thearctic's recent activity

  1. Enjoying reading in the age of LLMs

    ~humanities Ask
    I used to really value the art of essay writing. There seemed to be such a richness in the different ways people would construct arguments, structure those arguments, then deliver those arguments...

    I used to really value the art of essay writing. There seemed to be such a richness in the different ways people would construct arguments, structure those arguments, then deliver those arguments stylistically, not just from the perspective of being persuaded as a reader but also from the perspective of seeing how a given writer thinks, relates to the living tradition of language, and understands the world conceptually. But it's basically lost most of its meaning to me in this age of LLMs. The reality is, LLMs are capable of writing texts that, if you gave them to a seasoned reader 5 years ago, they'd say it was well written and indicative of a truly thoughtful mind. Even if there currently exist certain tells with LLMs, those styles certainly existed in different ways in real human writing beforehand. Now, those perfectly reasonable set of styles are verboten and we have to dedicate half our deep focus to figuring out whether, or to what extent, an essay or article was written by AI. It's difficult to enjoy, let alone care, about essay writing and the writers behind them now.

    I can still find value in books, though, because they were written in the past and I don't mind never reading any non-scientific book published after 2022 if it comes down to it.

    17 votes

  2. Comment on Pokémon Go players built a thirty-billion-photo map for AI in ~tech

    thearctic
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    Over the past decade, Pokémon Go players voluntarily submitted photos and short videos of public landmarks, street corners, storefronts, and urban intersections—all coming together to create a dataset that now stands at 30 billion images captured at ground level, across nearly every major city on the planet. Niantic Spatial, the enterprise AI and mapping division spun from Niantic Inc., has spent years converting that trove into something the robotics industry has never seen before: a photorealistic, street-level, continuously updated model of the physical world, built specifically for robots.

    That model is now being deployed to navigate Coco Robotics’ roughly 1,000 delivery bot fleet operating in cities across the country and around the world

    18 votes

  4. Comment on Welcome to a multidimensional economic disaster - the AI boom wasn’t built for the polycrisis (gifted lnk) in ~tech

    thearctic
    Link Parent
    I'm skeptical that the AI bubble collapsing would create a crisis worse than 2008, especially when it is itself is creating economic havoc. At a certain point, the catastrophizing is a narrative...

    I'm skeptical that the AI bubble collapsing would create a crisis worse than 2008, especially when it is itself is creating economic havoc. At a certain point, the catastrophizing is a narrative to sell you on the idea of bailing out people's faulty investments.

    12 votes

  5. Comment on US Federal Communications Commission's Brendan Carr warns broadcasters on Iran reporting in ~society

    thearctic
    Link Parent
    I think there's a good argument to say that Trump is a fascist, but I think it introduces a debate that draws attention from the point. He's an authoritarian who's driving the country off a cliff....

    I think there's a good argument to say that Trump is a fascist, but I think it introduces a debate that draws attention from the point. He's an authoritarian who's driving the country off a cliff. I'm hesitant to call Trumpism fascist because its ideology is ad-hoc. Trump is a creature of an infantile psychology and the MAGA movement will retroactively formalize whatever he says into an ideology simply because he said it. If Trump somehow woke up a social democrat, they'd be die-hard social democrats, which I don't think would apply to a truly fascist movement.

    I guess where I see the fundamental problem is that, though there are many parallels to fascism, I just don't see America abandoning cultural liberalism. That's to say, I think there's a strong likelihood that we'll start to mirror many features of fascism in terms of political power, but I don't think we'll have the sort of highly-regimented cultural conservatism that characterized fascist regimes. But there will be a veneer of liberalism, and I think that pseudo-liberalism will actually be instrumental to drawing the "us versus them" distinction needed to take aggressive acts on the world stage.

    4 votes

  6. Comment on US Federal Communications Commission's Brendan Carr warns broadcasters on Iran reporting in ~society

    thearctic
    Link Parent
    Fascism is a very specific and debated term, and we could still be headed for an authoritarian nightmare without it necessarily being fascism. It's an important distinction because if we look for...

    Fascism is a very specific and debated term, and we could still be headed for an authoritarian nightmare without it necessarily being fascism. It's an important distinction because if we look for the signs of fascism and don't find them, it doesn't mean we aren't headed for disaster politically. For instance, I don't expect that America will ever fully abandon cultural liberalism. That doesn't mean we won't, say, have the de facto elimination of free speech, a powerful surveillance state, and a military and intelligence apparatus that operates completely outside of democratic control.

    6 votes

  7. Comment on US Federal Communications Commission's Brendan Carr warns broadcasters on Iran reporting in ~society

    thearctic
    Link

    "Broadcasters must ​operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if ​they do not," Carr wrote.

    ...

    On Saturday, he wrote of "hoaxes and distortions" during the 2024 presidential campaign and said "the public has lost faith and confidence ​in the media." ​By including Trump's ⁠post, Carr for the first time extended his own criticisms to wartime coverage.

    16 votes

  9. Comment on Armed robots take to the battlefield in Ukraine war in ~society

    thearctic
    Link Parent
    Touché. But are increased arms sufficient to take back Ukraine? Wouldn't Europe need to send large numbers of troops? Would Europe ever even be willing to both be in a war economy and send troops?...

    Touché. But are increased arms sufficient to take back Ukraine? Wouldn't Europe need to send large numbers of troops? Would Europe ever even be willing to both be in a war economy and send troops? Could the EU as an institution survive that? Maybe, maybe not. For sure, Europe needs to get it together military to at least deter Russia. But Russia as a fundamental threat I don't think is going anywhere, and a long term strategy of diplomacy and engagement is necessary.

  10. Comment on Armed robots take to the battlefield in Ukraine war in ~society

    thearctic
    Link Parent
    I'm pessimistic that Russia will collapse economically. They're now in a much stronger alliance with China, have access to enormous natural resources, and will probably be a golden location for...

    I'm pessimistic that Russia will collapse economically. They're now in a much stronger alliance with China, have access to enormous natural resources, and will probably be a golden location for climate refugees in the future. I'd so imagine much of Middle East and Africa to shift ties to Russia, given how the US has behaved on the world stage.

    2 votes

  11. Comment on Armed robots take to the battlefield in Ukraine war in ~society

    thearctic
    Link Parent
    Russia declared a change in their nuclear policy that they'd deploy nukes if the Russian state was under threat. It's also naive to think that Russia won't probably find someone more hardline to...

    Russia declared a change in their nuclear policy that they'd deploy nukes if the Russian state was under threat. It's also naive to think that Russia won't probably find someone more hardline to replace Putin when he's gone. Relatively speaking, Putin unfortunately is a moderate.

    We can talk all day about principles and good triumphing over evil, but that's not going to end or win a war. I think there is some hope to be had because humans are hardwired to empathize to some degree with those they interact with. Dialogue is necessary and will bear fruit even in a situation that's on paper intractable.

    This is a circle we need to square. There is no option.

    2 votes

  12. Comment on Armed robots take to the battlefield in Ukraine war in ~society

    thearctic
    Link Parent
    The war in Ukraine can only be resolved through dialogue and finding ideological overlap. The theory of the case that, through innovation and determination, we could trigger political collapse...

    The war in Ukraine can only be resolved through dialogue and finding ideological overlap. The theory of the case that, through innovation and determination, we could trigger political collapse within Russia has proven not only false, but to be in the opposite direction of the truth. One of the things that scares me the most about the Russia-Ukraine war is how much it's accelerated the development of advanced military technology. When we start seeing long range micro-drones that can target individual people for assassination, humanity will be screwed.

    7 votes

  13. Comment on Living human brain cells play DOOM on a CL1 in ~tech

    thearctic
    Link Parent
    Democracy, if you were to provide a minimalist formal definition of it, is essentially the pooling together of power that is then directed according to the vote of a given constituency. A world in...

    Democracy, if you were to provide a minimalist formal definition of it, is essentially the pooling together of power that is then directed according to the vote of a given constituency. A world in which there are no constraints on power (ie. the ability to do things, whether that's production or violence) is one where there can be no democracy. That is, only if we constrain the energy supply, it should still be possible to maintain democratic control over how the world operates. A world with limitless energy will operate not unlike a body with metastatic cancer: organizations, individuals, and nations will be able to grow and act with no check on their ambitions. People will say that constraining energy is immoral since it means more people will go hungry, but we have long since solved the food scarcity problem globally and can very easily house all people with current resources. The issue is allocation of existing resources not the quantity of resources.

    I think it's the wrong focus to try to compete with AI. Common people currently have very little leverage and are on track, with or without AI, to lose even more if it. I can't imagine that we'd start putting humans in Tesla factories just because they happen to be cyborgs. That also sounds like a pretty hellish world to have to live as barely human cyborgs to maybe sort of compete.

    1 vote

  14. Comment on The average US college student is illiterate in ~life

    thearctic
    Link Parent
    At the same time, the explosion of long-form content has been interesting. Many people regularly listen to 2-3 hour podcasts now, which was very rare beforehand. I guess there's a K-shaped...

    At the same time, the explosion of long-form content has been interesting. Many people regularly listen to 2-3 hour podcasts now, which was very rare beforehand. I guess there's a K-shaped trajectory in people's attention spans. If you don't have a taste for short-form content, there's not much worthwhile medium-form content to consume.

    19 votes

  15. Comment on US Marines fired on protesters storming consulate in Karachi, Pakistan in ~society

    thearctic
    Link

    U.S. Marines opened fire on demonstrators during the storming of the Karachi consulate over the weekend, two U.S. officials said on Monday—a rare use ​of force at a diplomatic post that could sharply escalate tensions in the country ‌amid widespread protests over the killing of Iran's leader.

    Ten people were killed on Sunday when protesters breached the compound’s outer wall after Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in strikes on Iran.

    Citing initial information, the ​two U.S. officials said it was unclear whether rounds fired by Marines struck or ​killed anyone. They also did not know whether shots were also fired by others protecting ⁠the mission, including private security guards and local police.

    ...

    Pakistan is home to the world’s second‑largest Shi’ite community after Iran. On Monday, ​Pakistan banned large gatherings nationwide after the protests over the strikes on Iran spread, with 26 people reported dead ‌across ⁠the country.

    5 votes

  17. Comment on Living human brain cells play DOOM on a CL1 in ~tech

    thearctic
    Link Parent
    I guess I should've been more specific that it dehumanizes human brain tissue, which we can reasonably understand to be the seat of consciousness and as what makes us who we are as individuals....

    I guess I should've been more specific that it dehumanizes human brain tissue, which we can reasonably understand to be the seat of consciousness and as what makes us who we are as individuals. The objectification of human flesh in general isn't good but in some cases can be justified if precautions are taken and at least the general gravity of the situation is taken into account. I don't think we should be growing human livers for fun or installing humanized tissues in mice for fun. The scientific justification should be sufficient to pass an ethics board. Hair is dead and more like a human product in the way that wool is for sheep, so I think that's much less a concern.

    I truly don't see the utility in trying to be "competitive" with synthetic computation, or even trying to infinitely maximize computational ability in general. We've already long solved the food scarcity problem, from a pure production standpoint, globally. We already are on track to solve the greatest life threatening diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's. What need is there to keep going beyond a certain point?

    As for medical applications, there are many ways to skin a cat in medicine and I anticipate the number of ways to skin the same cat will dramatically increase as medicine and biomedical technology advances. I'm not sure which article you're referring to, so I'm not sure how exactly they implemented the solution and what results they got. But in general, if there is a medical solution that has substantial ethical problems with it, I'm fairly confident that an alternative solution can be developed or might already exist.

  18. Comment on Living human brain cells play DOOM on a CL1 in ~tech

    thearctic
    Link Parent
    I don't really have an answer as to ethics of those technologies. Maybe we are subjecting the most complex, self-directed ANNs to torture, or maybe we're not. Non-neuronal organoids are less...

    I don't really have an answer as to ethics of those technologies. Maybe we are subjecting the most complex, self-directed ANNs to torture, or maybe we're not. Non-neuronal organoids are less concerning to me, but there are bio-hazardous concerns I think with seeking to mechanize biology outside of life (ex. imagine a purely biological machine designed to compost food that's released into the wild and causes all sorts of ecological problems).

    To me, given how little we know and can ever know about consciousness, we should be especially cautious when tampering with things we know are tied to consciousness in some way. Even if these human neuron circuits are not conscious, I also view it as certainly profane in that it dehumanizes human flesh. That itself has severe negative moral side effects, both in terms of pure pain/pleasure ethics and preserving things I, on "aesthetic" grounds, view as most essential (our humanity, how we derive meaning, respect for nature). The risk of what it may be doing and the certainty of what it will do is enough for me to call it evil.

  19. Comment on Living human brain cells play DOOM on a CL1 in ~tech

    thearctic
    Link Parent
    Responding to signs of harm and distress is an interesting and valid starting point. I do think that the distinction between functional consciousness and subjective-experience consciousness is...

    Responding to signs of harm and distress is an interesting and valid starting point. I do think that the distinction between functional consciousness and subjective-experience consciousness is quite important ethically. Given that we can't ever understand subjective-experience consciousness through measurement, except through introducing certain assumptions that may or may not be valid, we have a deep moral obligation to skew on the side of moral risk aversion. I don't know where consciousness comes from or what, aside from humans, are or aren't conscious. But the entities I can say with the strongest degree of certainty are conscious are humans, and when I see human neurons being hooked up into biological circuits I view it as both extremely morally risky and profane, in the sense that it dehumanizes human essence even if these biological circuits are not ultimately conscious.

    I'd consider doing the same with mouse neurons, or any other biological neurons, only marginally less problematic. There's an interesting and serious question about the ethics of artificial neurons with respect to consciousness, but the distinction between artificial and biological neurons is a vitally important one. Not because there isn't a real possibility that these artificial neural circuits aren't conscious. But if we can never have a true understanding of subjective-experience consciousness, we should view any major step in terms of fundamental characteristics toward human brains to be morally perilous.

    Really, the ultimate point I'd like to make is that the distinction between functional and subjective-experience consciousness has extremely profound ethical, philosophical, and metaphysical implications. Because it is logically impossible to scientifically isolate and measure subjective-experience consciousness, we will never be able to make progress on those particular ethical, philosophical, and metaphysical implications through scientific advancement. To suggest that it is possible introduces serious moral risk.

    3 votes

  20. Comment on Living human brain cells play DOOM on a CL1 in ~tech

    thearctic
    Link Parent
    There's a lot variation in terminology and the term functionalist neuroscience may have been better (namely, the notion that the mind and brain should be described and understood in terms of...

    There's a lot variation in terminology and the term functionalist neuroscience may have been better (namely, the notion that the mind and brain should be described and understood in terms of evolutionarily-adaptive action guidance).

    I never said it was unreasonable to associate the memory of subjective experience, which is all that self-reporting can measure, with actual subjective experience. It's actually extremely useful practically and ethically. The issue is that if you're trying to understand consciousness truly, it becomes circular to say that a measurement of memory is a measurement of experience itself. At the final level of analysis, it isn't and we know that to be true.

    Understanding consciousness truly, as opposed to merely for its practical benefits, is also of interest because we cannot understand the basic question why any of us are conscious. It makes perfect sense that complex life needs to make highly complex calculations about how to act based on sense information in order to survive to reproduce. It also makes plenty of sense that these sense experiences, in a functional sense, would need to be collated into a "stage" to be most effective. There is no necessity at all for there to be an actual subjective experience. We could all be "zombies" so to speak and evolution would carry on just the same. If you're interested in answering a question like this, you'll never get there by trying to measure consciousness through a self-reported memory of subjective experience, because it would be circular to do so.

    1 vote