161–170 of 284 posts
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It's charitable to frame this as resentment towards capital who gets the "credit". I'm sure people would grumble about this regardless, but the real resentment stems from them systematically eroding our ability to afford housing, healthcare, and retirement.
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Anyway, the original “power grid” guy was not some master craftsman or engineer, he was the original STEM influencer: Edison. He also popularized short videos.
Tesla was the real power grid guy. The scope of his invention from the generators at Niagara Falls power generation to the transformers to the motors is pretty impressive. More so given that he was eventually given the patents (originally issued to Marconi) for radio transmission.
The strangest thing about all of this to me is how contemporary SF seems to have absorbed basically none of the city's previous culture. You can detect the commercial, artistic, cultural histories of NYC in the various industries there, from media to finance. Ditto for LA, or London, or Paris. In SF though, it’s as if the previous culture of the place has just been overwritten entirely. Hard to believe that it’s the…
https://monoskop.org/images/d/dc/Barbrook_Richard_Cameron_An...
Today's Bay Area has a direct lineage to all of that. Blank Space by W. David Marx does a great job of explaining how the post-2000 parts happened.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DXMVK94H
It's all part of the same long, strange trip.
The generation of code and images fits right into this; the famous, historical "astronaut on a horse" is, in substance, a collage of images, images produced by other humans and "assembled".
On a broader scale, this means that humanity will more or less be able to count on Conrad Gessner's Universal Library/Biblioteca Universalis/Library of Babel, and generally speaking, we can aim for a future where humans produce knowledge and machines put it into practice. Like any evolution, this will lead to some losses while gaining something else.
The current explosion is mostly hype and a nazi-managerial wet dream; as for universities, the reality is that they are largely obsolete, so it's only natural that students, rather than seeking knowledge, which is of little use to them as it's disconnected from the present, are just looking for a piece of paper to build a career otherwise.
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Right, but in the context of this article about these wretched enfents terribles, and later when we get to the rationalist termite colony, it's clearly something to chuckle at. Like, the fact that people think this "bifurcation event" idea is real is legitimately funny.
I see your point, but I don't think he's being sarcastic in this paragraph. To me this paragraph isn't sarcasm rather he's presently a serious factual recounting of the logic driving AI evangelists that he then undermines by contrasting it with the callousness, messiness, and illogic of the people pushing this narrative. (I too had a good chuckle at the termite description) But this is veering into lit crit territory…
Beautiful article. I think the "agency" the article talks about is really just "willingness to take risks". And the reason some people are high outliers on that scale is a combination of: * Coming from such a level of privilege that they will be completely fine even if they lose over and over again. * Willingness to push any losses onto other undeserving people without experiencing guilt. * A psychological compulsion…
To be a little more generous, this third point is actually a classic symptom of ADHD. I've known some (non-CEO) folks like this and the kind of risks they take in their personal lives seemed completely alien to me.
Kriss doesn't touch on the deeper issue of why investors keep giving money to people that openly advertise themselves as con artists.
I was enjoying the article until I got to this paragraph: > Individual intelligence will mean nothing once we have superhuman AI, at which point the difference between an obscenely talented giga-nerd and an ordinary six-pack-drinking bozo will be about as meaningful as the difference between any two ants. If what you do involves anything related to the human capacity for reason, reflection, insight, creativity, or th…
Maybe if you read past these paragraph it would have been clearer?
I was enjoying the article until I got to this paragraph: > Individual intelligence will mean nothing once we have superhuman AI, at which point the difference between an obscenely talented giga-nerd and an ordinary six-pack-drinking bozo will be about as meaningful as the difference between any two ants. If what you do involves anything related to the human capacity for reason, reflection, insight, creativity, or th…
I don't think that this is supposed to be a statement of the author's beliefs. The whole article is dripping with contempt for AI bros and silicon valley culture in general. Maybe if you read past these paragraph it would have been clearer?
I'm not sure I can trust the author's characterization of Roy, though. I got the impression that they don't like any of the people they interviewed (which, you know, fair), but that doesn't get even close to the depths of hatred towards Roy that they sub-textually exude throughout the article.
If their portrayal is even half accurate, though, that's a perfectly reasonable amount of hate.