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This is not the future

blog.mathieui.net

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Re: This is not the future

#61

Post by delichon »

jasonshen wrote: post #56
delichon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For you it's "purely for pleasure," for me it's for money, health and fire protection. I heat my home with my wood stove to bypass about $1,500/year in propane costs, to get exercise (and pleasure) out of cutting and splitting the wood, and to reduce the fuel load around my home. If those reasons went away I'd stop. That's a good metaphor for the rapid growth of AI. It is driven by real needs from multiple directions…

You may be saving money but wood smoke is very much harmful to your lungs and heart according to the American Lung and American Heart Associations + the EPA. There's a good reason why we've adopted modern heating technologies. They may have other problems but particulate pollution is not one of them. > For people with underlying heart disease, a 2017 study in the journal Environmental Research linked increased partic…

I acknowledge that risk. But I think it is outweighed by the savings, exercise and reduced fire danger. And I shouldn't discount the value to me of living in light clothing in winter when I burn wood, but heavily dressed to save money when burning propane. To stop me you'd have to compel me.

This is not a small thing for me. By burning wood instead of gas I gain a full week of groceries per month all year!

I acknowledge the risk of AI too, including human extinction. Weighing that, I still use it heavily. To stop me you'd have to compel me.

Re: This is not the future

#62

Post by vhcr »

croes wrote: post #31
lekevicius wrote: post #28

I do disagree that some of these were not inevitable. Let me deconstruct a couple: > Tiktok is not inevitable. TikTok the app and company, not inevitable. Short form video as the medium, and algorithm that samples entire catalog (vs just followers) were inevitable. Short form video follows gradual escalation of most engaging content formats, with legacy stretching from short-form-text in Twitter, short-form-photo in…

> Short form video as the medium, and algorithm that samples entire catalog (vs just followers) were inevitable. I doubt that. There is a reason the videos get longer again. So people could have ignored the short form from the beginning. And wasn’t the matching algorithm the teal killer feature that amazed people, not the length of the videos?

Have you seen YouTube's front-page? It's pretty much 20-40min videos full of fluff.

Re: This is not the future

#63

Post by cloogshicer »

nostrademons wrote: post #38

I think a more accurate and more useful framing is: Game theory is inevitable . Because game theory is just math, the study of how independent actors react to incentives. The specific examples called out here may or may not be inevitable. It's true that the future is unknowable, but it's also true that the future is made up of 8B+ independent actors and that they're going to react to incentives. It's also true that y…

Your point of view is based on extreme reductionism.

Re: This is not the future

#64

Post by dripdry45 »

lekevicius wrote: post #37
croes wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Short form video as the medium, and algorithm that samples entire catalog (vs just followers) were inevitable. I doubt that. There is a reason the videos get longer again. So people could have ignored the short form from the beginning. And wasn’t the matching algorithm the teal killer feature that amazed people, not the length of the videos?

Even if that's true, that sub-minute videos are not the apex content, that only goes to prove inevitability. Every idea will be tested and measured; the best-performing ones will survive. There can't be any coordination or consensus like "we shouldn't have that" - the only signal is, "is this still the most performant medium + algorithm mix?"

I feel that the argument here hinges on “performant”

The regulatory, cultural, social, even educational factors surrounding these ideas are what could have made these not inevitable. But changes weren’t made, as there was no power strong enough to enact something meaningful.

Re: This is not the future

#65

Post by Levitz »

It's technically not inevitable, sure. What has to happen for this not to become the future though, and what are the odds of that happening?

The rational choice is to act as if this was ensured to be the future. If it ends up not being the case, enough people will have made that mistake that your failure will be minuscule in the grand scheme of things, and if it's not and this is the future, you won't be left behind.

Sure beats sticking your feet in the sand and most likely fucking up or perhaps being right in the end, standing between the flames.

Re: This is not the future

#66

Post by Rperry2174 »

nothing is inevitable IN THEORY... but in practice, systems that minimize effort beat systems that maximize agency.

People want things to be simpler, easier, frictionless.

Resistance to these things has a cost and generally the ROI is not worth it for most people as whole

Re: This is not the future

#68

Post by Terretta »

cloogshicer wrote: post #63
nostrademons wrote: post #38

I think a more accurate and more useful framing is: Game theory is inevitable . Because game theory is just math, the study of how independent actors react to incentives. The specific examples called out here may or may not be inevitable. It's true that the future is unknowable, but it's also true that the future is made up of 8B+ independent actors and that they're going to react to incentives. It's also true that y…

Your point of view is based on extreme reductionism.

It's nature.

Whether that word is reductionism is an exercise left to Chomsky?

Re: This is not the future

#69

Post by nasmorn »

nostrademons wrote: post #58
croes wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Short form video as the medium, and algorithm that samples entire catalog (vs just followers) were inevitable. I doubt that. There is a reason the videos get longer again. So people could have ignored the short form from the beginning. And wasn’t the matching algorithm the teal killer feature that amazed people, not the length of the videos?

I've got a hypothesis that the reason short-form video like TikTok became dominant is because of the decline in reading instruction (eg. usage of whole-word instruction over phonics) that started in 1998-2000. The timing largely lines up: the rise of video content started around 2013, just as these kids were entering their teenage years. Media has significant economies of scale and network effects (i.e. it is much mo…

My counter argument is that did not happen in the Austrian school system and people consume short form video just the same

Re: This is not the future

#70

Post by lern_too_spel »

lekevicius wrote: post #28

I do disagree that some of these were not inevitable. Let me deconstruct a couple: > Tiktok is not inevitable. TikTok the app and company, not inevitable. Short form video as the medium, and algorithm that samples entire catalog (vs just followers) were inevitable. Short form video follows gradual escalation of most engaging content formats, with legacy stretching from short-form-text in Twitter, short-form-photo in…

The point is that regulation could have made Bitcoin and NFTs never cause the harm they have inflicted and will inflict, but the political will is not there.
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