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A portentous reunion

bcantrill.dtrace.org

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Re: A portentous reunion

#11

Post by hedgehog »

bcantrill wrote: post #2

I know I have already written a (long!) piece on this, so I don't want to expand too much here -- but this really was a very odd experience, to be talking with (understandably!) anxious parents of young adults about the peril of dehumanization while at the same time having this intensely human experience very much enabled by an LLM. More than anything, it reinforced something that I think many of us believe: the futu…

I've done some tool-assisted ports (including without original source), the work you already did is probably 1/4 of the way to a web-hosted Rust BattleTris.

Re: A portentous reunion

#12

Post by sanderjd »

keybored wrote: post #5

> I just attended my thirtieth college reunion, and there were some clear trends among my mid-life peers. First among them: grave concern for what AI means for our future and for the future of our (broadly young adult) kids. Bryan Cantrill is a tech CTO. The last time I saw his name was talking with Simon W. about how LLM companies need an Obama figure. (Not necessarily saying it as in, I hope they get an Obama figur…

> Why use Claude then?

I don't understand this question in response to the quote preceding it. He just explained why Claude was useful in this instance.

Re: A portentous reunion

#13

Post by fasterik »

Re: the anxiety of parents about the future: the people who best handle rapidly changing circumstances are the ones who are comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty. I think it's far less important to teach young people specific skills in technology X, and far more important to teach them how to regulate their emotions, how to make plans and effectively execute on them, and how to be objective about their own strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be something that a standard education focuses on, so whether or not you pick up these skills depends on whether your parents explicitly taught them to you or you happened to get lucky enough to develop them on your own.

Re: A portentous reunion

#15

Post by wat10000 »

fasterik wrote: post #13

Re: the anxiety of parents about the future: the people who best handle rapidly changing circumstances are the ones who are comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty. I think it's far less important to teach young people specific skills in technology X, and far more important to teach them how to regulate their emotions, how to make plans and effectively execute on them, and how to be objective about their own stren…

One of my favorite quotes, from Stephenson's The Diamond Age:

"The difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent. The difference between stupid and intelligent people—and this is true whether or not they are well-educated—is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations—in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward."

Re: A portentous reunion

#16

Post by fasterik »

wat10000 wrote: post #15
fasterik wrote: post #13

Re: the anxiety of parents about the future: the people who best handle rapidly changing circumstances are the ones who are comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty. I think it's far less important to teach young people specific skills in technology X, and far more important to teach them how to regulate their emotions, how to make plans and effectively execute on them, and how to be objective about their own stren…

One of my favorite quotes, from Stephenson's The Diamond Age : "The difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent. The difference between stupid and intelligent people—and this is true whether or not they are well-educated—is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or eve…

Great quote. Thanks for reminding me I need to check out Neal Stephenson!

Re: A portentous reunion

#17

Post by XorNot »

trebligdivad wrote: post #7
bcantrill wrote: post #2

I know I have already written a (long!) piece on this, so I don't want to expand too much here -- but this really was a very odd experience, to be talking with (understandably!) anxious parents of young adults about the peril of dehumanization while at the same time having this intensely human experience very much enabled by an LLM. More than anything, it reinforced something that I think many of us believe: the futu…

Perhaps the uncertainty is more to do with the public being able to see this new tech; think what's happened in those 30 years, some of which you as a techie would have been well aware of but most people were clueless about. Those of us using PDAs at the time, most of the public didn't imagine constant wireless connectivity and powerful computers in their pockets. Networked games, neat tricks bunches of geeks ran at…

AI is absurdly, massively centralized though.

You don't own it. You can't own it. Access can be removed at any time.

This situation may not persist but it's not like traditional pillars of society have demonstrated any incentive or even a perception of obligation to act in the public interest lately.

Re: A portentous reunion

#18

Post by cindyllm »

wat10000 wrote: post #15
fasterik wrote: post #13

Re: the anxiety of parents about the future: the people who best handle rapidly changing circumstances are the ones who are comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty. I think it's far less important to teach young people specific skills in technology X, and far more important to teach them how to regulate their emotions, how to make plans and effectively execute on them, and how to be objective about their own stren…

One of my favorite quotes, from Stephenson's The Diamond Age : "The difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent. The difference between stupid and intelligent people—and this is true whether or not they are well-educated—is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or eve…

[dead]

Re: A portentous reunion

#19

Post by toast0 »

On the topic of tetris conflicts with weapons. There's also Tetrinet, for win32 over ip; up to six players IIRC?. Or Tetris Battle Gaiden on Super Famicom for single screen gaming.

Re: A portentous reunion

#20

Post by mikestaas »

XorNot wrote: post #17
trebligdivad wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the uncertainty is more to do with the public being able to see this new tech; think what's happened in those 30 years, some of which you as a techie would have been well aware of but most people were clueless about. Those of us using PDAs at the time, most of the public didn't imagine constant wireless connectivity and powerful computers in their pockets. Networked games, neat tricks bunches of geeks ran at…

AI is absurdly, massively centralized though. You don't own it. You can't own it. Access can be removed at any time. This situation may not persist but it's not like traditional pillars of society have demonstrated any incentive or even a perception of obligation to act in the public interest lately.

Local LLMs are getting pretty darn good.
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