We don’t even have standards that strong in programming languages or even fucking machine code (ISAs) anymore.

I think I would like to return to that ideal time (if it ever existed), but… I feel like I’m in a vanishingly small minority.

I think it comes down to incentive structure, and the most clear incentives push away from strong stnadards. The big advantage to (a) strong standard(s) is(are) interoperability, but that’s something end users have to demand because it’s an anathema to rent-seeking-behavior (a central facet of surveillance capitalism, choke-point capitalism, enshittification, and technofuedalism). But, even there, natural incentives fail us, since most users get more utility from “innovative” features instead of low switching costs – or at least the think they do until they actually try to exit a platform/service.

Repost. But, because of that, I get to share the name for this I learned last time: “Billy Irish”

I doubt I’ll get to try one, I’ll have to get off the bupropion first.

Sort of. A friend used it to generate some “tests” of questionable quality, a cousin is using it to help her learn and use a DSL (my term, not hers) for interactive tasks for her students, another friend was using it for source code generation, but I don’t recall the specific results.

I disagree that it is no longer development, I see LLMs as yet another tool for generating code, and we’ve had generated “source” code since before C was standardized. I think the any code output by most LLMs is derivative of so many works under so many licenses that it is likely not possible to distribute it at all without violating some copyright and is certainly unacceptable for any Free Software project.; I think this is ethically true even if courts find LLM outputs are not derivative works or not subject to copyright protection at all – at least as long as copyright protects Disney. But, I know people that are working on a Free Software LLM, and “the Stack” provides enough information that you could provide all the necessary attributions for works derived from it.

While LLM hallucinations are a real concern, they can be less impactful when doing code generation because of all the automated static checks plus the culture of peer-review. But, I also tend to favor languages with static type systems.

As a member of GenX (1980)…

Yep, that sounds like my peers. Most of them believe the marketing or are at least convinced enough to indulge. The hold-outs are getting more infrequent.

Well, if it’s good enough for quartz mining…

Good, the children yearn for the lithium mines. /s

Maybe I should re-train from computer programmer to lithium miner?

Not the person you asked, but I’d guess it’s multi-factorial. First that LLM-based summaries ARE generally higher quality than the pre-LLM summary tools output. Second, that LLMs are being given away free at point of prompt and are easily found; while summarizing tools have existed at least since 2000 (MS Word contained one), they were not easily found and usually involved purchasing some larger software collection, or a onerous install process. Third, everyone* hates** reading: if you’ve ever has user-support as part of your job, you’ve probably has at least one user where the message they read to you off of their screen tells them exactly what to do, but they chose to call you before really reading the message.

Also, I’m not sure what “long” is. It can be really hard to keep enough attention on something though 100s of pages, especially when it’s not trying to be engaging and is rather dry.

To OP, I would say that you might want to rethink using an LLM summary for any decision process. The LLM architecture makes “hallucinations” inevitable so eventually you are going to read an LLM summary that says the document includes something that it does NOT.

We already had (pre-2020) all the automation we needed to work less than 20 hr/wk and produce all the necessarily calories, fresh water, and housing for everyone. But, instead we chose to turn a few people into decabillionaires and continue to bicker over the scrap like we weren’t in a post-scarcity society.

LLMs, transformers, convolution layers, characteristic tensors, etc. all have some legitimately novel uses, but all the big “AI” product lines are unethically developed, irresponsibly deployed, and dishonestly marketed.

If you want an ethical chatbot, I recommend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apertus_(LLM) .

I don’t know of a ethical model that’s good for images or code, yet, but I know people are working on them. The IBM Gemini models are getting close, but I don’t know if IBM will ever get the training data completely “clean” / open / free.

I’ve been told that StarCoder is an ethically-trained free software model, but some of my research ( https://mot.isitopen.ai/model/StarCoder ) contradicts that assertion, and I’ve not looked into it deep enough to resolve that conflict myself. (IMO, we don’t actually need automated code generation, we need to write less code in better languages with better tests and more reuse; but you may not agree.)

If you ignore or are blissfully unaware of the negatives – and all the companies behind all the major product lines do their best to hide and minimize them – then it’s easy to find utility. Basically everyone I know IRL actively chooses to use AI for something. Both CRAP (Computer-Rendered Artificial Pictures) and code generation are very common.

When I point out the ethical issues, I am generally dismissed entirely (“they’ll fix that” or “my impact is small”) or counter with something about quality (“it works now” and “it’s getting better”), which I find is beside the point.

I’m not normal, but I’m guessing some mix of Instagram, TikTok, and Shorts. But, maybe there’s more casino / gatcha games, too.

• Gaslight
• Gatekeep
• Girlboss

Once there was mysterious gas arising from a crack in the ground. The gas was flammable, and when lit the light emitted turned anything illuminated into a female. No where else was this magic found, so fortifications were built around the crack to control and protect it, and they were staffed strongly and continuously. There was but one designed access point, and but one person that controlled the opening and closing of that access point: the girl-light gas-keep gate-boss.

Same: Little brother got Bumblelion. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure it got destroyed by a dog at some point.

I still have an Ele-roo stuffed toy in good condition.

Barney, I’m not introducing you to my sister.

I refuse to treat the lack of evidence the same as evidence. “Source: Trust me, bro” is not valid, whether “me” is “Internet Rando” or “Big Corp”.

https://wiredgourmet.medium.com/the-mandela-effect-is-a-racist-blunder-750b5d31d0c4

I’ve never been very creative, but I loved playing the flyswatter game inside Mario Paint.

Putting aside the problems in the current system, let’s not call Thiel’s system a justice system until we can see some results and verify they are just, 'k?

That’s basically the start of the Shadowrun dystopia. There were a lot of other things that “went wrong”, but when the government removed the liability from private security that has been protecting a hazardous materials transport from workers attacking it in the belief that it contained foodstuffs, it legitimized the “megacorp”: a corporation sufficiently powerful to impose their own legal system on their private real estate.

EDIT: In the previous histories the “Seretech Decision” was on 1999-10-26. Sources: 1 2 3 Looks like “6th edition” retconned the fictional history to start 2001-09-11 (Never Forget), so it’s unclear what and when the equivalent event is. Source: 4

I strongly recommend finishing “She-Ra and the Princess of Power” and/or “Amphibia”.

I’m a sucker for a Strong, Female Protagonist, and really anything by Lee Ostertag (partner of ND Stevenson) or Brennan Lee Mulligan.

(EDIT: Updated name; didn’t know about the name change when I first posted. Added parenthetical connecting second paragraph to the first.)