https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/LeftBeyond From 2015. Could a LLM be used to help coordinate a resistance movement?
Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is probably a better-known example of that.
Reverse centaurs are the answer to the AI paradox (2025)
31–40 of 77 posts
Re: Reverse centaurs are the answer to the AI paradox (2025)
#32> what crypto will leave behind is bad Austrian economics and worse monkey JPEGs
its what the crypto industry will leave behind, and you could say the main bubble already burst when ftx went bankrupt.
the defining property of public blockchains is they are designed to never go down, and the biggest ones like ethereum probably never will until its replaced by something objectively better. if you take off the scams (aka most of the industry) what youre left with is one of the missing pieces for a real fully decentralized internet.
first off, ethereum is a real alternative to iana and icann. todays open web, atproto and fediverse all depend on dns for name resolution. that system is managed by a single us based corporation thats technically controlled by a non profit but always submits to big tech demands with things like branded tlds and trademark disputes. if you replace that you get a single global authority thats fully transparent and runs on consensus instead of arbitrary decisions.
the other side is anonymous payments. the good thing crypto did in finance is not pumpfun type schemes or centralized stablecoins that run on their issuers word. its systems like railgun or tornado cash (rip) that give you the privacy of cash without risk of counterfeit money or getting set up at a sale. it doesnt matter if its illegal (and some uses of it probably should be illegal like a business doing tax evasion), just that its out there as a fallback in case digital payment systems turn against the public.
crypto is not the world saving end all technology all the scammers want you to believe it is. its way more limited in scope but what it actually gives us is one more tool to get around big tech and oppressive governments. imo thats worth all the damage it caused.
Re: Reverse centaurs are the answer to the AI paradox (2025)
#33Doctorow has consistently one of the most sober takes on AI in my opinion. He acknowledges that we are in a bubble right now, but also understands that underlying tech has actual merit to it. And he does a good job explaining how the issues people project onto this technology isn't inherent to it, but rather stems from capitalist relations in our society.
Re: Reverse centaurs are the answer to the AI paradox (2025)
#34[deleted]
Re: Reverse centaurs are the answer to the AI paradox (2025)
#35> while the climate costs of creating those models is terrible, they're here now
> It doesn't matter what happens to Openai; Whisper is here to stay.
Yes and No. They may be here now, but they will be outdated tommorrow.
Re: Reverse centaurs are the answer to the AI paradox (2025)
#36(2025) Doctorow has a book-length version of this, "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI", which I just read. It's not one of his better works. It's all conventional anti-AI wisdom. Too much of it is about the impact of AI on the punditry and writing industries. I expected better from Doctorow. I would have expected more focus on the relationship between AI and power. Doctorow has been down that road in his f…
Does anyone know what incentivised citizens to cooperate with the Stasi?
Re: Reverse centaurs are the answer to the AI paradox (2025)
#37> This is a political act of resistance. Margaret Thatcher's motto, after all, was "There is no alternative," by which she meant, "Stop trying to think of alternatives." The bully's trick is to present your defeat as a fait accompli: "Resistance is futile." More broadly, that trick is the most effective and important today: No matter the issue, people - including on HN - will tell you how powerless they are and how p…
The only way out for climate change is through. While we're doing crazy things like data centers in space, we "just" have to capture CO2 from the air and store it. While that will take some revolutionary breakthroughs in materials science and engineering, all we can do is dump money into those areas and hope they pan out. And despair a little less.
Re: Reverse centaurs are the answer to the AI paradox (2025)
#38(2025) Doctorow has a book-length version of this, "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI", which I just read. It's not one of his better works. It's all conventional anti-AI wisdom. Too much of it is about the impact of AI on the punditry and writing industries. I expected better from Doctorow. I would have expected more focus on the relationship between AI and power. Doctorow has been down that road in his f…
Does anyone know what incentivised citizens to cooperate with the Stasi?
Probably the same as for ICE today.
Re: Reverse centaurs are the answer to the AI paradox (2025)
#39> This is a political act of resistance. Margaret Thatcher's motto, after all, was "There is no alternative," by which she meant, "Stop trying to think of alternatives." The bully's trick is to present your defeat as a fait accompli: "Resistance is futile." More broadly, that trick is the most effective and important today: No matter the issue, people - including on HN - will tell you how powerless they are and how p…
I don't find empty platitudes like "you can just do things" all that inspiring. I prefer seeing a specific example of something you could do and an explanation about why it might help.
Ok, here goes:
You could look at your situation, think about it as objectively as you can (ignoring, as much as possible, any media driven mind worms), pick any particular problem you face that looks solvable, and try to solve it. If none of the problems seems particularly solvable, break them into pieces and look at the resulting sub-problems in the same way. Regardless of the outcome, iterate, since it's ultimately a numbers game.
The reason this might help is that 1) you might solve some fraction of your problems, 2) to the extent that you're suffering from learned hopelessness, you'll be unlearning it, 3) regardless of either of the above, you'll be likely to learn something, as this is a very common side effect of trying to do stuff.
Hope that helps.
Re: Reverse centaurs are the answer to the AI paradox (2025)
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't find empty platitudes like "you can just do things" all that inspiring. I prefer seeing a specific example of something you could do and an explanation about why it might help.
Ok, here goes: You could look at your situation, think about it as objectively as you can (ignoring, as much as possible, any media driven mind worms), pick any particular problem you face that looks solvable, and try to solve it. If none of the problems seems particularly solvable, break them into pieces and look at the resulting sub-problems in the same way. Regardless of the outcome, iterate, since it's ultimately…
That’s a generic algorithm, not an example. I mean specific examples. Like, people sharing things they did.