You're assuming the author did this only for audience engagement(dozens, nay, scores of blog hits!), and not to gratify their own intellectual curiosity? Sometimes you just want to see what happens.
I don't think the question "will the AI add BS" was what drove this experiment. The very first thing the author references is re-feeding and degrading the same image 100 times, which similarly is not about improving the image.
This was more about seeing in what interesting ways the LLM will "fail", to get a little glimpse into how the black-box "thinks".
I'm a Latin language learner, and part of developing fluency is practicing extemporaneous speech. My dog is a patient listener, but a poor interlocutor. There are Latin language Discord servers where you can speak to people, but I don't quite have the confidence to do that yet. I assume the machine doesn't judge my shitty grammar.
You laugh, but the global language learning market in 2025 is expected to exceed USD $100 billion, and LLMs IMHO are poised to disrupt the shit out of it.
Major pet peeve of mine is when people unironically spread literal advertisements, whether it's because they're "cute" or people are outraged at them or whatever it may be.
The ad is doing it on purpose. It is literally manipulating you and you are spreading the malicious influence to other people. It's not AI but it sure is 'slop'. Propaganda, even.
It's an ad by a grocery store advocating healthy eating and inclusion.
I think people will make reasonable decisions about whether or not to purchase food this winter with or without the "malicious influence" of these ads.
The irony is that Christmas is the time for unhealthy eating but is it still allowed to show in ads?
Personally I interpreted the fish as either a timely Christian symbol (and fish at Christmas is traditional in some places) or simply because a meat dish would not have worked in context.
True the vast majority of the time. This ad though doesn’t promote anything malicious. It’s a cute story with the message “eat healthy stuff like vegetables and fish”, with a brand name/ logo at the very end.
And as a (very occasional) customer, I like that this company is signalling that it does not oppose inclusion and doesn't mind questioning "traditional values" (the wolf eating animals).
Many actors these days (both companies and political figures) are very much signalling the contrary, so some kind of signalling is absolutely useful.
"You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss."
It is possible to have art and artist be separate things; to acknowledge that that reason a thing was created and/or who it was created by can be looked at separately from the thing itself. This commercial was fun to watch. The Budweiser horse commercials are also fun to watch. But enjoying them has very little to do with a choice to support the creator.
This is the real question. Not to rehash the self-driving cars arguments that have been had to death, but with potential LLM mental healthcare the question "but what if it causes harm in some interactions" is asked much, much more than with human mental healthcare professionals.
(And I'm not being theoretical here, I have quite a bit of experience getting incredibly inadequate mental health care.)
Your argument here appears to be "crypto is no better than fiat, because you can build the same systems on top of them."
What you put on top is not the core value proposition of cryptocurrencies? It's what's underneath that's different, that was always the point. Fiat currency is built on a foundation of gov't control, whether it's the physical currency or the money in your bank account. Cryptocurrencies, fundamentally, are under no such control. If you're stupid enough to go get a 5mil loan in bitcoin from a bank who is only holding 1.7mil, and the delivery of said bitcoin is a slip of paper saying "iou btc lol" that's not the currency failing you, it's you acting stupidly.
No; the argument is much closer to "if you don't make cryptocurrency basically the same as fiat, by building the same systems on top of it, it's useless to the vast majority of people."
That is just an observation, not an argument against building, improving, and using crypto.
Cryptocurrency doesn't need to do everything for everyone at all times to be a useful thing to have in the world. It only needs to be helpful to a subset of people, in a subset of situations, some of the time.
I'm happy paying by card for ~100% of my daily transactions, but I want cryptocurrency to exist should the need arise. The rise of authoritarian governments and policies across the world should've made that obvious by now. What's legal and perfectly moral today can become a crime tomorrow.
But cryptocurrency enables more abuse, more victimization, today. And the problems with authoritarian governments a) cannot actually be solved by introducing cryptocurrency; that only enables some people to work around them; and b) cannot even be worked around with cryptocurrency for the majority of people: only those who are already relatively wealthy have access to the systems that enable that.
The financial system being under government control is the only proposition consistent with reality.
We, the people, make the rules. Replacing our democratic processes with finance controlled by the one with the most computing power, control of the software, or having horded the most of the tokens, is in no way desirable or realistic.
Even if the proposition wasn't borderline idiotic in the first place, there is no clear explanation how such a system should reward early adopters and allow them to cash out at a profit many times exceeding inflation.
I'm gonna first of all disagree with the notion that our entire democracy rests on control of the financial system, secondly point out that you seem to make some wild leaps about how decentralized currencies work, and thirdly ask how the hell you're getting the idea that early adopters would need to be "cashed out at a profit many times exceeding inflation"(Participation in the new system is the point of adopting it, how is this unclear).
Finally:
We, the people, make the rules.
If you truly believe that, you are (and I realize this is not the level of discourse I should strive for on HN) beyond redemption.
I said the financial system must be controlled by our democratic system, not that democracy rests on control of the financial system.
No idea where I'm supposedly making "wild leaps" here. You on the other hand...
And guess where "the hell" I am getting the idea that early adopters would need to be cashed out at a profit many times exceeding inflation: reality. As cashing out at a large profit is exactly what has been happening for over a decade. It is the sole reason for virtually all participants joining the scheme in the first place.
Since when? We merely vote for politicians who promise to enact laws and regulations that are beneficial for us but they almost universally fail to do that, succumbing to self-interests and corruption.
If a government implements authoritarian measures that curb our freedom in an unpopular manner, "we the people" can't do anything about it. In a few years we may or may not vote them out, and the people who replace them may (or may not) do what we, the people, want.
Whatever your feelings on the topic may be, we will not be giving up government control of the financial system in favor of a blockchain and profits for crypto-bros.
Bleak but realistic, unfortunately. There needs to be a viable alternative as long as our elected representatives have the power to abuse the financial system as a means of authoritarian control, like freezing the bank accounts of protestors.
A truly democratic leadership with stringent limitations on how they can meddle with financial transactions would be preferable, but that's just a dream at this point.
A viable alternative to the financial system is also just a dream.
If we take from the government the ability to freeze bank accounts of protestors, we can't just also remove the ability to freeze the accounts of criminals, enemies, or even terrorists.
It seems like a clear non-starter, yet many proponents of crypto seem to think it would be an obvious improvement.
>If we take from the government the ability to freeze bank accounts of protestors, we can't just also remove the ability to freeze the accounts of criminals
That's really the crux of the issue here: Having to choose one over the other, would you rather some criminals go free, or some innocents be imprisoned?
I suspect anyone's position to this depends heavily on which sides they've been on more on their lives: Victimized by criminals or unjustly punished.
But realistically we're not seriously going to entertain stripping all controls from the financial system because we don't trust the government to do a reasonable job. Perhaps you'll agree that this is a very unlikely thing to happen.
Now my issue here is that many proponents of crypto, among other fallacies, use this exact scenario as a justification for why eg. Bitcoin will go to $1M, and why they should deserve to cash out at a 10x return in the future.
It's not going to happen, and even if it was, there's still no reason for early adopters to profit in what has so far been a zero sum wealth redistribution scheme with negligible value generated.
We are actually completely in agreement that crypto-hustlers and such are entirely full of hooey and nobody deserves any payout whatsoever. I'm only arguing from a point of "government bad" idealism.
>realistically we're not seriously going to entertain stripping all controls from the financial system because we don't trust the government to do a reasonable job
I kind of am. What I'm seeing happen is the opposite: The government stripping more and more agency from the individual because it does not trust its citizens do do a reasonable job(of anything). Every sector freed from the Leviathan, every tiny bit of life that can proceed without being subject to gov't interference is a huge win for me. Again, this is essentially a position born from my seeing what happens when "safety over liberty" goes too far.
>negligible value generated
Depends on what you value. I happen to like drugs and gambling. On the other hand, giving someone who falls for a hustle the ability to get their money back is something that I personally do not value at all.
You might have formulated things a bit unclearly, but I fundamentally agree that money, like everything else, should be under democratic control of the people. Not controlled by some crypto bros that are happy to interfere with the protocol if it suits them (The DAO hack, two 20+ block rollbacks of Bitcoin), but not if massive crime happens on it.
I guess so, although crypto proponents will anyway tell you that you don't understand how crypto works as soon as you say anything negative about their scheme.
I believe what I said is a fairly accurate summary of Proof of work / Proof of stake mechanisms and Core developer's influence on the protocol.
Freedom is never absolute. What gives one person freedom may limit another person's freedoms. Therefore you will have to weigh the pros and the cons of a technology that promises freedom.
I'd extend that a bit, in the same vein as TFA: you should always be aware of who you're taking freedom away from and who you're giving it to, in practical actual terms, when designing or deploying revolutionary technology.
If you deploy a non-government fiat monetary system... most of your users are going to be people who want to avoid government currency controls.
Consequently, without a counterbalance, they're going to skew the industry towards their needs.
In the same way that allowing the largest advertising company in the world to own the most popular browser in the world has some conflicts of interest.
Money sets strategic direction over the long term.
Which funnily is the dumbest thing ever. Because in order to use the currency you need to exchange it which means that you need input and outputs, you slightly obfuscate that but in the crypto chain everything is saved, so everything is traceable forever. Slip up once when extracting or get your wallet involved in unsavoury interactions and you're done. It's not a matter of if but a matter of when...
There is a difference between "Freedom to do something" and "Freedom to not have something happen to you".
If we keep curtailing the former to serve the latter, we will end up perfectly safe from interruptions, doing nothing at all(aside from what the government dictates as 'serving the common good')
I live in a city where I can be fairly certain that I will not be the victim of a robbery. I don't need to carry a weapon or otherwise appear defensible. This type of crime simply does not exist here (or only to a very limited extent). That is “freedom from.” If I had the right to carry a firearm to defend myself in the event of a robbery, that would be “freedom to.” These two forms of freedom can be distinguished in a very clear-cut way. One allows you to do certain things. The other ensures that negative events do not occur. In North America, the cultural focus seems to be primarily on “freedom to.” But I would consider it a massive restriction of my freedom if I could not walk through my neighborhood at night without worry, even if I had the right to carry a firearm for protection.
Your semantic sleight of hand cannot reflect the difference between someone who feels safe because they believe they can and are allowed to defend themselves against danger (freedom to defend oneself) and someone who feels safe because they believe there is no danger (freedom from danger). However, there is a clearly discernible qualitative difference between these two freedoms. Otherwise, there would be no difference in terms of freedom between walking through Caracas, Tijuana, Port-au-Prince, or Pietermaritzburg with a firearm in your pocket and walking completely unarmed through Abu Dhabi, The Hague, or Trondheim.
There's tremendous difference. Imagine I put a 5' high fence every 3 feet on a sidewalk. You still have the freedom to walk down the street, but no longer have the ability to do so. This is why the Bill of Rights is framed in terms of limitations on governments as opposed to guarantees of rights.
For instance, the Bill of Rights doesn't grant you the right to free speech. You already naturally have that. It instead makes it unconstitutional for the government to try to hinder that right. By contrast the USSR and China both had/have guarantees of freedom of speech in their constitution, but they mean nothing because obviously you have freedom of speech by virtue of being able to speak.
You having the freedom of speech says nothing about the ability of the government (or private companies in contemporary times) engaging in actions making it difficult to exercise that speech without fear of repercussion. Or as the old tyrannical quote goes, "There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech."
This may be how you personally interpret these things, but it is not how it has been interpreted universally for many centuries now. The freedom to do something has nothing to do with how easy it is to do, or even the absolute viability. For a basic example of the latter, every US citizen by birth has the freedom to become President some day, yet of course it is literally impossible for more than 0.000006% of people to achieve that within their expected lifetimes.
This is why constitutional guarantees of rights, the world round, are generally completely meaningless.
>The freedom to do something has nothing to do with how easy it is to do, or even the absolute viability.
Are you confusing me with someone else?
> For a basic example of the latter, every US citizen by birth has the freedom to become President some day, yet of course it is literally impossible for more than 0.000006% of people to achieve that within their expected lifetimes
I have no idea what this has to do with my point and you have not adequately explained the relevancy either.
Yes, you can, if you consider that liberty and freedom are functions of society and not nature. In this sense, dying from old age is not being unfree.
To stay with your example, one is bascically the absence of limitations (negative freedom), ie. the freedom to walk the street. The other is the presence of possibilities (positive freedom), ie. there needs to be a street to walk it.
>> There is a difference between "Freedom to do something" and "Freedom to not have something happen to you". […]
> There's no difference. You can't formulate that distinction coherently.
The historian Timothy Snyder just wrote a book on the difference between Freedom from and Freedom to:
> Freedom is the great American commitment, but as Snyder argues, we have lost sight of what it means—and this is leading us into crisis. Too many of us look at freedom as the absence of state power: We think we’re free if we can do and say as we please, and protect ourselves from government overreach. But true freedom isn’t so much freedom from as freedom to—the freedom to thrive, to take risks for futures we choose by working together. Freedom is the value that makes all other values possible.
Freedom to walk the street means no police will stop me when I try to walk the street. Freedom to not be hindered from walking the street means police will stop other people from stopping me.
Freedom to walk anywhere means someone can walk onto your property ("done to you") You can curtail that freedom, because you are essentially giving up ("inability to do something with stuff someone else owns") some freedom to get some other freedom ("ability to own stuff that will not be used by strangers").
It's a tradeoff. A good one. Tradeoff of say "nobody's anything is private now because that allows govt a slightly easier time to catch criminals" is not a good tradeoff.
You would have the freedom to try to put cameras in my home, I would have the freedom to try and stop you or take them down again. Shock horror, personal agency instead of surrogate power via government!
Unless amelius is stronger than you, or has better weapons, or commands a gang that is bigger than your gang, then you can't stop them.
Its almost like you need some sort of power structure with the monopoly on violence to enforce agreed upon freedoms, they could be called the "government" which enforces "laws".
>government will form from a power vacuum made up of whoever has the most physical power around you.
Yup! My issue with the current system is that The Powers That Be pretend to act in the interest of their subjects(or, actually my issue is that people believe it) instead of being a gang of thugs imposing their will.
Cynically reduced, tfa reads as: "I don't like what the population is choosing to use their brand-new Freedom for", but claims to say: "The promised freedom did not materialize."
If crypto allows people to do something that was previously not possible(order drugs in the mail with the convenience of amazon, invest at consistently insanely chaotic conditions, run multimillion hustles with total impunity) versus doing something that was possible already, just re-skinned(make bank transfers), then it's really no surprise what will see better adoption. The biggest value-add is in the degenerate stuff.
> "I don't like what the population is choosing to use their brand-new Freedom for"
I think this is a totally valid conclusion, especially for someone growing out of Randianism. It's yet another Chesterton's Fence, or someone discovering that the safety rails were there for good reasons.
I'm not sure how we got from the massive international overreach of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Scheinberg to "sports gambling is now endemic and everyone has trading-themed gambling apps in their pocket". It seems like gambling is too cancerous: you can't just have a little gambling in a corner somewhere, it will take over everything if allowed to exist.
If people making bad choices is a deal-breaker for someone, then I think they might not have been a very good libertarian/randian in the first place.
Also, my point against tfa was less "the author holds a bad opinion" and more "the piece claims to talk about one thing, but actually talks about a completely different thing, drawing bad conclusions as a result."
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