This post here has the most comments on it:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47181208
Readit Newsbluehex commented on California to require age verification for all OS including Linux tomshardware.com/software... · Posted by u/hambes
bluehex commented on uBlock filter list to hide all YouTube Shorts github.com/i5heu/ublock-h... · Posted by u/i5heu
Why are you still paying for Youtube? I run uBlock and haven't seen ads in years, don't see any cellphone format crap now thanks to this list, and VacuumTube on my TV defaults to 4K.
I pay mainly because a really like being able to play the videos in iOS pip background mode. I do find it crazy that Apple allows that OS level feature to be paywalled by apps.
My bad, they're writing words and calling APIs based on probabilities. They're still not conscious. Takeoff to what?
Consciousness isn't a requirement for potentially dangerous behavior. When the science fiction the probabilistic models are trained on tend towards "AI uprising" and you give them the tools to do it, the probability machines will play out that scenario especially if they are prompted by their humans in that direction which some people will undoubtedly do for kicks.
If some people will give their bots crypto currency and the bots could buy hosting to "escape" or run scams to make more money or pool resources or any number of harmful things.
I'm not arguing any sort of agency here. I completely agree there is no consciousness nor do I believe there ever will be but that's not a precondition at all for an untethered probabilistic machine to be harmful.
Takeoff to what? They’re just writing words, they’re not actually conscious. And we already have AI spam everywhere online.
They are running on individuals machines who can give them access to any number of "tools" which allow them to do things other than just writing words.
I keep seeing people dismiss this as an exaggerated danger because the bots are only pretending to be sentient and we're a long way off from AGI.
The whole sentience debate is irrelevant. If people start giving these bots real resources, the fact that they are only "pretending" to be sentient doesn't prevent them from doing real damage as they act out their sci-fi AI uprising plots.
bluehex commented on Common misunderstandings about large software companies philipotoole.com/common-m... · Posted by u/otoolep
>First of all, does anyone believe that highly scrutinized and bureaucratic functions are general high quality services?
This is the only part of your response that doesn't quite sit right with me. There could be many "highly scrutinized and bureaucratic functions" out there that are working very well, you just don't notice because they work so well. There could be a selection-effect here.
Quality is a big deal for me[1]. But I think you're defining "quality" too narrowly in this context. "Quality" could also mean "allows everyone, at scale, reliably, to do what they need to do." The US Tax Filing system (and its associated software) meets that goal.
[1] https://philipotoole.com/always-thinking-of-the-next-guy/
> The US Tax Filing system (and its associated software) meets that goal.
I disagree with the argument that the US Tax Filing system meets the goal of:
> "allows everyone, at scale, reliably, to do what they need to do."
It may do so for easy / common cases of W2 salaried employees but step a little outside of the norm (foreign sourced income, tax treaties etc.) and software gives up and shows you a PDF of relevant forms and requires you to become an expert in tax code and to keep your own multi year running calculation of carryovers and things to proceed. I'm glossing over all of the detail about how complex this really is but wouldn't expect the average, even very intelligent person to succeed in filing a correct return without a professional's help.
bluehex commented on Microsoft Office renamed to “Microsoft 365 Copilot app” office.com... · Posted by u/LeoPanthera
Such confusing naming they can't even keep it straight in the announcement.
"The Microsoft 365 Copilot app" in the introductory paragraph. Then there's a button "Buy Microsoft 365" The link below is as "Download Microsoft 365 apps for MacOS"
And the file you get is: Microsoft_365_and_Office_16~Installer.pkg
So is it the "Microsoft 365 Copilot app", or is it just "Microsoft 365" or multiple "Microsoft 365 apps"?
Above it says "formerly Office" and then the installer is named with "and Office". It's a jumble of inconsistency in just the first few lines on this landing page.
bluehex commented on Rust--: Rust without the borrow checker github.com/buyukakyuz/rus... · Posted by u/ravenical
Due to lifetime elision you can mostly skip lifetimes if you leave a bit of performance on the table.
How does lifetime elision affect performance? I thought the compiler just inferred lifetimes that you would have had to manually annotate. Naively, it seems to me that the performance should be identical.
None of that addresses "if you get unlucky and some prosecutor decides to help his career by prosecuting you as an enabler-of-child-inappropriate-whatever-it-is". YOLOing away one's freedom on "probably" seems risky, and there is no reward to be had for doing it.
The only sane solution is to simply add "not for use in california" to all OSs, until California gets its collective head out of its collective rectum.