The quirkiness of the Tranquility Calendar is mildly beautiful, between the second man on the moon getting snubbed with the every four year leap day (which for no good reason still happens around Feb 29!), [I guess Collins gets even more snubbed by not appearing at all] to the more diverse than expected list of honored “scientists/scholars”, until you realize the main reason is just to keep the ABCD naming pattern for the months.

you ask a hunter and not a deer.

The sad lens into their prevalent relationship with “correcting biases” being more about dominance in “trickery” rather than becoming better people. (and also entrenched misogyny.)

I was thinking “Hey I want that markdown!” (although maybe not for time magazine), but the actual example is dystopian.

If you want to stare at the abyss it’s achievable with curl -H 'user-agent: ClaudeBot' https://url_to_article, and it’s like 70% SEO crap tailored to brainwash LLMs (more realistically “agents” in limited context).

At my place It has reached the stage of: use AI to "improve" your work, be careful about budget though!

I think he falls under the category of “does too much all the time” and “vaguely techo optimist” which definitely put him at risk. I’m not too sure how harshly I should judge him yet, I guess it depends on what he does next.

Congrats.

It continues to amaze me how much digital ink they can spill about this issue.

You’ve gotta love falling for the reverse 1 grain of sand shtick. I don’t think anyone anyone serious would deny that a large amount of sand is a heap.

Encyclical from the pope about the dangers of AI, mostly sane actually: (provided link skips quite a bit about social justice and referencing previous literature)

https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html#Artificial_intelligence

EDIT, snippets:

107. We cannot be satisfied with […] the so-called “alignment” of AI […] without […] openly discussing the ethical frameworks involved and subjecting them to shared standards of social justice. Otherwise, those who control AI will impose their own moral vision, which will become the invisible infrastructure of these systems. A more moral AI is not enough if that morality is determined by a few. […]

117. [ about post and transhumanism ] From the perspective of the Church’s Social Doctrine, the key issue is not the use of technology as such, but the vision that underlies it. If the human being is treated as something to be perfected or surpassed, it becomes easier to accept that some lives are less useful, less desirable or less worthy. In the name of progress, “necessary sacrifices” may begin to be justified, placing the burden on the most vulnerable in pursuit of a supposed optimization of the species. […]

Also what is even the meaning of adding citations if you never came across the source?

[I vaguely understand that there is a lot of window-dressing that comes with writing papers, but this is too perverse.]

The dreaded midnight hour of oblivion!

Agreed, agreed.

EDIT: Though as far as ambiguous anarchist utopias go, I think I’d rather live on Anarres in “The Dispossessed”, even though the material welfare and personal freedoms are much much lower.

You’ve gotta love finding fault with “not preserving heritage” over “imperialistic complete lack of democracy”.

I would phrase this as “good marks” and “foolish” rather than “stupid”, it’s important to stay humble enough that no one is safe from a con.

Echoing something that has been said here before (too lazy to find proper credit sorry): “Rationality™ is a get smart quick scheme”, falling for one family of scams makes you more likely to fall for a similar one.

There are some amazing justifications from many amongst the red-pushing side:

• “But if everyone presses red, nobody dies!” (As if that would every happen. Funnily enough strong overlap with the group that claims that “< 90 IQ can’t reason about hypotheticals”, although that is also just that part of twitter.)
• “People who press blue are just blackmailing us!” (I think this accounts for a large portion, ie: not liking to depend on others).
• “The number of people choosing blue can’t be that high! (It would be lower in a true-stakes scenario!)”
• [Many others, but these are those that come to mind.]

It’s a bit baffling how many strongly they refuse the “blue-selection” as possibly moral/rational. Even so far as calling people pressing blue evil or subhuman, simply baffling.

• TV Show: Extraordinary, quirky take on the superhero genre, cancelled after 2 seasons.
• Anime: Because I like space battles anime, the Honorverse by David Weber (not great sci-fi, but one of my guilty pleasures).
• Obligatory Movie: “Le Roi et l’Oiseau” [The King and the Mockingbird] (animation edition)
• I want my long version of the thunderbird edition of Stargate sg1 (see episode 200).

I don’t meet that many people either, but I get the general vibe that people understand that it’s somewhat shitty, but it still fills a social need (compare/contrast horoscopes).

Completely anecdotally, I recently saw a short video of a french woman, saying to an impressive know-it-all-tv-quizz-champion [intended as a compliment I think]: “Wow you sound like Chat GPT!”

Too me that was very illustrative of the perception of Chat GPT from a less tech-literate perspective.

Shame alone isn’t enough though, especially not for the stuff people do in private, like ask LLMs for advice. Push too much shame and people might just end up simply doing it without telling anyone.

I think rephrasing the main point of the essay “Teach people enough, and they will understand that any use is misuse” can be a very powerful idea.

Teach people about germs, contaminants and proper technique, before shaming them into washing their hands.

Ahh sh*t if all my rent-seeking employee-reducing dreams come true, i’ll lose money on my product subscriptions rents! Quick! I should come up with bullshit that will solve everything!