers, plates, etc. Plus get everything connected and talking and programmed from scratch.
Last year they lost all their equipment to a wildfire and I had to rebuild them. Fast, and lots of the parts were obsolete so i would have to reengineer a bunch of stuff.
Rather than start from scratch this time I proposed we buy a CNC mill that runs LinuxCNC so I only have to build a custom fixture and reprogram the control to integrate and recreate their process.
I don't think I would have gone down that path without knowing that I could use LLMs to search through any code on that Linux machine and get a explanations of its basic structure. and then ask it questions, etc. Like an auto commenting machine. I fully understood/hand wrote every piece of code I changed, but I think It would have taken me at least 10x more hours to gain that understanding without an LLM.
I'm doing a second one now and considering other projects like trying to develop my own linuxCNC retrofit path to recycle machines with failed proprietary controls. Its really common that good hardware is thrown away for bad controls.I had used Linux for maybe 10-20 hours total my whole life until last year. I had installed it 2 or 3 times over the decades and always got frustrated and went back to windows. After this project and having LLMs to help, I run my main machines on ubuntu now. I also keep a droplet running to act as a webserver for all my weird selfhosted web app projects.
How are you advising your children, regarding schooling and careers?
My kids have creative type aspirations in conflict with AI. And they are getting close to college age. I feel like there is no way I can possibly advise them with any accuracy.
I know "singularity" can seem like a culty word now. But the idea is that technology is approaching a threshold that makes it less and less predictable, towards a vague foggy point ahead that is impossible to predict anything past. We dont(cant?) know how far away it is or if it really exists. The other side of the big bang is a dramatic metaphor, but I think the idea fits at a smaller human scale here.
Because of that I encourage my kids to pursue whatever they want regardless career practicality. Why suggest any path they aren't excited about?
I didn't get a degree, I don't think they are that valuable. but a college experience probably is. I missed learning linear algebra and I'm struggling to catch up now with an older brain. I've told them that and that we would help them go to art school and it would probably be a great experience with no guarantee of a career.
We cant predict what skills we will need. So all we can do is have enjoyable experiences and try to learn things, almost at random really. So why not just pursue whatever seems fun?Do you have a subscription to an AI service? If you have one, how do you feel about it?
$200 a month to anthropic and I feel guilty and angry about it.
I think building non-zero emission datacenters is fucking idiotic at this point, you have billions of dollars, just put up some solar panels and scale it back a bit. Plus they stole all this data that they are selling back to us. plus a ton of other dumb unregulated capitalism bullshit things all these AI companies are doing.
Nothing like this, and at this scale, should be done for profit. It should be open and non profit: community driven projects, private research, government, academic, whatever. But we should be developing this mindfully, not frantically.
The free market is an amazing technology for supercharging production, but it isn't designed to steer. We are creating machines that do things that we don't understand and pushing them to go as big and fast as they can.Going slower would be safer, and probably more efficient. I think it would be possible to limit our technologic growth to our own understanding, and still have it grow at an accelerating rate. knowing how it works could result in smaller more efficient models. It could give us insight on how to further develop them. It could contribute to other fields like neurology. We could try to understand the nature of intelligence in general.
I still pay because If this is where we are going I don't want to get left behind.
And to be honest because its addictive and fun and satisfying. Most of my use is to create my own little software suite of web apps so I don't have to use annoying not quite what I want services from huge evil companies. I already use it everyday for myself. Even if its a dead end, I'm having fun and learning a lot. maybe we will all make our own bespoke software one day.
I hope for a crash so more people can buy real hardware to run local models on and open models could flourish. We could let nerds have fun with the experimental stuff at small scale. Then scale up and roll out for profit tools when and as we actually understand them.Do you think that this technology will be a net positive or a net negative?
Like above, singularity, no idea. For all I know it wont be positive or negative at all but only slightly embiggen the general klarbness of it all.
How do you think the human race will change, if at all?
I think the human race is always changing. I cant predict where its going.
I would aim for any future that allows as much diversity as possible. Including technologic diversity. if some people want to use vinyl and feature phones, or subsistence farm or hunt and gather or upload their brains or inject scary experimental drugs or GMO themselves into strange creatures, that's all great! I want as much variety as we can conserve or promote. It makes us more resilient and creative. We just need to find ways to have room for everyone.Do you think we will see a serious incident driven by AI in the near future?
Who knows? but probably.
AI is a thing in the world now. Serious incidents happen. So its logical to assume a 9/11 happening now would probably involve AI somehow like it would any new tools and technology.
Also, we are playing with powerful tools we don't understand.Does it bother you that humans may not be the dominant intelligence at some point? Do you think this is even possible?
I'm 99% sure its possible for something else to be smarter than humans. Aliens for example. But also something we make ourselves. I would be totally fine with that. Its like having kids. I just wish we put more thought into what we are making.
If we are just one part of a relay race that fulfills "a way for the cosmos to know itself" . That could be enough for me. It would be cooler if we could come along in some form though.
Does any of this affect your sense of identity or individuality? How do you feel about your skill set and hobbies?
I consider myself neurodivergent and flawed sometimes. but I feel like my "flaws" are uniquely arranged to turn into advantages with these tools.
Or maybe they make me uniquely susceptible to AI psychosis? Vibe coding is now a substantial hobby for me.What do you think it means to be human in a machine dominated world?
I don't think there is a fundamental difference between "machines" and humans. We are just human type machines.
A statistical process run on training data could create a set of numbers that become a model that responds to stimuli in a way that pretends intelligence.
Evolution could be considered a statistical process that over millions of years runs real world experiments to calculate molecular sequences that can that grow themselves into organisms that respond to stimuli in a way that pretends intelligence.
Its not exactly the same. The real world might be a fundamentally better source for intelligence pattern processing. There might be ways to adapt current AI models to train on the "real world", It might slow things down though.If I believed in a soul then I think I would feel very different. If there were a unique undetectable entity somehow attached to me. Made by a higher power. Somehow affecting my response to stimuli. That could easily be our secret sauce for intelligence . I cant disprove that theory, but I wouldn't count on it.
Overall, are you feeling optimistic or pessimistic?
50/50, depends on the day.
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Comment on Homes on stilts built above parking lots ('Hope Rise', Bristol) in ~design
lelio Link ParentIronically, In los Angeles these types of buildings are really common, we call them dingbats . Some of them did pancake in the 94 earthquake. There's a photo in the wiki. Properly engineered I'm...Ironically, In los Angeles these types of buildings are really common, we call them dingbats .
Some of them did pancake in the 94 earthquake. There's a photo in the wiki.
Properly engineered I'm sure they can be fine though. The steel beams on this project look a lot more sturdy than the wood ones on most of the LA dingbats. -
Comment on Industry Standard Tools in ~life.home_improvement
lelio Link ParentAgreed, they are one of the best. A little overpriced on most stuff really. shipping is usually 10-20$ per delivery for me. But its worth it for business stuff. I'm not sure what they are like in...Agreed, they are one of the best. A little overpriced on most stuff really. shipping is usually 10-20$ per delivery for me. But its worth it for business stuff.
I'm not sure what they are like in other cities but here in Los Angeles they have a distribution hub that stocks most of the catalog. They contract with local independent delivery people. They do two rounds per day. So If I order something by 11 am the McMaster guy will show up around 1-4pm with it. Or if I'm in a real hurry I can drive out to the will call counter.
I order stuff several times a week. If I ever want to return anything I just put in a box and give it to the McMaster guy next time he's delivering. no shipping or RMA or anything. I just tell them its a return, they figure it out and reverse the charge. -
Comment on Industry Standard Tools in ~life.home_improvement
lelio Link ParentIt works really well for mcmaster , who's catalog is in the top 5 of the site so far. They were probably inspired by it.It works really well for mcmaster , who's catalog is in the top 5 of the site so far. They were probably inspired by it.
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Comment on New worlds, and what was your "Future Shock" moment? in ~life
lelio Link ParentI'm curious if you have worked in or looked into interpretability? As someone uneducated in the field this seems like where I would want to be right now if I had the opportunity. It seems like the...I'm curious if you have worked in or looked into interpretability?
As someone uneducated in the field this seems like where I would want to be right now if I had the opportunity. It seems like the most interesting, and potentially powerful angle to take. How do these networks actually think? The nature of intelligence itself might be written somewhere in these models as well as in our brains.It also seems like the most responsible way to develop a new technology. Actually study and understand how it works before we start scaling it up and deploying it everywhere.
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Comment on A skeptical overview of AI and consciousness in ~humanities
lelio Link ParentDo you think the core logic of an LLM resides in the code that humans wrote? Or do you think the core logic lives in the weights? You're right to push back on "program themselves". That is a...Do you think the core logic of an LLM resides in the code that humans wrote? Or do you think the core logic lives in the weights?
You're right to push back on "program themselves". That is a semantic stretch that is not only factually inaccurate. But as you said it paints a false recursive picture that is not what I intended to mean.
I was thinking along the lines of the system as a whole programs itself. but really, that's not the case. The training system is fundamentally a different thing than the model itself. so it doesn't program itself. The model weights are programmed by a training algorithm though, not by a human.My limited understanding is that the human written code is simple routing of strings and looking up tokens in a vector dictionary. Humans then design a relatively simple mathematical structure that multiplies those values in various ways with the weights, which are the core of logic. They process the input values into output values. We (not me, but some humans, I assume) fully understand the training math. It will nudge the weights so they create outputs values closer to the training data.
Any human who is tasked to "troubleshoot" why an LLM outputs something will easily find their way through the human made layers and quickly arrive at the black box of the models weights. That black box can only be programmed by this other machine, the training algorithm, which is well understood. But its inner workings have nothing to do with language or whatever the model is doing, its just math.
There is no fundamental reason that we cant understand the logic of the weights. If you train a network against half of a multiplication table. it will probably just memorize that half. but if you keep training, under the right conditions, the weights can find a combination that just outputs multiplication results accurately, even for data it wasn't trained on.
At that level, smart humans can dig into those weights, and figure out the actual logic of how it does "simple" multiplication. But its a separate academic project undertaken for the sake of understanding.They can find some weird symmetries in word meanings. Like the "king" and "Queen" token vectors are close to each other and their relationship might be similar to the one between "man" and "woman". But only roughly? sometimes?
There are projects like golden gate claude
To me that paints a picture of a field (interpretability) that is just barely scratching the surface of how these things work. Are they just memorizing? or are they actually multiplying? Or did it find something even more efficient, but fundamentally different from multiplying that just happens to give you the right answer most of the time? Unless we dig in and understand what its doing at the weight level, we cant know.
I read this book: Out of Control several times in the 90s and early 00s when I was a teenager. It blew my mind and is probably why I am seeing things from this perspective now. Its out of date, but I feel like it has a certain objectiveness because of that? I highly recommend it.
Another interesting idea on this subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room
Another way to frame what I am trying to say:
I don't think we can use somethings fundamental structure as a reason that it can't possibly be conscious. It seems hubristic when we cant define what consciousness is. Our own seeming self awareness could easily be fake.
If someone has their skull caved in and Doctors say they don't understand how they are alive let alone conscious. But the person is speaking and asking for something, its worth weighing the evidence of their actual output and behavior rather than ignore them because they cant possibly be self aware. I think most doctors would agree and just explain that there are things about the brain that we don't understand so we shouldn't take anything for granted.
We don't have to make such a leap of faith here. That is not our scenario. LLMs now show no credible sign of consciousness from their output. Right now all that is required to refute their consciousness is to point out the lack of credible output. Any time they say anything that sounds self aware, I assume most people could read the full transcript and understand how it was lead there. No reason to start worshiping these things. I am not saying we have done anything all that special at this point. There is a huge AI bubble brought on unregulated capitalism, etc. We cant trust anything the tech companies are saying right now. Also bullshit, agreed. Which is unfortunate because almost all the academic research on interpretability I can find is funded by some tech company. Bubbles seem to be an unfortunate side effect of any novel new technology lately. I think there is still 'something' interesting here though.
Since humans are into language models right now, it seems plausible that one day we will make something that starts making output that seems self aware and its not as obvious why. The most likely possibility at that point will be that it is just some quirk of the logical structures it uses. Probably, it was subtly "asked" to pretend to be conscious within its training data. But we would need to understand the structure of its weights to be sure. If we build that machine before we can understand it, we cant debug it, we cant troubleshoot, we cant follow a chain of logic through the machine and confirm why it does what it does.
Its a layer beyond designing a machine and not being sure that it will work as intended. In that case there was an intention, a theory of how this machine will work. If the timing or friction, etc. is off, the engineer can quickly find the fault by following their design. Now the engineer is just setting up the conditions for a pattern of logic to emerge to solve a given problem. The engineers aren't stopping to examine and understand the pattern they create. They are skipping that part and just using it and selling it. They are iterating to make more complicated machines in similar ways and then experiment with connecting them together.
Its like vibecoding. I've vibe coded a ton of self hosted websites for my own use. Ive gotten some of them working pretty great for now. But I know I cant trust any of it unless I take the time to directly go through the code and confirm its doing what I want it to. so I just use it for myself and I inherently know its limitations and risk. My trust for these tools is a sliding scale that I base on experience rather than understanding. which is an inherently a weaker basis for trust in my opinion. To actually ship something vibecoded and have other people use it without knowing that its code is literally unknown to any human, seems unfair. We should at least be transparent about it. This code could be known, A human could take the time to read through all the vibecode, or all the weights of a model, to understand it before it shipped. I believe 99% of all the "AI" neural network type products being shipped right now have not had a human read through their logic and understand how it works.
It feels like an important threshold. that we should make everyone aware we have passed a point where the actual logic of these machines are not currently understood by any human. For better or worse, it seems like the world is racing full speed to try and keep the technology ahead of human understanding. That might not always be the case, but its where we are now.
Its not unprecedented, we've been there for thousands of years with breeding other life for farming. we use trial and error and we understand some of its mechanisms. Now we can manually splice chunks of DNA around to make GMOs and achieve goals that way. We can't put a full DNA strand into a simulator and grow it virtually to see how it behaves though. we don't understand enough of its mechanisms. I feel like that is generally understood about organic tools, they do their own thing and cant be trusted to always behave in predictable ways. If they were able to GMO up some new organism that could speak any language and pretend to be a conscious being. I think it would be an equally scary moment. Even if we knew the bacteria matrix had been bred to act like that.
I think we have been past the understanding threshold with machines for only a few decades and in more niche places that most people don't come into contact with often. So most people haven't made that transition of thinking about machines the same way we do with organisms. LLMs aren't organisms, to be clear, but they share the same quality in that we don't build them as much as we grow them. We use them without fully knowing how they work, its a different relationship. Now that the machines we don't understand can talk to us. I think we should try to make people aware of our ignorance. Not so that they think it is something more than it is, so they understand that in the coming decades, we cant predict what these things will do.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
lelio Link ParentI like to play factorio on default settings except no growth for the enemies. that way they are a little bit of a challenge in the beginning, but as your tech progresses they are satisfyingly...I like to play factorio on default settings except no growth for the enemies. that way they are a little bit of a challenge in the beginning, but as your tech progresses they are satisfyingly easier to deal with. eventually just one small design consideration that's never stressful to manage.
I never tried satisfactory because I couldn't imagine how the FPS view could work for a game like this. It doesn't seem like it would be comfortable. Like building stuff in minecraft is fun for a minute but gets tedious real fast for me.
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Comment on A skeptical overview of AI and consciousness in ~humanities
lelio Link ParentI think in general its good to err on the side of open mindedness, when addressing our knowledge of consciousness. The books theme seems to be " The experts do not know, and you do not know, and...I think in general its good to err on the side of open mindedness, when addressing our knowledge of consciousness.
The books theme seems to be " The experts do not know, and you do not know,
and society collectively does not and will not know, and all is fog"That feels like my definition of the word skepticism.
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Comment on A skeptical overview of AI and consciousness in ~humanities
lelio (edited )Link ParentDo we know that? I would think we don't know enough about "feelings" or intelligence to say anything like that. Ive heard it argued intelligence is a side effect of feelings. what do any of these...- Exemplary
Feeling is a complicated biochemical process rather than a side effect of intelligence. Intelligence and feeling do not somehow spontaneously come in the same package.
Do we know that? I would think we don't know enough about "feelings" or intelligence to say anything like that. Ive heard it argued intelligence is a side effect of feelings. what do any of these things mean?
I "feel" like LLMs are no where near consciousness at this point.
I feel like they might be as intelligent as just the language center of a brain, cut out and dropped in a vat.
That seems like a good place for me to stop and realize that I cant trust my judgement on this at all, because ultimately, I don't understand how that language center works, or what consciousness or intelligence or feelings are."The experts do not know, and you do not know, and society collectively does not and will not know, and all is fog"
I think that's the exact right thing that everyone needs to know right now. Nobody knows what consciousness or intelligence is. Any tech companies confidence in anything at this point is all bullshit. The insistence that any large neural network running in vram is definitely NOT conscious, or x, y, or z, is also bullshit because no one knows how they work. Same as some one insisting that slime mold isn't conscious. Its smarter than we are at "some" stuff.
To be clear there are experts we should listen to and consider their knowledge. People who understand neurology or linear algebra way better than I do. but the engineers that are working on this will tell you the actual mechanism within these matrices is a giant black box. We understand how slime mold or humans send signals around their thinking systems, and maybe a little bit about their general structure. We cant follow the actual program that runs on any of this stuff.
We are running neural networks that program themselves with code that is more complicated than we can currently understand. We should treat all this stuff like an alien organism we found on an asteroid. Or a GMO slime mold that we can somehow train to talk to us. We cant know what it is yet. We know it can do some novel stuff we haven't seen before, they are probably mostly parlor tricks, but how can we be sure?
How is it possible that some pink slime in my skull that is just self replicating chemical reactions thinks the way humans do? So confident of self awareness? As far as we can tell it just self organized that way over billions of years of trial and error and dense memory storage.
Can we recreate something similar by forcing petabytes of data into machines that cycle 2 billion times a second for years? Probably not. Especially when the goal is a product like the current assistants. But it feels like the base models themselves might have a depth of knowledge that is just barely scratched by this current post-train assistant, run once architecture.
We connect up our "language centers" to other neural networks, let them save active memories and spawn new agents to act on them on regular cycles. we'll keep adding layers and connections and experimenting. It will still probably be nothing like humans. But what will it become? (What rough beast?) I think nobody knows. Its exciting and terrifying at the same time. And its at least plausible that all this will play out in our lifetimes. I think its worth examining now.
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Comment on Control the ideas, not the code in ~comp
lelio LinkWhen I think about code becoming a hidden layer. I wonder, doesn't it make sense to have it write things as close to metal as possible? why have all this high level stuff that was designed to make...When I think about code becoming a hidden layer. I wonder, doesn't it make sense to have it write things as close to metal as possible? why have all this high level stuff that was designed to make it easier to develop if were aren't doing that anymore.
One day maybe can we just bake the website into the server, in assembly. -
Comment on Tildes Book Club - Have you started A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers? in ~books
lelio Link ParentMy first read, 3 was at the bottom. On my second read I realized it might the "best" in some ways but its the least "cozy" because it has so much more going on. The whole series is still a comfort...My first read, 3 was at the bottom. On my second read I realized it might the "best" in some ways but its the least "cozy" because it has so much more going on. The whole series is still a comfort read, but 3 is always little bit of gut punch for me.
I got mine yesterday!
256GB Kit and ergonomic straps,
Invite email and ordered on 9/22,
Shipping email on 9/25,
Arrived on 9/29.
I'm crazy busy so I've only played with it for 30 mins or so. Native SteamOS only.
The passthrough is better than the OG Vive but not by much. I just ordered the color camera.
I played Beatsaber, and Flashback to test a classic 2d game.
So far looks great, very comfortable and convenient. I played beatsaber outside for the first time.
the controllers feel awkward and too small. but I might just need to get used to them. I'll post more when I've had time to play with it more.