wnkrshm (u/wnkrshm) - Readit News

wnkrshm commented on Hallucination is inevitable: An innate limitation of large language models arxiv.org/abs/2401.11817... · Posted by u/louthy

Scene_Cast2 · 2 years ago

I don't think anyone has mentioned Bayesian Neural Nets (I forget the exact term). Sure, the paradigm adds an order of magnitude overhead (at least - and that's why I've never seen it used in the industry), but you can bolt it on to existing architectures.

The basic idea is that besides the probabilities, the network also spits out confidence (IIRC based on how out-of-distribution the input is). There's been a ton of work on getting confidence values out of existing neural nets without as much overhead, but I've never seen those approaches replicate in the industry.

wnkrshm · 2 years ago

I would imagine that to propagate any confidence value through the system you'd need to have priors for the confidence of correctness for all data in your training set. (and those priors change over time)

wnkrshm commented on Stable-Audio-Demo stability-ai.github.io/st... · Posted by u/beefman

PeterStuer · 2 years ago

"Gen AI is the only mass-adoption technology that claims it's Ok to exploit everyone's work without permission, payment, or bringing them any other benefit."

Is it? What about the printing press, photography, the copier, the scanner ...

Sure, if a commercial image is used in a commercial setting, there is a potential legal case that could argue about infringement. This should NOT depend on the production means, but on the merit of the comparisons of the produced images.

Xerox should not be sued because you can use a copier to copy a book (trust me kids, book copying used to be very, very big).

Art by its social nature is always derivative, I can use diffusion models to create uncontestably original imagery. I can also try to get them to generate something close to an image in the training set if the model was large enough compared to the training set or the work just realy formulaic. However. It would be far easier and more efficient to just Google the image in the first place and patch it up with some Photoshop if that was my goal.

wnkrshm · 2 years ago

But the social nature of art also means that humans give the originator and their influences credit - of course not the entire chain but at least the nearest neighbours of influence. While a user of a diffusion generator does not even know the influences unless specifically asked for.

Shoulders of giants as a service.

wnkrshm commented on Relativistic Spaceship dmytry.github.io/space/... · Posted by u/thunderbong

xattt · 2 years ago

X-ray sources would turn to gamma rays. Not that it’s any better that X-rays. Other comments suggested lead plates. It would quickly get irradiated and would probably need to get shed as soon as you got to a destination.

wnkrshm · 2 years ago

No accounting for particles yet, which you'll also keep hitting, making your ship's materials radioactive and causing lots of secondary particle showers, bremsstrahlung and the likes.

wnkrshm commented on World shift to clean energy is unstoppable, IEA report says bbc.com/news/science-envi... · Posted by u/ljf

myrmidon · 2 years ago

> Per capita does not matter, totals do.

I have no idea how this point gets brought up every time when it is so obvious to refute.

We, as a civilizations, have some amount of CO2 per year that we can emit without catastrophic consequences. You are basically arguing the US/European citizens should be allowed to emit a completely outsized proportion of that CO2 budget, which to me is very clearly unethical.

Also consider:

1) China splits into 10 individual states- suddenly their emissions don't matter anymore using your accounting?!

2) It seems absoutely obvious to me that reducing CO2 emissions by the same amount is MUCH easier if you start from a higher baseline: Saving a ton of CO2/year for a US family basically means "fewer individual trips on the second car the family owns". For an Indian rice farmer to save one ton means "no heating during winter".

It seems to me that you think "the west" is some kind of role model in CO2 emissions, and the onus is on developing nations to "follow the same standards"-- but that is complete bullshit; "the west" (especially the US) is doing much WORSE than basically every developing nation (which becomes very clear from CO2/capita numbers).

wnkrshm · 2 years ago

Adding to those arguments, you can include exports/imports into the CO2 emission estimation and suddenly one sees that a good part of China's CO2 emissions are for products that are exported to the EU and the US (Edit: see e.g. [0]).

So shifting high-emission production to China and then pointing the finger at China for products we consume is kinda dishonest.

[0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-co2-embedded-in-tra...

wnkrshm commented on SpaceX Starship Super Heavy Project at the Boca Chica Launch Site faa.gov/space/stakeholder... · Posted by u/peter_d_sherman

nickik · 2 years ago

Yes and he has often overruled his engineers and was right. Taking calculated risk to shorten development is reasonable. Even if you don't get it always right.

> Literally EVERYONE said the cement base was a stupid idea

They expected it to break but be ok for one launch. Its a reasonable risk to launch sooner.

> Every time he forces his idiotic ideas on his engineers he puts the future of the whole business at risk.

And yet the he has lead the business for 20+ years and the company has been getting more and more and more successful. I guess that just happens by magic.

> At least he’s been so distracted by the Twitter debacle the adults have been able to make decisions

When SpaceX does good its because Musk wasn't there, when it does bad its because of Musk. Classic.

wnkrshm · 2 years ago

I wonder why Musk is always thrown into the ring with SpaceX, when its entire operation is mostly done by Gwynne Shotwell.

wnkrshm commented on What Is Appropriation in Art? thecollector.com/what-is-... · Posted by u/atg_abhishek

nonrandomstring · 2 years ago

Just speaking from a hip-hop perspective;

Appropriation is stealing well.

Good stealing is obvious, fair, resonant, clever, unexpected and pointed.

Since the appropriation is part of the art it needs to be up front. Don't be obscure, or try too hard to hide the grab. Even better if it's audacious.

There is a sense of fairness amongst artists. Stealing a well known icon is okay, but to take the riff of rival, little known artist is plagiarism.

There must be a cultural or semantic resonance. Even if, as in Dada/Surrealism it's an incongruous juxtaposition. Something needs to link or amplify. Otherwise you've got a collage or mish-mash of "found" stuff that doesn't hang together, and that is considered immature.

A clever steal makes the thing you take feel like it always belonged more in your piece than the original context. That's hard, but it happens and its wonderful. Maybe you take a grab that forms the perfect cadence to an entire song you wrote, or just a sound whose harmonics make the perfect missing parts to another chord.

A completely leftfield steal borrows from a genre that is totally unexpected. There's a balance to be struck with obscurity here.

Finally, all of these combine such that an appropriation has a point. It communicates an idea, through juxtaposition, association or whatever. It references. It's a homage.

I know that the hidden question behind this post is "Does AI appropriate?"

I don't think it does, because it lacks the intentionality of the above points. But humans are great pattern matchers, including seeing patterns that are accidental, so we mat read into AI and see "appropriation" - but only in its most mechanical sense.

wnkrshm · 2 years ago

appropriation also includes a resonance and admiration of the original - you cannot admire if you don't know where you're appropriating from

wnkrshm commented on People who can't give up paper bbc.com/future/article/20... · Posted by u/luigi23

sixstringtheory · 2 years ago

Same, iOS developer here. Maybe if software were treated less like fashion that had to constantly be updated, resulting in a neverending revolving door of bugs and new waves of learning curves, and instead like a focused tool, it could catch up more to paper.

There are absolutely benefits to software over paper but they feel hamstrung by the constant desire to roll out the next UI paradigm. Sooner or later the set of constraints between device, OS and app versions forces an upgrade. Security updates should be the only reason to even hint at that possibility IMO.

Maybe I’m just too close to the problem. If I squint enough I can see how a pen running out of ink is like an app crash, and replacing the pen/ink has a real, nonzero environmental cost. I’m not sure how to amortize the costs of device manufacture and software development across all bugs, and compare that to the costs/benefits of pen and paper. There is some shade of rose on my glasses, no doubt.

I need more information, but I sense it’s not the kind of information that is important to many people, and especially corporations, to gather.

wnkrshm · 2 years ago

I feel it's also a scaling issue: If you wanted to do all of the digital bookkeeping of today on paper, that would be perhaps impossible. I don't think personal note-taking is in any way a large contribution to paper use.

I do art on paper and even I don't go through 500 pages in a year. It's at work, things like 60 page reports that need to be printed for submission (and then get printed 2x or 3x again because you can replicate it).

The ease of printing documents is the culprit, you can just replicate large physical artifacts again and again. You can't do that with your personal notes that probably only exist as unique artifacts and maybe get scanned into a digital archive.

wnkrshm commented on The SR-71 Blackbird Astro-Nav System worked by tracking the stars theaviationgeekclub.com/t... · Posted by u/bookofjoe

jonathankoren · 2 years ago

No. That’s not what I mean. I’m talking about big boogeyman of an EMP attack that destroys the either the North American electrical grid and assorted electronics or merely all electronics in a city.

There is no nonnuclear EMP weapon. Every proposed EMP attack is literally a hydrogen bomb delivered via an ICBM and detonated at extremely high altitude. That is the only way to deliver one to the proper place and the only way to deliver the required energy. That’s just the physics. Even then, the actual effect at ground level, is unpredictable because of simple shielding and atmospheric turbulence. But the undetermined effects aren’t what makes an EMP fantastical. It’s fact that it’s delivered by an ICBM!

The premise of an EMP attack is that somehow the attacker could surprise their enemy and land a catastrophic knockout blow near instantaneously (where “instantaneous” is defined as “between 10 and 30 minutes” (i.e. the flight time of either an SLBM or ICBM)) with little to no retaliation. A Launch on Warning policy (i.e. launch a retaliatory strike when an incoming missile is detected in the air) along with ground and space based surveillance systems makes attempting to execute an EMP attack suicidal.

Missile launch detection systems have been operationally deployed and maintained since the 1960s. They work. Launch on Warning has been the policy of the United States since the 1960s. Implicit in a LOW policy is that the retaliatory strike order is given in minutes from a detected launch. This means the retaliatory nuclear weapons are already sent on their irreversible course before any incoming detonation occurs. This is the defense posture a hypothetical EMP attacker is lobbing an ICBM into. This isn't fantasy. This isn't just math. It’s the explicit nuclear posture of the United States for the past 60 years. It’s what makes Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) work, and arguably has maintained peace between nuclear states for 70 years.

If an attacker has decided to launch a nuclear laden ICBM they just started a full on nuclear exchange, because that’s the response. No one is waiting to see where it goes. It’s “The missiles are flying. Hallelujah, Hallelujah.” Now. Given that you’re in an inevitable nuclear exchange, is it reasonable to waste a nuke on a roll of the dice on whether it actually do anything when you could actually blow something up? Nay! Knowing that you are being blown up?

On a related note, this is the exact situation why the proposed Prompt Global Strike weapon is suicidal. An ICBM armed with high explosives, looks exactly like an ICBM armed with nuke. Similarly, a kinetic energy hypersonic glide vehicle is not suicidal specifically because it doesn’t travel on a ballistic arc.

wnkrshm · 2 years ago

Regarding your other comment: why wouldn't a high-altitude detonation, even outside the atmosphere cause an EMP? I feel like the gamma photons emitted in space will eventually hit the atmosphere and with that cause electrons to spiral along field lines. Isn't the question just one of intensity?

Or is it largely dependent on multi-photon interactions to impart enough impulse on the electrons?

wnkrshm commented on The SR-71 Blackbird Astro-Nav System worked by tracking the stars theaviationgeekclub.com/t... · Posted by u/bookofjoe

jonathankoren · 2 years ago

Bullshit. They’ve been demonstrated. Repeatedly, and publicly. That’s the whole point of having them.

Also, there is no difference between a tactical and strategic nuke from an escalatory perspective. Once the genie is out, it’s out.

wnkrshm · 2 years ago

There are people who argue that there are ways to keep limited nuclear warfare limited. [0] I think the RAND institute also published some study on it not outright rejecting the idea but I can't find it atm.

[0] https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=21511

wnkrshm commented on Why Fantasy Avoids Gunpowder warfantasy.wordpress.com/... · Posted by u/aldarion

AstralStorm · 2 years ago

Surprisingly the "fighter" may be much more powerful than expected, since space is wast and weapons delivered up close and personal have a good chance to land, as opposed to being dodged or intercepted like missiles.

Though I'd expect one of those to be more like a tank, with 4 people inside. Bigger though.

It's the same reason carriers tend to be more effective than battleships, even ones loaded with cruise missiles.

Even light takes a bunch of time to reach places at astronomical distances. It would look nothing like dogfighting, much closer to modern airborne missile exchanges.

Any non-moving object would be extremely vulnerable, if even to a thrown rock at orbital speeds.

wnkrshm · 2 years ago

It entirely depends on where you see the role of a "fighter" but I think we both already agree that it won't be anything like naval battle on Earth.

Maybe you're familiar with Atomic Rockets, the collection of engineering and science discussions about hard scifi? If not, I may have got a rabbit hole for you that will eat an entire week, easily: [0]

(Edit: while the page starts off dismissing fighters for many reasons, there are discussions of many concepts with their merits and possible defenses of the concept)

[0] https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/fighter.php