partial_accumen

@ partial_accumen @lemmy.world

Posts

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4144
Joined

3 yr. ago

partial_accumen @lemmy.world 1d ago

OpenAI said it had found a way to put safeguards into its technologies that would somehow prevent the systems from being used in ways that it does not want them to be.

When pressed for specifics on the nature of the safeguards, OpenAI's Altman replied, "We've included the phrase 'pretty please don't use this for killing people or spying on Americans' in our contract with Department of Defense. With this language in place we're confident that our company values respecting human life and the privacy of all Americans is protected". /s

1d ago

Half of Americans Struggle to Pay Rent or Mortgage, With Gen Z Hit Hardest

partial_accumen @lemmy.world 1d ago

It really doesn’t make sense to lump rent and mortgage together, and I feel like Gen Z is hit hardest because they’d have the lowest rates of homeownership.

The real title is the title of the graph in the artle: "Gen Zers Most Likely to Struggle with Housing Payments".

The article is lumping rent and mortgage together because including both covers all ways someone can pay for housing. The "hit hardest" part is in there to communicate that, while GenZ is getting its ass kicked the most on housing costs, it isn't the only generation having trouble.

1d ago

Her husband wanted to use ChatGPT to create sustainable housing. Then it took over his life.

partial_accumen @lemmy.world 1d ago

Guess what I’m saying is I’ve sort of dared AI to suck me in, and … I am unchanged.

I'm not sure this tests the point I was raising. In all of those cases, you knew at the beginning that you were dealing with AI. Yes, the man in our article did too, but what if you didn't know it was AI to begin with when you started interacting with it? How would your interactions change? What "safe guards" would you not have up if, as an example, it was appearing to you like a Lemmy poster instead of a dedicated AI interaction window?

I don’t think for a second there is any sort of emotional or intelligent entity in the other end.

Of course, because there isn't when we are rational. I also assume you are a psychologically healthy person. There is a suggestion the man in the article may have had an underlying condition, but he wasn't aware of it.

I think if more people experimented with generation settings like temperature and watched AI go to incoherent acid trips, it would feel more like a machine to them.

I completely agree. I've done some experiments of my own training a small LLM from scratch (not Fine Tuning an existing commercial model) using training data exclusively from a small set of public domain books I have read. I then had this LLM produce output. Since I had read the books, I could see pieces of where it got components of its responses. Cranking up temperature would make it go off the rails, which was fun to see. Overfitting made it try to give me something close to what I asked for, but obviously fail. I really liked the whole exercise because it was a small enough set of data with all of the levers and knobs exposed for me to see how far it could go, and more importantly how far it couldn't.

2d ago

Anthropic says it ‘cannot in good conscience’ allow Pentagon to remove AI checks

They were not a thing like they are today

I disagree with your statement.

Do I need to point to obvious examples such as the US Declaration of Independence in 1776?

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"

And human rights have always been a thing only respected by democracies. But nowhere as much as in EU where it is a requirement.

Even ancient Rome had a number of things legally protected that we call "human rights" today. I think you're conveniently cherry picking conditions and a time to make your statement true ignoring history. You're welcome to do that, but I believe that's intellectually dishonest. You're free to your opinion and your position though, so I'll leave you to it. Thank you for conversing up to now. I hope you have a great day.

2d ago

Anthropic says it ‘cannot in good conscience’ allow Pentagon to remove AI checks

I'm very very confused. You...don't think the concept of human rights existed before 1939 (or 1945)?

2d ago

Trying to get into MUDs - any suggestions?

There are some multi-user aspects to LORD (Legend of the Red Dragon). You can trade and communicate with other players through turn based messages (like mail). Additionally you can attack other players that are not staying at an inn, or be attacked yourself by other players (PvP). This is available in addition to the PvE content (leveling up to go after the Red Dragon).

Because its turn based, you can attack in your turns, and instantly see the outcome of the offline player. The computer plays their part in battle so you can choose to try to finish the battle or try to flee if you are getting your ass handed to you. As a defending player you're not there for the battle so you log in you see the transcript of what happened along with your fate and that of the other named player. Its surprisingly exciting even reading it after the battle!

2d ago

Her husband wanted to use ChatGPT to create sustainable housing. Then it took over his life.

I read this story this morning and have been thinking back to it all day. This wasn't just some idiot that was too stupid or young to not realize he was talking to a bot and did something like drink bleach because it told him to.

This was one of us.

He fit lots of behaviors I see here from me and my fellow Lemmy posters. He:

built computers for himself and family members
was a hobbyist (at least) coder
wasn't a young kid that didn't know the world. He was 48 or 49.
was an early adopter embracing the modern LLM technology in 2022 when it first really became public.
sold his house in an urban metropolis (Portland) and moved to a rural area so he could use his additional wordworking skills on building sustainable housing.
worked part time at a homeless shelter

Doesn't this guy sound like someone that would be a Lemmy poster to you too?

He started using LLMs (ChatGPT specifically) as a tool only to advance his hobby and work. When he first started it appears he understood it was just a tool, and didn't think it was something sentient. Only later after hundreds of hours of exposure did this idea arise in him.

Was there some underlying psychological problem that the LLM exacerbated? Possibly. But at what level was his original underlying issue? Do we all have some low level condition that would make us equally susceptible? I know we'd like to think we don't, but how do we know? This man certainly didn't think he did, I'm sure.

Next I think about what it would take for me to get down this bad path without realizing it. At one point would I be talking to a chat bot, not realize it, and let what that chat bot said change or influence my thoughts when I'd have zero knowledge of it being just a fancy program? I consider myself moderately smart with good critical thinking skills, but I'm sure this man did too.

Then it occurred to me that I have to concede that I have, at some point, already interacted with a bot in years past on Reddit or even today on Lemmy and I had no idea it was a bot. Was that interaction a throwaway conversation about pop culture that would have no impact on my world view or was it a much deeper and important political or philosophical conversation that the bot introduced an idea or hallucinated evidence to support a point and I didn't catch it to challenge it? Am I already a few or many steps down the bad path of falling for illusions of a bot? I certainly don't think so, but neither did he.

How many of us are already on the same path as this guy and just as ignorant about the danger as the man in the article?

2d ago

Trying to get into MUDs - any suggestions?

Lots of folks here are making good recommendations. Don't forget some of the OG MUDs like Legend of the Red Dragon. There are quite a few internet accessible BBSes still running the classic game.

I like that it has an exhaustion component to the gameplay that only lets you do a few actions a day (that you can do in as short as 5 min if you want). This means you'll never find yourself too deep in the game because you'll have to wait until tomorrow for more turns. It also gives you something to look forward to the next day to see what happened in your absence between daily turns.

2d ago

Anthropic says it ‘cannot in good conscience’ allow Pentagon to remove AI checks

Geopolitically you're cherry picking from a time when nations of the EU are not as powerful globally. When Germany was powerful, look how they treated the Poles. When Belgium was powerful look at it treated the people of Central Africa (Congo). Spain, at the height of its power, treated the Aztec and other nations in the Caribbean with zero respect.

also because to be in EU it is a requirement to observe human rights. Disrespecting the rights of people even if they aren’t of your own nationality, is contrary to democratic values.

That is part of the diplomatic veneer. Yes, its an ideal, but it will be discarded when geopolitically necessary. How many boats of migrants have drowned off the coast of Italy or Greece? Are diplomats and citizens of Israel still allowed free movement in the EU with its treatment of those in Gaza?

Keep in mind, I'm not criticizing the EU. I recognize the really ugly realities that come with geopolitics and the choices that national leaders make to serve the interests of their citizens, even with it conflicts with their own ideals.

You may be thinking China and Russia are just as bad or maybe even worse, but that isn’t the pattern you should be looking at, you should compare with other democracies, and especially countries that have better democracy than USA.

Comparing "degrees of disrespect" is ignoring geopolitical realities. If you want to have a conversation about ideals humanity should adopt we will likely agree on most of the points of the discussion, but understand national leaders will (when push comes to shove) ignore all of it and do what they think is best for their nation no matter the cost to other nations.

Also, none of this is a defense of the actions of China, Russia, or the USA. Its a recognition that powerful nations do these things when it serves their interests.

2d ago

Trump Reportedly Mulling Plan to Declare ‘National Emergency’ Paving Way for Major Power Grab

Nah that’s Biden’s fault too. But Trump is so much greater than Biden as well.

How are they trying spin that to make it make sense? Biden was a regular private citizen when the 2020 election took place. He didn't even hold any political office at the time. One could even have called Biden and "unemployed old man" at the time the election had taken place.

3d ago

My trusty 2600 fire button issues

Hoping JTS that green cap and not the 4050 chip…

That green cap I think is a mylar capacitor and will cost you maybe 5 cents at retail (and .00001 cents in bulk).

That 4050 is also dirt cheap. Maybe 50 cents to $1 USD at retail. You'll pay more in shipping costs than for the part. Today's CMOS ICs are a bit more robust against static discharge than those made in the 1980s, but don't risk it when you do the replacement. Make sure you use a grounding wrist strap or the like when you desolder the old 4050 and put in the new 4050, partially to protect the 4050 but really to protect that CPU which will probably cost you closer to $11-$20 (just a guess) to replace if it dies.

3d ago

Anthropic says it ‘cannot in good conscience’ allow Pentagon to remove AI checks

Rape as a method of power is a tiny tiny tiny part/tool of geopolitics at the nation state level. Almost too small mention. The same original statement is the rationale for colonization of the Carrebean/Americas/Africa by European powers in the 15th century and beyond as just an example.

3d ago

My trusty 2600 fire button issues

I've never worked on Atari consoles but you got me curious.

I did a Google search for schematics, not surprising, found many variants. So I don't know if this one is your board, but here's the schematic for one with some of my colored markup:

In working operation the Red arrow is apparently the "fire" button on the joystick and to activate the function, pressing the fire button ties Pin 6 to Pin 8 (blue arrow). Pin 6 is normally pulled down (to ground) by that circuit I have circled in dark red. Pin 8 has 5v+ generated by part I have circled in magenta. So pressing the button sends 5v+ first through that dark blue circled area which I think its doing some debouncing (cleaning up noise preventing accidental quick/up/down/up/down in the micro seconds of the fire button is pressed). If any of those capacitors or that diode is shorted, it would send 5v+ constantly "holding down" the fire button.

Assuming all of that is fine, the next area I'd look at would be that dark red circled area. This is where the pull down to ground comes from making sure pin 6 is low and the fire button is "off" or "not pressed" if any of this is floating, it could show up as "not ground" and the main IC would think the button is pressed.

Next would be the those 4050 ICs circled in green. These are CMOS buffers and CMOS ICs ARE EXTREMELY VULNERABLE TO STATIC DISCHARGE. Their job is just to take an input of some voltage and output a single clean digital signal of either 1 or 0. There is one buffer for each fire button (left and right joysticks).

Finally the fire button output of that 4050 buffer is delivered in to the main CPU that A201 TIA PAL (my schematic may be from a European model).

If you had this disassembled on a bench and had a voltmeter, you could get a good idea of where the problem is in about 10 minutes.

3d ago

Trump Reportedly Demanded His Name on Penn Station in Exchange for Unfreezing Tunnel Project Funds

Trump wants his fuckin name all over everything

There's a fantastic new IRS approved tax advantaged retirement savings account for newborn (and otherwise young) children. The asshole named it after himself and even called the tax form 4547. I'm considering skipping using it simply because of his name attached to it, but trump will be long gone when children owing these accounts finally put them to use, so I'll likely bite the bullet and use them anyway.

Trump wants his fuckin name all over everything

3d ago

Trump Reportedly Mulling Plan to Declare ‘National Emergency’ Paving Way for Major Power Grab

Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election

So the narrative they're going with is that China interfered with the election while trump in charge, and trump was powerless to detect or stop it, but that 4 years later President Biden was able to execute free, fair, and accurate elections?

They're admitting he's a loser and couldn't do the job?

3d ago

Anthropic says it ‘cannot in good conscience’ allow Pentagon to remove AI checks