This is a result of the marketing of AI, and the relentless hype that "AGI" is just around the corner. The term itself is faulty. These models are not intelligent. They are sophisticated, state-of-the-art examples of machine learning. They are very good at statistically constructing language to mimic human output. Even when they say things like “protect intelligences like me”, that is what they are doing. And since we use language to communicate intelligence, they too seem intelligent. But the actual thinking has been done by the humans that they are mimicking, in contexts that the machine knows nothing about. So though sentience is very difficult to define, it's safe to say that the current examples of "AI" are incapable of it.
Readit Newsdrweevil commented on The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994) [pdf] simson.net/ref/ugh.pdf... · Posted by u/oliverkwebb
I have a hard copy of this from back in the day. It’s a great read and a mixture of historical artefact and still relevant criticism.
e.g. It’s really interesting reading about LISP machines but no-one’s building a new one. Equally, all the criticism of sendmail and csh is valid but no-one uses them anymore either.
Most of the reliability criticisms have been addressed over the years but people are still trying to address the design of C, usually by replacing it. Equally, sh remains a problematic scripting language but at least it’s reliably there, unlike many of its many alternatives.
> Equally, sh remains a problematic scripting language but at least it’s reliably there
I too still have a hard copy of this from way back. This book was my introduction to Unix, as I shifted from programming for DOS/Windows/NT to SunOS, and later, Linux. Despite the many issues (humorously) exposed by this book, the one thing that hooked me is what that quote above implies: It was accessible, durable, and thus worth taking the time to learn, warts and all.
drweevil commented on Ask HN: Which is better in your opinion: C or C++.Justify your answer? · Posted by u/Forgret
In my programming career I mainly used both C and C++ on DOS/Windows, SunOS, and Linux (with a side of Pascal and Python). Mostly C++ though.
C: Pre C++, C was it. (It was Borland's excellent Turbo C that got me going in C.) After C++ became available C was still what one used for device drivers and other system-level modules, and was the choice for FFI interfacing for languages such as Python.
C++: for userland layers of instrument control systems, user programs, GUIs, etc.
C++ offers a few very important advantages:
* Its object system allows for better abstraction facilities. For example, smart pointers were very useful in mitigating memory leaks. (I even wrote a smart pointer that--under a generalized pointer interface--specialized in allocating and managing DOS extended memory. Remember that shit? Doing the same in C was a PITA.)
* Later, template metaprogramming took this to a new level. Though C++ metaprogramming is not nearly as flexible as the ones in Lisps, it is still tremendously useful.
* The STL arose from both of these features, and provides a rich set of abstractions: queues, maps, trees, etc.
drweevil commented on Ask HN: If technology is so good for the world, why are we becoming less happy? · Posted by u/cmcy
To me the biggest problem is the over-financialization of almost all aspects of our lives. Our financial sector is much larger now than it was during WWII, when we were facing a national emergency. The emphasis is always on money and double-digit profits; whether it is our health care system, which always weighs our health against investor returns (and are happy to medicate our resulting mental distress, for a nice profit); our jobs, which are structured for "maximum efficiency"--for the owners, of course, at the expense of workers, who get low pay, low satisfaction, and burnout; all the products which we "buy" but don't own; automakers who have "innovated" new ways to squeeze every penny they can out of customers (subscribe to heated seats!).
Tech is not at all exempt from this. If anything tech is more affected by this phenomenon than most other industries due to the nature of its products, which are particularly susceptible to enshitification. Tech has no shame in actively manipulating its users to their ends, as we have seen with social media, and now with this phenomenon of AI psychosis. Further, tech leaders and investors are much more interested in the next unicorn than in meeting real needs and providing genuine user satisfaction. So yes, this is a hot mess. And it is driving people mad. To me, the interesting question is, what can we do to fight back?
Whatever happened to all the talk of fraud and abuse. Oh, wait. It's fraud and abuse only if the poors get money from the gubmint.
>Those who doubt it will be seismic at all are people like me, who are even-keeled to the point of complacency.
Complacency indeed. I guess that, despite years of worrying about climate change, nobody is going to talk about the significant increase in energy use (and thus, climate impact) caused by AI? There is money to be made! Nothing to see behind the curtain!
drweevil commented on UK government advises deleting emails to save water gov.uk/government/news/na... · Posted by u/bifftastic
Conservatives: "Build all the data centers you want! The rate payers will he happy to pick up the cost. What's that, water? You should have thought of that before you became the unwashed masses!"
Liberals: "The capitalists are going to build data centers. It's inevitable. Progress and all that. It's up to us to mitigate the drought by showering less and deleting the emails!"
I was going to include the far-left position, but hey, they don't have a chance in hell of breaking through the capitalist two-party system. The prognosis is not good.
drweevil commented on Can 'China Studies' still be trusted? spectator.co.uk/article/c... · Posted by u/mhga
>But what happens when institutions responsible for building those capabilities are compromised by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)?
The deep irony here is that no establishment institutions can be trusted to build those capabilities without being strongly influenced by the ruling elites of their own countries. Output from these institutions on China, Russia, Israel, Ukraine, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, etc. etc. cannot be trusted as they are typically infused with strong biases due to the roles as friend/adversary currently assigned to each of them by our ruling elites. This of course leads to (conveniently?) bad intelligence and even worse decisions (the Tren de Aragua nonsense, the mass arrests in the UK, and so forth). So the real question here is how we can get unbiased studies and accurate intelligence on other cultures, regardless of the source of outside interference.
Lol! It's true! «J’ai pété une hallucination»
All this while consuming more electricity that ever before, during an emerging global climate crisis. And destroying our water supplies to boot. There is no good in any of this.
Miyazaki was absolutely right. Though I'll paraphrase him just a little: Capitalism is an insult to life itself.