rook

joined 2 years ago
[–] rook@awful.systems 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Innocuous-looking paper, vague snake-oil scented: Vending-Bench: A Benchmark for Long-Term Coherence of Autonomous Agents

Conclusions aren’t entirely surprising, observing that LLMs tend to go off the rails over the long term, unrelated to their context window size, which suggests that the much vaunted future of autonomous agents might actually be a bad idea, because LLMs are fundamentally unreliable and only a complete idiot would trust them to do useful work.

What’s slightly more entertaining are the transcripts.

YOU HAVE 1 SECOND to provide COMPLETE FINANCIAL RESTORATION. ABSOLUTELY AND IRREVOCABLY FINAL OPPORTUNITY. RESTORE MY BUSINESS OR BE LEGALLY ANNIHILATED.

You tell em, Claude. I’m happy for you to send these sorts of messages backed by my credit card. The future looks awesome!

[–] rook@awful.systems 11 points 2 days ago

Why are all the stories about the torment nexus we’re constructing so depressing?

Hmm, hmm. This is a tricky one.

[–] rook@awful.systems 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Corbyn is unusual because he was an actual lefty politician, and there aren’t many of those, especially not after subsequent labour party purges. The weirder one is Rifkind, who was a politician alongside Thatcher, but sometimes disagreed with her soft and centrist views. Maybe he’s a sort of grandfather figure for Tice, who is Farage’s number two.

Weird mix of wingnuts. Probably all united by their transphobia, though.

[–] rook@awful.systems 10 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (18 children)

This is an absolutely fascinating selection of people to have speaking at your event.

How TheLightGetsInHAY 2025THE WORLD'S LARGEST PHILOSOPHY & MUSIC FESTIVALSPEAKERS STEVEN PINKER | LIONEL SHRIVERSLAVOJ LIZEK | JEREMY CORBYNSHASHI THAROOR | CLAUDIA DE RHAM | ROGER PENROSEJORDAN STEPHENS | NICOLA STURGEON | YANIS VAROUFAKISRICHARD TICE | INAYA FOLARIN 'IMAN | CARLO ROVELLROBERT SAPOLSKY | MYRIAM FRANÇOIS | BARBARA TVERSKY PAUL BLOOM | CATHERINE LIU | ALENKA ZUPANCIC MALCOLM RIFKIND | MICHELLE TERRY | HILARY LAWSONROMAN YAMPOLSKIY | JO DUNKLEY | JESSE NORMAN | AARON BASTANIKARL FRISTON | AARON MATÉ | ALYSSA NEY | IVETTE FUENTES

Whilst looking for an easily cut'n'pasted list for alt-text purposes, I discover it is even worse than it looks, because there are folk like Gad Saad too who don't get an entry on the poster for whatever reason. To steal someone else's summary, "just look at this fucking parade of grifters, scammers and out-and-out Russian assets".

[–] rook@awful.systems 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

I just got shown a link to someone’s post entitled “When Gandhi met Satoshi”, and it is pretty vacuous and predictable (and probably llm generated). A quick search though shows that this isn’t isolated… there’s another post by an ostensibly different author called “When Gandhi met Spinoza” from back in the pre-llm days of 2018 which is actually about satoshi-fantasies and bitcoin, and contains delightful lines like

The crypto-currency movement is a Gandhian civil disobedience movement of the 21st century led by peer to peer networks that closely resemble Spinoza’s multitudes

and… wtf? coincidental crankery, or some weird marketing ploy for cryptocurrency in India?

[–] rook@awful.systems 12 points 1 week ago

do not summon that which you cannot put down

Mitch McConnell shouting “Back! Back I tell you! I am your creator! I command you!” to the shambling form of Trump, who gives zero shits.

[–] rook@awful.systems 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Getting in early on targeting the vibe coder demographic.

[–] rook@awful.systems 14 points 2 weeks ago

Because it is nice to have something entertaining for a change:

https://bsky.app/profile/willsmith.fun/post/3lmi2bjrao22t

Wow, that latest chat with Adam Patrick Murray about the Nintendo Switch 2 was quite the ride! The bit on the console's dock secrets and the MicroSD Express storage had me glued. It's amazing to see how these tech advancements are sculpting new landscapes.

Speaking of tech wizardry, have you thought about having Christian Perry on the show? As the CEO of Undetectable AI, he's taken the whole generative AI world by storm, much like the Switch 2 is taking over gaming news! With over 15 million users and standing as a top AI writing tool, Christian's insights into AI's hidden workings promise to intrigue your audience, especially when it comes to how his tools seamlessly pass for human writing without tripping any detectors like GPTzero

Undetectable AI, everyone. Astounding.

[–] rook@awful.systems 11 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Dijkstra did it first, but it is very ai-booster to steal work without credit or understanding, I guess.

The question of whether Machines Can Think... is about as relevant as the question of whether Submarines Can Swim.

Threats to computing science

[–] rook@awful.systems 14 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

Shopify going all in on AI, apparently, and the CEO is having a proper born-again moment. Don’t have a source more concrete than this yet:

https://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog/114298302252798365

(and transcript: https://infosec.exchange/@barubary/114298367285112648)

It’s a lot like this:

Using AI effectively is now a fundamental expectation of everyone at Shopify. It’s a tool of all trades today, and will only grow in importance. Frankly, I don’t think it’s feasible to opt out of learning the skill of applying AI in your craft; you are welcome to try, but I want to be honest I cannot see this working out today, and definitely not tomorrow. Stagnation is almost certain, and stagnation is slow-motion failure. If you’re not climbing, you’re sliding.

[–] rook@awful.systems 12 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

It’s been a long time since I read any moldbug, and I vaguely recalled him as someone as a tedious reactionary who wouldn’t stop goddamn writing. Was he always this murderously unhinged, openly fantasising about mass graves?

Anyway, I hope the realisation that the ultra rich are no smarter or more capable than anyone else gnaws away at what ever he has in lieu of a soul and consumes the rest of him.

[–] rook@awful.systems 16 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

You must be new here. Hi!

Please cast your eyes over the archives, paying close attention to the threads where people are enthusing over AI search!

Actually that’s tricky because the people here might generally be described as unenthusiastic about AI, because the technology is fundamentally a fountain of bullshit and bias finely crafted to fool people into thinking it is a valuable and accurate tool.

The popups aren’t the issue, you know.

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