sparksbet's recent activity

  1. Comment on AI isn’t replacing jobs. AI spending is. in ~comp

    sparksbet
    Link Parent
    Your confidence is misplaced. It's perfectly possible for a "corporate LLM" to be using the exact same underlying technology as ChatGPT -- in fact, very often companies like Oracle are directly...

    Your confidence is misplaced. It's perfectly possible for a "corporate LLM" to be using the exact same underlying technology as ChatGPT -- in fact, very often companies like Oracle are directly contracting companies like OpenAI and their competitors and directly using their products, rather than training their own machine learning models. Not every company doing this will have fine-tuning on a per-customer basis like this, but it's absolutely possible and there's nothing when it comes to the architecture of newer LLMs that prevents this compared to older language models. If it's not a possibility, it's because the company offering the service doesn't think it's worth the cost to implement everything else that's needed for it (for instance, an interface for the customer and other such things)

    Also, "fine tuning prompts" is a phrase that makes no sense under the definition of fine-tuning we're discussing here. Prompt engineering and stuff is a thing, but it's more or less orthogonal to the process that's referred to as "fine-tuning" when discussing machine learning models.

  2. Comment on Hate Brussels sprouts? You may be living in the past. in ~food

    sparksbet
    Link Parent
    Brussel sprouts, at least nowadays, are nowhere close to as bitter as coffee and beer (which, tbf, you've chosen two famously bitter beverages as examples here!). Frankly, imo they're barely more...

    Brussel sprouts, at least nowadays, are nowhere close to as bitter as coffee and beer (which, tbf, you've chosen two famously bitter beverages as examples here!). Frankly, imo they're barely more bitter than your average head of celery or romaine lettuce.

    3 votes

  3. Comment on Hate Brussels sprouts? You may be living in the past. in ~food

    sparksbet
    Link Parent
    Honestly as someone who very specifically enjoys the sharp flavor you get from adding stuff like onions to a salad like this, I think "sting" is better than the more common English options in this...

    Honestly as someone who very specifically enjoys the sharp flavor you get from adding stuff like onions to a salad like this, I think "sting" is better than the more common English options in this context! It's much more evocative imo.

    2 votes

  4. Comment on Indie Game Awards rescinds Clair Obscur's GOTY wins over use of generative AI [for now-removed background assets] in ~games

    sparksbet
    Link Parent
    There is no definition of "Generative AI" in use in a technical or non-technical context I've encountered that excludes LLMs. The entire purpose of the term "generative AI" is to distinguish...

    There is no definition of "Generative AI" in use in a technical or non-technical context I've encountered that excludes LLMs. The entire purpose of the term "generative AI" is to distinguish models that generate their outputs from those that do not, and it was almost certainly used among language models before it was used for other types of generative models, particularly in non-technical contexts as generative AI advances in language models preceded the subsequent advances in image generation afaik.

    1 vote

  5. Comment on AI isn’t replacing jobs. AI spending is. in ~comp

    sparksbet
    Link Parent
    This is not true and is not a meaningful distinction. The type of training the person describes is presumably fine-tuning an existing machine learning model, which can definitely be done with...

    This is not true and is not a meaningful distinction. The type of training the person describes is presumably fine-tuning an existing machine learning model, which can definitely be done with major GenAI models (and you overestimate how different the underlying architecture is from the stuff that immediately preceded GenAI). One of the big improvements in the recent models used for GenAI is that they tend to require a lot less fine-tuning for competence at many tasks, but they absolutely can be fine-tuned like this. iirc OpenAI explicitly offers fine-tuning options for GPT-4.

    5 votes

  6. Comment on Copenhagen's ‘ghetto law’ may be unlawful – ECJ ruling brings hope to area of city targeted over high percentage of residents with ‘non-western’ backgrounds in ~society

    sparksbet
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    I think if it isn't unlawful, then it's pretty much impossible for any discriminatory law to be unlawful. The degree to which this law was blatant about its racism remains incredibly horrifying.

    I think if it isn't unlawful, then it's pretty much impossible for any discriminatory law to be unlawful. The degree to which this law was blatant about its racism remains incredibly horrifying.

    14 votes

  7. Comment on I need to tell you why coffee makes you poop in ~food

    sparksbet
    Link Parent
    I definitely can still get this effect from iced coffee, and I don't experience the effect with other hot beverages. But I do suspect there is some degree of behavioral conditioning involved for...

    I definitely can still get this effect from iced coffee, and I don't experience the effect with other hot beverages. But I do suspect there is some degree of behavioral conditioning involved for some people, either independently or alongside the physical stimulus. They aren't mutually exclusive, after all!

  8. Comment on I need to tell you why coffee makes you poop in ~food

    sparksbet
    Link Parent
    Absolutely same, honestly.

    Absolutely same, honestly.

    3 votes

  9. Comment on I need to tell you why coffee makes you poop in ~food

    sparksbet
    Link Parent
    This video also had many in the comments saying it was blurring the line between James Hoffman and Hames Joffman lol... I don't think I've seen him this wacky since the Bripe.

    This video also had many in the comments saying it was blurring the line between James Hoffman and Hames Joffman lol... I don't think I've seen him this wacky since the Bripe.

    8 votes

  10. Comment on I need to tell you why coffee makes you poop in ~food

    sparksbet
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    He does mention offhandedly that there is variation between some people, insofar as he mentions the effect being much stronger for some people than others. As with any survey, you'll get different...

    He does mention offhandedly that there is variation between some people, insofar as he mentions the effect being much stronger for some people than others. As with any survey, you'll get different percentages of positive responses depending on how you word the question. I don't know if I'd say yes if it were worded as "a compelling urge to defecate", as it's not a strong enough effect in my case to really merit the term "compelling", but I definitely do often feel the need to poop after drinking coffee. I haven't bothered looking up studies, but I'd be surprised if there weren't more than one that investigates the existence of this effect in this way. I assume the various studies investigating why these things happen are citing something in that respect, at least.

    I can drink coffee in contexts without needing to poop and be fine, and I also poop fine without coffee, fwiw. I'm pretty regular lol but mine aren't quite as scheduled as yours.

    I do remember reading some pop sci article that claimed the coffee pooping effect was likely due to behavioral conditioning and the usual time of day when people drink coffee. Which may play a part even if there is a physical effect.

    6 votes

  11. Comment on I don't care much for symbolism in ~creative

    sparksbet
    Link Parent
    Symbolism and metaphor are a few of a variety of literary techniques that can be used to accomplish what's being described above. They're tools in a toolbox.

    Symbolism and metaphor are a few of a variety of literary techniques that can be used to accomplish what's being described above. They're tools in a toolbox.

  12. Comment on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 becomes first indie game to win Game of the Year at The Game Awards in ~games

    sparksbet
    Link Parent
    Yeah, ultimately as vague as the current definition of "indie" is, it does successfully manage to describe the category of games that I want to spend most of my time focusing on in a way that the...

    Yeah, ultimately as vague as the current definition of "indie" is, it does successfully manage to describe the category of games that I want to spend most of my time focusing on in a way that the even more nebulous "AA" does not. Sure, it'd be nice to have more granular terminology to distinguish between something like Hades or E33 and truly tiny art games, but there's a huge spectrum in between so it would really only result in more repeats of the same arguments over semantics.

  13. Comment on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 becomes first indie game to win Game of the Year at The Game Awards in ~games

    sparksbet
    Link Parent
    No one uses "indie game" to refer only to games without a publisher. And I say this as someone who likes tiny super-indie art games that are free on itch.io as well as more commercially successful...

    No one uses "indie game" to refer only to games without a publisher. And I say this as someone who likes tiny super-indie art games that are free on itch.io as well as more commercially successful indie titles and does indeed see the difference between different "levels" of indie-ness. There's no coherent definition of an indie game that excludes all games that have a publisher that doesn't exclude huge swaths of games that are very obviously indie games by any definition that more than one person actually uses in practice.

    2 votes

  14. Comment on Letter to a Liberal member of Parliament in ~enviro

    sparksbet
    Link Parent
    Fwiw, I don't think the person responding to you was referring to your sentiments on climate change as "premature panic", but rather the more specific political circumstances surrounding this MOU...

    My letter is driven primarily by physics. We are already at 425 ppm CO2, an exponential rate of increase, and the physical impacts are already measurable. Recognizing this trajectory and demanding a change now is foresight, not panic.

    Fwiw, I don't think the person responding to you was referring to your sentiments on climate change as "premature panic", but rather the more specific political circumstances surrounding this MOU (which I personally don't know remotely enough about to opine on whether they're right).

    4 votes

  15. Comment on Ex-Barack Obama aide says Holocaust education is ‘confusing’ young people into sympathizing with ‘weak, skinny’ Palestinians in ~society

    sparksbet
    Link Parent
    I definitely don't deny the specific antisemitism of the Nazis and their focus on eliminating Jewish people for sure. I think that rightfully is the focus of education on the topic, since it was...

    I definitely don't deny the specific antisemitism of the Nazis and their focus on eliminating Jewish people for sure. I think that rightfully is the focus of education on the topic, since it was the core of what happened and had such massive effects on Jewish people worldwide and on the European populations they were forcibly removed from. But I don't know if it really makes sense to define the exact same actions done to other ethnic groups and persecuted minorities out of the meaning of the word, unless there was some more concrete distinction in terms of what the groups were subjected to or the timing thereof that I'm not aware of. I don't think framing the ethnonationalist ideology of Nazi Germany as being "other prejudices they acted on in parallel" is a very accurate picture. Antisemitism had an prominent and outsized place in Nazi ideology, but pretending that Nazi genocides of other "undesirables" was somehow a completely independent thing that happened in parallel just doesn't stand up to scrutiny imo. Ultimately I'm not sure it's really productive to insist that other victims are denied the use of the term "Holocaust." And I certainly don't think a definition that refers exclusively to Jewish victims reflects the mainstream way the term is used by most people, tbqh.

    12 votes

  16. Comment on Ex-Barack Obama aide says Holocaust education is ‘confusing’ young people into sympathizing with ‘weak, skinny’ Palestinians in ~society

    sparksbet
    Link Parent
    Oh yeah the degree to which otherwise reasonable people will suddenly say horrifying shit when Romani (and other travelling peoples) come up in Europe genuinely shocked me earlier on. It's still...

    Oh yeah the degree to which otherwise reasonable people will suddenly say horrifying shit when Romani (and other travelling peoples) come up in Europe genuinely shocked me earlier on. It's still so normalized here.

  17. Comment on Ex-Barack Obama aide says Holocaust education is ‘confusing’ young people into sympathizing with ‘weak, skinny’ Palestinians in ~society

    sparksbet
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I think it's pretty callous to the other ethnic groups who were victims of Nazi Germany's systemic genocide to claim that it is as a tragedy belongs exclusively to Jewish people, unless you define...

    I think it's pretty callous to the other ethnic groups who were victims of Nazi Germany's systemic genocide to claim that it is as a tragedy belongs exclusively to Jewish people, unless you define Holocaust in such a way that it refers to only the actions against Jewish people but deliberately decide to call the exact same actions against, for instance, the Roma and Sinti, something else for some reason. And even that's pretty weird imo.

    I don't think necessarily treating it as a universal tragedy is sensible -- I live in Germany, after all, and there's a pretty stark difference between how Jewish people are affected by it even today vs how it affects white German goyim.

    But we shouldn't erase other groups that were very much victims here, especially when they are still treated like shit here and are the victims of a lot of racism to this day. The man in charge of my case at the immigration office a few years back casually dropped a slur against Romani people while using them as an example of people who didn't have the right to freedom of movement in the EU because they don't work. And this was from a man who was in all other respects very nice, helpful, and polite (albeit with the quintessential personality of a German civil servant).

    21 votes

  18. Comment on EU backs away from chat control in ~society

    sparksbet
    Link Parent
    I'm usually not the type to police people for calling something fascist, especially in the current political climate, but my main concern is that calling this specifically fascism and describing...

    I'm usually not the type to police people for calling something fascist, especially in the current political climate, but my main concern is that calling this specifically fascism and describing it as part of the current general trend towards fascism in Europe (which absolutely is a thing) gives parties that are undeniably fascist but oppose chat control (like the AfD here in Germany) a free pass, and it also doesn't paint an accurate picture of how involved mainstream centrist liberals are in these policies. Authoritarianism is not always or automatically fascism.

    3 votes

  19. Comment on Can we maybe have an informal agreement to avoid posting articles that require you to sell your firstborn child to the devil just to read them? in ~tildes

    sparksbet
    Link Parent
    Yeah, they're pretty awful. I see them much more often when I browse German websites than English ones, they've become pretty popular here.

    Yeah, they're pretty awful. I see them much more often when I browse German websites than English ones, they've become pretty popular here.

    1 vote

  20. Comment on Against 'Metroidbrania': a landscape of knowledge games in ~games

    sparksbet
    Link Parent
    Oh yeah I do agree, I think a lot of people (including in this thread) wildly over-apply the term to things that aren't supposed to be clearly solvable puzzles in the first place (I think most...

    Oh yeah I do agree, I think a lot of people (including in this thread) wildly over-apply the term to things that aren't supposed to be clearly solvable puzzles in the first place (I think most Dark Souls examples fall into this category) or just puzzles that they personally found difficult. Modern point-and-click adventure games sometimes play with the idea of moon logic puzzles as part of the genre's legacy, but actual puzzles of that nature are pretty rare these days. A puzzle being bad or difficult doesn't necessarily make it moon logic, and neither does the fact that you had to look it up!

    2 votes