z2 (u/z2) - Readit News

z2 commented on AI’s coding evolution hinges on collaboration and trust spectrum.ieee.org/ai-for-... · Posted by u/WolfOliver

manoDev · 5 days ago

I'm tired of the anthropomorphization marketing behind AI driving this kind of discussion. In a few years, all this talk will sound as dumb as stating "MS Word spell checker will replace writers" or "Photoshop will replace designers".

We'll reap the productivity benefits from this new tool, create more work for ourselves, output will stabilize at a new level and salaries will stagnate again, as it always happens.

z2 · 5 days ago

I'm not a "real coder" either, but it sounds like the "No True Scotsman" trap when people say, “AI can’t be a real coder,” and then redefine “real coder” to mean something AI can’t currently do (like full autonomy or deep architectural reasoning). This makes the claim unfalsifiable and ignores the fact that AI already performs several coding tasks effectively. Yeah, I get it, context handling, long-horizon planning, and intent inference all stink, but the tools are all 'real' to me.

z2 commented on We regret but have to temporary suspend the shipments to USA olimex.wordpress.com/2025... · Posted by u/CTOSian

overfeed · 8 days ago

> Otherwise, you put your local producers at a disadvantage, making the tariffs worse.

Disadvantaging local producers is how tariffs work! Local producers would then turn to local suppliers who don't have any additional taxes applied. Tariffs are a very blunt instrument, and clumsily attempting to assuage 2nd order pain points will only give rise to 3rd (and higher) order effects.

The lesson here is: don't fuck around with multivariate dynamic systems that have achieved stability: there won't be any one knob you can twist to get a result you want on a single parameter. It'll be worse if you pick one knob and turn it all the way to 11.

z2 · 8 days ago

Tangential, but it seems this will also accelerate the move to even more flimsy plastics in everything from appliances to construction materials to cars.

z2 commented on The Rise and Fall of Music Ringtones: A Statistical Analysis statsignificant.com/p/the... · Posted by u/gmays

z2 · 14 days ago

The true way to impose your will on others is to set music ringbacks (the sound the caller hears while they wait for you to pick up). Still popular in India and China, I hear.

z2 commented on The United States withdraws from UNESCO state.gov/releases/office... · Posted by u/layer8

this15testingg · a month ago

the wording of that page is so blatantly propaganda that it's embarrassing to read. It's pathetic.

z2 · a month ago

At least it's transparent, like all the other things coming from the executive branch lately. And maybe that makes the damage more lasting, because people can see that US is so mired in populism that it cannot grasp how the SDGs of reducing poverty, accessing sanitation, equality, and -- dare I say -- dealing with climate change are things that ultimately help global security and thus benefit the US.

z2 commented on “Reading Rainbow” was created to combat summer reading slumps smithsonianmag.com/smiths... · Posted by u/arbesman

soco · 2 months ago

Primary school kids in Switzerland used to (and maybe they still do) run class-wide "competitions" on the points earned on a similar reading challenge - Antolin if I remember correctly and my kid was quite in for it.

z2 · 2 months ago

As yes, my school in the US did that (sporadically) and awarded medals based on tiers. I remember thinking the silver one looked the nicer, and so was careful not to read too much over the summer.

z2 commented on LLM Inevitabilism tomrenner.com/posts/llm-i... · Posted by u/SwoopsFromAbove

kenjackson · 2 months ago

I think this is both right and wrong. There was a good book that came out probably 15 years ago about how technology never stops in aggregate, but individual technologies tend to grow quickly and then stall. Airplane jets were one example in the book. The reason why I partially note this as wrong is that even in the 70s people recognized that supersonic travel had real concrete issues with no solution in sight. I don't think LLMs share that characteristic today.

A better example, also in the book, are skyscrapers. Each year they grew and new ones were taller than the ones last year. The ability to build them and traverse them increased each year with new technologies to support it. There wasn't a general consensus around issues that would stop growth (except at more extremes like air pressure). But the growth did stop. No one even has expectations of taller skyscrapers any more.

LLMs may fail to advance, but not because of any consensus reason that exists today. And it maybe that they serve their purpose to build something on top of them which ends up being far more revolutionary than LLMs. This is more like the path of electricity -- electricity in itself isn't that exciting nowadays, but almost every piece of technology built uses it.

I fundamentally find it odd that people seem so against AI. I get the potential dystopian future, which I also don't want. But the more mundane annoyance seems odd to me.

z2 · 2 months ago

Yeah, and with LLMs the thing I can't shake, however, is that this time it's pretty strongly (maybe parasitically) latched onto the aggregate progress of Moore's law. Few other technologies have enjoyed such relatively unfettered exponential improvement. It's like if skyscraper materials double in strength every n years, and their elevators approach teleportation speed, the water pumps get twice as powerful, etc., which would change the economics vs the reality that most of the physical world doesn't improve that fast.

z2 commented on U.S. bombs Iranian nuclear sites bbc.co.uk/news/live/ckg3r... · Posted by u/mattcollins

Ancapistani · 2 months ago

This is a great comment IMO :)

> Iran isn't actually a nation of pure evil, they are looking out for their own interests

Exactly. I do my best to consider them an "adversary", not an "enemy" for just that reason.

> The risk is when they are backed into a corner where using a nuclear weapon increasingly makes sense.

I'd argue there are two risks: one is that this puts Iran in a position where, if the regime survives, they will feel (and rightfully so) that the only way to secure their position is to possess them.

It also makes the same statement to other countries in similar positions.

I don't think we have a better option, sadly, but it is a consequence of this action.

Also, I don't think this makes a rational case for use. For possession, yes. For threatening to use them under certain conditions, yes - but the only rational use case for deploying nuclear weapons is if your opponent has already done the same. This became the case when the thermonuclear bomb was invented.

z2 · 2 months ago

In the region, it feels like Saudi Arabia and Turkey are going to be watching this very closely closely.

z2 commented on George Orwell's 1984 and How Power Manufactures Truth openculture.com/2025/06/a... · Posted by u/colinprince

mc32 · 3 months ago

I'm not sure if this quote takes into account mob rule. Take ethnic strife in Myanmar or in Africa or rural Mexico, etc. It's not governments doing it --it's mostly grass roots after a grievance is unaddressed and explodes.

z2 · 3 months ago

Yeah, 1984 and its source material tend to reduce everything to monolithic dystopias, which indeed was relevant and happens when top down power bends truth. But maybe enough pent-up bottom up emotion can also override reason and decay truth the same way. It feels like the latter is also closer to a lot of the world today, we're seeing more chaotic competition for attention than some centrally planned dictation of truth.

z2 commented on George Orwell's 1984 and How Power Manufactures Truth openculture.com/2025/06/a... · Posted by u/colinprince

z2 · 3 months ago

I'm reminded of this famous quote from the Nuremberg Diary, and the casualness of how it seems to have been stated:

Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.

Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.

Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Diary

z2 commented on Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway techcrunch.com/2025/06/12... · Posted by u/achristmascarl

rfurmani · 3 months ago

I've had a couple bad experiences with Lyft recently, including one time the driver must have clicked that they picked me up while a block away, because I could see the lyft driving to the destination without me. I tried to get a refund since I was obviously waiting my start location the whole time, but the system claimed the drive went from start to finish (even though I wasn't in the car), so no refund.

z2 · 3 months ago

Same thing happened to me, and the support system automatically decided nothing was wrong whatsoever despite my phone certainly sending a very different location from the driver. And the madness was I couldn't even book another ride as I was technically in one.

So I ended up getting it resolved via the security panic button which did put me through to a real person who was empathetic to the issue.