post_below's recent activity
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Comment on The doomsday cult inside OpenAI in ~tech
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Comment on The doomsday cult inside OpenAI in ~tech
post_below Link ParentOk then! That's not true. It began work after training was complete. It was fully cooked. I don't know if it was cheaper, but it was definitely faster. Mathematics is ever so very different from...Ok then!
The model that helped solve the millenium prize problem began work four days after beginning training
That's not true. It began work after training was complete. It was fully cooked.
Compared to the decades of human PhDs working on this, it seems both faster and cheaper.
I don't know if it was cheaper, but it was definitely faster. Mathematics is ever so very different from recursive self improvement though. You changed the framing and then replied to your own version.
This is a weaker form of recursive self improvement, but it is one.
If that's what we're calling recursive self improvement, I don't think it's all that scary. No argument that agents are involved in various parts of the process, model labs have been talking about that for some time.
For LLMs to get out of hand they'd need to run the pre and post training process autonomously and accelerate it dramatically. Currently velocity is constrained to a significant degree by compute, so the agents would need to solve that first. Even if LLMs that smart and reliable existed (they absolutely do not), they'd still need to be given the resources to do it. It's like not these companies aren't paying attention to what's using the compute they're spending historically unprecedented amounts of money on.
If the other sort of recursive self improvement were achieved (the sort where a human just pressed go and the rest ran itself and resulted in a better model, faster, than a human led process), they'd say something. They would have just won one of the most important races in the field. It would be invaluable pre-IPO hype potentially worth billions of dollars. And, if it actually worked, they'd sell access to the resulting model (which would be both the smartest and most compute efficient model on earth). Not selling it would be equivalent to setting the 100's of millions+ they spent on training on fire. The biggest problem they'd have, with the best model on earth, would be figuring out how to handle the demand.
So we won't need to speculate, we'll be able to read the headlines. If they were smart they'd also announce a pause on recursive training while they assessed the risks. Otherwise governments would force them to take a beat just to quell the worldwide panic. People are freaking out about the possibility with no evidence that it can even be done, imagine the response to the thing itself.
It sounds extremely shortsighted and reckless to say "it's just hype, I'll panic when 10% of the world population is infected". Even 1% there would be far too late.
In this comparison, what is the pathogen? You'd need something self replicating and with a troubling mortality rate. Something observable. Otherwise it seems to me that you're just picking something scary and arbitrarily comparing it to the topic to inject emotion.
It sounds like what you're describing is how you feel about AI, which is fine, but you're framing it like a conversation about what is. So concrete, in fact, that by having a different perspective I'm shortsighted and reckless. Which is quite an accusation to make against an internet stranger.
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Comment on The doomsday cult inside OpenAI in ~tech
post_below Link ParentI agree with this, but I think the situation is nuanced. The public mouth pieces of the big AI companies (Altman, Amodei, various engineers and project leads) have an established history of...Yea, I find it rather off putting that there is large group of people who seem rather quick to conclude that the people closest to this technology don't know it the best or can't be trusted to give observations
I agree with this, but I think the situation is nuanced. The public mouth pieces of the big AI companies (Altman, Amodei, various engineers and project leads) have an established history of predictions that turned out to be wrong, exaggerations and general hype.
It makes sense to question what they say, even if they genuinely believe it, it might still be wrong.
Personally I have yet to see anything close to the capability to be truly, autonomously, dangerous in the frontier models. They can do dangerous things when directed or misused or deployed badly, but so can a lot of technology.
The current wave of fear seems to be based in the idea that, any time now, they will achieve recursive self improvement and then they will make themselves dangerous really quickly. Except there's no evidence of recursive self improvement either. I mean, put an agent in charge of its own memory system and watch how long it takes before it writes bad judgement to the record and then compounds it by building more bad judgement on top, and and so on. If you give it enough time, it will make itself worse, not better.
That's of course not how recursive self improvement would work, instead it would be agents fully in charge of the training pipeline, but the point is that their judgement isn't good enough. They would make bad decisions, which would compound over time. They'd also make good ones, and maybe end up improving themselves on average, but not faster or cheaper than a human led process.
The doomsday fear all rests on the idea that this will change, and maybe it will, but we don't appear to be close to that yet.
It gets a lot of engagement though.
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Comment on Jakob Ingebrigtsen pipped to victory by Dawit Seare in the men's 5km in a thrilling finish at the 2026 World Road Running Championships in Copenhagen in ~sports
post_below LinkNever head the term pipped before, turns out it's because it's regional: It comes from "pipped on/at the post" an idiom from horse racing. Or alternatively: Kind of a weird way to describe a human...Never head the term pipped before, turns out it's because it's regional:
It appears the expression is mostly used by those who live in England, Ireland, and Australia as nearly all of the published instances were found in newspapers and books from England, Ireland, and Australia.
It comes from "pipped on/at the post" an idiom from horse racing. Or alternatively:
In the 19th century Britain, to pip someone meant you wounded or killed that person, usually with a gun.
Kind of a weird way to describe a human running race but there you go.
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Comment on Australian athlete apologizes after winning race despite involuntary bowel movement in ~sports
post_below Link ParentOP was up front about not knowing the details, I read it like "help me understand this" which the thread seems to have accomplished. For me as well, when I saw the headline earlier today I assumed...OP was up front about not knowing the details, I read it like "help me understand this" which the thread seems to have accomplished.
For me as well, when I saw the headline earlier today I assumed it was about running and thought it was kinda weird since people shit themselves in running competitions all the time. I also didn't care enough to look into it, but I appreciate the extra context in this thread.
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Comment on Billing for web hosting in ~comp
post_below Link ParentThere are a bunch of uptime monitors with free tiers. I like HetrixTools, their free tier includes multiple geographic locations.There are a bunch of uptime monitors with free tiers. I like HetrixTools, their free tier includes multiple geographic locations.
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Comment on Billing for web hosting in ~comp
post_below (edited )Link ParentBest of luck with it, if you run into issues post again! Side note: It's easy to switch people's sites to somewhere else if you get tired of hosting their digital real estate. It's not a forever...Best of luck with it, if you run into issues post again!
Side note: It's easy to switch people's sites to somewhere else if you get tired of hosting their digital real estate. It's not a forever commitment.
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Comment on Billing for web hosting in ~comp
post_below Link ParentHosting is not cheap because of huge cloud platforms, hosting is cheap because hosting is cheap. It's not the result of market manipulation, the resource needs of the majority of sites are...Of course huge vertically integrated cloud platforms can be much cheaper and afford it to lure in people for free.
Hosting is not cheap because of huge cloud platforms, hosting is cheap because hosting is cheap. It's not the result of market manipulation, the resource needs of the majority of sites are genuinely tiny.
This is an industry decades into maturity, you don't need to be Amazon scale to offer cheap hosting. There are so many medium sized NOCs that have nothing to do with the big datacenter companies who will give you shared hosting for a couple dollars a month and a solid VPS for not much more. With far better uptime than you'll get from someone who's just getting started.
Meanwhile at small scale there simply can't be enough profit to justify engineer hourly rates. Server techs make much less than engineers hourly and a couple of experienced people can keep whole racks of servers running smoothly. Hosting makes profits via scale, each customer pays a few dollars a month and maintenance time is cheap when spread across all of those customers. Trying to force a few customers to pay for your server maintenance hours is unfair to both them and you.
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Comment on Billing for web hosting in ~comp
post_below LinkReplying with this in mind: The web is full of places where you can host small (even non-static) sites for free or for a monthly fee so small it's akin to free. Because of that, your proposed...Replying with this in mind:
I want to work toward establishing good business practices, and that means charging people fairly - i.e. never simply because I can
The web is full of places where you can host small (even non-static) sites for free or for a monthly fee so small it's akin to free. Because of that, your proposed $10/month isn't even close to competitive. And a $50 setup fee! What is that paying for? Any competent web host has a provisioning script of some kind. It should take 30 seconds to setup an account, email, DNS, certificate, web space and permissions and maybe another 30 seconds for file uploads. If it takes longer than that, which is entirely understandable being new to hosting, that's not something the client should be paying for. Their monthly fee should cover everything, over time the host comes out ahead because most months a given hosting customer requires no time at all.
That wouldn't be true at first, because you'd be learning the intricacies of server management, but it's not the customers responsibility to pay for that. The comparison should be with the going rate for hosting, not your hourly rate for learning.
If I was working with someone and discovered they were paying $10/month for static site hosting, I would feel obligated to inform them that they're getting minorly ripped off. Minor because it's not a huge amount of money, but suspicious because it's many multiples of what they should be paying and therefore makes me question the motivations of the person charging them.
I'm not questioning your honesty, to be clear, just letting you know what I'd lean towards assuming if I had no context.
And I'm not saying don't host the site, it's useful to have full control over the server you're hosting client sites on, just don't try to make money from it. Charge something nominal or nothing at all. Your $10/month VPS could easily handle dozens of static sites with minimal ongoing hours invested on your part. Does it really make sense to charge each one of those $10/month when they could get equivalent hosting free, or for a dollar or two a month, somewhere else?
Web hosting is a mature, competitive and saturated market, banish all thought of it being a viable side business. The margins are too low. Instead, give your clients somewhere cheap and easy to put their sites and focus your energy on the other services you provide. If you're adding value on top of the hosting, charge for that separately and just throw in the hosting, amortized over a handful of clients it costs you basically nothing.
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Comment on Anthropic's Dario Amodei calls for AI oversight, joined by Sam Altman and Elon Musk in ~tech
post_below Link ParentI think the coverage of distillation creates the wrong impression. To whatever degree it's happening, it's not as much of a cheat code as coverage (and internet commenters parroting other internet...I think the coverage of distillation creates the wrong impression.
To whatever degree it's happening, it's not as much of a cheat code as coverage (and internet commenters parroting other internet commenters) make it seem.
If you have the full weights of a model, you can very effectively use it to help improve another model (especially a smaller model). At this point it's safe to say that all the big labs are using their flagships to help train their smaller models in one way or another. That's not the kind of distillation people talk about though. The chinese labs don't have access to that.
Without the weights it's a very different situation. You have to try to distill by running prompts through the closed model and using the output for training. For a while you could get reasoning (COT) tokens from the models but none of the labs output COT unsummarized anymore. They either don't output it externally at all or they run it through a weaker model for summarization, which kills its training value. After that change, there have been some strategies to trick models into outputting COT but those holes have reportedly been closed.
In that scenario, without COT, distillation is far less valuable. It's still potentially useful but it will never give you anything close to parity. And it's less useful now that there isn't low hanging fruit to try to distill like reasoning and tool use behavior. These days all the labs have those basics covered and can train them in house much faster and cheaper than they could with distillation. Given enough compute of course.
If chinese labs are distilling they're doing it to polish their models after they've already done most of the training legitimately. Without a quality model to train in the first place this kind of blind distillation would accomplish nothing.
Unless the chinese labs have come up with new ways to prompt hack COT out of the models at scale (and somehow OAI and Anthropic aren't catching it) the most they're getting out of distillation is a bump. They definitely aren't able to press a "distill Astra" button and end up with a model that's just as good in X amount of time. There's no realistic value of X that could get them there without the target lab catching them.
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Comment on Where do we go from here? (Regarding AI) in ~tech
post_below Link ParentAnother option, depending on how they feel about digital technology, would be to encourage them to learn about these new tools. Young, un-biased, minds thrive at the frontier. Traditional software...My eldest is on his last year of the high school equivalent here. He has a penchant for progamming and he really enjoys it, but I think I will advice him to go into some other proffession and keep it as a hobby.
Another option, depending on how they feel about digital technology, would be to encourage them to learn about these new tools. Young, un-biased, minds thrive at the frontier. Traditional software engineering is changing drastically, but using computers to solve problems is going to be a growth industry for a long time to come.
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Comment on Best options for domain registrar and static site hosting in 2026? in ~comp
post_below Link ParentWow I wouldn't have guessed tucows was still around, they're from the early internet. I see they still inexplicably charge twice as much as they need to for domains :) To be fair, it used to be...Wow I wouldn't have guessed tucows was still around, they're from the early internet. I see they still inexplicably charge twice as much as they need to for domains :) To be fair, it used to be more like 4x.
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Comment on Best options for domain registrar and static site hosting in 2026? in ~comp
post_below Link Parent+1 for Porkbun, they sell at close to cost and have a great backend. Stay away from Namecheap and Godaddy, they're well into the enshittification cycle.+1 for Porkbun, they sell at close to cost and have a great backend. Stay away from Namecheap and Godaddy, they're well into the enshittification cycle.
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Comment on Software for humans in ~tech
post_below Link ParentThanks for the civil response! No argument with you choosing to avoid LLMs. Even in software engineering I suspect there will be room for competent people who don't want to use agents for... well...Thanks for the civil response! No argument with you choosing to avoid LLMs. Even in software engineering I suspect there will be room for competent people who don't want to use agents for... well I don't know how long, but maybe quite a long time.
I hope it gets less frustrating.
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Comment on UN says world will miss its climate target, warming must be reversed in ~enviro
post_below Link ParentSure consumers matter, but people are always broadly going to choose based on cost and convenience. Many people don't have the luxury of changing their carbon footprint in a meaningful way. Public...Sure consumers matter, but people are always broadly going to choose based on cost and convenience. Many people don't have the luxury of changing their carbon footprint in a meaningful way.
Public sentiment matters a lot more than consumption IMO. Not only does it impact consumption, it impacts political and commercial decision making.
If you take consumers out of the equation (not that we should), the majority of the problem still exists. Whereas if you take regulation, government spending, economic incentives and giant industries out of the equation, the problem is unsolvable.
Which is to say that if everyone improved their personal carbon footprint some realistic amount based on what they could afford, it wouldn't be enough to head off climate disaster. They still should, but that part of the conversation is mostly a distraction from the real problems.
However if everyone started loudly and persistently demanding action against the real problems, that would make a huge difference.
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Comment on Software for humans in ~tech
post_below Link ParentSorry if I'm being presumptuous but I think what you might mean here is that the denouncing of LLMs isn't as unanimous as you'd like. I'd say there's a pretty even mix of sentiment about AI on...I'm saddened by how people on here seem to not only accept genAI programming so readily, but also completely dismiss ethics when justifying why they do so.
Sorry if I'm being presumptuous but I think what you might mean here is that the denouncing of LLMs isn't as unanimous as you'd like. I'd say there's a pretty even mix of sentiment about AI on Tildes, with hate edging out non-hate.
The second part of the quote is frustrating. It's blanket assigning a binary sentiment to a large group of people. All anyone can do with that is disagree or ignore it, it's too generalized to be true.
It's far more nuanced. For example, I think AI tools are incredibly useful for some things. Game changing. And I hate that a world changing technology is ultra-capitalized from the start. With the internet we had decades of exploration before the worst of the enshittification set in. That's unlikely to be the case with AI.
And the evironmental concerns are real (if often overexaggerated) and I care about that deeply, I think most people do. I also dislike the potential for AI to contribute to wealth inequality and consolidated control. However, like the internet, AI also increases individual capability. One person, or small groups of people, can accomplish much more than they could before. Sometimes more effectively than big organizations.
Here's the thing: It's not going to go away. It doesn't matter what you think, or I think. If we could somehow burn down all the big AI labs, people would advance the tech in their garages. A new round of funding would launch countless startups in the space. That's because the tech is genuinely useful. There was a lot of emotionally motivated writing about how LLMs don't really help anyone, and anyone who thinks they do is just deluding themselves, in 2024 and even early 2025 but that's painfully outdated. It's only people with no expertise in any of the fields where AI has value that are saying that kind of thing now.
I have nothing against a website listing AI free options. I think it's great, bring on the demand for artisanal, entirely hand crafted, options.
But also the reality is that, in the field of software engineering at large, AI assisted (as opposed to wholly vibecoded) development is already the rule rather than the exception and nothing is going to change that.
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Comment on UN says world will miss its climate target, warming must be reversed in ~enviro
post_below Link ParentAgreed except consumers. The problem is systems and industries, if action (such as regulation, protests, boycotts) is taken against those, the science says it should be enough. Or possibly would...At the same time, there is no clear target. Who is to blame for climate change? Government are, companies are, consumers are, pretty much everything and everyone
Agreed except consumers. The problem is systems and industries, if action (such as regulation, protests, boycotts) is taken against those, the science says it should be enough. Or possibly would have been enough... it doesn't really matter, it's a clear target and inaction doesn't seem to be an sane option.
If you want an even clearer target: The heavily intertwined global energy and military industries. They've been funding pushback againt climate action for decades, they've run massive and successful propaganda campaigns to water down public support and seed doubt. They invented and funded the concepts of "carbon footprint" and plastics recycling to warp public perception. Those being examples in a mind blowingly widely scoped and long running plan of persistent strategic messaging, bad science funding, media influence and political manipulation. It's resulted in people doubting the science, burying their heads in the sand or thinking it's their own, and their neighbors, fault. The only reason you're wondering who to blame is that they're really good at what they do.
Politicians are scared shitless of the political power of these organizations. Media too, that's why they don't cover the issue honestly, or enough.
The target is right there under the neon sign pointing at the industries that profit the most, both directly and indirectly, from continued fossil fuel dependence and energy related conflict.
The world, and especially the US, is years, maybe decades, more behind on the response to the climate crises almost solely because that's what big industries are paying for.
I don't think eco-terrorism is the answer. Awareness is part of the answer though, if the public decides the fossil fuel industry is the problem, it will make a difference no matter what the media says, or carefully doesn't say. Not just where oil is concerned, across a variety of industries that depend on fossil fuels.
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Comment on Proposal to ban development of AI superintelligence by US Senator Bernie Sanders and US Representative Greg Casar in ~society
post_below Link ParentLiteral quote. I think Bernie's great, but this proposed legislation, which seems to be an awareness campaign rather than a genuine attempt at lawmaking, is really misguided. Step 1) Halt US AI...But what happened next, nobody expected.
Literal quote. I think Bernie's great, but this proposed legislation, which seems to be an awareness campaign rather than a genuine attempt at lawmaking, is really misguided.
Step 1) Halt US AI development, likely crashing stock markets globally, but worse in US markets. Arguably OK, but if the goal is to tank financial markets through legislation, put that in the title. At the very least acknowledge that you understand that's what will happen!
Step 2) Beg the rest of the world to stop too. Which they absolutely won't do, pure fantasy.
Step 3) Watch from the sidelines as China becomes the leader in AI.
I'm not saying that US tech bros are the right shepherds of this technology, but I don't think China is going to be any better.
Bernie's populist message resonates with a lot of people, I agree wholeheartedly with his core platform. I don't understand the anti-AI pivot. Using AI as a proxy for wealth inequality isn't going to make any progress on the real problems.
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Comment on Share your favourite dal recipe! in ~food
post_below Link ParentI add the coconut milk just after the tomatoes (after they've had a moment to brown). But if you're not non-dairy you have to try cream at least once! Generally I like diced or strained better...-
I add the coconut milk just after the tomatoes (after they've had a moment to brown). But if you're not non-dairy you have to try cream at least once!
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Generally I like diced or strained better than paste but it's a personal taste thing. Fire roasted tomatoes would probably work great. I used a neutral marina once and it turned out fine. The tomato is sort of a background flavor, too much and it gets a chili vibe. Unless of course that's what you're after.
Sometimes I use chipotle to give it a little smoke. Some traditional indian recipes use charcoal infused oil.
If you're really into playing around with the nuances, try fresh grated ginger and fresh garlic instead of jarred/store bought paste. Make sure both are pretty well cooked before the wet ingredients go in, they don't always finish otherwise.
Red kidney beans add some nice texture and flavor variety, I don't remember if the dishoom recipe used them.
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Comment on 1Password wades into a right-wing mess after funding a Linux project in ~tech
post_below Link ParentAlso, all their desktop apps use Electron. Which is a huge download/install size and memory usage hit for an (otherwise) lightweight app like a password manager.Also, all their desktop apps use Electron. Which is a huge download/install size and memory usage hit for an (otherwise) lightweight app like a password manager.
If you expand it to wealth and power consolidation, and capital otherwise corrupting systems and contributing to the destruction of our ecosystems, I'm right there with you.
If it's just about AI... It would be wonderful if that was the biggest of our problems. Or even a big enough part that erasing it could change the trajectory.