What's a good way for autodidacts to fiddle through this?
Readit NewsRACEWAR commented on Xv6, a simple Unix-like teaching operating system pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/... · Posted by u/arkj
>Angela Tipton was disgusted when she heard that her students were circulating a lewd image around their middle school. What made it far worse was seeing that the picture had her face on someone else’s naked body.
We did the same in 1998 with photoshop ... nothing new under the sun. Yet another moral panic.
You lack empathy.
The only way the quote might be correct is if Milley is actually directing some AI project and nuclear research is his cover. These days, the "Director of Nuclear Research at Los Alamos" would report to the director since the place is much bigger. Also, his last job was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, so he's probably director of something.
What a fool of me.
Milley actually didn't even say the quote that we're discussing. An unidentified man did.
The meaning of the quote in the context of the exchange where it was made is not entirely clear, I agree with you on that. The headline exploits this uncertainty. The reader's (i.e., me) biases fill in the blanks.
For all we know, the guy was just trying to impress a woman. He could be nothing more than a researcher manning a both, making a bizarre claim at a bizarre conference. His reference to "Oppenheimer" could even be about the film and not the actual man.
Pardon me for your time. I can see why this story is getting so much criticism.
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The way the quote is used in the title of the article implies that someone involved with Palentir is referring to their AI as a weapon of mass destruction on par with the atom bomb, but when the quote appears in the article it clearly has nothing to do with AI, nor is the speaker comparing himself to Oppenheimer's role in creating the first atom bomb, he's just noting that he is occupying the exact same job as Oppenheimer.
The very elements that you use to argue for why the quote is being taken out of context can be spun around in favor of the interpretation that it is not.
- Many hold the notion that the threat of AI is similar to that of nuclear weapons.
- Gen. Mark Milley is one of the key “characters” in the author's account of their time at Palantir’s conference showcasing its warfare AI.
- Milley works in Nuclear research at Los Alamos, like Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer was the lab’s director. Milley’s exact role with the lab isn’t mentioned and I couldn’t verify his exact position, but the present day iteration of the lab is ran by someone else.
- A key theme of the story is how oblivious some key attendants and organizers are of the potential damage that warfare AI will have.
- It can be argued that those in attendance are primarily interested in developing the means to victory on the battlefield at any cost that can be rationalized by credentialed minds. A parallel can be made between warfare AI today and the development of nuclear weapons during WWII.
- Milley is comparing himself to Oppenheimer. He probably does not mean the he is the present director of the Los Alamos laboratory. It’s arguable that he is saying so in an attempt to amuse the author, much to the author's distaste. Note the pop culture references, the author's internal and external jabs in response, and the offering of state department swag (the pens and stickers).
> “Have you seen Oppenheimer?” he asked. > > No, I said, but I’d read The Making of the Atomic Bomb. > > I thought he was going to talk about the hubris of people who build weapons of war. > > Instead, he told me he works in nuclear weapons research at Los Alamos laboratory. Reaching into his backpack, he handed me a few Los Alamos pens and stickers.
These paragraphs and another half paragraph before the actual quote appears in the body of the article set the stage well enough to suffice for context.
A bystander may or may not make the same connections if they were to overhear this conversation as it happened, but an attentive reader can due to the privilege of having intimate knowledge of everything that took place before the exchange and a few details outside of it.
Whether it's conveyed via the actual conversation, or against the backdrop of the author’s publicized impressions during the conference and other elements that exist beyond it, the quote is not positioned inappropriately.
We have to remember that this article is not a traditional “news story”, it is a subjective account. The connections that make the quote noteworthy may not be found by all and sundry, but I’m confident that the Guardian has a feel for its readership and the sentiment that they and others will have about their stance on AI, Palantir, warfare, etc. prior to reading the piece.
I think the literary element at play is something like irony.
The quote in the title is totally out-of-context. It's not entirely clear but from context it sounds like Mark Milley was just laughing because he realized that he's the "new Oppenheimer" as the current director of nuclear weapons research at Los Alamos.
Not to nitpick, but to engage.
Can the quote be taken “entirely out of context” if the context itself isn’t “entirely clear”? Or does your interpretation of the quote and its meaning differ from the author’s?
> I shouldn’t have been surprised by anything I saw or heard at this conference. But when it ended, and I departed DC for home, it felt like my life force had been completely sucked out of my body.
> More specifically, it divided attendees into two groups: those who see war as a matter of money and strategy, and those who see it as a matter of death. The vast majority of people there fell into group one.
> I walked out of the panel in a quiet daze.
> It was, frankly, jarring to hear a recent top US official defend Israel’s mass killing of Gazan civilians by invoking wartime massacres that not only preceded the Geneva Conventions, but helped justify their creation.
> On the evening on the first day, Palantir had a social event with free drinks. The only options were two IPAs, and I had one called “the Corruption”. It was, bar none, the worst beverage I’ve had in my entire life.
I stopped reading here about 2/3 of the way through but is this what passes for journalism? What hyperbolic nonsense.
This style of journalism is storied and well-documented: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Journalism.
The fragments you chose don't sound hyperbolic, they sound like a subjective account. I'm curious how you made it so far without being able to get a feel for why the author would describe the event how they did.
RACEWAR commented on Ideas and Creativity (2019) bastian.rieck.me/blog/201... · Posted by u/Pseudomanifold
This is thorough contemplation. Time and time again we are reminded that no idea is wholly original in and of itself, down to the most minute aspect of its thought all the way through to its physical manifestation...Yet hubris, for many, prevails over these evidences. Ah.
RACEWAR commented on Ideas and Creativity (2019) bastian.rieck.me/blog/201... · Posted by u/Pseudomanifold
> watch toddlers playing with toys—their imaginations are boundless and they are able to imbue even the most mundane objects with a sense of wonder and magic.
This example just annoys me. I can still out-create a toddler, that isn't hard. The issue with creativity is that toddler-level creativity isn't useful. The important part of creativity is being able to apply it while achieving adult-level goals.
The article doesn't ignore that as such, but this is like saying babies can handle the concept of abstract variables so we can all be programmers. True enough, but not at all a useful observation and it'll just depress the group of people who, for whatever reason, struggle hard and yet never become programmers. There are minimum standards that toddlers do not reach.
It sounds like you take your assessment very seriously, but
> There are minimum standards that toddlers do not reach.
this is very funny taken out of context.
Good points, though.