Andy

It’s pay walled.

Neat. This is great info.

That’s silly. This is already a ubiquitous feature in minivans.

I don’t relate to your impression that religions or cults are usually humble. I wish they were.

Suggesting that I’m drawing an equivalence between a forest and a data center and Implying that the belief that I am not entirely distinct from a stone is interchangeable with the belief that I am no different than a stone both seem like bad faith arguments by absurdism.

This depends on your definition of self-awareness. I’m using what I think is a reasonable, mundane framework: self awareness is a spectrum of diverse capabilities that includes any system with some amount of internal observation.

I think the definition that a lot of folks are using is a binary distinction between things which experience the ability to observe their own ego observing itself and those that don’t. Which I think is useful if your goal is to maintain a belief in human exceptionalism, but much less so if you’re trying to genuinely understand consciousness.

A lizard has no ego. But it is aware of its comfort and will move from a cold spot to a warmer spot. That is low-level self awareness, and it’s not rare or mystical.

How are you defining self awareness here? And does your definition include degrees of self awareness? Or is it a strict binary?

I understand how LLMs work, btw.

A hamster can’t generate a seahorse emoji either.

I’m not stupid. I know how they work. I’m an animist, though. I realize everyone here thinks I’m a fool for believing a machine could have a spirit, but frankly I think everyone else is foolish for believing that a forest doesn’t.

LLMs are obviously not people. But I think our current framework exceptionalizes humans in a way that allows us to ravage the planet and create torture camps for chickens.

I would prefer that we approach this technology with more humility. Not to protect the “humanity” of a bunch of math, but to protect ours.

Does that make sense?

Frankly I think our conception is way too limited.

For instance, I would describe it as self-aware: it’s at least aware of its own state in the same way that your car is aware of it’s mileage and engine condition. They’re not sapient, but I do think they demonstrate self awareness in some narrow sense.

I think rather than imagine these instances as “inanimate” we should place their level of comprehension along the same spectrum that includes a sea sponge, a nematode, a trout, a grasshopper, etc.

I don’t know where the LLMs fall, but I find it hard to argue that they have less self awareness than a hamster. And that should freak us all out.

This is fuckin’ bonkers.

Frankly, I feel somewhat isolated: I don’t buy into the bs and hype about AGI, but I also don’t feel at home with the typical “it’s just mimicry” crowd.

This is weird fuckin’ shit.

Personally, I do want a common communication platform for people I despise because I want to be able to keep tabs on their public announcements. Also, I don’t want any tech platform to have sole authority over who can communicate, as in the present, that will invariably work against the left more than the right.

I do not want to share close proximity to them on a network graph, or regularly engage with their supporters, though. So I agree that federation is crucial. But to be clear, it’s not because I want to ban them from a platform, it’s because I want managed distance and better moderation.

I don’t mind Bluesky verifying them, but I’m glad that on Mastodon I don’t have to share the same giant server as them.

Yeah, it’s wild how clearly we can see that Palestine is the world’s laboratory for surveillance and state violence tech and tactics.

This article doesn’t really seem to validate it’s headline. I was eager to learn more about the methodology and how to better detect corporate content, but I was disappointed that they apparently just made the leap from the claim that 15% of popular subs host a non zero amount of corporate manipulation to the claim that this represents the fraction of total content.

I’m not saying this to dispute how much of the total content is corporate bots. I’m just pointing this out because I actually care about the quality of statistical claims and data science, and I hate to see my ideological allies either misusing data because they’re dumb or because they don’t have a commitment to truth.

Thank fucking God that they’re finally waking up. This is long overdue.

I think that if we want new folks, it would make a big difference is we organized the equivalent of a new member drive.

Currently, look at a default front page for your home instance and ask how enticing it is to a total newbie. There might be some good stuff, but it’s foreign and overwhelming. You feel out of place.

Now imagine if the first Friday of January had been “new subscriber day”. People on Reddit and Bluesky are taking about the fediverse and if it’s any good. And on Lemmy there’s a bunch of posts about finding the best instances and memes about being new on Lemmy. That’s a much more inviting beginner experience, and it makes it more likely for folks to come back the next day.

I really think planning for bursts of new folks is the way to welcome people.

I appreciate the distinction, but open source is always a spectrum, so I think the description is a reasonable application here.

It’s pretty wild, because this is genuinely great politics and great policy. It’s weird that folks haven’t realized this and acted on it yet. Fingers crossed.

It would explain a lot

Whew.

The thing about these incidents that I find most interesting is that they basically reveal a widely held suspicion among many people that these government contractors are over-crexentialed bullshit artists.

This just shows what we’ve all suspected: they’ve been cutting corners, claiming underserved authority, and making up shit for years. But now some folks are checking and reporting on it.

I think this is the main story. I don’t think it’s new info, but it confirms the issue persists: this LLM is so heavily trained to fawn over Musk that it doesn’t exercise any application of context or attempt to find truth.

Which is sad.

The other issue I have is that this is an example of a recurring issue in which the tech obsessed ultra wealthy declare their plan to solve a problem for which a very straightforward policy solution already exists.

We don’t need tech to extend lives or feed the hungry. We just need to remove the paywalls to existing resources.