I was never able to get my head around programing despite my interest over the years. But LLM and python scripts in the last 3-4 years have changed my life.
What thing have you found most interesting or impactful for you?
Readit Newsymck commented on Lost Chapter of Automate the Boring Stuff: Audio, Video, and Webcams in Python inventwithpython.com/blog... · Posted by u/AlSweigart
ymck commented on Is There Any Safe Place to Complain About Work Online? wsj.com/tech/personal-tec... · Posted by u/thm
No.
ymck commented on Initial details about why CrowdStrike's CSAgent.sys crashed twitter.com/patrickwardle... · Posted by u/pilfered
By-passing the discussion whether one actually needs root kit powered endpoint surveillance software such as CS perhaps an open-source solution would be a killer to move this whole sector to more ethical standards. So the main tool would be open source and it would be transparent what it does exactly and that it is free of backdoors or really bad bugs. It could be audited by the public. On the other hand it could still be a business model to supply malware signatures as a security team feeding this system.
There are a number of OSS EDRs. They all suck.
DAT-style content updates and signature-based prevention are very archaic. Directly loading content into memory and a hard-coded list of threats? I was honestly shocked that CS was still doing DAT-style updates in an age of ML and real-time threat feeds. There are a number of vendors who've offered it for almost a decade. We use one. We have to run updates a couple of times a year.
SMH. The 90's want their endpoint tech back.
ymck commented on The A.I. Bubble is Bursting with Ed Zitron [video] youtube.com/watch?v=T8Byo... · Posted by u/grugagag
He thinks tech industry has lost its charm and only making useless products, and has become hostile to users. I agree. In one episode, he talks about Prabhakar Raghavan, who has made a mess of Google search.
You might not agree with him all the time, but he has some good arguments and seems sincere in his criticisms. Better offline is worth a listen
Big tech has hit the IBM stage of their lifecycles, there will be a new Microsoft there in the next couple of years to reset things.
ymck commented on The A.I. Bubble is Bursting with Ed Zitron [video] youtube.com/watch?v=T8Byo... · Posted by u/grugagag
What are some examples?
If in 10 years all we have are better chat bots and image generators, I’d say it was a bubble, and I don’t see anything that says that’s definitely not the path (though I’m not in the weeds of AI, so maybe it’s just not obvious, yet).
By 2025 the majority of applications will use AI in some way (mostly to allow for sloppy user input), in 5 years there will be no non-AI applications.
For example, in healthcare (because... day job), you will be interacting with an AI as the first step for your visits/appointments, AI will work with you to fill out your forms/history, your chart will be created by AI, your x-ray and lab results will be read by AI first, and your discharge instructions will be created on the fly with AI... etc. etc. etc. This tech is deploying today. Not in a year, today. The only thing that's holding it up is cost and staff training.
ymck commented on Supreme Court overturns 40-year-old "Chevron deference" doctrine axios.com/2024/06/28/supr... · Posted by u/wumeow
I feel like if instead of deferring to the EPA, the Chevron case was deferring to police departments interpretations of the law when the law was ambiguous, we would be cheering this decision as a return to sanity. I wouldn't want the default assumption of the courts to be that when the law is unclear, whatever the sheriff or the highway patrol decides is illegal this month is, and next month or next election it could be something else entirely. In such cases I would absolutely want the courts to evaluate that ambiguity by treating both sides of the argument equally and weighing the law as it stands. So it seems like it should be the same when it comes to regulatory rule making as well. If the law is unclear, deferring to the enforcers of that law seems no different than deferring to the cops. The court system and the government as a whole is already institutionally biased towards the government, without any need for an explicit policy to prefer the government's side.
I'd just love to see them keep this same energy when dealing with the actual police and end qualified immunity. They won't. But it would be the right thing to do.
ymck commented on Remote work won, don't let anyone gaslight you to believe otherwise hottakes.space/p/remote-w... · Posted by u/rwmj
If there is anything that can actually get a tech worker unionization effort going, it's going to be the back and forth on these RTO policies.
Folks have tried in the past around non-competes, or equity tomfoolery, but this is people's lives, family, kids schooling, etc. We know WFH works, if you spend the time to make it work, and upsetting folks lives doesn't make for positive employee relations.
ymck commented on Douglas Hofstadter changes his mind on Deep Learning and AI risk lesswrong.com/posts/kAmgd... · Posted by u/kfarr
This is something weird happening around Rationalism/X-Risk/AGI prognostications.
The "Great Minds And Great Leaders" types are rushing to warn about the risks, as are a large number of people who spend a lot of time philosophizing.
But the actual scientists on the ground -- the PhDs and engineers I work with every day and who have been in this field, at the bench, doing to work on the latest generation of generative models, and previous generations, in some cases for decades? They almost all roll their eyes aggressively at these sorts of prognostications. I'd say 90+% either laugh or roll their eyes.
Why is that?
Personally, I'm much more on the side of the silent majority here. I agree with Altman's criticisms of criticisms about regulatory capture, that they are probably unfair or at least inaccurate.
What I actually think is going on here is something more about Egos than Greatness or Nefarious Agendas.
Ego, not intelligence or experience, is often the largest differentiator between the bench scientist or mid-level manager/professor persona and the CEO/famous professor persona. (The other important thing, of course, is that the former is the group doing the actual work.)
I think that most of our Great Minds and Great Leaders -- in all fields, really -- are not actually our best minds and best leaders. They are, instead, simply our Biggest Egos. And that those people need to puff themselves up by making their areas of ownership/responsibility/expertise sound Existentially Important.
It's simple. All the "Big Brains" missed the real risks of Web 1.0/Web 2.0, focusing only on the positives in a time of hope and economic growth. Now, we have an internet that focuses on how everything is terrible, and a new tech abruptly hits the scene. Of course, the current "Big Brains" meet the clout need to point out how the sky might fall.
AI will be transformative, but it's more likely to follow previous transformations. Unintended consequences, sure, but largely an increase in the standard of living, productivity, and economic opportunity.
ymck commented on Please stop sending me emails written by GPT mkbaio.substack.com/p/ple... · Posted by u/HumanReadable
> Please if you want to send me a message and feel compelled to use GPT, please just send me whatever you wrote in your prompt instead. I promise I will still read it!
Best bit of the article.
Question for someone who knows more about this stuff. How likely is it to get the same response to the same prompt with gpt ? Does it have some kind of random seed applied behind the scenes?
-edit- Thank you for the responses. TIL.
Honestly, as someone who does this, Bard seems to be much better at writing natural emails. It's just easier to dump some thoughts in to bard and ask it to redraft, then fluff it a little to sound like me.