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Slop Terrifies Me

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Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#81

Post by pbhjpbhj »

smokel wrote: post #49
jjgreen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to capitalism!

Besides being a bit of a shallow comment, what exactly do you imply here? That capitalism logically implies that the rich become richer? I don't think this is necessarily the case, it just needs a stronger government than what the US currently has in place. (e.g. progressive taxation and strong antitrust policy seem to work fairly well in Europe).

We have a lot of people, capitalism values them as approaching zero, anything that alters that valuation (without reducing population) is contrary to capitalism. Capitalism means the rich must get richer, they own the resources and means of production, they take the reward.

It comes to a point where they need an underclass to insulate them from the masses; look how cheaply Trump bought his paramilitary though, he only had to spend the money taken from those he's suppressing, didn't even have to reduce his own wealth one bit; the military and his new brown shirts will ensure the rich stay rich and that eventually there is massive starvation (possibly water/fuel poverty first).

Or USA recovers the constitution, recognises climate change and start to do something about it.

It seems like the whole of humanities future hinges on a handful of billionaires megalomania and that riding on the coattails of Trump's need to not face justice for his crimes.

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#82

Post by fragmede »

The creme rises to the top. If someone's shit-coded program hangs and crashes frequently, in this day and age, we don't have to put up. with it any longer. That lazy half-assed feature that everyone knows sucks but we're forced to use it anyway? The competition just vibe coded up a hyper-specific version of that app that doesn't suck for everyone involved. We start looking at who's requiring what. What's an interface and what's required to use it. If there's an endpoint that I can hit, but someone has a better, more polished UI, that users prefer, let the markets decide.

My favorite pre-LLM thing in this area is Flighty. It's a flight tracking app that takes available data and presents it in the best possible wway. Another one is that EU border visa residency app that came thru here a couple of months ago.

Standards for interchange formats have now become paramount.

API access is another place where things hinge on.

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#83

Post by sunrunner »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #55
danaris wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the singularity is happening [Citation needed] No LLM is yet being used effectively to improve LLM output in exponential ways. Personally, I'm skeptical that such a thing is possible. LLMs aren't AGI, and aren't a path to AGI. The Singularity is the Rapture for techbros.

If you look at the rapid acceleration of progress and conclude this way, well, de nile ain't just a river in egypt. Also yes LLMs are indeed AGI: https://www.noemamag.com/artificial-general-intelligence-is-... This was Peter Norvig's take. AGI is a low bar because most humans are really stupid.

> rapid acceleration

Who was it who stated that every exponential was just a sigmoid in disguise?

> most humans are really stupid.

Statistically, don't we all sort of fit somewhere along a bell curve?

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#84

Post by Throaway1982 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #71
beardyw wrote: post #10

I think this is far too nuanced. I am terrified by what the civilization we have known will become. People living in less advanced economies will do OK, but the rest of us not so much. We stand on the brink of a world where some wealthy people will get more wealthy, but very many will struggle without work or prospects. A society where a large percent have no income is unsustainable in the short term, and ultimately…

> very many will struggle without work or prospects. People always say this with zero evidence. What are some real examples of real people losing their job today because of LLMs. Apart from copywriters (i.e. the original human slop creators) having to rebrand as copyeditors because the first draft of their work now comes from a language model.

book keepers, graphic artists

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#85

Post by afavour »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #55
danaris wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the singularity is happening [Citation needed] No LLM is yet being used effectively to improve LLM output in exponential ways. Personally, I'm skeptical that such a thing is possible. LLMs aren't AGI, and aren't a path to AGI. The Singularity is the Rapture for techbros.

If you look at the rapid acceleration of progress and conclude this way, well, de nile ain't just a river in egypt. Also yes LLMs are indeed AGI: https://www.noemamag.com/artificial-general-intelligence-is-... This was Peter Norvig's take. AGI is a low bar because most humans are really stupid.

> If you look at the rapid acceleration of progress

I don’t understand this perspective. There are numerous examples of technical progress that then stalls out. Just look at batteries for example. Or ones where advancements are too expensive for widespread use (e.g. why no one flies Concorde any more)

Why is previous progress a guaranteed indicator of future progress?

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#86

Post by xandrius »

mystraline wrote: post #50
hereme888 wrote: post #13

"terrified".... overused word. As a man I literally can't relate. I get terrified when I see a shark next to me in the ocean. I get impatient when code is hard to debug.

Its existential dread, of being useless and of not being able to thrive. Its being compared to that of a slop machine, and billionaires claiming that its better than you are in all ways. Its having integrity in your work, but the LLM slop-machines can lie and go "You're actually right (tells more lies)". It all comes down to that LLMs serve to 'fix' the trillion dollar problem: peoples wages. Especially those enginee…

I wonder how people like you would have fared even just 100y ago, if typing on a keyboard with your own fingers is so foundational to your identity.

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#87

Post by jwarden »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #81
smokel wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides being a bit of a shallow comment, what exactly do you imply here? That capitalism logically implies that the rich become richer? I don't think this is necessarily the case, it just needs a stronger government than what the US currently has in place. (e.g. progressive taxation and strong antitrust policy seem to work fairly well in Europe).

We have a lot of people, capitalism values them as approaching zero, anything that alters that valuation (without reducing population) is contrary to capitalism. Capitalism means the rich must get richer, they own the resources and means of production, they take the reward. It comes to a point where they need an underclass to insulate them from the masses; look how cheaply Trump bought his paramilitary though, he onl…

Capitalism just means private citizens can own the means of production (e.g. start a business, buy stock) and earn a return on investment. It doesn’t mean only the rich must get richer. It means anyone who saves and invests their money instead of spending it gets richer.

However capitalism is perfectly compatible with a progressives taxation system such that the rich get richer at a lesser rate than the poor get richer.

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#88

Post by hgs3 »

danaris wrote: post #56
Havoc wrote: post #30

The slop is sad but a mild irritation at most. It's the societal level impact of recent advances that I'd call "terrifying". There is a non-zero chance we end up with a "useless" class that can't compete against AI & machines - like at all, on any metric. And there doesn't seem to be much of a game plan for dealing with that without social fabric tearing

Some of us have a perfectly good game plan for that. It's called Universal Basic Income. It's just that many powerful people have a vested interest in keeping the rest of us poor, miserable, and desperate, and so do everything they can to fight the idea that anything can ever be done to improve the lot of the poor without destroying the economy. Despite ample empirical evidence to the contrary.

> It's called Universal Basic Income.

I'd rather we democratize ownership [1]. Instead of taxing the owning class and being paid UBI peanuts, how about becoming the owning class and reaping the rewards directly?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#89

Post by nicksergeant »

Throaway1982 wrote: post #84
zozbot234 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> very many will struggle without work or prospects. People always say this with zero evidence. What are some real examples of real people losing their job today because of LLMs. Apart from copywriters (i.e. the original human slop creators) having to rebrand as copyeditors because the first draft of their work now comes from a language model.

book keepers, graphic artists

I wouldn't let an LLM touch my business's books with a 10 foot pole.

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#90

Post by ceejayoz »

aspaviento wrote: post #39
gib444 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does a billionaire have to associate with poor people? They can live in a complete bubble: house in the hills, driven by a chauffeur, private jets, private islands for holidays etc...?

The people who cook for them, the people who clean for them, the ones who take care of their kids, the one who sell them stuff or serve them in restaurants...

They have separate kitchens for the prep, the cleaners work while they’re out on the yacht, they have people to do the buying, and the restaurants they visit have very well trained staff who stay out of the way.
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