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I swear the UFO is coming any minute

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Re: I swear the UFO is coming any minute

#31

Post by echelon »

camillomiller wrote: post #30

Seems applicable to AGI

I don't know about AGI, but these models are automating a lot of work.

I think but do not know that we'll have higher level work that sits atop it.

I don't know if/when we won't be needed to orchestrate that work.

I'm worried that if we don't have open source models that are up to par with the work-automating models that we'll have a rosy future. One of my biggest fears right now is big capital owning all the big models and infra. And that one day, they'll own all the labor.

Re: I swear the UFO is coming any minute

#32

Post by themafia »

stavros wrote: post #18
themafia wrote: post #11

> so what we remember is not exactly what we saw. Yet there are savants with nearly perfect recall which has been tested multiple times. I strongly doubt there is a single model for memory or even a single mechanism for forming memories and as a result personal understandings of it poorly generalize across any random section of the population.

99.9% of people understood that sentence to be correct, in the spirit in which it was written. Yet there are people who don't, but we still wouldn't say the sentence is false.

> but we still wouldn't say the sentence is false.

Yes "we" do. It's false. It's false not because it's a lie but because it's very poorly worded and under specified. Inside of a work attempting to communicate a highly specific idea it's a genuine mistake. It invites ambiguity and misunderstanding.

> 99.9% of people

Good for them. What's the point here? Are you attempting to bully me by suggesting I'm not part of your crowd?

> in the spirit in which it was written.

Uh huh. And what spirit are you writing in?

Re: I swear the UFO is coming any minute

#34

Post by Joel_Mckay »

I often ponder why Carl Sagan never added another book to his famous reading list for students, as it makes a fairly reasonable argument that most populist movements are essentially interchangeable =3

"The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements" (Eric Hoffer, 1951)

https://www.amazon.com/True-Believer-Thoughts-Nature-Movemen...

Re: I swear the UFO is coming any minute

#36

Post by krick »

Joel_Mckay wrote: post #34

I often ponder why Carl Sagan never added another book to his famous reading list for students, as it makes a fairly reasonable argument that most populist movements are essentially interchangeable =3 "The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements" (Eric Hoffer, 1951) https://www.amazon.com/True-Believer-Thoughts-Nature-Movemen...

I don't think this list is as famous as you assume it to be. The only "Carl Sagan reading list" I managed to find [0] is apparently his personal TODO note (books he plans to read, but haven't at the moment of writing). Which obviously isn't the same thing as "his famous reading list for students".

[0] https://www.sciencealert.com/get-inspired-by-carl-sagan-s-am...

Re: I swear the UFO is coming any minute

#37

Post by camillomiller »

echelon wrote: post #31
camillomiller wrote: post #30

Seems applicable to AGI

I don't know about AGI, but these models are automating a lot of work. I think but do not know that we'll have higher level work that sits atop it. I don't know if/when we won't be needed to orchestrate that work. I'm worried that if we don't have open source models that are up to par with the work-automating models that we'll have a rosy future. One of my biggest fears right now is big capital owning all the big mod…

I share your worry, and I would say that the AGI scare is definitely instrumental to the outcome you’re describing. It’s a narrative that serves the goal of large capital, with the hope of a side of regulatory capture too.

Re: I swear the UFO is coming any minute

#38

Post by bdangubic »

Animats wrote: post #24

Mandatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1235/ It's interesting that the proliferation of cell phone cameras has not improved the quality of UFO reports much. Nor has the availability of automatic UFO-spotting cameras.[1] They pick up drones, flocks of birds, and the International Space Station. But no good UFO shots. LINEAR and GEODSS, which find near-earth objects and satellites using a pair of large telescopes at each sit…

the post isn’t about UFOs :)

Re: I swear the UFO is coming any minute

#40

Post by Joel_Mckay »

krick wrote: post #36
Joel_Mckay wrote: post #34

I often ponder why Carl Sagan never added another book to his famous reading list for students, as it makes a fairly reasonable argument that most populist movements are essentially interchangeable =3 "The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements" (Eric Hoffer, 1951) https://www.amazon.com/True-Believer-Thoughts-Nature-Movemen...

I don't think this list is as famous as you assume it to be. The only "Carl Sagan reading list" I managed to find [0] is apparently his personal TODO note (books he plans to read, but haven't at the moment of writing). Which obviously isn't the same thing as "his famous reading list for students". [0] https://www.sciencealert.com/get-inspired-by-carl-sagan-s-am...

Even today, people still discuss Carl Sagan and his Astronomy 490 course structure:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Pc3IuVNuO0

The articles posted UFO cult study reference is part of the reading list. =3

"On Liberty" (John Stuart Mill, 1859)

https://gutenberg.org/files/34901/34901-h/34901-h.htm

"Memoirs of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds" (Charles Mackay, 1852)

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24518/24518-h/24518-h.htm

"The Evolution of Cooperation" (Robert Axelrod, )

https://ee.stanford.edu/~hellman/Breakthrough/book/pdfs/axel...

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