AI:

AI researchers are the worst. Some of them, anyway. Asking an AI about itself is just inciting it to write a fiction that matches the context it is given. It cannot think, plot, plan, feel, expect, want, need, hate, love, or respect people. It doesn’t have any ability to query its own mind because it doesn’t have one, but it will happily invent fiction about its thought process (not unlike humans in that respect).

There are certain positions I would probably be very good at from a technical perspective that I avoid because I know my myself. I could never work for the CIA or FBI for example. I don’t want to know their secrets because they could have me weigh a duty to execute my job and protect my family against my duty to humanity. I don’t know which principle I would betray, if grappling with it didn’t kill me first. Some might think that’s an easy choice but the personal cost is extreme — look at Snowden.

No, keep me far away from that shit. Let me grapple with intellectual problems all day long, but moral quandaries paralyze me.

So I have frequently worked in projects where I don’t know how end users interact with the software. I can make code hum without knowing how it fits into the ecosystem. Sometimes that’s all the job is because that’s the structure.

That said, I can contribute a lot more if I do understand the bigger picture. Domain knowledge helps me triage. It helps me propose effective alternatives. I’d say it is critical for understanding separation of concerns and deciding what compromises to recommended practices are reasonable.

I reject this principle. You can write code without domain knowledge, but software by itself has no purpose until it meets users. And to write software that works best for users you have to understand them.

I think she’s right. There’s nuance, of course, if one wants to split hairs, but that is the essence of it. I once very roughly calculated how many engineer salaries could’ve been paid instead of Bill Gates and the number is hundreds. You can’t tell me Bill produced more work of quantity or quality that exceeds those engineers. Probably not even 5% of them even if you buy into the idea that he’s a super-genius.

You cannot earn a billion dollars. You have to steal it piece by piece from others.

Proposed name: New Epstein.

We try to cancel every once in a while, but somehow within the following 30 days someone always has one thing they want to watch. It’s like they watch for us to cancel and then send an ad to one of the kids, “Hey, all the vtubers are watching this thing, so you want to right?”

Glad to have you. Honestly, I think the smaller community makes it better. Even if there is no unending firehose of memes and shitposts here. You can run out.

Same.

shrug Fuck that place.

Open app.

See this.

Close app.

I’ll try again in a few months. Maybe.

Are these the same researchers baffled by fucking magnets?

Well it all depends on your perspective of what “everything” is that needs solving.

I had to move several states in a big 28’ truck. I wasn’t used to the truck and I wasn’t used to where we stopped for a hotel. I was following GPS and it wanted me to take an onramp that crossed traffic and just… turn sharply.

So I did a 3-point turn in the middle of a busy 4 lane divided highway, blocking about 20 cars for most of the duration of the green light. My wife, who was driving separately and following along told me after got to the hotel that I had several cars of people honking and yelling obscenities and flipping birds. I couldn’t hear or see any of it in that truck. I hope they went on to have a better traffic experience. I might not be so charitable, had I heard them.

It’ll keep happening even after the day you don’t wake up. Life is insidious that way.

Nah, actually I enjoy life more days than not. But opinions vary.

So let’s say for a brief moment that I want to wear an AI around everywhere I go. Of what use would it be to have all of them? Am I supposed to poll Grok, Claude, and ChatGPT and majority wins? Or do I just pick my favorite answer? Are they going to argue it out?

I can’t keep the names of my kids straight when I call to them, why the fuck would I want to remember a dozen more names?

Shit, I could’ve answered that particular question for free had anyone asked.

Honestly, at this point I think MAGA are just fin-subs and like it that way. Keep sending Daddy Don your social security checks you little fin-cucks.

I would grant them a modicum of grace if they hadn’t had 40 fucking years to see what he was about. But they had it. And they chose this.

CONGRATU… lations. Sorry about the job, mate. I hope that turns around for you.

My wife and I both work from home, and we have a PHEV. Of course gas prices will trickle down into transportation costs which raises the cost of non-local goods, and that affects us, but it’s nice not to feel the first-order effects of Trump’s imbecility.

I use Suno a fair bit from time to time. I spend a lot of time refining the lyrics and then I play around with music generation until I find the right vehicle for them. It really scratches an itch because I haven’t written poetry for decades and I’ve never been able to write songs.

The result is music I really enjoy listening to and is meaningful to me (“meaningful” in quotes because some of it is just pop fluff). But one else wants to listen to it. And that’s fine, I’m really just doing it for me.

I have yet to hear anyone else’s AI generated songs that I gave a shit about, either. I think it’s like the uncanny valley, except I can’t tell the difference between generated and real music. But there’s a je ne sais quoi that real music has generated music just… lacks. And it’s only in the process of working on a piece that it takes on that quality, but only for the individual — probably because they attach to their input rather than the generated quality of the rest.

Anyway, people will get away with AI stuff in the background where something real commands attention, but if you ever make it a focus, i think people will tune out. You can just feel the… soullessness.