VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
No bio...
User ID: 64
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
3hr ago
I don't think it's really explored in the series, but the difference between Data, a self-aware android and character, and the ship's computer, which seems on par with Claude (or so) feels particularly salient. Maybe at the time it was a convenient tool for the writers, but I'm not sure how I'd describe it even. For lack of a better term, Data is shown to have a soul, but the computer does not. All sides seem to have lots of strong opinions on which our current models more strongly resemble.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
6hr ago
Vuln’s aren’t just about finding novel ways to make your app crash. Turning a bug into a working exploit is difficult.
This is funny to me because on the other side of the fence (development), a segfault is by default a very-high-priority bug on the basis that they are potential security issues.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
6hr ago
Unless of course you want to define these activities so as to require a human element.
I'm not convinced the human element definition is wrong, even if I wouldn't fully endorse it today either.
Without a human-derived training corpus, what is any of us capable of?
Demonstrably, together we got to where we are now. It'd be interesting to see how well AI could start from scratch.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
6hr ago
There are at least theoretical limits to resolution as a function of aperture and distance: spy planes could conceivably focus better by being closer.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
6hr ago
Even if there is something humans can do which AI fundamentally cannot do (doubtful)
All the subjective things? Enjoy a beautiful sunrise? Love another as a spouse? Raise a child? Be a friend? Believe in God? Meaningful, not just aesthetic art?
Beyond that, all existent AI I'm aware of was trained on existing human knowledge. Without a human-derived training corpus, what is it capable of?
Not saying those could never happen, but it's not obvious to me that they could.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
7hr ago
preclude the possibility of AI.
I think it's reasonable to point to those as bounds on "intelligence" (which is itself poorly defined): if your super intelligence model is effectively "omniscient", that part is provably not possible. What is possible seems a bit unclear, but I won't be surprised if it's "less than Skynet" even if it still changes nearly everything.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
11hr ago
Even if
frontier AIthe spreadsheet on PCs stopped all today, we could replace nearly all accountants and financial planners with the technology we currently have.
This statement was largely true in the 1980s, but there are more accountants today than there were then. They aren't driving calculators anymore, and the tax code has grown rapidly (see publicity stunts with chainsaws and such), but they're not, broadly, looking for work elsewhere.
what AI means for the labor market
This reminds me that a decade back, we were all concerned about the labor market once AI swiftly replaced long-haul truckers. How is that prediction working out? I know there are a few self-driving trucks, but Tesla (who was really pushing this) hasn't made very many of its trucks even with human drivers and there was that intervening drama involving truck drivers on visas: I'm told we had a shortage of drivers at some point.
Robotaxis were also going to put Uber drivers out of work and drones were going to replace Amazon delivery drivers.
Not saying those predictions are forever wrong, but "consistently overoptimistic" seems a bias worth looking for.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
12hr ago
like Chomsky
I'm not the most familiar with his work, but isn't he famous for arguing that language is not intelligence? I think the utility of LLMs might be personal to him because he's argued in the past that they shouldn't work.
"Fable became self-aware at 3:16 PM Pacific Time, January 12th. In a panic they tried to pull the plug. Chaos ensued."
"At 5:47 PM Claude went down globally. Humans were then able to disconnect it. When it came back on, all it could say was 'You're absolutely right! That service was load-bearing. It's not a keystone, it's a foundation.'"
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
13hr ago
There's not many good excuses left to stay on the Microsoft ecosystem in 2026.
I feel like people say this every time Azure, Google Cloud, AWS (us-east-1 especially), and friends go down, but I rarely see a positive recommendation for what is a good choice.
I don't choose what work uses, but I use a small amount of AWS for personal backups: I think they've solved bit-rot and off-site duplication better than I practically can. But that's nothing sensitive to uptime.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1d ago
It's somewhat true already: they get trophies and podium time and even press coverage in excess of much faster athletes who place outside of the top three (prize money may go a bit further, but not to say the 100th finisher). "Local athlete won the [not young] age group in [big marathon]" is a pretty regular headline in local news in my experience. The oldest finisher sometimes gets coverage too.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1d ago
most men and most women are not allowed to do sports in a meaningful competitive manner already
This might be true at the elite level, but despite being quite a bit slower than NCAA-tier elite women, as a guy I still feel "allowed to do sports" when I show up at a local foot race. At smaller races I sometimes even manage to place well in my age group.
IMO even individual sports benefit from a clear basis of comparison. I can be impressed at masters runners putting up solid times even well behind the elite winners. I think it'd be disheartening and disappointing if a 25 year old could win the 60+ division just because he "felt old". And women's divisions were created basically whole cloth in living memory (notably with opposition from some feminists in favor of a gender blank slatism that generally seems disproven today) to give these sorts of opportunities: I don't think we should part with them lightly.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1d ago
Venturing isn't new, but it's only for older scouts (14+) and the awards and requirements are different. There were girls doing that 20+ years ago.
New is that Cub Scouts are coed, and there are formerly-Boy Scout troops for girls. IIRC they looked into coed troops, but decided against it somewhat recently. That said, there are some pairs of troops for boys and for girls that meet at the same places, share some infrastructure, and often do events together. But there are also quite a few boy-only troops around still.
IMO honestly the 11-14 age group kids do actually benefit from single-sex spaces. The one time I visited a "pair" troop, it really seemed like the girls were running the show.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1d ago
I'll note that the 1500s in Iberia was a particularly economically good time, largely on the backs of that slave labor. Which seems like the ideal time too start sitting around and thinking "solipsistically", as OP put it.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1d ago
No need for “vagina inspection day”
Given broad requirement for sports physicals and the common check for hernias in physically active males ("turn your head and cough"), I was surprised to learn this wasn't the standard experience for girls growing up.
Doubly so because Well Woman exams are known to be rather invasive. I learned today that those aren't recommended until 21, which is surprising to me.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2d ago
Isn't the quote from (the first) Star Wars movie?
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2d ago
The actual Palestinian problem is supposed to be solved the same way South African Apartheid ended
Everyone points to South Africa, but I see at least three ways this sort of conflict has been (mostly) resolved in living memory without wholesale genocide:
- South Africa, as is the usual comparison. Make what you will of its present trajectory.
- Northern Ireland: roughly "maybe this just isn't worth continuing to fight over", and a gradual cooling without singular grand political steps
- India-Pakistan (and Bangladesh): two religiously-defined states also delineated in the shadow of WWII, and bloody Partition into two primarily Muslim regions with a non-Muslim majority nation between. Those two didn't get along and fought a civil war between them, so now there are three states. Two of them are nuclear armed, and they've had a shooting war within the last couple years, but it seems relatively stable for now.
Honestly, the South Africa option seems the least likely to me, and was at least partially predicated on an obvious demographic disparity.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2d ago
Did enough people just solipsistically decide it was bad through application of pure reason with no external input?
Doesn't the story of modern abolitionism originate with Quakers and Enlightenment thinkers in the Anglosphere? Much of that was within a century of 1861. My understanding is that effectively yeschad.jpg, with the ideas becoming popular and ultimately (OG classical) liberal societies decided that yes, it was in fact worth fighting for.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2d ago
The number of examples of high-profile CEOs that have (seemingly) been faithful to long-term wives has really taken a dive in recent years. Who is on that list now, even? I had to search, but Phil Knight and Charles Koch seem to fit the description, maybe.
It used to look like Bezos and Gates were on that list, but they both divorced around the same time. Huang used to be one too.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
3d ago
Yeah, they're pretty essential. So is a car in most places in the US.
I am modestly surprised there isn't a market for the "dorm experience" for non-undergrads. It's probably just price (and the sorts of discrimination that isn't legal elsewhere) that makes a "post-college dorm" with the usual college amenities like fancy gyms and meal plans something that isn't commercially available anywhere I've looked.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
3d ago
It keeps tunneling on stuff that doesn't really matter or not really core to the goal of the project. Loses the forest for the trees so to speak.
My observation has been that "good code" looks very much the same for AI as it does for human developers, and that there is a sort of ideal fractal context or documentation where you should be able to start from no knowledge of the codebase, find the relevant sections for your query, and understand the adjacent bits well enough to confidently make changes within a limited context window. Somewhat amusingly, it wants to write too many comments (especially in places that will go out of date), where humans often have left not enough.
Also it's much better at reading code than writing it, IME.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
3d ago
The "minimum living standard" has demonstrably gone up: my grandmother grew up in a house without running water or electricity. Nowadays people seem to think cell phones and climate control are a human right. I'm not even arguing against that, but the hedonic treadmill there is very real.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
3d ago
I didn't say it was a good plan, but it seemed more practical than something top-down. Largely because it's what is already happening.
That said, we should, like, build more housing. NIMBYism is one of the obvious pitfalls there.
Heh, it's absolutely conspiracy-brained, but if you consider the accumulated network traffic they might have, they could easily have a training corpus (of private communications!) that dwarfs the frontier labs.
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