Calling LLMs, “AI” is one of the most genius marketing moves I have ever seen. It’s also the reason for the problems you mention.
I am guessing that a lot of people are just thinking, “Well AI is just not that smart… yet! It will learn more and get smarter and then, ah ha! Skynet!” It is a fundamental misunderstanding of what LLMs are doing. It may be a partial emulation of intelligence. Like humans, it uses its prior memory and experiences (data) to guess what an answer to a new question would look like. But unlike human intelligence, it doesn’t have any idea what it is saying, actually means.
What’s the media going to report on? Outrage click bait or someone average saying average things? Not to say extremist are not real but extremists are disproportionately reported compared to majority views which skews our perceptions. How much is done on purpose or as a result of the news business, I can’t judge but biased sources pick up on the parts they like and amplify them or even manipulate them to tell the story that want to tell.
I do truly believe that for the vast majority of people, we are closer in that the things we collectively believe than we do not. But it doesn’t take many devoted people to whip up a mindless mob.
I didn’t make my point clear. My question wasn’t really where the image was sourced, it was more about the value of what Google is doing matching an essentially random image next to the text it scraped from a website. Why did it choose that image? Adding a random image like that seems like what a low-grade SEO would do to tick the needed boxes not a high-quality product from a multi-billion dollar company. The image in no way enhances the meaning of what I asked. In fact, it does the opposite. It is a bit of Google becoming what it mocked.
SEO is of itself is not all bad. Content creators need to do certain things, which do little directly for the consumer, but help the algo understand what the content is and how the owner would prefer it be seen. For example, something simple like the title attribute of a web page tells the search engine how it should label the content in the search results. That’s SEO and generaly a good thing for everyone.
As you say, the “please like, subscribe, comment and say a prayer to the algo” annoyance is just what we have to accept for free content on these platforms. It’s the cost of anyone being able to upload video to YT.
Where it goes wrong imho, is filling the world with essentially meaningless machine produced content to aid in the rankings. This isn’t new with AI btw. People have been using article “spinning” or outsourced garbage content creation for years or decades to do the same and potentially even better than what AI does. In the old days building thousands of links from garbage content to your content in order to have the algo see the links as “votes” for the supposed quality of the content. Those of us who ran forums saw this all the time.
I worked in the food industry for a while before returning back to school to get a degree in tech thinking it would be my path to a better life. While at first I thought where my career was taking me provided exactly that, I’m absolutely miserable working a corporate job in tech. I’ve seen several layoffs, AI is taking over,...
I’ve been in the nonprofit/ngo world for decades now, tech, tech-oriented or tech-adjacent. I started my career in corporate and let me tell you I did truly hate it beyond my ability to express. I could have found a better job in for-profit but the fundamentals would be the same and I believe for me, at best I would have tolerated it. Would I go to work each day saying to myself this is all worth because I am helping others have better lives?
My transition to nonprofit was one of an accidental, happy discovery but that came at a cost of some personal dramatic, and traumatic events which I will not bore you with. I never knew you could work for a nonprofit, or even what a nonprofit was. So few things:
There are all kind of nonprofit, micro to huge. KaIser permanente ($100B/yr) is a nonprofit. The all volunteer org down the street that distributes sanitation packs to homeless may be a nonprofit. Some churches are nonprofits.
Some nonprofits are incredibly well run and others are horrendously disorganized. Generally, larger orgs are better run but more corporate in style and smaller ones less so, but that is not always true.
A career in the nonprofit world is entirely possible. It is usually true that pay is less than corporate but that is not always true even. If you value money over all other factors, then you are probably barking up the wrong tree. If being a happy person is higher up on your list, nonprofit is worth considering.
“The great thing about nonprofits is that you don’t have to worry about money!” hahahahaaaa hhaa cries. Most nonprofits deal with an unending battle for funding in one way or the other. It doesn’t mean they are necessarily unstable as orgs but funding comes and funding goes and most manage funding from multiple sources. For those involved with that aspect, it is a constant consideration.
As far as how to make the jump by far the best thing you can do is you have the capacity, is to volunteer at one that has a mission that appeals to you. It doesn’t matter what you do as a volunteer. Go and see how it feels to you. What are the people like? What do you think of the work of the org? Caring about the org and its mission is the thing to assess first. Then see what opportunities there are. Many nonprofit are network oriented, so as you get to know them and they get to know you, doors may open that others are not even aware of.
idealist.org and workforgood.org and I am sure there are many other places to explore.
Q: Do you believe in DEI? A: I think we should judge people based on skills.
Except for himself, I guess. He seems clueless on a number of issues and unwilling to assess his own beliefs which is not a flattering quality in my book. I didn’t think much of him before this interview and it only reinforced it. I am not sure I liked the interviewer much but he did bring up the right questions and follow-ups so I guess he did a good job.
So I was thinking about what if we could make a network that the only thing you needed to connect to it is to directly connect ( through wires or directed wireless antennas ) to at least 1 computer that takes part in it, with no centralized node of any kind. For that we would need a whole new protocol and address system. THIS IS...
Well, I’m not sure what you make of crypto (or what I make of it) but there was a crypto project that was intended to be a decentralized wireless network. Participants were (are?) incentivized to maintain a wireless repeater of some sort. But the premise sounded semi-plausible to me at the time. I won’t name the p[project since I don’t know how people feel about crypto, but it’s easy enough to search for if you are interested.
"But the court’s decision to keep the pretrial proceedings frozen is a blow to special counsel Jack Smith’s effort to bring Trump to trial this year. "
I hate it when the media does this. It makes it read as if Jack Smith is the one with the issue. Jack Smith represents “the people” i.e. US citizens. I suggest:
“But the court’s decision to keep the pretrial proceedings frozen is a blow to US voters who may use the trial results to determine how they will vote. Trump is accused of attempting to disenfranchise voters by inspiring a mob of his supporters to invade the capitol on January 6, 2021, attempting to hang Vice President Pence on the gallows they constructed and delay the vote count. While this type of trial will always take time to run its course, the court has now introduced additional delay in order to determine if the US has a president or a king but will likely result in no trial before the election.”
“The decisions by Alabama Fertility Services and Mobile Infirmary come a day after the University of Alabama at Birmingham health system said in a statement that it was pausing IVF treatments so it could evaluate whether its patients or doctors could face criminal charges or punitive damages.”
So it is stopping IVF in this state and will have untold repercussions based on the ruling “Unborn children are ‘children’” which has potentially complicated and unpredictable outcomes. You are entitled to your opinion of course but I think you are quite wrong about this being overblown. It is huge for many.
"More than 9 million babies have been born using assisted reproductive technologies like in vitro fertilization. "
“A cycle of in vitro fertilization can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $25,000”
For people currently using IVF, this is probably a very stressful time.
It is completely crazy that businesses mainly do not have strong internship/apprenticeship programs in place. It is hard to predict who is going to be good at tech (or probably most jobs) until given a chance. Some of our most brilliant have been high school dropouts. Even those with credentials and experience will do better with time to learn the company systems and culture. “We need someone who can hit the ground running…” ug, grow up.
Collectivly, we need a major commitment to building the workforce not leeching off of disposable labor.
An internship isn’t a magic bullet that cures all ills but it does improve thing meaningfully in several ways.
To address your point, I agree with you in part but giving people a chance who otherwise would not, does build loyalty making it more likely they will stay longer (on average). You still have to be a good company to have a chance of retaining people, it isn’t just a cynical ploy to fool people into working for you. There is a middle ground between your example of 20-40 years vs 2-4 that is very meaningful because it takes a lot more time than people give credit, to get good at a job. So that >2 years time frame is very valuable.
I do think a lot of companies, but crucially not all, effectively treat even highly skilled labor as a disposable asset to leech off of. I also think an employment system that expects career advancement to require changing employers, is crazy shortsighted. Just as is degrading the public education system and putting young people into massive debt with college. The system has problems all over the place but an internship is a very practical way for a company to do better.
You can’t take the current situation out of the historical context. Not saying I agree with the idea that Israel is the same as Nazi but saying “Hamas did shoot first” is missing some crucial steps.
The GOP mistake was to kill Roe. The dog caught the bus. That was their issue and they blew it up. That’s not working now so they are doubling down towards theocracy. They are going to rack up a lot of horrific news by denying basic freedoms and health care. For issues, they’ve pivoted to the border, an issue they are artificially maintaining now. It’s a re-run and I am not sure how far it will carry them given how stupid they all look.
But the shoe is on the other foot now, isn’t it? I am not as cynical to think Dems will do nothing about abortion but if they do something, it will be after the election. Maybe you are right but I hope not. On the other hand, we’ve seen some major state-level wins on abortion post-Roe that cut across party lines and can’t be ignored forever.
Maga is on a self-destruct path it is just a matter of how much damage they do before they run out of time. It could be quite a bit. Dems can be compelled to do some good.
Oh yeah guns, forgot about that and you are right. But abortion was the big one and they blew it up. Immigration for most is too abstract so I don’t think it is that strong. It isn’t nothing but it’s mainly down to propaganda. Guns as an issue are a bit more real but very polarized. Women’s health and family planning ultimately affect everyone and have proven to be not nearly as party line as believed.
For $20 you can buy enough stash tabs to happily play for years with nothing else. You do need more storage and the map tab is very helpful but most of the specialized tabs are not really needed. I have most of the specialized ones and I could easily live without them. So it’s a $20 game in my multi-1000 hours in-game opinion. The cosmetic microtransactions are a mixed bag but some are very cool. Compared to the money I spent on D4 which didn’t give me much in return, it is not in the same ballpark.
On the states issue, while I understand the argument and it was the only thing that made me reconsider my position, that seems to me more in the arena of how they would like it to be rather than how it is. States have the right to run their elections. The consequences of that might be problematic or inconvenient but that is how our system is designed. I mean I am no constitutional scholar, but I have been reading and listening on this and that’s how I see it. As far as it being abused, every state will have some kind of due process to evaluate how legitimate the claim is and ultimately it can be brought to the SC.
Killing Roe and turning abortion into states rights certainly was a level of chaos the court was a-ok with. So they are fine with chaos. As far as it not being a federal issue, I guess, but not everyone has the resources to up and go to another state to get medical care.
I get the idea of voting not-R vs excited to vote for the Dem. But Hillary Clinton would like a word.
I’m old. In almost every election it has been the same for me. Vote for the lesser of the evils. I would vote for a very progressive candidate if I thought they would have a chance. When I was young I did vote 3rd part a few times.
Voting for the lesser of the evils isn’t exciting but you know what, it has been a vastly better plan seeing a Dem, any dem in power, than the R alternatives in my life. Compare to, Reagan, Bush, Shrub, and Mr Indictment.
For this current election, it is crazily out of balance. Contrary to popular opinion (real or manufactured) I believe Biden has been a good president. The Israel situation is deeply depressing and I am not happy with how that has been handled but I guarantee the world will be a much, much worse place with vastly more severe consequences if Biden loses.
Last global recession generally considered 2020 I believe i.e. covid. Before that 2008/9 sub-prime housing. I don’t see either of those events happening now. Could you be more specific?
Thanks for your observations and I won’t argue them. The problem with a word like recession is that we’re in what I see as, the poor get poorer, the rich get richer. The middle class, what’s left of it, is mainly moving toward being poor. That said, the “smart” economy people will say “we are not in a recession and in fact the economy is good.” And it is good, very good in fact - for the privileged. Wealth inequality is the issue, at least in my view.
There is also the Fiat 500e. Not many of the original ones I think in the US but a new one is coming.
We have the i3. While we love it and it is by far the best car we have ever had, it is smaller, the looks are polarizing and the range is limited. So even among those it would be a good fit for, there is resistance. It was absurdly expensive new but used are reasonable’ish. And I mean the range is fine for probably almost everyone but you know people are always like, “but what if I want to spontaneously drive across the country?!” as if they will ever do that.
OpenAI Insider Estimates 70 Percent Chance That AI Will Destroy or Catastrophically Harm Humanity (futurism.com)
Trump supporters call for riots and violent retribution after verdict (www.reuters.com)
Google just updated its algorithm. The Internet will never be the same (www.bbc.com)
The inside story of Elon Musk’s mass firings of Tesla Supercharger staff (finance.yahoo.com)
Archive.org link...
AI Is Poisoning Reddit to Promote Products and Game Google With 'Parasite SEO' (www.404media.co)
Anyone ever swap careers from Corporate to Non-Profit or some other Cause: If so, how?
I worked in the food industry for a while before returning back to school to get a degree in tech thinking it would be my path to a better life. While at first I thought where my career was taking me provided exactly that, I’m absolutely miserable working a corporate job in tech. I’ve seen several layoffs, AI is taking over,...
Here’s the Elon Musk interview that got Don Lemon’s show canceled (www.theverge.com)
Decentralized networks/ISPs, are they even possible? A talk and my idea
So I was thinking about what if we could make a network that the only thing you needed to connect to it is to directly connect ( through wires or directed wireless antennas ) to at least 1 computer that takes part in it, with no centralized node of any kind. For that we would need a whole new protocol and address system. THIS IS...
Supreme Court stalls Trump’s federal election trial while weighing his immunity bid (www.politico.com)
politico archive: ghostarchive.org/archive/PS7WH...
Ex U.S. spies warned the Hunter Biden scandal had Russian fingerprints. They feel vindicated now. (www.nbcnews.com)
Tech Job Interviews Are Out of Control (www.wired.com)
That graphic sums up my entire educational experience. archive.is/hvZ5q
Brazil fires back at ‘outrageous’ Israeli response to Lula comments (thecradle.co)
Israeli officials have accused Brazil’s president of antisemitism following his comparison of Israeli violence to that of the Nazis...
Alabama Court Rules Frozen Embryos Made by IVF Are “Children” (theintercept.com)
Diablo 4's latest microtransaction controversy is a $30 portal recolor. (www.gamesradar.com)
Livestream audio of Supreme Court arguments over Trump's removal from Colorado ballot (www.msnbc.com)
You, yeah you there on the other side of the screen, you should fry up some garbanzo beans (aka chickpeas). It's delicious and costs like $2 tops. (lemmynsfw.com)
Naomi Klein: If Biden Wants to Stop Trump, He Should Step Down (truthout.org)
Google confirms it just laid off around a thousand employees (www.theverge.com)
So it continues.
The march towards an all-EV future hit a major roadblock. What went wrong? (www.businessinsider.com)