lvxferre (u/lvxferre)

lvxferre commented on Show HN: I made an early 2000s-inspired internet forum basementcommunity.com... · Posted by u/partly_cloudy

lvxferre · 3 years ago

The interface is amazing. Clean, it doesn't leave huge amounts of empty space that scream "this was made for phone users, everyone else might fuck off", and the subforums already hint "we want to gather political dissidents". It feels like the 00s forums without looking like one, it's the best of both worlds.

I tried to register with a weak password (on purpose) to check security. It works; four tries and three different errors (capital letters required, special characters required, min length required). However, I feel like a user hitting this issue accidentally would've given up after the third try. Perhaps it could be worth to check for multiple errors at once, and output them all to the user; e.g. "The password must mix case, and contain special characters, and have a minimum length of 8". Just an idea/feedback, mind you.

lvxferre commented on Only You Can Stop an AI Apocalypse betterwithout.ai/only-you... · Posted by u/pidge

ShredKazoo · 3 years ago

Previous surveys of this kind have suggested that most AI researchers aren't actually thinking about these questions very hard (e.g. rephrasing a question a bit can get you a very different answer). So it doesn't seem at all surprising to me that the majority view is out of sync with what a careful analysis shows.

>Anyway. The problem with AI-driven decisions is moral in nature, not technological. AI is a tool and should be seen as such, not as a moral agent that can be held responsible for its* own actions. Less "the AI did it", more "[Person] did it using an AI".

Essentially a "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument.

I think this argument breaks down as weapons get more powerful, e.g. if I could walk down to my local car dealership and buy a cheap tank powerful enough to level a city, it seems good to focus more on "ease of tank purchase" than "culpability for tank drivers".

I think the argument also breaks down as AI gets more powerful.

lvxferre · 3 years ago

>Essentially a "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument.

Not quite. It's more like "a gun cannot be held morally responsible for its actions, so actual people should".

The difference is important here because, depending on the situation, you might still want to blame people who allowed the shooter to have a gun, not just the shooter.

>I think this argument breaks down as weapons get more powerful, e.g. if I could walk down to my local car dealership and buy a cheap tank powerful enough to level a city, it seems good to focus more on "ease of tank purchase" than "culpability for tank drivers". // I think the argument also breaks down as AI gets more powerful.

Note how we're still blaming people: the car dealer and the driver. Not the "it" = tank.

And it's the same deal with the AI. If you use an AI system in a way that harms people, sometimes the "car dealer" (the ones coding the AI) should be held responsible, sometimes the driver (you), sometimes both. But never "neither", i.e. "the AI is at fault".

lvxferre commented on Why Smart People Hold Stupid Beliefs gurwinder.substack.com/p/... · Posted by u/ParadoxHaze

yetihehe · 3 years ago

> Frankly I wouldn't call someone engaging in wishful belief "intelligent" by any measure; intelligence requires the ability to entertain multiple concurrent lines of reasoning

Not as defined by article author:

> intelligence is nothing more than the effectiveness with which an agent pursues a goal. Rationality is intelligence in pursuit of objective truth, but intelligence can be used to pursue any number of other goals.

So your intelligence definition is more like rationality. I see a lot of arguments going nowhere just because two sides have different definitions of the thing they argue about.

All that said, I agree with you, it is not rational to engage in wishful belief, but it's a kind of energy saving measure, so that you don't constantly overthink "Am I really right about this?".

lvxferre · 3 years ago

Yup, different definitions; I was going to bring this up but chopped it to avoid the wall of text. (I'm glad that someone caught it up though.)

My definition is roughly "ability to process information and generate useful conclusions as a result". Rationality would be a "side-effect" of intelligence, not part of the definition itself. I think that it's more useful than the def provided by the author because sometimes intelligent people with dumb beliefs will also do dumb shit, that clearly contradicts their goals. Does that mean that they aren't intelligent to begin with? Acc. to the author's definition, yes.

A good example of that would be Steve Jobs. It's hard to claim that Jobs wasn't very intelligent (even if I don't like him); and odds are that "to survive" was one of his goals. Then why the hell would he prefer alternative medicine over actual medical intervention, for something as serious as a cancer? (It's just an example, mind you, we could use others.)

However, once you shift the definition of "intelligence" to the one I'm using, there's no paradox: he was intelligent, sure, it's just that his "processing ability" was not directed towards that specific goal. And sometimes it might've been directed against the goal.

It's like something is diverting that processing ability from the personal goals to something else. Dawkins' memeplexes might be the answer here: the memeplex "alternative medicine" was competing with the goals of the individual, and leeching off his processing ability to its own end, like a parasite of the mind.

So, alternatively, and in addition to what the author said, we get another line of thought: sometimes smart people have dumb beliefs because intelligence does not immunise you against parasitic memes. Perhaps it even makes you more vulnerable, as those memes will be abler to successfully reach you. And then, [this point agreeing with the author], once those parasites are installed, they'll divert your intelligence towards their goals.

[Sorry for the wall of text.]

lvxferre commented on Why Smart People Hold Stupid Beliefs gurwinder.substack.com/p/... · Posted by u/ParadoxHaze

lvxferre · 3 years ago

I can relate to most of what he wrote. And I've also noticed the same pattern that he points out in

>Whenever I post of a cognitive bias or logical fallacy, my replies are soon invaded by leftists claiming it explains rightist beliefs, and by rightists claiming it explains leftist beliefs.

where both sides [often correctly] point out the fallacies of the other side, but fail to acknowledge their own.

>Since you’re reading about intelligence right now, you’re likely above average in intelligence, which means that you, whatever you believe, should be extra vigilant against your intellect being commandeered by your animal impulses.

I fucking love this slap on the face of the reader.

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I feel like there's something else though. Frankly I wouldn't call someone engaging in wishful belief "intelligent" by any measure; intelligence requires the ability to entertain multiple concurrent lines of reasoning, and in plenty of them your belief is wrong. [I can go further on that if anyone wants.] It's the same deal with some basic fallacies (mostly false dichotomy, four terms, and appeal to origins) that are often used to protect those stupid beliefs.

lvxferre commented on Only You Can Stop an AI Apocalypse betterwithout.ai/only-you... · Posted by u/pidge

lvxferre · 3 years ago

This sounds a lot like satire. This excerpt for example is blatantly self-contradictory:

>We’ve found zero [scenarios] that lead to good outcomes. // Most AI researchers think good outcomes are more likely. This seems just blind faith, though. A majority surveyed also acknowledge that utter catastrophe is quite possible.1

So they found zero scenarios that lead to good outcomes, but most AI researchers think that good outcomes are more likely?

Brushing off a majority view as w*shful "thinking", and then backing up the argument with a... majority view?

__________________

Anyway. The problem with AI-driven decisions is moral in nature, not technological. AI is a tool and should be seen as such, not as a moral agent that can be held responsible for its* own actions. Less "the AI did it", more "[Person] did it using an AI".

lvxferre commented on Darwinian Gastronomy: Why We Use Spices (1999) academic.oup.com/bioscien... · Posted by u/magoghm

fsckboy · 3 years ago

> but not between herbs and spices

it said that herbs and spices are not distinguished, and I pointed out that they are. I didn't mention condiments; I did offer a detailed qualification of seasonings.

lvxferre · 3 years ago

Ah, nevermind. Your focus was on the last part of the quote.

My bad.

lvxferre commented on Darwinian Gastronomy: Why We Use Spices (1999) academic.oup.com/bioscien... · Posted by u/magoghm

abvdasker · 3 years ago

This is interesting, but doesn't address a crucial question: yes, spices seem to give practical antimicrobial benefits in food preparation, but why do we enjoy spiced food more? Did it start out as something practical until we evolved a taste for more flavorful food due to its advantages (co-evolution)? Or do we like spiced food just because we're used to it (enviornmental)?

lvxferre · 3 years ago

Perhaps it's a side effect of our desire for different flavours, that would encourage us (in a wild environment) to seek a diversified diet that provides multiple types of nutrients.

lvxferre commented on Darwinian Gastronomy: Why We Use Spices (1999) academic.oup.com/bioscien... · Posted by u/magoghm

fsckboy · 3 years ago

> Cookbooks generally distinguish between seasonings (spices used in food preparation) and condiments (spices added after food is served), but not between herbs and spices.

huh? people in everyday speech frequently blur herbs and spices, and the "official sources" can say what they want about what's an herb and what's a spice, but cookbook style in western cuisines,

the things we add to savory dishes tend to be herbs, fresh or dried green leaves, things like sage, rosemary, tarragon, and thyme.

And spices tend to be non-green frequently ground to powder things we add to desserts, like cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. In ancient times "the spice trade" brought spices from the near and far east, but herbs we grew ourselves.

seasoning might have a more generic meaning ("italian seasoning" or "seasoning for stuffing"), but in practice it's salt and pepper that you adjust just before serving food, "season to taste"

lvxferre · 3 years ago

>> Cookbooks generally distinguish between seasonings [...] and **condiments** [...]

>huh? people in everyday speech frequently blur **herbs** and spices [...]

Emphasis mine. Thyme, basil etc. are herbs; ketchup, mayo etc. are condiments. At least acc. to what most people would call them.

The excerpt is correctly saying that people see stuff like ketchup, mayo etc. as intrinsically different from paprika, cloves etc.

lvxferre commented on Futurist Programming Notes graficaobscura.com/future... · Posted by u/davidivadavid

college_physics · 3 years ago

20 years since this manifesto lamenting the previous 20 years its pretty clear this ship has no captain

In terms of resource consumption machine capacity has grown exponentially, but who can claim the same for user utility?

This is by now a problem so pervasive that even economists puzzle over (the missing information technology productivity gain)

But this text is part of the problem really, as it is too simplistic and doesnt feel like it identifies fundamental recipes for building better software

lvxferre · 3 years ago

This is just a guess but I think that there are two problems here, not one: 1) inefficiency strictu sensu (more operations required for the exact same task), and 2) lower diminishing returns (that kitchen sink being included weights far more than the rest of the project, but maybe you should still not remove it because it still provides a small return of user utility).

lvxferre commented on Futurist Programming Notes graficaobscura.com/future... · Posted by u/davidivadavid

pprotas · 3 years ago

It’s okay to disagree with others in the thread, but there is no need to be insulting about it and accusing people of not having basic reading comprehension.

You might have been serious or not when writing that, but framing your comment in a more positive manner will result in better discussion.

lvxferre · 3 years ago

The reason that I'm scolding those users is not "disagreement". Disagreement implies that they have something to offer - an opposite point of view, or perhaps info conflicting with what I said. They don't, because they didn't even get the point of the text linked in the OP. Or the context where it was written, even if it's blatantly obvious for anyone actually reading it.

>You might have been serious or not when writing that, but framing your comment in a more positive manner will result in better discussion.

Frankly, the users who might get their very, very precious feelings hurt with this "learn to read" are most likely the ones who won't contribute jack shit to the discussion, no matter how polite of a tone you might use with them.

___________________________

Now, yet another thing that those users didn't get is that this text is two, perhaps three decades old. Things have changed and nowadays developers put a bit more of thought into the users. Even then, the general idea - "who cares about your data structure, show results that the users benefit from!" is still important.