- kbelderOk. I actually think you ought to be able to refuse to hire somebody you disagree with like that. I think you would be very wrong in doing so, though.
- That is a good point, and I think the takeaway is that there are lots of degrees of freedom here. Open training data would be better, of course, but open weights is still better than completely hidden.
- The way to make Firefox better is by not doing the things that are making the other browsers worse. Ads and privacy are an example of areas where Chrome is clearly getting worse.
LLM integration... is arguable. Maybe it'll make Chrome worse, maybe not. Clunky and obtrusive integration certainly will.
- It's like using your turn signal even when you know there's nobody around you. Politeness is a habit you don't want to break.
- There's levels of this, though, more than two:
There is almost no harm in a local, open model. Conversely, a remote, proprietary model should always require opting in with clear disclaimers. It needs to be proportional.local, open model local, proprietary model remote, open model (are there these?) remote, proprietary model - Obama opposed gay marriage as well. As did many prominent politicians, left and right.
The swing from opposing it to supporting it was a huge cultural shift, and I'm not sure I've seen anything like that happen so quickly, except maybe during a time of war. It went from being opposed by a strong majority to supported by a strong majority in... maybe 5-8 years? It was pretty impressive, and I think it's a sign that the marketplace of ideas can still function.
It helps a lot that it's really a harmless thing. It's giving people more freedom, not taking any away from anyone, and so as soon as it became clear that it wasn't causing a problem, everybody shrugged and went 'ok'.
- >It's basic tolerance, it's not that hard.
That's right. To get a bit philosophical, it's interesting to see some people's justifications about how they are right to be intolerant in the ways they want to be, while still believing that they are free-thinking and tolerant. A lot of convoluted arguments are really about keeping one's self-image intact, justifying beliefs that are contradictory but which the person really wants to believe. I think that is a trap that is more dangerous for intelligent people.
For what it's worth, I support and supported gay marriage at the time, but don't think people should be forced out of their job for believing otherwise. Thoughts and words you disagree with should be met with alternative thoughts and words.
- Is that a no?
- If you were on a hiring committee, and your otherwise-qualified-candidate had a political opinion you objected to in this way, perhaps with a similar donation, would you refuse to hire them?
- Irrationally?
- Which was also obvious, but maybe also needed pointing out, which says something about online discussion. Something obvious, probably.
- I think it's the opposite. Believing that something special exists in brains that can't in be replicated in a (sufficiently complex) computer is spirituality, a belief in the supernatural.
- What? Mel is regarded as deserving massive respect, not as crazy. If a developer thinks Mel is nuts, they are coming from a perspective I don't understand.
And yes, the shift to higher level languages like C, FORTRAN, etc., was regarded by some as pandering to the new generation that didn't want to actually learn programming.
With some truth, in my opinion. I think higher level languages bring huge benefits, so I'm not bemoaning their existence. But it still weirds me out when there's a professional developer that doesn't have at least a cursory knowledge of assembly. AI programming assistance (which I'm sure will be very different than today's 'vibe coding') does seem like a similar state change. I certainly don't object to it in principle, it will probably be a large productivity improvement.
But I'm sure that with it, there will be the loss of fundamental knowledge for some people. Like digital artists who never learn the properties of real paint.
- Huh, interesting. Australia keeps surprising me.
https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-news/which-australian-state...
- A while back I gave it a prompt, something like, "I'm a historian from the far future. Please give me a documentary-style summary of the important political and cultural events of the decade of the 1980s."
It did ok, then I kept asking for "Now, the 1990s?" and kept going into future decades. "Now, the 2050s?" It made some fun extrapolations.
- It wasn't the nukes that kept them safe. It was artillery. But the principle of mutually assured destruction is the same.
- When somebody begins talking about generation <n>, I kind of tune out, because I know whatever they say is probably going to be a superficial or even harmful generalization. It just feels distasteful.
It's like when somebody talks about 'west coasters' or 'blondes' or even the 'mom test'.
- Neither?
- Relevant quote, for your own judgement:
At the New York Times’ DealBook Summit on Wednesday, Karp was asked about the worries over the unconstitutionality of the boat strikes.
“Part of the reason why I like this questioning is the more constitutional you want to make it, the more precise you want to make it, the more you’re going to need my product,” Karp said. His reasoning is that if it’s constitutional, you would have to make 100% sure of the exact conditions it’s happening in, and in order to do that, the military would have to use Palantir’s technology, for which it pays roughly $10 billion under its current contract.
- I'm beginning to think a FORTH coded in GOL is within our reach.