majromax's recent activity
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Comment on Debunking the AI food delivery hoax that fooled Reddit in ~tech
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Comment on Debunking the AI food delivery hoax that fooled Reddit in ~tech
majromax Link ParentI like to practice an 'emotional scientific method', where I try to focus on how much a new piece of evidence contradicts rather than supports a narrative. This has a few different effects, such...So this is something that I should try more to be aware of. But then the question becomes when does outrage become legitimate?
I like to practice an 'emotional scientific method', where I try to focus on how much a new piece of evidence contradicts rather than supports a narrative.
This has a few different effects, such as forcing me to keep multiple perspectives in mind, but for the purpose of dealing with outrage it helps with the propensity towards the 'bitch eating crackers' syndrome.
That comes from our natural confirmatory bias, so when we've decided that X is bad then nearly everything X does gets interpreted in a negative light such that even ostensibly neutral things (like the eponymous 'eating crackers') reinforces the negative perception. The application to political discourse is self-evident.
However, that alone doesn't help with outright fake information such as this hoax. Here, I rely on a second emotional scaffold: slow news. Very few events are both important and urgent such that I need to change my actions right now[†], and the intersection of important, urgent, and emotionally resonant is even smaller.
Thus, I try to downweight breaking news, and instead I rely more on longer-form and slower analysis pieces where the authors have had time to look into the totality of then-breaking events and put the news in a broader context. This consciously 'swims against the tide' of the algorithm and so it's hard to keep up the focus, but I truly find that it helps.
[† — The weather forecast is one of the few consistent examples of information that is both important and urgent.]
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Comment on Debunking the AI food delivery hoax that fooled Reddit in ~tech
majromax Link ParentMarket manipulation could be an easy movitation. Buy some cheap, out-of-the-money put options on Uber, post the 'whistleblower' report, and hope that the news media picks it up. If the story goes...We don’t know who the hoaxer was here, or their motives. Seems fairly amateur-hour, tbh, given the current state of AI tools. A properly motivated and funded disinformation campaign would know how to make its fake badge and research paper less detectable as such.
Market manipulation could be an easy movitation. Buy some cheap, out-of-the-money put options on Uber, post the 'whistleblower' report, and hope that the news media picks it up. If the story goes viral and especially if it catches the attention of regulators or politicians, the stock could drop 10-20% in a profitable manner.
In a few years we’re all gonna be so fatigued from questioning everything that we just believe nothing anymore.
As I see it, AI content generation as gotten good enough that we should no longer trust unauthenticated sources or evidence without a known chain of custody: unverified comments should have all the credibility of "my uncle works for Nintendo and told me how to capture Mew."
It's a crying shame, but I think that this is the inevitable consequence of having a giant mixing vat of human attention without other defense mechanisms; blaming AI for this is like blaming the salmonella for colonizing the raw chicken left out on the counter.
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Comment on Indie Game Awards rescinds Clair Obscur's GOTY wins over use of generative AI [for now-removed background assets] in ~games
majromax Link ParentI think that this is revealing. Your linked FAQ states: This tells us that the Indie Game Awards is comfortable applying essentially political, values-based standards as part of its eligibility...[T]here was another award retracted this year due to the game in question – Chantey – being tied to ModRetro, which is in hot water due to ModRetro advertising that their consoles are made using the same metal that's used to manufacture attack drones.
I think that this is revealing. Your linked FAQ states:
Due to the ties with ModRetro, Indie Vanguard [for Chantey] has also been retracted as we do not want to provide the company with a platform.
This tells us that the Indie Game Awards is comfortable applying essentially political, values-based standards as part of its eligibility criteria. This in turn implies that the technical argument of whether Clair Obscur's AI use was significant might be beside the point: the IGA is willing to decide guilt by association.
That is, of course, the IGA's prerogative, but it means that all we can really do is divide ourselves into pro and anti-AI camps and shout the same arguments across the fence.
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tech
majromax Link ParentThose aren't entirely independent factors. The highly-attractive guy with all those other good qualities is also more likely to be in a relationship and therefore not seeking hookups, so...The only real determining factors are how good he looks, how good he is in bed, and how likely he is to kill you.
You have no real way of knowing the second two, so literally the only criteria that matters is how hot the guy is.
Those aren't entirely independent factors. The highly-attractive guy with all those other good qualities is also more likely to be in a relationship and therefore not seeking hookups, so conditional on being on the app attractiveness is possibly negatively correlated with skill in bed and positively correlated with murder.
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Comment on Financial collapse? in ~finance
majromax Link ParentOligarchs in authoritarian countries face their own personal existential risk if el jefe decides to defenestrate them, so borrow from their playbook and acquire estates (ideally) or the...I find it very hard to gauge what form my assets should be in if I want the best protection against a crisis,
Oligarchs in authoritarian countries face their own personal existential risk if el jefe decides to defenestrate them, so borrow from their playbook and acquire estates (ideally) or the right/ability to live in multiple foreign jurisdictions. Otherwise, diversify assets by jurisdiction.
Of course, this is very different than the best "invest for retirement" advice, and safety comes at the expense of returns. The real crisis might just be running out of money in one's old age.
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Comment on Ukraine destroys more than forty military aircraft in a drone attack deep inside Russia in ~news
majromax Link ParentThe best explanation that I've seen recently is that Russia's objective is inherently an imperialist one: it's fighting to defend its claimed sphere of influence. Thinking of itself as a...This sort of capability is why cant figure out Russia's objectives Ukraine.
The best explanation that I've seen recently is that Russia's objective is inherently an imperialist one: it's fighting to defend its claimed sphere of influence. Thinking of itself as a superpower, it has a natural right to a sphere of influence where it has the final say over international arrangements, regardless of the sovereign wishes of the affected countries inside this alleged sphere.
In that view, Ukraine's post-Euromaidan attempt to align itself with the EU and by extension the US/NATO is an attack against Imperial Russia. In particular:
- This happened against Russia's wishes, and Russia ought to have the final say over this sort of thing, and
- The very attempt should have been unthinkable for a country in Russia's sphere of influence, so it must have come at the instigation of foreign diplomats and spies. Therefore, it was an international (American) attack on Russia.
Of course this view is complete bollocks, more like the warped mindset of an abuser rather than that of a rational state actor. However, it explains most of Russia's actions, including its opinion this would be a 3-day SMO, its extremely aggressive internal rhetoric, and its expansion of demands for peace as the war has bogged down.
Unfortunately, this spells bad news for any peace process. Russia's baseline demand is that Ukraine cease to have an independent foreign policy, and from its imperial perspective any peace deal that results in a viable, independent Ukrainian state is a loss relative to its assumed position circa 2013. Of course, an independent, sovereign, and viable Ukraine is also the most basic term of any Ukrainian-acceptable peace deal.
Sadly, I fear that this means the war will continue until one party or the other is exhausted. The availability and routine use of long-range strikes by both parties makes even a de-facto ceasefire (digging in along current lines of control with a steady reduction of combat intensity) impossible.
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Comment on How my life changed with ADHD medication in ~life
majromax Link ParentNote that there are pill bottles with timer-caps, which automatically count the time since the bottle was last opened. It can't help you with "take the pill out of the bottle, forget the pill,"...I had those senior people MON to SUN boxes and I'm not sure if I took one already or forgot to refill it last week.
Note that there are pill bottles with timer-caps, which automatically count the time since the bottle was last opened. It can't help you with "take the pill out of the bottle, forget the pill," but it would conclusively tell you if you haven't even done that much.
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Comment on Removed Reddit post: "ChatGPT drove my friends wife into psychosis, tore family apart... now I'm seeing hundreds of people participating in the same activity. " in ~tech
majromax Link ParentThe system is what it does. The output of a language model is just text, so the only thing that can be regulated is text. Returning to the original post, if I – a human person – give you...People are saying "we can't regulate text" but an LLM is not just text. If it was, I would agree.
The system is what it does. The output of a language model is just text, so the only thing that can be regulated is text.
Returning to the original post, if I – a human person – give you sycophantic responses that feed into your delusion that you've unlocked a hidden plane of thought or somesuch, there's no obvious liability that attaches to me unless I give you instructions that cause specific and physical harm.
The efficiency with which this stuff can be pushed into existence by just a few rogue actors is so staggering that no human court system can begin to handle the cases it can potentially produce.
This is an argument against stringent regulation, not for stringent regulation. "Rogue actors" that want to cause harm aren't going to operate openly under an AI banner. They'll slide into your DMs, at scale, with models that pretend to be human. Most marks won't even realize that they're conversing with AI agents, evading the whole LLM-targeting regulatory regime.
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Comment on Removed Reddit post: "ChatGPT drove my friends wife into psychosis, tore family apart... now I'm seeing hundreds of people participating in the same activity. " in ~tech
majromax Link ParentHold up, how do you decide what is 'damaging society'? In 1825, advocating the equality of races would have been seen as 'damaging society' in huge chunks of the United States. Today, some people...Once we start throwing people in jail for damaging society, businesses will regulate themselves.
Hold up, how do you decide what is 'damaging society'?
In 1825, advocating the equality of races would have been seen as 'damaging society' in huge chunks of the United States. Today, some people in high political office would argue that advocating for LGBTQ rights is 'damaging society'. A few select people think that vaccination is 'damaging society'. Religions often think that contrary information 'damages society'.
Don't give the government a gun unless you're very, very sure where they're going to point it, not just today but tomorrow as well.
Same way McDonald's was held liable for making cofee too hot,
McDonald's was liable not just because their coffee was hot, but because the company knew (revealed through internal memos) that the coffee was being routinely and deliberately served undrinkably hot and that this could cause injury.
any business with a wet floor and no sign is liable for injury.
That's not necessarily true. A missing 'wet floor' sign doesn't always lead to liability (e.g. if the floor is in an off-limits area), and a 'wet floor' sign doesn't automatically absolve businesses of liability. Beyond that, businesses and their insurers also care about the nuisance potential of lawsuits, so whether or not there's liability they'll put signs up just to make lawsuits harder.
They aren't criminal fines, but we definitely need some criminal charges when the scale of damage to society is this large.
"Criminal" doesn't mean "civil, but big." Criminal law involves a whole new standard of proof and the potential for incarceration. Do you really think that ChatGPT can be proven to cause harm in individual cases beyond reasonable doubt? If not under current law, then how broadly do you think new law needs to be written to satisfy that standard, and what other conduct will it capture?
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Comment on Philosopher Slavoj Žižek on 'soft' fascism, AI and the effects of shamelessness in public life in ~humanities
majromax Link ParentI disagree, at least in the short term with respect to Trump's norm-breaking. I don't need an ideology to stop at a red light, and I'd think less of anyone who runs said red light without an...The fundamental problem with the Democrats is that they have no ideology.
I disagree, at least in the short term with respect to Trump's norm-breaking. I don't need an ideology to stop at a red light, and I'd think less of anyone who runs said red light without an obvious emergency.
Trump's norm breaking is at minimum a threat to the idea of the United States government as a stable, professional gestalt, and at worst it's a threat to the principle of rule of law. Ideologies in an industrialized country with a democratic system only make sense under this kind of stability since any ideological policy worth its salt is long-term. It will do no good to (e.g.) increase capital taxes if the rich know they only need stall four years for the wheel to turn such that all will be forgiven – or at least not enforced.
My opinion is essentially the opposite of yours. I think the fundamental problem with Democrats is that they saw signs of an existential threat to the American system, and they talked about existential threats to the American system, but they acted like the 2024 election was just an ordinary race to be decided on the basis of tax and spending policies.
If you are a politician who sincerely thinks that the nation is facing an existential threat, whether foreign invasion or domestic coup, you put aside your differences with your normal opponents to form something like a unity government. Ideological disputes have to wait for the crisis to pass, or else there will be no government left to fight over. With that mindset, Harris should have been running slightly to the right of McCain, not as a typical progressive.
As attributed to Ben Franklin, the United States is a republic – if it can keep it. Conventional politicians have slept on the latter half of that for a couple of decades now, and we're now in the 'find out' stage.
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Comment on US voters were right about the economy. The data was wrong. in ~finance
majromax Link ParentThe BLS has extensive documentation of their methods, including a link to the survey questions they use (pdf). However, if you aren't certain about the processing that goes into an unemployment...The BLS has extensive documentation of their methods, including a link to the survey questions they use (pdf).
However, if you aren't certain about the processing that goes into an unemployment rate, my FRED link above also includes the prime-age employment rate. That's just the fraction of people in the 25-55 demographic who have jobs, without excluding people from the denominator if they aren't looking hard enough. That accounts for many potential confounders, including "not looking because of disability" or being a stay-at-home parent.
The only thing really being 'adjusted' for in the 25-55 statistic is the nation's demographic shift, but "fewer people are working because more people are older and retired" isn't, to my mind, very interesting as a symptom of some hidden recession.
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Comment on US voters were right about the economy. The data was wrong. in ~finance
majromax Link ParentIndeed, and if you make that comparison (the graph also includes the prime-age employment rate), mid-late 2024 numbers look much more like an expansionary peak than a recession. It's particularly...It also points out a flaw in U3 but neglects to mention U6 that addresses their complaints. They could have compared U3 against U6 and the trend over time to make their case.
Indeed, and if you make that comparison (the graph also includes the prime-age employment rate), mid-late 2024 numbers look much more like an expansionary peak than a recession.
Instead they invent a new metric and decline to explain why we should believe theirs.
It's particularly pernicious to include a low-income line and call it "functionally unemployed." Poverty lines change with time, and that makes it extremely difficult to reconstruct what that level might have been historically.
Poverty lines themselves are also measures of consumption, and they make for poor measurements of wages. A family making $25k/yr that owns their own home outright is in a much superior position to one that rents in New York City on the same wage, but they're identical from an income standpoint.
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Comment on California will require insurance companies to offer coverage in wildfire zones in ~enviro
majromax Link ParentThe article's phrasing seems to be poor, but the general description sounds like it's demanding relative parity of market share rather than number of contracts. An insurer with a 10% market share...Sure insurers will now be able to pass on the cost of reinsurance to consumers and might re-enter the market because of that, but they're going to have to eventually have an 85% high-risk portfolio? Who the hell would do that?
The article's phrasing seems to be poor, but the general description sounds like it's demanding relative parity of market share rather than number of contracts. An insurer with a 10% market share overall in the states must (eventually) have a market share of 8.5% in the high-risk segment.
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Comment on The sham legacy of Richard Feynman in ~science
majromax LinkFrom someone who did watch the video, my summary of its thesis statements: Feynman never wrote a book. All of the books that we have "by Richard Feynman," those books that create the legacy of...- Exemplary
From someone who did watch the video, my summary of its thesis statements:
Feynman never wrote a book. All of the books that we have "by Richard Feynman," those books that create the legacy of Feynman as a person in popular consciousness, were written or assembled by others who had their own interests. Feynman's legacy is chiefly the result of Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman, which is the assembly of a bunch of stories told by a then-50s Feynman to a then-20s Richard Leighton. Other books came later as everything Feynman touched became gold.
The stories in Surely You're Joking are not true. Most are completely unverifiable, happening in anonymous places to anonymous people, but when we do have extrinsic evidence it contradicts the story as told. That doesn't mean that Feynman completely made them up, but he did 'workshop' them to retell them for maximal impact. They're closer to tall tales about the fish that got away than an authentic recounting of his life.
Feynman deliberately projected this image; the tales that showed up in Surely were indeed told by him on recording. By all accounts, he was an asshole. However, at least for much of his life he was nicer to people than these stories would suggest, and in later life he recognized that the casual misogyny of his earlier stories was at least inappropriate if not wrong. This reflection is missing from his legacy, presumably since 'brilliant asshole' sells better.
Despite being a genuinely brilliant physicist, there's no physics in Feynman's legacy as a person and media figure. This does a disservice to Feynman fans (including just about every teenager who is pointed towards Surely You're Joking after expressing an interest in science), who are implicitly told that the important part of 'brilliant asshole' is 'asshole'. Feynman had a genuine enthusiasm for new knowledge and worked hard to deeply understand everything he was shown, but those inspiring traits are also lost in his mythos.
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Comment on Heat pumps used to struggle in the cold. Not anymore. in ~enviro
majromax Link ParentTo be fair, I also suspect there's some design difference regarding condensation or icing. An air conditioner operating in a hot climate shouldn't be seeing ice buildup.The only difference between a “heat pump” and an AC is a cheap valve that allows it to run backwards.
To be fair, I also suspect there's some design difference regarding condensation or icing. An air conditioner operating in a hot climate shouldn't be seeing ice buildup.
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Comment on Two sides of the same coin in ~humanities
majromax (edited )LinkNo, and in fact by Bayes Theorem you should be slightly more suspicious that the coin is a double-headed coin. On the other hand, you should now be confident that the coin is not a double-tailed...Without picking the coin up to confirm the side that is down is tails. Could you ever know that it is tails ?
No, and in fact by Bayes Theorem you should be slightly more suspicious that the coin is a double-headed coin. On the other hand, you should now be confident that the coin is not a double-tailed coin, and if your initial suspicion was symmetric that's where the increased skepticism would come from.
Suppose you start by thinking that there's a 1-in-a-million chance that a randomly-tossed coin is double-headed, the same chance that it's double-tailed, and the residual (999,998-in-a-million) that it's a fair coin.
After the toss, you observe that one side of the coin is heads. If the coin was double-headed, the probability of it being double-headed was 100%, if it was fair then 50%, and if it was double-tailed then 0%. To write this in conditional probability notation, where P(A|B) means "probability of A if B is true/observed:"
- P(heads | 2 head coin) = 100%
- P(heads | fair coin) = 50%
- P(heads | 2 tail coin) = 0%
We also know that absent any information about the coin, we'd expect P(heads) = 50%.
Bayes' theorem states P(A|B) = P(B|A)*P(A)/P(B), essentially allowing us to reverse the way conditioning works. Rather than "probability of observation given an assumption about the underlying truth", we end up with "probability of the underlying truth given an assumption" (and our previously-existing belief!).
Running this through with our numbers gives:
- P(2 head coin | heads) = P(heads | 2 head coin) * P(2 head coin) / P(heads) = 100% * 1e-6 / 50% = 2e-6 (2 in a million)
- P(fair coin | heads) = P(heads | fair coin) * P(fair coin) / P(heads) = 50% * (1-2e-6) / 50% = (1-2e-6) (999,998 in a million, no change)
- P(2 tail coin | heads) = P(heads | 2 tail coin) * P(2 tail coin) / P(heads) = 0 * 1e-6 / 50% = 0 (no chance)
Now, if the same coin is flipped (without you seeing both sides) and lands on heads again, we start to become slightly more skeptical of the 'fair coin' hypothesis. P(2 heads | fair coin) is 25%. Interestingly, P(2 heads) is not 25% thanks to the very small influence of the unfair coin: it's 25% * P(fair coin) + 100% * P(2 heads) = (25%*(1-1e-6) + 1e-6) = (25% + 0.75e-6)[†].
- P(2 head coin | 2 heads) = P(2 heads | 2 head coin) * P(2 head coin) / P(2 heads) = 100% * (1e-6) / (25% + 0.75e-6) ≈ 4e-6 (4 in a million)
- P(fair coin | 2 heads) = P(2 heads | fair coin) * P(fair coin) / P(2 heads) = 25% * (1-1e-6) / (25% + 0.75e-6) ≈ (1 - 4e-6) (999,996 in a million)
[†] — This seems weird, but the unfair coin contributes disproportionately to this result. Consider P(1 billion heads): this will essentially only happen if the coin is a double-headed coin, so if we know nothing about the coin ahead of time then we must assume that the chance of 1 billion heads is equal to the chance that the coin is a double-headed coin.
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Comment on How to build greener, affordable AC for high humidity and hotter summers in ~engineering
majromax Link ParentIn a simple box view of thermodynamics, heat ingress into the home from the outside is proportional to the temperature difference. For example, it it's 80F outside, then a home at 72F would have...An AC doesn't have to work harder to maintain 72 than it does 76 unless it's excessively hot and / or humid outside.
In a simple box view of thermodynamics, heat ingress into the home from the outside is proportional to the temperature difference. For example, it it's 80F outside, then a home at 72F would have about double the natural heating flux from the outdoors than a home at 76F.
I presume you're rejecting or at least heavily nuancing this view? I suppose this would be less true for heavily-insulated homes, where the largest share of heating comes from interior energy use (both electrical equipment and mammal metabolism) or temperature-independent fluxes like direct insolation.
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Comment on The spectacular failure of the Star Wars hotel in ~movies
majromax Link ParentI'm deeply confused by the cost structure implied by the failure. Per her calculations at the beginning, at something close to the 'base' rate she was paying $120 per hour of scheduled time....unbelievably overpriced, cashing in on their brand to fleece customers for every penny they can.
I'm deeply confused by the cost structure implied by the failure.
Per her calculations at the beginning, at something close to the 'base' rate she was paying $120 per hour of scheduled time. Suppose a full two-thirds of that goes towards both the "cruise" or "resort"-style experience plus the additional depreciation from the effects-heavy environment. That would leave $40/hr as the experience premium.
That rate should have allowed Disney to hire at least one staff member per party to monitor/assist nearly full-time! How could the operation have thus been blind to any guest (like Nicholson) struggling to engage with the experience? Since the hotel's conceit is that it's a cruise liner, there would even be an in-setting justification for heavy concierge service.
Yet the hotel failed, so badly that Disney outright pulled the plug rather than let it fade away. Something about it must have cost much more than predicted, but I can't understand where the money went.
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Comment on Seattle’s law mandating higher pay for food delivery workers is a case study in backfire economics in ~finance
majromax Link ParentWhat profit? Remember that in the thought experiment above, the subsidy problem still happens even if there's no profit left for the owners. Then, the subsidy comes at the expense of other, more...The only difference is that your business gets to profit off however many widgets they can make per hour without covering their ability to subsist.
What profit? Remember that in the thought experiment above, the subsidy problem still happens even if there's no profit left for the owners. Then, the subsidy comes at the expense of other, more productive workers.
Besides that, if the disabled worker would be a 'ward of the state either way,' it does affect the state's budget whether it's on the hook for the equivalent of $30/hr (a full 'living wage' equivalent) or just $10 (the difference between the paid wage and a living one).
The fact that you refer to new workers undergoing training is a great example here -- it is absolutely normal to not expect workers to be productive while they're still being trained, and it would be fucking dystopian not to pay them a living wage during their training.
Or, I don't hire trainees, and instead I use the cross-subsidy saved to improve the wages of expert employees. The factory across the street can pay its trainees a living wage, but as soon as they're competent I'll hire them away with a nice pay increase.
As a Nash equilibrium, this ends up with no company providing training. Instead, we all demand that prospective workers complete a community college curriculum on widget-making at their own expense, perhaps with an un(der)paid internship for credit. Even if we can't completely eliminate training, we can minimize the period for which we're on hook to pay the trainees.
Unfortunately, the business incentives of media lean strongly into breaking the story, or at least being the first to publicize it.
This effect predates social media entirely: CNN 'made its bones' with its wall-to-wall coverage of the OJ Simpson car chase in 1994, which spun off into breathless reporting about the criminal trial. Essentially as soon as we had 24/7 news media, producers sought breaking content to keep eyes glued to the screen.
Longer-form, slower content is 'better', but I need to honestly ask the question of whether it's more valuable. IMO, the sad reality is that most news – even "important" news – has nearly zero value for the average citizen in terms of directly informing their actions. The emotional roller coaster is the valuable part of the story: "if it bleeds it leads."
Trade media is an exception to this rule, and I think it's instructive. There, reporting really does inform sober consideration of valuable choices, so accurate and thorough reportage gains value relative to the 'catchy' and emotional.