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I Received an AI Email

timharek.no

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Re: I Received an AI Email

#281

Post by k8sagic »

sph wrote: post #180
taylorius wrote: post #161

The future - megawatts of electricity being used, 24/7 as armies of LLMs email and debate each other, and try to sell each other programs at a great discount. As for the humans, we went fishing instead.

People cry about Bitcoin's energy usage now, imagine the amount of energy burned to create next-level spam with "AI". Flame me all you want, but this is one case where Bitcoin is much more useful than LLM. If it doesn't create value, as its naysayers claim, at least it allows exchanging value. LLMs on the other hand, burn electricity to actively destroy the Internet's value, for the profit of inept and greedy drones.

AI solves gigantic issues and helps us with cancer, protein folding, potentially math and other studies, material science etc.

Bitcoin consumes as much energy as a country and has basically done nothing besides moving money from one group of people to a random other group of people.

And bitcoin is also motivated to find the cheapest energy independent of any ethical reasoning (taking energy from cheap chinese hydro and disrupting local energy networks) while AI will have energy from the richest companies in the world (ms, google, etc.) which already working on co2 neutral 24/7.

Re: I Received an AI Email

#282

Post by k8sagic »

b112 wrote: post #278
throwaway0665 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin has one application where as there are multiple applications of LLMs. There might be mountains of noxious AI spam but it's hard to claim that Bitcoin as a technology is more useful.

So far, I haven't seen a useful application of LLMs. So far. I've seen things that are wildly hobbled, and wildly inaccurate. I've seen endless companies running around, trying to improve on things. I've seen people looking in wonder at LLMs making mistakes 2 year olds don't. Most LLM usage seems to be in two categories. Replace people's jobs with wildly inaccurate and massively broken output, or trick people into do…

AI is not just LLMs. AlphaFold for example moved a critical goal post for everyone of us.

bitcoin is only negative. It consumes terrawatts of energy for nothing.

Re: I Received an AI Email

#283

Post by rogual »

I received a nice email the other day after one of my blog posts got posted on HN.

It said:

Hi -

Just a note to say I'm a big fan of your writing. I always learn something and love your voice, which is hilarious and singular.

Write a book!

Best,

{Name}

{Link to sender's startup}

{Link to sender's substack}

New to writing online, it made me feel really good that someone enjoyed what I wrote and took the time to write and say so.

After reading this piece, though, I went back and read it again, and I just don't know. It's not quite GPT's usual voice, but it is strangely non-specific.

The startup is an AI startup, the person's Substack is full of generative AI illustrations, and they do seem like an AI fan, but reading their posts, they also seem like someone who's genuinely interested in preventing a dystopia.

I suppose receiving encouraging emails from strangers is just another situation that'll have us looking over our shoulders now, on guard, trying to walk the line between naivety and paranoia.

Re: I Received an AI Email

#284

Post by DonHopkins »

okal wrote: post #133
saturn8601 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology ruins everything it touches doesn't it? I was recently thinking about this Ozempic fad and how it will lead to no one being overweight but just be dependant on Ozempic...until food producers that made everyone fat in the first place with their processed junk will produce Ozempic resistant foods...and then we are really in a world of hurt.

What incentive do they have to make Ozempic resistant food? Ozempic resistance seems like an odd thing to optimize for. Or are you suggesting it will happen accidentally?

Read Philip K Dick's "A Scanner Darkly" (or see the movie). They're forcing overweight people in Ozempic rehab to farm the ingredients to make more Ozempic!

Re: I Received an AI Email

#285

Post by CoastalCoder »

otherme123 wrote: post #245
ossyrial wrote: post #238

The author links to the somewhat dystopian blog where the email sender is quite proud of their work. Their words (or perhaps that of an LLM): > Could an AI agent craft compelling emails that would capture people's attention and drive engagement, all while maintaining a level of personalization that feels human? I decided to find out. > The real hurdle was ensuring the emails seemed genuinely personalized and not spam…

The guy writes a post about how to send spam effectively, and then offers the subscription link in the end with "Promise we won't spam you". Yes, I totally trust you...

It sounds like extortion.

"I'm sending spam that sneaks past your spam filter. Sign up to make it stop."

Re: I Received an AI Email

#286

Post by freehorse »

kamilner wrote: post #236
giorgioz wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very cool! Could you go deeper into your setup? Which email client do you use to view/manage the catch all emails? Did you host the email on Google Gsuite or AWS SES or something else?

I do the same as the poster above, fastmail supports it directly and makes it very easy to manage. All you have to do is bring your own domain (they'll even manage your DKIM/SPF records etc as necessary if you want). Edit: Apparently you can also purchase a domain directly through them if you prefer, although you have to be a paying customer for 7 days first https://www.fastmail.com/how-to/email-for-your-domain/

I use simplelogin with proton for that, they give you a few subdomains to do the same.

Re: I Received an AI Email

#287

Post by k8sagic »

richrichie wrote: post #265
TeMPOraL wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is literally turning greed into money, by means of wasting exponentially increasing amounts of electricity. It doesn't just not create value - to be able to allow exchanging value, it fundamentally requires ever increasing waste, as the waste is what gives its mathematical guarantees. LLMs deliver value. Right here today, to countless people across countless jobs. Sure, some of that is marketing, but that's n…

> It doesn't just not create value Value is a subjective concept. One could argue that its value is that arbitrary quantities of it cannot be created by dictat. > - to be able to allow exchanging value, it fundamentally requires ever increasing waste, as the waste is what gives its mathematical guarantees. One could argue that it takes a lot worse to maintain any currency such as USD as a currency. Full force of gove…

But we do know that the Proof of Stake system we currently have, is a lot cheaper and more advanced than what Bitcoin does.

Bitcoin doesn't solve any problem yet which is fundamental to our society and a fiat system like the trust issue:

If i exchange 1 bitcoin with you for any service or thing outside of the blockchain, i need the whole proof of stack system protection of our normal existing money infrastructure like lawyers, contracts etc.

And no smart contracts do not solve this issue.

What is left? Small amount of transactions per day with high fees 'but' decentralized infrastructure run by someone we all don't know aggregated probably in data centers owned by big companies.

Re: I Received an AI Email

#288

Post by DonHopkins »

zoky wrote: post #54
cranberryturkey wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Please could you reduce that in size by 80% to generate a quick summary?

And keep iterating until you pick a single letter of the alphabet or emoji that encapsulates the essence of what you are trying to communicate.

Re: I Received an AI Email

#289

Post by kmacdough »

k8sagic wrote: post #281
sph wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People cry about Bitcoin's energy usage now, imagine the amount of energy burned to create next-level spam with "AI". Flame me all you want, but this is one case where Bitcoin is much more useful than LLM. If it doesn't create value, as its naysayers claim, at least it allows exchanging value. LLMs on the other hand, burn electricity to actively destroy the Internet's value, for the profit of inept and greedy drones.

AI solves gigantic issues and helps us with cancer, protein folding, potentially math and other studies, material science etc. Bitcoin consumes as much energy as a country and has basically done nothing besides moving money from one group of people to a random other group of people. And bitcoin is also motivated to find the cheapest energy independent of any ethical reasoning (taking energy from cheap chinese hydro a…

The benefit is all for naught if it undermines the fabric of society at the same time. All these benefits will only go to the few who land on top of this mess.

It's continuing to widen the wealth gap as it is.

Re: I Received an AI Email

#290

Post by CoastalCoder »

cornholio wrote: post #274
ossyrial wrote: post #238

The author links to the somewhat dystopian blog where the email sender is quite proud of their work. Their words (or perhaps that of an LLM): > Could an AI agent craft compelling emails that would capture people's attention and drive engagement, all while maintaining a level of personalization that feels human? I decided to find out. > The real hurdle was ensuring the emails seemed genuinely personalized and not spam…

News at 11, spammers use sophisticated techniques to increase the profitability of spam. This is absolutely shocking and never before seen, what is the world coming to. In all seriousness, manipulation and bullshit generation emerges as the single major real world use of AI. It's not good enough yet to solve the big problems of the world: medical diagnostic, auto accidents, hunger. Maybe just a somewhat better search…

I don't think this is unique to this specific technology.

People can be both wonderful and despicable, regardless of era or mechanism.

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