That's why I use Linux Mint, even if some Linux guys might think less of me.
Switched from Windows 11. My work system is a Mac. I just love how the Linux gets out of the way, everything just works, UI much better and consistent than Windows.
And I'll probably keep receiving security fixes and app improvements in 10 years for my old Thinkpad.
The part that does count is that we can verify that we does what we want it to do. We just don't know how.
Same with the black box part of AI. What the weights represent? Arcane dark magic if you ask me. What do they do? Well with LLMs we're all experiencing it.
This was my existential horror for most of my life as I almost never remembered dreaming or going to sleep - until I got a CPAP. Once I started using it, there was continuity to my life, I vividly dream and remember those dreams now. I never scored too badly on the apnea tests but just enough to qualify for one so I said what the hell and got it. Even though I don't use it regularly, something about my sleep has changed for the better.
You're correct that verification *reduces* risk. It does not eliminate risk. Humans are imperfect. That does not mean that we should stop seeking understanding on principle though, because the journey towards that understanding improves outcomes.
Recall also that LLMs are not actually entities. In their current form, there is no sentience, there is no agency. They are tools. Therefore, their output must benefit the user that requested it. Right now, that's humans (and, ideally, the planet at large; we don't exist in a vacuum) and so it makes sense that humans should verify that output and try to ensure that it aligns with their goals.
That's not to say that the output of an LLM is useless, far from it. But we should still *try* to understand its output. It gives us at least some chance to notice flaws, and an even greater chance to appreciate the implications and tradeoffs of the solution it picked.
I don't disagree with anything you said. But the thread is about... LLM outputs, even if it cures cancer and solves world hunger, it is useless (it does not count for anything) if we don't understand it.
Interesting, I really don’t see your point. It would definitely be a lot more useful if we also understand it.
But extra lives saved definitely counts for a whole lot and is definitely useful.
One comparison I see: there are so many religious people that simply wish they are saved from their cancer (or whatever else). They pray for it. They don’t care how it happens. They simply want to live longer, etc.
It’s a sketch of an argument, I hope you know what I am getting at.
Nobody in their right mind would start a rocket company in order to make more money. I feel like he just wants to play real life Factorio and he wants everyone to tune in on his Twitch account and watch him play. Meanwhile he was trying to fix democracy [1] (and protect his own companies) by buying Twitter and at some point he realized he fucked up.
But who knows, I could be wrong.
I'm not exactly a fan. I'm not exactly against him either. He just seems like a hardcore geek to me that got way too much money and way too much buy-in.
[1] I'm not saying I that I think he was fixing democracy. I'm saying that I think that he thought he was fixing democracy.
Meanwhile he was trying to fix democracy .
He was literally giving checks for people if they voted a certain way and promoted it.
There is not more anti democratic than this.
probably also preferable to buying votes by making and executing promises to give people free stuff/programs. at least they aren't using tax payer money
you should really listen to one of his full town-hall videos and reflect if anything he said could not have have been said by any of the Clintons or McCain. Then compare the few differences to what you might think of Elon Musk.
I'm in favor of Rank Choice Voting for this reason. Our system makes 3rd party votes hard or impossible, so instead of voting for who you like, you have to vote for who you dislike the least.
Let people vote for who they like the most without fear of their vote bolstering a candidate they really don't like. We should start exposing kids to RCV in schools. Now. It needs to not be "weird" or "hard" or propagandized as "not fair." Not fair is not being able to vote for your favorite person.
US biggest existential crisis is the fact that the opposition is always a monopoly.
So either you have a massive win, or a party will block the other forever out of spite, nothing can be accomplished and no mistake can be fixed. With more opposition groups the situation would change for good ("You don't want to make a deal with me, I will ask the third and fourth parties. The first team doing a reasonable move gets the prize").
I use vibecoding to capture UX. It's the best way of capturing requirements I've seen so far. Then once it's all captured and dies down towards requirements that are all in the "could have" category of MoSCoW, then I use AI-assisted coding (and the fun task of reading tens of thousands of source code lines) to refactor or create an entirely new application that is more technically sound.
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