"Spam begets (strong) AI" was my guess a few years ago. Of course it will be full-cycle, and we already have (weak) AI begotten spam.
Fake Books
311–320 of 371 posts
Re: Fake Books
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see a lot of reflexive negativity here. It reminds me of the kind of negativity I received on my blog when I said that eventually, music streaming would overtake music sales—including in a comment from Steve Jobs himself while Apple was still selling music. It also reminds me of the negativity I received from most people when, in (probably) year 2000, I was talking about the possibility that ads would be distribute…
> it reminds me of the kind of negativity I received on my blog when I said... Cherry picking examples of your past predictions that may have turned out to be correct as a way of defending something in question today is obviously fallacious - hopefully I don't have to explain why that proves absolutely nothing. > Trust me, you should take a serious look at this... get the knowledge if you are in the internet industry…
[Replaced the comment I had here earlier after thinking about it a bit more. I initially responded too reflexively.]
The comment you are criticizing above was not meant for you. It was to give a counterpoint to your dismissal so that other people wouldn't lose their chance to learn about this just because a few naysayers on HN think they know better.
My pointing out some of my past experiences with naysayers was not offered as proof of being right, since you are correct that it isn't. I was partly offering my personal experience that naysayers shouldn't be assumed to be right. They may be, but shouldn't be assumed to be. Prominent examples include famous dismissals on HN of the original iPod and of DropBox.
In fact, in my experience, the greatest opportunities are when the naysayers are rampant in response. It's related to the famous saying from Howard Aitken: "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."
Also, I do have a track record (not remotely as cherry-picked as you might want to assume it to be—in act I could give more supporting examples and I don't have many misses at this level). While it's not proof, it is evidence that some people (not you) might want to consider in judging whether they want to spend their time reading a paper like this, instead of rejecting it only because of comments from people who do not display any kind of relevant track records or any other basis for assuming their comments should be seriously considered.
I understand that you think you know better, and that's fine. I would have bet a substantial sum of money that my comment would have no influence on your dismissal. Still, as I said in my earlier response, I did learn something from your comment in terms of how some people might react to certain approaches, so, thank you.
I won't have any other comments in response to you in this thread, period. Life's too short.
Re: Fake Books
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s the previous commenter’s point, isn’t it? The crypto advocates claim that crypto has intrinsic value simply because of its scarcity (supply-side only). The commenter’s rebuttal is that if this were true, their kid’s doodles would be extremely valuable, yet they are not because only the parent treasures them (demand-side). With gold, one can come up with a plausible story for the demand side of the argument tha…
I have contended that the only use for cryptocurrency which provides value for people is for anonymous transactions for which cash is not an option or a poor option. The only cryptocurrency that can do this that I know of is Monero. Therefore Monero will have lasting value. Whether you can make money speculating on it is dubious, which is probably why not many people do. * Note: I am speaking regarding the markets I…
Except that holding Monero is of rather less clear value. Sure, the ability to take $100, turn it into Monero, and turn it back into almost $100 that cannot be trivially traced to the original $100 is of some value. But this value is there for people who have no particular interest in Monero-the—asset. They want Monero-the-mixer.
If I put $100 into Monero and hold it, I’m betting that Monero is still worth something in the future. That’s a risky bet. For example, the Treasury department could sanction Monero. Or the next great mixer could come along and supplant Monero, making my old Monero mostly useless.
Re: Fake Books
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
> observing that my kid's doodles are scarce but not valuable is not a cute tweet; it is a complete and utter demolishing of the argument. Scarcity is not quantity. Its the relationship between supply and demand. In your scenario, supply (1 kid doodling) meets demand (1 person wants them), so the value doesnt move from 0 (which is how much you would pay for the doodles).
That’s the previous commenter’s point, isn’t it? The crypto advocates claim that crypto has intrinsic value simply because of its scarcity (supply-side only). The commenter’s rebuttal is that if this were true, their kid’s doodles would be extremely valuable, yet they are not because only the parent treasures them (demand-side). With gold, one can come up with a plausible story for the demand side of the argument tha…
Bitcoin is the first (and most stable) theoretically unseizable currency. You can store bitcoin in your brain, get persecuted by your national government for criticizing their actions, travel across a border, get kidnapped, offer up a decoy wallet, get released 3 years later, wander into a town with an internet cafe, and theoretically, you could have access to your funds within hours, without the consent of or dependence on any other centralized entity.
Is this a fantasy that few if any people will ever utilize? Sure.
Is it also super cool? I think so.
I think the main demand of bitcoin is "money that isn't subject to federal reserve policy". No fiat currency in the world is effectively accomplishing that today.
(Note: I had to stop using brainwallets three bubbles ago because I had recurring nightmares of getting a brain injury and losing access to my funds. Don't recommend it.)
Re: Fake Books
#315One of the things that has kept me out of the cryptocurrency space is that when their advocates discuss value, they speak in pure nonsense. A big part of that problem is that value is very difficult to discuss. On the one hand you have the classic goldbug that insists that gold has "intrinsic value", which is some sort of platonic ideal thing that gold simply ambiently has and defies any attempt to nail down what it…
If you make up what people say and then argue with them it's pretty easy to win. The "classic goldbug" insists that gold has properties that are good for a currency (does not degrade, can be divided, does not rely on a trusted third party, has scarcity) and it has been used as currency for a long time in civilisation. I take "intrinsic value" for commodities to mean "has use aside from being a currency", for example…
It's not just a few goldbugs thinking the intrinsic value is all of the value, it's tons of them that think the intrinsic value provides a solid floor. At this point the currency/speculative/prestige value is almost all of the value of gold. If you had a pile of gold and it dropped down to its intrinsic value, it'd be almost the same as a drop to zero.
Re: Fake Books
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
What gets me is; if this was a money making opportunity, and it truly is as simple as they make it out to be, aren’t they literally creating their own competitors in this space by revealing their secret? I’m sure the argument is something like “the market is so vast, that helping others do the same won’t affect my income stream”, but that suggests The correct answer is to scale up, not populate the landscape with com…
Well, it's only logical: what they propose is barely legal and sooner or later, more sooner than later, the scheme will be burnt, so it's better to teach others to make a quick buck than staying in the same place for too long.
What's barely legal about commissioning and selling badly written books?
I might point to a dozen other parts of the situation as "barely legal scam", but why that part?
Re: Fake Books
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a brilliant (but very sad) video. The ghost writers get about $2500 for a 10,000 word book researched and written in a month. I guess this is cheaper than using GPT-3 and having to prune out the flights of fancy/complete nonsense that GPT-3 can sometimes generate.
From the video, it is $2500 for a 25,000 word book, written in 25 days. That is $100 per day writing 1000 words per day. If this takes you 8 hours per day, that is $12.50 per hour. If you can do this every month, that is $30,000 per year. A comfortable wage for some people, and poverty wages for others. It also seems like a difficult pace to research a topic and write 1000 words per day, and seems like miserable work…
No. From the video it is $250 for a 25,000 word book. Go to 48 minutes.
Re: Fake Books
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s the previous commenter’s point, isn’t it? The crypto advocates claim that crypto has intrinsic value simply because of its scarcity (supply-side only). The commenter’s rebuttal is that if this were true, their kid’s doodles would be extremely valuable, yet they are not because only the parent treasures them (demand-side). With gold, one can come up with a plausible story for the demand side of the argument tha…
Bitcoin is the first (and most stable) theoretically unseizable currency. You can store bitcoin in your brain, get persecuted by your national government for criticizing their actions, travel across a border, get kidnapped, offer up a decoy wallet, get released 3 years later, wander into a town with an internet cafe, and theoretically, you could have access to your funds within hours, without the consent of or depend…
>Bitcoin is the first (and most stable) theoretically unseizable currency
This is an absolute farce. Maybe talk to us when there are no longer reports of being able to easily scam someone out of all of their money with a non-reversable transaction just by sending them an image with a script in it.
Re: Fake Books
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I fully agree with your point, the next time I see some collective delusion of a pyramid scheme I’ll buy in early. It doesn’t matter that there’s no logic to it, as long as enough people share the same delusion it becomes self-propagating.
That's no better then buying all lottery tickets you can get your hands on.
The trick is to stick with things where the odds are affected by humans being irrational.
At least, I hope it is, I haven’t actually started that strategy.
Re: Fake Books
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You're conflating price and value. The negotiated final price is the value. > When the oil futures went negative, it wasn't the case that the value of oil was negative The value of the futures is different than the value of the oil itself. Besides, the end result of a future is taking delivery. Most futures contract buyers have no intention of taking delivery, and have no way to take delivery. That explains the neg…
What I meant was, the definition of value is different for different people, as well as yourself in different situations. The magnitude of that value will also differ, of course. You're free to define value to always be price, it's a matter of opinion and by my own logic it's a valid thing to do, but separating the two concepts makes things much clearer when market effects distort the price of something who's value d…
Yes, every item has different value to every person.
> market effects distort the price of something who's value doesn't seem to have changed.
This is still making the mistake that value is independent of what people are freely willing to pay for it.