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The leverage arbitrage: Why everything feels broken

tushardadlani.com

1–10 of 97 posts

Re: The leverage arbitrage: Why everything feels broken

#2
Lots of bold assertions without evidence. Author claims Google's high salaries killed entrepreneurship. Is there any data to back this claim?

Or the idea that democracy can't adapt to social media discourse; not everyone is chronically online. Politicians still respond to public sentiment to similar degree as they always have.

Then there's this:

> AI systems aren't just tools—they're deployed faster than we can develop frameworks for understanding their social implications.

If they aren't just tools, what are they? Why do we need a framework for understanding their social implications?

Post feels like a fever dream of someone who fell asleep to the Navalmanack audiobook.

Re: The leverage arbitrage: Why everything feels broken

#3
Or maybe it just feels that way because the world is being fixed at unprecedented rates?

For example I had the misfortune to needing help from the mental health community a decade ago. I sometimes think about how much easier that part of my life would have been if TikTok and Claude had existed back then. It’s easy to forget, but many of the institutions we’ve built over centuries are deeply dysfunctional and very much in need of disruption.

The night often seems darkest just before dawn.

(With that said, I agree there are risks of the kind you describe.)

Re: The leverage arbitrage: Why everything feels broken

#5

Lots of bold assertions without evidence. Author claims Google's high salaries killed entrepreneurship. Is there any data to back this claim? Or the idea that democracy can't adapt to social media discourse; not everyone is chronically online. Politicians still respond to public sentiment to similar degree as they always have. Then there's this: > AI systems aren't just tools—they're deployed faster than we can devel…

With a lot of fancy wording, the article basically proposes that slow-moving, bureaucratic educational institutions should catch up with TikTok’s latest algorithm, helping raise the next generation of influencers.

Re: The leverage arbitrage: Why everything feels broken

#6
While the reasoning I believe to be utterly littered with weak arguments, I agree with the final conclusion/question of the author.

But what the author isn't clearly saying is that he is describing a free market opposed to a planned economy, even if he doesn't specificly say that, that's the implication of the final question.

And I am all for planned economy. I want to cooperate with my human fellows, not compete to crush them. In this day and age it is obsurd not to this. The technology is there, we just need to use it the right way. I know many will do a knee-jerk reaction to this statement and start spitting out the old anti-soviet economy arguments about planned economy, I'm bracing.

If you want competition then accept the social outcomes. Wanting to equalize competition through regulation is exactly like banning war crimes. When war is raging all kinds of war crimes will be commited.

Re: The leverage arbitrage: Why everything feels broken

#7

Lots of bold assertions without evidence. Author claims Google's high salaries killed entrepreneurship. Is there any data to back this claim? Or the idea that democracy can't adapt to social media discourse; not everyone is chronically online. Politicians still respond to public sentiment to similar degree as they always have. Then there's this: > AI systems aren't just tools—they're deployed faster than we can devel…

The only thing worse than the author claiming that is you asking for "data". Like what data? This is qualitative. And yes, Google killed one particular flavor of startup that paid its employees with smoke

Re: The leverage arbitrage: Why everything feels broken

#8

Or maybe it just feels that way because the world is being fixed at unprecedented rates? For example I had the misfortune to needing help from the mental health community a decade ago. I sometimes think about how much easier that part of my life would have been if TikTok and Claude had existed back then. It’s easy to forget, but many of the institutions we’ve built over centuries are deeply dysfunctional and very muc…

I don't think you should be getting mental health advice from LLMs, it has been shown that their sycophantic nature reinforces your own diagnoses not that of a professionals. Using an LLM in a field you're knowledgeable in would make you think twice about their accuracy in fields you are unable to know the correctness of personally. It will all sound very convincing, but may be a fundamentally flawed diagnoses.

Another way of thinking about, a non-trivial amount of training data is internet comments and blogs, which have an alarming amount of self diagnoses, non-professional diagnoses, and totally fabricated facts about mental illness.

Re: The leverage arbitrage: Why everything feels broken

#9
post #8

Or maybe it just feels that way because the world is being fixed at unprecedented rates? For example I had the misfortune to needing help from the mental health community a decade ago. I sometimes think about how much easier that part of my life would have been if TikTok and Claude had existed back then. It’s easy to forget, but many of the institutions we’ve built over centuries are deeply dysfunctional and very muc…

I don't think you should be getting mental health advice from LLMs, it has been shown that their sycophantic nature reinforces your own diagnoses not that of a professionals. Using an LLM in a field you're knowledgeable in would make you think twice about their accuracy in fields you are unable to know the correctness of personally. It will all sound very convincing, but may be a fundamentally flawed diagnoses. Anoth…

Agree, pointing to TikTok and LLMs as a “disrupter” to the prevailing psychotherapeutic industry is crazy town. Those media reify / amplify the exact same crazy of their training set into absurdity.

Re: The leverage arbitrage: Why everything feels broken

#10

Or maybe it just feels that way because the world is being fixed at unprecedented rates? For example I had the misfortune to needing help from the mental health community a decade ago. I sometimes think about how much easier that part of my life would have been if TikTok and Claude had existed back then. It’s easy to forget, but many of the institutions we’ve built over centuries are deeply dysfunctional and very muc…

If there is one horror I have it is one of the really mentally unwell people I knew when growing up pairing up with an LLM that feeds into everything they say. LLMs are great for truth seekers, who know how to deal with the yes-sayer-mentality of the chatbot. If there is one type of person I am 100% sure cannot deal with that it would be mental health patients.

That doesn't mean I don't think LLMs couldn't be used for therapy with great success. Just not general purpose models without a lot of tweaking.

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