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The Cognitive Dark Forest

ryelang.org

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Re: The Cognitive Dark Forest

#51

Post by xantronix »

I have been mulling this over and I think I have some solutions in mind, at least for myself.

• No more sharing my project work as open source. No more open discussion. I don't care how badly I want to show the world; if I'd like somebody to see, I will have it printed in a physical book, or I will give them access to my private repository not reachable via the public Internet.

• Bring back LAN parties. Not for gaming necessarily, but for the purpose of exchanging works of engineering and art in an intimate, intentional way.

• Take this as an opportunity to build closer, longer-lasting relationships with people.

• No more emphasis on metrics. I can microdose on dopamine from natural sources, like, looking at a beautiful sky at sunset, or cuddling my dog.

• Open hardware, or, in the very least, hardware we can still control on our own volition. If this means we must be retrocomputing enthusiasts, then so be it.

Re: The Cognitive Dark Forest

#52

Post by 0x3f »

lstodd wrote: post #42
0x3f wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competition kills margins (profits, security, QoL), so the budget for eradication should be quite high, but generally speaking the idea is to destroy even fledgling upstarts, back when the cost is low.

And the idea does not make sense once you include intel being incomplete into the equation: what if the preemptive strike will not attain complete eradication? You might or might not fatally cripple the opponent, but retaliation can do that too and you cannot be sure that it won't. It's MAD all over again.

Well if they're only an upstart, they don't have the ability to destroy you _yet_. You 'nuke' them in the hope they won't get that ability. You're aiming to stop MAD from being a thing.

In those terms, the US should have been nuking and dominating everyone, and the idea was floated after WW2, but I believe they were precluded by practical limitations.

If they had developed the tech outside of wartime, and built up a stockpile, maybe that is indeed what would have happened and we'd have a one-world government already.

Re: The Cognitive Dark Forest

#53

Post by movedx »

If AI makes replicating other people’s ideas faster and easier, thus allowing capital-heavy market players to just absorb whatever idea you manage to execute, then perhaps, somewhat ironically, the economic moat you’ll have is your human nature, contact, and time? Perhaps we’ll see a shift in sentiment towards wanting to deal with and spend time with the people in the business, rather than just what the business can do for you and yours from a software perspective?

I believe the idea of “off-shoring” your IT is a good example of this. My brother works for a business whose clients would drop them the moment they off-shored any aspect of their IT support. Not because of data sovereignty, but simply because they value them being on-shore, in the same time zone, and being native English speakers. And this is despite the fact it would drop the prices they’re paying for IT by 30-40%.

Re: The Cognitive Dark Forest

#54

Post by AnimalMuppet »

cbau wrote: post #18
king_phil wrote: post #3

Dark forest makes no sense to me. Why would a civilization eradicate another, spending huge amounts of resources (time, energy, material) when the universe has such an enormous scale that you cannot even get to each other in a timescale that makes much sense...

To quote from the book: > “First: Survival is the primary need of civilization. Second: Civilization continuously grows and expands, but the total matter in the universe remains constant. One more thing: To derive a basic picture of cosmic sociology from these two axioms, you need two other important concepts: chains of suspicion and the technological explosion.” 1. you can never know the intentions of other entities…

It's first-order thinking. Second-order would be to question whether trying to eradicate another race might motivate them to eradicate you, when they weren't motivated to do it before.

Re: The Cognitive Dark Forest

#55

Post by lstodd »

0x3f wrote: post #52
lstodd wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the idea does not make sense once you include intel being incomplete into the equation: what if the preemptive strike will not attain complete eradication? You might or might not fatally cripple the opponent, but retaliation can do that too and you cannot be sure that it won't. It's MAD all over again.

Well if they're only an upstart, they don't have the ability to destroy you _yet_. You 'nuke' them in the hope they won't get that ability. You're aiming to stop MAD from being a thing. In those terms, the US should have been nuking and dominating everyone, and the idea was floated after WW2, but I believe they were precluded by practical limitations. If they had developed the tech outside of wartime, and built up a…

Point is you cannot know if they are an upstart (whatever upstart means). It can be misinterpretation, it can be camoflage, it can be anything. But once you rain death you're better be prepared to be grateful for what you are about to receive back.

Re: The Cognitive Dark Forest

#57

Post by Chance-Device »

> I wrote this knowing it feeds the thing I’m warning you about. That’s not a contradiction. That’s the condition.

HN needs a better AI slop filter.

Or maybe I do. Maybe I can vibe code a browser extension that pre loads TFA links and auto hides anything that isn’t sufficiently human authored.

Re: The Cognitive Dark Forest

#58

Post by simianwords »

Can someone explain what I'm missing here?

If we are talking about releasing OpenSource software, they can already be used by companies with zero effort.

I'm guessing the author is talking about released closed source software or simply talking about ideas? What kind of serious company or startup is building in the open and sharing trade secrets or ideas?

I'm genuinely confused and I think this article is pure slop without any core idea.

Re: The Cognitive Dark Forest

#59

Post by djeastm »

nicbou wrote: post #27
scottlawson wrote: post #4

The thesis that in the past it was safe to share ideas and projects because the execution was hard, and that now things have changed because of AI is an interesting AI, but I wonder if it is really true. It certainly seems true that for small projects and relatively narrow scoped things that AI can replicate them easily. I'm thinking specifically about blog posts where people share their first steps and simple progra…

The problem for me is that I'm competing with the AI results that Google trained on my work. I'm losing the majority of my traffic to it, so at some point I'll have to give up because the work no longer supports me and no longer has an audience.

Same here. Knowledge is being commodified.

Re: The Cognitive Dark Forest

#60

Post by 0x3f »

lstodd wrote: post #55
0x3f wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if they're only an upstart, they don't have the ability to destroy you _yet_. You 'nuke' them in the hope they won't get that ability. You're aiming to stop MAD from being a thing. In those terms, the US should have been nuking and dominating everyone, and the idea was floated after WW2, but I believe they were precluded by practical limitations. If they had developed the tech outside of wartime, and built up a…

Point is you cannot know if they are an upstart (whatever upstart means). It can be misinterpretation, it can be camoflage, it can be anything. But once you rain death you're better be prepared to be grateful for what you are about to receive back.

Depends on the context. We certainly knew nobody else had nukes.
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