TechTakes

also, they misspelled "Eliezer", lol

The thing that kills me about this is that, speaking as a tragically monolingual person, the MTPE work doesn't sound like it's actually less skilled than directly translating from scratch. Like, the skill was never in being able to type fast enough or read faster or whatever, it was in the difficult process of considering the meaning of what was being said and adapting it to another language and culture. If you're editing chatbot output you're still doing all of that skilled work, but being asked to accept half as much money for it because a robot made a first attempt.

In terms of that old joke about auto mechanics, AI is automating the part where you smack the engine in the right place, but you still need to know where to hit it in order to evaluate whether it did a good job.

Oh, man, I have opinions about the people in this story. But for now I'll just comment on this bit:

Note that before this incident, the Malaney-Weinstein work received little attention due to its limited significance and impact. Despite this, Weinstein has suggested that it is worthy of a Nobel prize and claimed (with the support of Brian Keating) that it is “the most deep insight in mathematical economics of the last 25-50 years”. In that same podcast episode, Weinstein also makes the incendiary claim that Juan Maldacena stole such ideas from him and his wife.

The thing is, you can go and look up what Maldacena said about gauge theory and economics. He very obviously saw an article in the widely-read American Journal of Physics, which points back to prior work by K. N. Ilinski and others. And this thread goes back at least to a 1994 paper by Lane Hughston, i.e., years before Pia Malaney's PhD thesis. I've read both; Hughston's is more detailed and more clear.

Author works on ML for DeepMind but doesn’t seem to be an out and out promptfondler.

Quote from this post:

I found myself in a prolonged discussion with Mark Bishop, who was quite pessimistic about the capabilities of large language models. Drawing on his expertise in theory of mind, he adamantly claimed that LLMs do not understand anything – at least not according to a proper interpretation of the word “understand”. While Mark has clearly spent much more time thinking about this issue than I have, I found his remarks overly dismissive, and we did not see eye-to-eye.

Based on this I'd say the author is LLM-pilled at least.

However, a fruitful outcome of our discussion was his suggestion that I read John Searle’s original Chinese Room argument paper. Though I was familiar with the argument from its prominence in scientific and philosophical circles, I had never read the paper myself. I’m glad to have now done so, and I can report that it has profoundly influenced my thinking – but the details of that will be for another debate or blog post.

Best case scenario is that the author comes around to the stochastic parrot model of LLMs.

E: also from that post, rearranged slightly for readability here. (the [...]* parts are swapped in the original)

My debate panel this year was a fiery one, a stark contrast to the tame one I had in 2023. I was joined by Jane Teller and Yanis Varoufakis to discuss the role of technology in autonomy and privacy. [[I was] the lone voice from a large tech company.]* I was interrupted by Yanis in my opening remarks, with claps from the audience raining down to reinforce his dissenting message. It was a largely tech-fearful gathering, with the other panelists and audience members concerned about the data harvesting performed by Big Tech and their ability to influence our decision-making. [...]* I was perpetually in defense mode and received none of the applause that the others did.

So also author is tech-brained and not "tech-fearful".

Rolls-Royce are looking at this as a big sack with a "£" on the side.

Interesting wondering if they manage to come further in the process than our gov, which seems to restart the process every few years, and then either discovers nobody wants to do it (it being building bigger reactors, not the smaller ones, which iirc from a post here are not likely two work out) for a reasonable price, or the gov falls again over their lies about foreigners and we restart the whole voting cycle again. (It is getting really crazy, our fused green/labour party is now being called the dumbest stuff by the big rightwing liberal party (who are not openly far right, just courting it a lot)).

29 okt are our new elections. Lets see what the ratio between formation and actually ruling is going to be this time. (Last time it took 223 days for a cabinet to form, and from my calculations they ruled for only 336 days).

So, as I have been on a cult comparison kick lately, how did it work for those doomsday cults when the world didn't end, and they picked a new date, did they become more radicalized or less? (I'm not sure myself, I'd assume it would be the people disappointed leave, and the rest get worse).

E: ah: https://slate.com/technology/2011/05/apocalypse-2011-what-happens-to-a-doomsday-cult-when-the-world-doesn-t-end.html

... prophecies, per se, almost never fail. They are instead component parts of a complex and interwoven belief system which tends to be very resilient to challenge from outsiders. While the rest of us might focus on the accuracy of an isolated claim as a test of a group’s legitimacy, those who are part of that group—and already accept its whole theology—may not be troubled by what seems to them like a minor mismatch. A few people might abandon the group, typically the newest or least-committed adherents, but the vast majority experience little cognitive dissonance and so make only minor adjustments to their beliefs. They carry on, often feeling more spiritually enriched as a result.

look at me, the thinking man, i update myself just like a computer beep boop beep boop

Clown world.

How many times will he need to revise his silly timeline before media figures like Kevin Roose stop treating him like some kind of respectable authority? Actually, I know the answer to that question. They'll keep swallowing his garbage until the bubble finally bursts.

Oh my god, they're showing signs of sentience.

I get the idea they're going for: that coding ability is a leading indicator for progress towards AGI. But even if you ignore how nonsensical the overall graph is the argument itself is still begging the question of how much actual progress and capability it has to write code rather than spitting out code-shaped blocks of text that can successfully compile.

That picture does indeed has words, numbers, and lines on it.

Surely they have proof for the already increased capabilities of coding. Because increased capabilities is quite something to claim. It isn't just productivity, but capabilities. Can they put a line on the graph where capabilities reach the 'can solve the knapsack problem correctly and fast' bit?

Ah yes let’s use AI to get rid of the drudgery and toil so humanity can do the most enjoyable activity of writing OKRs

So they're saying their present product can't do much of anything

Chat wtf is this curve?

Looking at the replies and quotes of a Bluesky post that shared some anti-AI headlines, one definitely gets the sense that a segment of the population will greet the bubble popping with joy not seen since Kissinger died.