unkz's recent activity

  1. Comment on The DoorDash problem: How AI browsers are a huge threat to Amazon in ~tech

    unkz
    Link Parent
    I don’t entirely agree with the premise. For me, I think there are other aspects which are comparable in importance. like you said, upsells. Insulating me from upsells and advertising on that “buy...

    If the value of the AI is figuring out what to purchase

    I don’t entirely agree with the premise. For me, I think there are other aspects which are comparable in importance.

    • like you said, upsells. Insulating me from upsells and advertising on that “buy now” page is something i want.
    • that last mile of completing the purchase is still something I don’t want to have to do
    • privacy and profiling — I think there are ways agentic buying can operate that preclude websites from associating my agent’s browsing from profiling me. All the stores know is that some cloud entity with a clean cookie jar was looking for X product.
    3 votes
  2. Comment on The DoorDash problem: How AI browsers are a huge threat to Amazon in ~tech

    unkz
    Link Parent
    It seems to me like a lot of people’s perception of how an AI assistant can’t work comes from a place of not having had an actual human personal assistant before. With USB cables, it’s not like...

    It seems to me like a lot of people’s perception of how an AI assistant can’t work comes from a place of not having had an actual human personal assistant before.

    With USB cables, it’s not like you don’t have any control. You ask for a thing, it asks you if it found what you want. For a toaster, it can show you a selection of options — if you don’t like them, you can do your own search. Or tell it to go look again with guidance.

    1 vote
  3. Comment on The DoorDash problem: How AI browsers are a huge threat to Amazon in ~tech

    unkz
    Link Parent
    And even supposedly trustworthy Youtube influencers are notorious for being exposed for taking kickbacks and otherwise being corporate shill.

    And even supposedly trustworthy Youtube influencers are notorious for being exposed for taking kickbacks and otherwise being corporate shill.

    2 votes
  4. Comment on The DoorDash problem: How AI browsers are a huge threat to Amazon in ~tech

    unkz
    Link Parent
    I do want more AI in everything. My most valuable asset is time, and I love it when I find a way to waste less of it. My biggest concern is keeping the AI assistants aligned with me and not...

    I'm not saying I want all this. That I want more AI in everything.

    I do want more AI in everything. My most valuable asset is time, and I love it when I find a way to waste less of it. My biggest concern is keeping the AI assistants aligned with me and not co-opted by business interests.

    Right now perplexity is in the pre-enshittification stage. Their agents are aligned with their users. In five years (or likely even now, in private discussions), businesses will be cutting deals directly with them to screw customers.

    How do we bridge that gap? Open sourced local agents have a lot of promise but I suspect they will not be able to compete with the type of compute needed. Possibly publicly owned government backed services could have a role, but I’m hesitant to give governments that kind of power and access.

    1 vote
  5. Comment on GPT-5 has come a long way in mathematics in ~tech

    unkz
    Link Parent
    It’s difficult to try to separate tool use from the LLM when you look at how it works in training. The training corpus contains saved outputs from the tools, so much in the same way that good...

    It’s difficult to try to separate tool use from the LLM when you look at how it works in training. The training corpus contains saved outputs from the tools, so much in the same way that good students use LLMs to improve their understanding, LLMs use their tools to improve their understanding even when they aren’t actively using tools.

    2 votes
  6. Comment on TV Tuesdays Free Talk in ~tv

    unkz
    Link Parent
    I feel like there is some kind of velocitization effect going on. “Slow” shows today wouldn’t be considered slow 10 years ago. I appreciate the pace.

    I feel like there is some kind of velocitization effect going on. “Slow” shows today wouldn’t be considered slow 10 years ago. I appreciate the pace.

  7. Comment on New ‘Stargate’ TV series ordered at Amazon from ‘Blindspot’ creator Martin Gero in ~tv

    unkz
    Link Parent
    Yeah, if they go the gritty dark route like Universe I think it will flop. Something closer to Atlantis is the right direction.

    Yeah, if they go the gritty dark route like Universe I think it will flop. Something closer to Atlantis is the right direction.

    5 votes
  8. Comment on Part of me wishes it wasn't true but: AI coding is legit in ~tech

    unkz
    Link Parent
    That's not how stigma works. This is primarily a social issue.

    There wouldn't be a stigma if it could back up its words with action.

    That's not how stigma works. This is primarily a social issue.

    1 vote
  9. Comment on Part of me wishes it wasn't true but: AI coding is legit in ~tech

    unkz
    Link Parent
    Because open source people by and large are quite public about hating code generation, there is too much stigma for most people to admit that they are using code generation in open source...

    We're 3 years into the LLM craze and I've yet to see where the benefits are. If they were so good, why aren't they being used to easily fix open source issues? Even if it's just AI assisted?

    Because open source people by and large are quite public about hating code generation, there is too much stigma for most people to admit that they are using code generation in open source projects. However, I can tell you with absolute certainty that there are in fact patches being submitted and accepted that were done with code generation tools. They just aren’t publicly announced as being done with code generation tools.

    2 votes
  10. Comment on Any chance we can get a shorthand for the <details> tag? in ~tildes

    unkz
    Link Parent
    This story reminds me of how Welsh stopped using the letter K. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_orthography

    This story reminds me of how Welsh stopped using the letter K.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_orthography

    The disuse of this letter is at least partly due to the publication of William Salesbury's Welsh New Testament and William Morgan's Welsh Bible, whose English printers, with type letter frequencies set for English and Latin, did not have enough ⟨k⟩ letters in their type cases to spell every /k/ as ⟨k⟩, so the order went "C for K, because the printers have not so many as the Welsh requireth"; this was not liked at the time, but has become standard usage.

    4 votes
  11. Comment on I ran a 50k today, please clap in ~sports

    unkz
    Link
    clap clap

    clap clap

    12 votes
  12. Comment on The death of punctuation in ~humanities.languages

    unkz
    Link
    My 13 year old was just making fun of my wife yesterday for using punctuation and “texting like an old person”. It’s absolutely a thing now that young people avoid punctuation.

    My 13 year old was just making fun of my wife yesterday for using punctuation and “texting like an old person”. It’s absolutely a thing now that young people avoid punctuation.

    1 vote
  13. Comment on China’s CO2 emissions have been flat or falling for past eighteen months, analysis finds in ~enviro

    unkz
    Link Parent
    I think that may reverse the arrow of causality. Why did the cost of solar fall off a cliff over the last two decades? I would argue it's because of those international climate agreements and the...

    I think that may reverse the arrow of causality. Why did the cost of solar fall off a cliff over the last two decades? I would argue it's because of those international climate agreements and the associated funding for research into solar. The agreements produce the conditions for the economics.

    1 vote
  14. Comment on Humble Bundle: Modern Sci-Fi Classics (Charles Soule, Joseph Fink, Hugh Howey, and Neal Stephenson) in ~books

    unkz
    Link Parent
    I haven’t read the book but the welcome to nightvale podcast is excellent if you are into highly surreal storytelling, and I have heard that the book has very much the same vibe. Check out the...

    I haven’t read the book but the welcome to nightvale podcast is excellent if you are into highly surreal storytelling, and I have heard that the book has very much the same vibe. Check out the podcast for free and see if it’s your kinda thing.

    I have read wool and watched silo. I saw the TV first and that’s what motivated me to read the book. I thought it was worthwhile and enhanced my appreciation of the show.

    2 votes
  15. Comment on Study suggests that the Universe's expansion 'is now slowing, not speeding up' in ~space

    unkz
    Link Parent
    This comic sums up my approach to cooking.

    This comic sums up my approach to cooking.

    2 votes
  16. Comment on Two signs that Democrats flipped Donald Trump supporters on Tuesday (gifted link) in ~society

    unkz
    Link Parent
    I would very much not like to see a Republican win in 2028. Look how bad the Supreme Court is now — this will be an opportunity to replace both Thomas and Alito. If Republicans pick the...

    I would very much not like to see a Republican win in 2028. Look how bad the Supreme Court is now — this will be an opportunity to replace both Thomas and Alito. If Republicans pick the replacements, Republicans hegemony will be unchallenged for two or more generations.

    4 votes
  17. Comment on Two signs that Democrats flipped Donald Trump supporters on Tuesday (gifted link) in ~society

    unkz
    Link
    I guarantee Democrats take the wrong message from this. I think Hispanics are reacting to the wildly abusive execution of border policy, but there are a lot of Hispanics who broadly agree with the...

    The same story holds among Hispanic voters, who snapped back toward Democrats in both states. The exit polls in New Jersey found that Ms. Sherrill won a whopping 18 percent of Mr. Trump’s Hispanic support in the state (no figures were reported for Virginia, where the Hispanic vote is smaller).

    I guarantee Democrats take the wrong message from this. I think Hispanics are reacting to the wildly abusive execution of border policy, but there are a lot of Hispanics who broadly agree with the principles of tightening immigration and expanded deportations, anti-trans policies, and Christian nationalism. These gains among Hispanic voters can easily be lost to a more moderate Republican presidential candidate.

    8 votes
  18. Comment on California voters pass Prop 50 to redraw the state's congressional maps in ~society

    unkz
    Link Parent
    I do really like how it is tied to Texas fucking around. There’s an escape hatch for reasonable democracy, should they choose to take it.

    I do really like how it is tied to Texas fucking around. There’s an escape hatch for reasonable democracy, should they choose to take it.

    11 votes
  19. Comment on Dick Cheney dies at 84 in ~society

    unkz
    Link Parent
    I honestly believe that Trump will go down in history for being known as the worst president in the entire history of America. Absolutely any previous president would be better.

    I honestly believe that Trump will go down in history for being known as the worst president in the entire history of America. Absolutely any previous president would be better.

    12 votes
  20. Comment on Request for help: Backing up NASA public databases in ~space

    unkz
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    You may be interested in Azure Data Box. You can download to the cloud with functionally unlimited bandwidth and then they will provide you with a physical export consisting of 525TB portable...

    You may be interested in Azure Data Box. You can download to the cloud with functionally unlimited bandwidth and then they will provide you with a physical export consisting of 525TB portable drive arrays that you can receive at your facility and transfer to your on-premises storage solution.

    8 votes