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Slop Terrifies Me

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Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#261
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, wealth inequality has gotten so out of hand that people are forced to buy the cheaper products. It's the age old paradigm of buying a pair of shoes/boots, the poor man keeps buying $20 shoes/boots that wear out in a year or two. The wealthy man looks perplexed and states, "this is why they are poor, they don't understand investing in a quality pair of shoes/boots... For a measly $100 they could buy a pair of shoe…

idk if this is useful info but at least in my case i tend towards cheaper items because 1. i dont want to worry about them getting damaged or lost or stolen 2. my preferences will likely change in a couple years 3. i may not want the item as much as i think i do i've owned a very expensive watch (many thousands of dollars) and i find myself almost never wearing it, both bc the style isnt exactly what im into these da…

Yep, and...

4. the quality gap has closed considerably

e.g., the function and durability of your $8k watch and a $300 watch are effectively imperceptible

The gap is closing from both ends (cheap manufacturing, access to tech, etc.)

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nitpick: most users don’t care about these things until something goes significantly wrong and it impacts them, e.g. a massive data breach or persistent global downtime. > then they get angry. very angry. Yes, this has a lot of overlap with how humans differ from "Homo Economicus" [0]. Humans generally can't find out, don't know, care to know, have the time to research, or are expert enough to understand the ramifi…

I've noticed this is leading to less high quality products being produced in general. If the only real axis people understand is price then products can't compete on quality/durability/maintability/etc, and so they're pushed aside to lower the cost. A recent example: I've bought many articles of clothing from Eddie Bauer over the years because they have been generally high quality and durable, and even so are only a…

Haven’t followed the recent history of Eddie Bauer, but seems they’ve sullied their brand for a while. Sam’s Club has been selling Eddie Bauer stuff for years. I don’t think a $37 pair of Eddie Bauer hiking boots are going to be quality.

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're saying capital is power. Not analogous — the same thing. Until now power always had to be wielded by a human, but it's really the power who is wielding the human as an instrument to channel itself, like Majora's Mask. Once we have power that doesn't need a human, it won't need that and we'll all be subservient. I agree with it. Consider financial markets, for example. There are individual humans whose account…

Companies are already like this. Boss fires his friend and puts him out of work with a family to feed. Why? It was ‘good for the company.’ So many inhuman decisions hide behind that fig leaf. It is a way to mentally remove responsibilities from these decisions. After all, it was for the good of the company. Stock buybacks while mailroom is on food stamps? For the good of the company. Dumping the waste into the river…

Capitalism is the ultimate 'Norman lord in his castle on conquered land', removed from the consequences of his choices/rent extraction on the serfs he shares no culture, no understanding with just what value can he extract from them.

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#264

AI slop is similar to the cheap tools at harbor freight. Before we used to have to buy really expensive tools that were designed to last forever and perform a ton of jobs. Now we can just go to harbor freight and get a tool that is good enough for most people. 80% of good maybe reframed as 100% ok for 80% of the people. It is when you are in the minority that cares about or needs that last 20% where it is a problem b…

Before we used to have to buy really expensive tools that were designed to last forever and perform a ton of jobs. Now we can just go to harbor freight and get a tool that is good enough for most people. This just isn't true. First, cheap tools have always been around. I have a few that I've inherited from my grandfather and great-grandfather. They're junk and I keep them specifically to remind myself that consumer-o…

Using tools broadly but things like torque wrenches, AC vacuum pumps, and other specialized tools have mostly been too expensive to buy. Now I can buy a cheap version and it works good enough for most cases. It is not cheaper even with buying the tools to do the work yourself.

This is happening in other areas as well. The Chinese mini excavators and mini skid steers are changing what smaller landscape companies can do. They are not as good as a Kubota but they are 1/2 the price and 80% as good.

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> wealth inequality has gotten so out of hand that people are forced to buy the cheaper products. Other people having more money does not result in higher prices for the rest, i.e. it does not cause inflation. For example, when I was a boy steak was a rare luxury. Today, a steak dinner costs less than a TV dinner or a bag of Doritos.

That can't be a very good steak.

You're right, it's not a top cut. Still far better than a TV dinner.

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We haven't got more battery life 15 years ago even the high end smartphones could barely make it half the day before dying. Now all-day battery life is the norm, and the Chinese phones with the latest battery tech can easily last 2 days (Samsung, Google, Apple are very behind here). Laptop battery life isn't even comparable to what it was 20 years ago. And software getting slower doesn't change the fact that our ma…

Back in the Nokia brick days you could easily go a full week between charges. Of course it's an apples to oranges comparison since a modern smartphone has infinitely more functionality, but in this one thing modern phones remain objectively worse.

Does it, though? Unless you go back so far you're talking about fixed–layout b&w LCD screens, the next era after that had games and the internet — what's actually new since that time? Multitasking yes, what else?

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies are already like this. Boss fires his friend and puts him out of work with a family to feed. Why? It was ‘good for the company.’ So many inhuman decisions hide behind that fig leaf. It is a way to mentally remove responsibilities from these decisions. After all, it was for the good of the company. Stock buybacks while mailroom is on food stamps? For the good of the company. Dumping the waste into the river…

Capitalism is the ultimate 'Norman lord in his castle on conquered land', removed from the consequences of his choices/rent extraction on the serfs he shares no culture, no understanding with just what value can he extract from them.

He is forced to do that, or he'll be replaced by someone who will. All hail Moloch[2+√7i]!

[2+√7i] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#269

I’m a systems person too, and I don’t see mediocrity as inevitable. The slop problem isn’t just model quality. It’s incentives and decision making at inference time. That’s why I’m working on an open source tool for governance and validation during inference, rather than trying to solve everything in pre training. Better systems can produce better outcomes, even with the same models.

I agree completely, and I’m doing the same thing. Good tools that help produce better outcomes will have a multiplicative impact as models improve.

What are you building?

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#270
Generative AI is completely in line with the rest of the industrial milieu; pumping out product as quickly and as cheaply as possible. "Good enough" is often the standard, even before the industrial mode, but the industrial mode allows "good enough" to compound exponentially until you've got an edifice of trash that continues tumbling downhill on sheer momentum and we all scramble to fix the thing in situ.

This is how our world works and until it hits the proverbial wall, this is how it will continue to work because it's too big to be detoured or course-adjusted

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