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Rolling the ladder up behind us

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Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#201

Post by int_19h »

mikewarot wrote: post #185

History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Most of the discussion here seems to focus on the events of the past repeating themselves in almost the same manner, and ignoring the differences, which are substantial. We're not talking about goods produced in bulk, but rather about a new intelligence that helps produce job shop type goods. That intelligence itself isn't a physical good though, and it can be copied…

Don't worry, local models past a certain size will be declared illegal eventually on the grounds of safety. You can already see the major players advocating for legislation that is a step down that road.

And this wouldn't even be very difficult to enforce. Running SOTA models at useful speeds (which you'd need to actually compete - a local setup like you describe where time to first token is measured in minutes for a decent sized prompt is not going to cut it) requires a lot of compute. Which is to say, hardware, and energy to power it. Both things that can be tracked.

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#202

Post by int_19h »

stego-tech wrote: post #27
paxys wrote: post #22

The part that is always skipped when making the clothing analogy is that for most of human history good clothes were a luxury . At the time of the industrial revolution it was common for a family to spend 15-25% of their annual income just on clothing. A single shirt from that era would cost the equivalent of £2,000 today when considering material and labor. New clothes were something you may be able to afford once a…

> The part that is always skipped when making the clothing analogy is that for most of human history good clothes were a luxury. Literally what OP discusses in their text, right in the first part. Go RTFA . > and they would cater pretty much exclusively to kings and the 0.1% of the time Oh yeah, I totally remember reading about how people in pre-modern civilizations were almost always semi-clad or fully nude due to t…

The first part of the article has a lot of ahistorical nonsense in it.

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#203

Post by int_19h »

nyarlathotep_ wrote: post #149

The most pressing issue to me currently regarding LLMs is the blatant, flagrant change in tone of the "leadership/ownership" class towards employees. It comes off as little other than thinly veiled contempt for the people that actually make the business function. We've seen, most recently, Jassy come out and say "we're gonna need a lot less people", Zuckerberg doing his "replacing engineers" shtick on several occasio…

I want software to displace me when it comes to my day-to-day grind job, so that I can spend this time on something more interesting.

But I want that to happen in a way that results in a Star Trek communist utopia, not a hellscape where 90% of humanity is "redundant" to the very few people who own all that automation and its outputs.

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#204

Post by mercenario »

burlesona wrote: post #65
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, as someone who considers themselves to be a "software craftsman," I have come to the conclusion that the work I do will never be valued, and will always be considered "too expensive." Since I work for free, that's not an issue for me, but that's economically unfeasible for most folks. The issue with an industry awash with cheap dross, is that it becomes prohibitively expensive to produce high Quality stuff. Any…

> The issue with an industry awash with cheap dross, is that it becomes prohibitively expensive to produce high Quality stuff. This seems to be one of the brutal truths of the modern world, and as far as I can tell it applies to everything. There's always a race to the bottom to make everything as cheaply as possible, and the further the industry goes down that "cheapness" scale, the more "quality" loses market share…

> There's always a race to the bottom to make everything as cheaply as possible

Not true at all. Apple and its expensive devices are the best selling devices in their categories.

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#205

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

mercenario wrote: post #204
burlesona wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The issue with an industry awash with cheap dross, is that it becomes prohibitively expensive to produce high Quality stuff. This seems to be one of the brutal truths of the modern world, and as far as I can tell it applies to everything. There's always a race to the bottom to make everything as cheaply as possible, and the further the industry goes down that "cheapness" scale, the more "quality" loses market share…

> There's always a race to the bottom to make everything as cheaply as possible Not true at all. Apple and its expensive devices are the best selling devices in their categories.

Yes, but Apple has deep pockets, and a very mature brand.

I worked for a 100-year-old company that has one of the most respected brands in the world. I am quite familiar with what it takes, to make the highest-Quality stuff.

That said, it's downright impossible to start from scratch, creating high-Quality stuff.

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#206

Post by RHSeeger »

bevr1337 wrote: post #159
RHSeeger wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That the foundational discipline of humanity - nutrition via hunting, gathering, or growing - is no longer a "profitable enterprise"? I don't understand this statement. These things aren't unprofitable. Doing these things a specific way is unprofitable. Growing food is most certainly profitable; but only at scale. Is it sad that a small, family farm isn't really a great way to make a living nowadays? Sure. But that…

> Growing food is most certainly profitable; but only at scale The agricultural practices you hint at only make sense in a boardroom. I'm sure it seems rational or logical, but it's not based in experience or ethics. > But that's not a foundational discipline of humanity; It is probably the foundational discipline of humanity. Cultivating and cooking food is what allowed us to do everything since.

> Cultivating and cooking food is what allowed us to do everything since.

To repeat what I said before, more clearly

- Growing and cooking food is currently profitable.

- Growing and cooking food _a certain way_ is not profitable

- Growing and cooking food is a foundational discipline of humanity

- Growing and cooking food _a certain way_ is _not_ a foundational discipline of humanity

You specifically quoted a subset of what I said and called it out as wrong. Which is true, but also irrelevant; because it's not what I said.

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#207

Post by mercenario »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #205
mercenario wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's always a race to the bottom to make everything as cheaply as possible Not true at all. Apple and its expensive devices are the best selling devices in their categories.

Yes, but Apple has deep pockets, and a very mature brand. I worked for a 100-year-old company that has one of the most respected brands in the world. I am quite familiar with what it takes, to make the highest-Quality stuff. That said, it's downright impossible to start from scratch, creating high-Quality stuff.

> That said, it's downright impossible to start from scratch, creating high-Quality stuff.

I'm not so sure. It is not common, but it seems that some companies actually start with high quality and only much after offer popular options. Just a random example is uber, at least here it started with only uber black and only after it was very popular it offered uber x.

Another counter example to cheap stuff is luxury clothing/purse/perfume brands. Actually, I'm not so sure if this is about quality or status.

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#208

Post by CRConrad »

pdimitar wrote: post #178
djoldman wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello fellow economics major :) Yep, capitalism fails in a few ways in the long run. Monopolies, imperfect competition, etc., which is why regulation is required to optimize the system.

Regulation against ruling class will never happen. They hire the regulators, more or less, with a few nice and hopeful exceptions, but they're vanishingly rare. I believe the science knows how to fix capitalism, and has known for decades. But nobody from the rules wants that.

> But nobody from the rules wants that.

YM "ruleRs", right?

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#209

Post by azemetre »

WalterBright wrote: post #43
asmxyz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are _other options_! You're argument is that the only two alternatives are that the ruling class and owning class be separate groups of people, or the same group of people. And either way the labor class if F'ed. You're right that having the ruling class and the owning class being the _same people_ is terrible. That's what we're living in right now! But what about the labor class being the owning class? What if…

The labor class is free to form collectives and cooperatives. There's no law against it. Bezos started Amazon with $300,000. I'm sure it wouldn't take too long for workers to raise that kind of money, after all, $300,000 to buy a house is considered cheap. On the other hand, the history of businesses being confiscated and handed over to the workers has not been a successful one.

The labor class should also advocate for workplace democracy to fight back.

Workers should be able to vote for their bosses.

Democratic societies are good for human flourishing. The only way to flourish is to have a thriving middle class.

Workplace democracy would be a boon for labor.

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#210

Post by pdimitar »

CRConrad wrote: post #208
pdimitar wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulation against ruling class will never happen. They hire the regulators, more or less, with a few nice and hopeful exceptions, but they're vanishingly rare. I believe the science knows how to fix capitalism, and has known for decades. But nobody from the rules wants that.

> But nobody from the rules wants that. YM "ruleRs", right?

I do. Admittedly I got tired of double-checking if my phone's keyboard will betray me.
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