sparksbet's recent activity
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Comment on Gianmarco Soresi: Thief of Joy in ~tv
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Comment on California attorney fined for using twenty-one AI hallucinated cases in court filing in ~tech
sparksbet Link ParentIt's theoretically possible, but probably he'll suffer other sanctions first rather than immediately being disbarred. My understanding is that getting disbarred typically requires something much...It's theoretically possible, but probably he'll suffer other sanctions first rather than immediately being disbarred. My understanding is that getting disbarred typically requires something much more egregiously unethical than this or a longstanding pattern of bad behavior. Starting out with fines seems fine to me as long as they're large enough to serve as enough of a learning experience for the lawyer in question and others who hear about what happened.
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Comment on California attorney fined for using twenty-one AI hallucinated cases in court filing in ~tech
sparksbet Link ParentYeah, even the most obstinate model can and will still hallucinate. It's an entirely orthogonal problem to the obsequiousness and is much, much less solvable.Yeah, even the most obstinate model can and will still hallucinate. It's an entirely orthogonal problem to the obsequiousness and is much, much less solvable.
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Comment on California attorney fined for using twenty-one AI hallucinated cases in court filing in ~tech
sparksbet Link ParentNot only that, but this is far from the first attorney to get in trouble for this exact issue either!Not only that, but this is far from the first attorney to get in trouble for this exact issue either!
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Comment on California attorney fined for using twenty-one AI hallucinated cases in court filing in ~tech
sparksbet Link ParentI'm sorry, but this is just completely detached from the reality of legal writing. Legal writing like this involves a lot of quotations and citation, and these are very clearly indicated in the...I'm sorry, but this is just completely detached from the reality of legal writing. Legal writing like this involves a lot of quotations and citation, and these are very clearly indicated in the text. Even if it's too difficult to go through the entirety of the LLM's output to catch subtle mistakes (and, at that point, given that this is a career where subtle mistakes are make or break, I'd argue that makes the LLM worse than useless in this regard -- they should just write it up themselves in the first place instead), it is far easier to do a basic check that the cases you cited all exist and contain what you cited them for. That is below what the bare minimum should be for checking a legal document that you'll submit to the court like this.
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Comment on The Buff Scammer, isolation, and the male loneliness epidemic in ~life.men
sparksbet Link ParentI think this can certainly contribute to some factors of how men get socialized into certain types of toxic behaviors (and, honestly, how women are too, albeit to a different set thereof), but I...I think this can certainly contribute to some factors of how men get socialized into certain types of toxic behaviors (and, honestly, how women are too, albeit to a different set thereof), but I think focusing on this to the exclusion of other issues commits the all-too-common sin of considering romantic/sexual relationships with women the only ones that matter when it comes to "male loneliness".
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Comment on The Buff Scammer, isolation, and the male loneliness epidemic in ~life.men
sparksbet Link ParentFwiw, while I think acknowledging your privilege is a great thing, I don't actually think this type of issue is one that can be neatly divided into perpetrators and victims. The same people are...I'm also basically at the top of the privilege chart in just about every metric, so if anything I'm much more likely to be an inadvertent perpetrator of these issues than a victim.
Fwiw, while I think acknowledging your privilege is a great thing, I don't actually think this type of issue is one that can be neatly divided into perpetrators and victims. The same people are very often both perpetrators and victims of this type of behavior simultaneously. It's part of how this behavior perpetuates itself.
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Comment on The Buff Scammer, isolation, and the male loneliness epidemic in ~life.men
sparksbet Link ParentI think the ultimate issue with the comment that started this whole discussion (which seems to not be yours from what I can tell) is that the same statements and statistics come off in extremely...- Exemplary
I think the ultimate issue with the comment that started this whole discussion (which seems to not be yours from what I can tell) is that the same statements and statistics come off in extremely differently based on context. Statistics exist in context as part of a story. Smores's original comment was very nuanced and acknowledged the outsized harm that men commit in society while also expressing sympathy for them and discussing how much societal conditioning is pushing towards this outcome. Responding with statistics about sexual assault perpetrators here ultimately carries the heavy implication that we shouldn't acknowledge that this is the result of society and how it trains men to be, but rather that it is something inherent to men that they cannot escape and should not try to. Those same sexual assault statistics would come across very differently in a conversation that began focused on why women are guarded among men or on why women take certain precautions, but since that's not what the initial context was, I'm not surprised the comment ended up rubbing a lot of people the wrong way. The exact same stats communicate very different things in different contexts.
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Comment on The Buff Scammer, isolation, and the male loneliness epidemic in ~life.men
sparksbet Link ParentI think the comparison to grooming is very apt -- ultimately a lot of the same tactics are used in online radicalization.I think the comparison to grooming is very apt -- ultimately a lot of the same tactics are used in online radicalization.
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Comment on Young Greenlandic woman living in Denmark will regain custody of the infant girl taken from her shortly after birth – becomes the latest flashpoint between Denmark and Greenland in ~life.women
sparksbet Link ParentThe problem is, of course, that they decide the benchmark for what counts as a capable parent. It's quite easy to design a test that a white college-educated native Danish-speaker can easily pass...Maybe before using a test to deem if someone is capable, they should evaluate capable parents with the same test
The problem is, of course, that they decide the benchmark for what counts as a capable parent. It's quite easy to design a test that a white college-educated native Danish-speaker can easily pass that is unduly difficult for someone who does not fall into those categories. It's possible to do this unintentionally, but I highly doubt that was the case here. The staircase example is one of the most patently absurd ones, but very often things like this on such tests are really shibboleths.
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Comment on The Buff Scammer, isolation, and the male loneliness epidemic in ~life.men
sparksbet Link ParentYeah, I think the fact that this post is on Tumblr helped make this point particularly salient because it's so often a very progressive, queer space, and those spaces are often where people fall...Yeah, I think the fact that this post is on Tumblr helped make this point particularly salient because it's so often a very progressive, queer space, and those spaces are often where people fall into this trap (or, less charitably, where radfems try to launder their gender essentialism as being progressive).
There is obviously a huge amount of societal stuff that leads to men being more often perpetrators of a wide array of pretty awful behaviors (and not even only towards non-men -- men are very often victims of other men too), and I do think that support for victims is deeply necessary. But framing men as inherently predatory I think is ultimately counterproductive if we actually want to encourage men to have healthy, positive behavior towards themselves and others. It absolves men of the choices they make in perpetuating these behaviors and utterly fails to offer an alternative path forward for men who don't want to do so.
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Comment on The Buff Scammer, isolation, and the male loneliness epidemic in ~life.men
sparksbet LinkIn the past, I've been very critical of a lot of the posts people have shared here discussing the "male loneliness epidemic". I've found myself very dissatisfied with most of the "discourse"...In the past, I've been very critical of a lot of the posts people have shared here discussing the "male loneliness epidemic". I've found myself very dissatisfied with most of the "discourse" surrounding it, where I've encountered a lot of stuff that's, frankly, rife with misogyny. But I do think it's a worthwhile topic worth addressing from the right angle, because the phenomenon in question is real and is caused, imo, by a lot of complex intermingling societal factors.
I suspect most other Tildes users don't use Tumblr and might scoff at someone sharing a Tumblr post here, but I think this particular post and its replies are some of the best, most nuanced discussion I've seen of the topic. And, for the record, I think the fact that the OP is a trans woman and the first reply is from someone who's trans masculine are a big part of that. I think transitioning socially does genuinely give many trans people a lot of unique insight into how society and gender interact in ways that aren't necessarily obvious to most cis people.
I hope others here appreciate the linked discussion and hopefully gain some insight from it. I know I did!
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The Buff Scammer, isolation, and the male loneliness epidemic
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Comment on What are your favorite casual puzzle games? in ~games
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Comment on What are your favorite casual puzzle games? in ~games
sparksbet Link ParentZachtronics games tend to fall into one of two categories -- the ones that are this kind of... assembly puzzle, for lack of a better term? and the ones that are more coding/computer science-y. In...Zachtronics games tend to fall into one of two categories -- the ones that are this kind of... assembly puzzle, for lack of a better term? and the ones that are more coding/computer science-y. In my experience what people typically recommend for beginners is Opus Magnum as the first of this kind, and Exopunks as the first of the more coding-y type. I've really enjoyed both (and will probably move on to more Zachtronics games once I'm done with them) but I can definitely see other people only vibing with one kind or the other.
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Comment on What are your favorite casual puzzle games? in ~games
sparksbet Link ParentMy understanding is that among Zachtronics games, Opus Magnum is frequently recommended as a good one to start with because it's one of the easiest to get into! Which says a lot about their games...My understanding is that among Zachtronics games, Opus Magnum is frequently recommended as a good one to start with because it's one of the easiest to get into! Which says a lot about their games in general lol
I'll agree, it's a pretty difficult puzzle game by normal standards, but you will know quickly if it scratches the right itch, and if it does it is very satisfying to tinker with until you manage to find a solution.
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Comment on KeenWrite 3.6.3 in ~comp
sparksbet Link ParentTo be clear, I'm absolutely not against having pdfs with documentation and examples included -- I am against having that as your only or even principle form of documentation.To be clear, I'm absolutely not against having pdfs with documentation and examples included -- I am against having that as your only or even principle form of documentation.
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Comment on KeenWrite 3.6.3 in ~comp
sparksbet LinkThe website doesn't really give me a strong pitch for why I should be using this instead of alternatives. There are existing markdown-to-pdf rendering options for very simple documents without...The website doesn't really give me a strong pitch for why I should be using this instead of alternatives. There are existing markdown-to-pdf rendering options for very simple documents without stringent formatting requitements, and I'm not sold on this being equally powerful as just using LaTeX myself. I highly doubt it's even possible for me to do an interlinear gloss in KeenWrite, since doing one in LaTeX requires using one of several different dedicated packages that I doubt can currently be represented in KeenWrite's Markdown interface. Interlinear glosses are the reason my professors first told me to learn LaTeX back in undergrad, so they're non-trivial for the field. I'm not sure whether the charts available using KeenWrite can replicate syntax trees either. While my main perspective is of course informed by my field, I suspect other fields have similar important features that might not be adequately included in a project like this.
Also, I know it's popular within the LaTeX community to put all the documentation into pdfs, but it's incredibly annoying. Some documentation in a pdf that demonstrates the outputs in situ is fine, but we've long since reached the era of searchable online documentation.
As for finding something to replace LaTeX (which I've used enough to be well aware of its flaws), I'm much more on-board with projects like Typst rather than what amounts to a wrapper around TeX. A more readable alternative to LaTeX is definitely desirable, but the people working on Typst didn't sacrifice power and versatility when designing it. I actually already have switched to Typst from LaTeX for my personal projects, and any other pdf typesetting project would have to really impress me for me to consider it close to the same caliber.
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Comment on An AI social coach is teaching empathy to people with autism in ~health.mental
sparksbet Link ParentThis is very true -- writing is a technology external to the actual meat of human language -- but I don't think the difference is super relevant to many of the skills involved here. Learning the...Learning to write in a foreign language and being able to hold a conversation in that language are not entirely unrelated, but they involve different skills that both require practice.
This is very true -- writing is a technology external to the actual meat of human language -- but I don't think the difference is super relevant to many of the skills involved here. Learning the right thing to say to seem empathetic to a neurotypical person is definitely something that can transfer between spoken and written contexts to at least some degree.
Anecdotally, as someone with a recent autism diagnosis, I do find written communication a lot easier than spoken communication, in large part because there's a bit more time to respond even in highly synchronous textual communication, which lessens my anxiety a lot. But I both have social anxiety and have never really been considered unempathetic even in spoken contexts, so I've probably not got the same flavor of symptoms as the autistic people who benefit most from this type of coaching. So, y'know, grain of salt.
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Comment on Therapists are secretly using ChatGPT in ~health.mental
sparksbet (edited )Link ParentWe do not have remotely the evidence that it is something that can be measured in any objective way, including with future technologies, because there is nothing even close to sufficient evidence...There's nothing logically stopping a objective measurement of a person's brain state and formally determining whether someone is or is not depressed.
We just don't currently understand the human brain well enough or have the technology to accurately measure its state. Its not technically impossible, it's just completely infeasible with where we currently are in neuroscience.
We do not have remotely the evidence that it is something that can be measured in any objective way, including with future technologies, because there is nothing even close to sufficient evidence that depression would be directly observable from the state of one's brain. Currently the evidence I'm aware of points to the symptoms we classify as depression not necessarily all being caused by the same sources physiologically -- different people with depression could have completely different things causing it underlyingly. Heck, that's already obviously true to some extent -- I had depression that was caused at least in part by my thyroid not working properly.
It's not impossible that eventually we'll develop the ability to directly test for and measure some mental health problems through neuroscientific methods. But it's also not remotely unlikely that for many mental health conditions, doing so is indeed not possible.
The YouTube algorithm started showing me his stuff right after my divorce, and damn he quickly became one of my favorites of all time. Excited that he's got a full-length special I can recommend people now! His clips on YouTube were already gold imo. I saw him live recently when he toured here in Europe and it was a blast.