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Which math is not physics (and chemistry)? Fundamentally, all these are same

The concept of infinity?

That's why it is a concept. We lack sufficient ability to measure physical world, introduce imperfect abstractions, thus need concepts like infinity.

you can verify it does what you want it to? How? Everything is a probability and so is your verification.

You're correct that verification *reduces* risk. It does not eliminate risk. Humans are imperfect. That does not mean that we should stop seeking understanding on principle though, because the journey towards that understanding improves outcomes.

Recall also that LLMs are not actually entities. In their current form, there is no sentience, there is no agency. They are tools. Therefore, their output must benefit the user that requested it. Right now, that's humans (and, ideally, the planet at large; we don't exist in a vacuum) and so it makes sense that humans should verify that output and try to ensure that it aligns with their goals.

That's not to say that the output of an LLM is useless, far from it. But we should still *try* to understand its output. It gives us at least some chance to notice flaws, and an even greater chance to appreciate the implications and tradeoffs of the solution it picked.


I don't disagree with anything you said. But the thread is about... LLM outputs, even if it cures cancer and solves world hunger, it is useless (it does not count for anything) if we don't understand it.

Interesting, I really don’t see your point. It would definitely be a lot more useful if we also understand it.

But extra lives saved definitely counts for a whole lot and is definitely useful.

One comparison I see: there are so many religious people that simply wish they are saved from their cancer (or whatever else). They pray for it. They don’t care how it happens. They simply want to live longer, etc.

It’s a sketch of an argument, I hope you know what I am getting at.


It is indeed skill issue.

You don't think crash will happen because XYZ. You _wish_ for the crash because you are hateful of progress that you are not part of.


Studies (e.g. METR) show AI programmers think they're better but they're worse.

METR has admitted that that study was flawed, and when they tried to rerun it they hit a snag: nobody wants to not use AI to code anymore!

Anthropic's own study showed the same, yet people ignore it.

assuredly true

> You _wish_ for the crash because you are hateful of progress that you are not part of.

Microsoft 2000

> You _wish_ for the crash because you are hateful of progress that you are not part of.

Facebook 2008

> You _wish_ for the crash because you are hateful of progress that you are not part of.

Cryptobros 2013

> You _wish_ for the crash because you are hateful of progress that you are not part of.

Altman/Dario/Musk 2020-onwards.

There might be a trend here...


Microsoft is a monopolist that makes some of the most hated products on earth.

Facebook has been shown to derange young minds and has been a nonstop firehose of disinformation into global public discourse.

Crypto moved an insane amount of wealth from the poor to the rich through and uncountable number of scams and empty promises.

These? These are what you call progress? Yes, the created wealth for a few individuals, but progress? No, my friend.


> Microsoft is a monopolist that makes some of the most hated products on earth

Really? That is quite a claim. You are talking about one of the worlds most successful software companies. What fact based research or large scale survey do you base that on?


I’ll cop to not having facts to back up the perception of its software, but its status as an illegal monopoly is cemented by its successful prosecution by the DOJ.

But Facebook is extremely successful. Some crypto companies are very successful. I don’t hold any of these up as exemplars of the progress of humanity.

EDIT: My response to the GP, whose claim was that the only reason for the haters is that in each case they wanted the business to fail because they weren’t part of it, should been, no, actually there were at the time other and valid reasons detractors of those companies thought the way they did, and the same is true this time.


I was being sarcastic. I hate all of those with a passion.

Bravo, the sarcasm went right over my head :)

Famously, Microsoft stop progressing after 2000. Facebook disappeared after 2008. BTC stopped appreciating since 2013. All the investors in these trends regretted it.

Yeah again, you’re confusing wealth accumulation for progress.

Why presume hate?

The diff is that owner is responsible for their own shit where a telco has everyone's things in there and is exposed to the whole world instead of just one street.

It is like a bank that has sloppy security and exposes you to the whole world, including adversaries from Russia china NK etc.

Things like Telco cloud banks should absolutely be thrashed for having bad security. Responsible disclosure should also be a thing but we all know these companies sue people for that too.


And they should get effed. Distilling should be a right.

You can "pace" yourself like that if you want. Don't shove your idiotic self-destructive ideas on to others. If you were president during invention of cars, we'd still be horse riding everywhere.

Shopify fully embraced AI for a long time. I invite you to blow them out of water and take the market. Go.

Getting bombarded by "Paypal" <somethingsomething@something.onmicrosoft.com> spam for months and Microsoft (outlook) can't handle that. This is beyond their level.

For anyone still fortunately-unfamilier: Microsoft has some supposedly limited-purpose e-mail notifications and invites which are quasi-legitimate... but they failed on the UX level, allowing spammers to pack seemingly-innocent fields like Organization Name with content that becomes the (apparent) main content of the e-mail.

Yeah; imagine getting not junk...actual PayPal phishing emails, daily, multiple, from onmicrosoft.com (owned by Microsoft), in Outlook (owned by Microsoft), and report phishing does nothing.

> The root domain onmicrosoft.com is owned and managed by Microsoft Corporation, which uses it as the default domain for Microsoft 365 and Azure cloud environments


imagine that these people have most money in the world. Bill Gates (owns MS). Elon Musk (owns / owned PayPal). Now stop wondering why and start using other services.

That seems like a non-sequitur.

Parent-poster wasn't lamenting monopolies, they were just incredulous that some supposedly well-resourced and integrated company still can't get its act together to stop a well-understood problem.


You can simply not talk if you don't want people to listen?

I think most people want to talk and have only the person they are talking to listen.

I think the times someone has something to say that is so sensitive they don't want a record of any kind kept, are rare unless you are a clandestine agent or military - and it's probably worth just asking those in literal earshot "Hey, I need to tell you something off the record, please make sure to turn off any AI transcription or similar."

IDK about you but most of the shit I say, I'd be happy for the hearer's assistant to be listening and potentially adding the things we agreed on to their to-do lists or calendars.


hmm. You talk to your coworker about some juicy gossip in cafe next to me. I have to put lead in my ears? and who cares about people with different languages, hearing difficulties etc etc...

Or you teach your kid that getting a pet also includes the experience of seeing it die. Then let him cry when the time comes.


You can do both, one doesn't exclude the other, they might be differently helpful in different situation/at different stages.


I'll keep that in mind.

Can you give some examples?


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