I suppose this article about AI is as good as any to share my thoughts on the sheer inevitability of it being integrated into every aspect of our lives. This shouldn’t be taken as a value judgement - I’m not saying it’s a good thing. But the overwhelming utility, allure, and power of it is unstoppable. Artists worried about it making them irrelevant, concerns about distinguishing truth from fiction, impact on learning and development, etc. etc. etc.: all totally valid, but the discussion and planning both collectively and individually needs to start with the assumption that there is nothing anyone can do to stop it.

Taking the first example, if you’re an artist worried about AI replacing you, you need to start your thinking from a position of AI is absolutely going to make the “I can create an image” part of your value proposition worthless. Yes, a massive fraction of what you might have been able to get paid and recognized for in the past is now utterly irrelevant. Pleading with the public to not use AI, protesting, demanding legislation, praying - none of it will stop this reality from coming to be in your lifetime, probably within a few years at most.

I see a lot of comments and articles that don’t seem to understand this at all. They think there’s some way we can slow the adoption of AI in areas we think it’s harmful, or legislate a way into a desirable future, or whatever. They’re wrong. Whatever the future holds for us, it’s one where AI will be absolutely everywhere and massively disrupt society and industry as it exists today. Start your planning from that reality or you’re going to get blindsided.

This is probably the most perfect illustration of toxic empathy I have ever read.

I ride as part of my daily commute and have for decades. I am still constantly amazed at how frequently drivers move over for me. Especially when there’s a lot of traffic or congestion - these people are stuck going slow, see me going faster in their mirror, and their response is still to move aside for me. I’m eternally grateful to these people.

Still waiting on a new release of TinyFugue…

In the US this is protected by the first amendment. Exceptions apply only for military and government employees who agree to prosecution in such cases as a condition for employment or enlistment (getting a clearance, basically). For everyone else it is lawful.

Why is this nonsense degrowth article back only a week or so after it showed up here only about a week ago?

As defrost points out, we have a pretty damn good idea from the sampling maps we've built, and geological knowledge we've learned.

But the article is garbage.

When using an LLM for anything serious (such as at work) I have a standard canned postscript along the lines of “if anything about what I am asking is unclear or ambiguous, or if you need more context to understand what I’m asking, you will ask for clarification rather than try to provide an answer”. This is usually highly effective.

I don’t understand the comments here crowing about how this employee-owned company is a success story against capitalism or something. It was going to go out of business, employees bought it, they also couldn’t make it profitable and had to resort to effectively a gofundme to not collapse. And somehow this is a win against profit driven companies? Do you not see how utterly non-viable this is at scale?

Well the initial financial problems were under a traditional profit driven scheme. Almost certainy they wouldn't have got the donations they are getting today if they had remained in that model so the employee-owned scheme is at least somewhat better. It is also likely that, in addiiton to donations, they are getting extra sales by being employee-owened, at least in France.

Ultimately though it's probably the whole market theey are in (relatively cheap household goods) that is difficult for a company based in a rich country, whatever their ownership model.