only sort of correct: the GDPR applies globally (see this comment: https://jlai.lu/comment/4089576), however if you don’t ever plan on visiting or doing business in the EU it’s probably one of those things that people would ignore because it’d be too difficult/impossible for the EU to actually follow up on
i don’t agree with that definition of creative… there’s lots of engineering work that’s creative: writing code and designing systems can be a very creative process, but doesn’t involve feeling… it’s problem solving, and thats a creative process. you’re narrowly defining creativity as artistic expression of emotion, however there’s lots of ways to be creative
now, i think thats a bit of a strawman (so i’ll elaborate on the broader point), but i think its important to define terms
i agree we should be skeptical of marketing hype for sure: the type of creativity that i believe ML is currently capable of is directionless. it doesn’t understand what it’s creating… but the truth lies somewhere in the middle
ML is definitively creating something new that didn’t exist before (in fact i’d say that its trouble with hallucinations of language are a good example of that: it certainly didn’t copy those characters/words from anywhere!)… this fits the easiest definition of creative: marked by the ability or power to create
the far more difficult definition is: having the quality of something created rather than imitated
the key here being “rather than imitated” which is a really hard thing to prove, even for humans! which is why our copyright laws basically say that if you have evidence that you created something first, you pretty much win: we don’t really try to decide whether something was created or imitated
with things like transformative works or things that are similar, it’s a bit more of a grey area… but the argument isn’t about whether something is an imitation; rather it’s argued about how different the work is from the original
that’s a lack of understanding of concepts though, rather than a lack of creativity… curation requires that you understand the concept that you’re trying to curate: this looks more like a dog than this; this is a more attractive sunset than this
current LLMs and ML don’t understand concepts, which is their main issue
id argue that it kind of does “think about its own thoughts” to some degree: modern ML is layered, and each layer of the net feeds into the next… one layer of the net “thinks about” the “thoughts” of the previous layer. now, it doesn’t do this as a whole but neither do we: memories and neural connections are lossy; heck even creating a creative work isn’t going to turn out exactly like you thought it in your head (your muscle memory and skill level will effect the translation from brain to paper/canvas/screen)
but even we hallucinate in the same way. don’t look at a bike, and then try and draw a bike… you’ll get general things like pedals, wheels, seat, handlebars, but it’ll be all connected wrong. this is a common example people use to show how our brains aren’t as precise and we might like to think… drawing a bike requires a lot of very specific things to be in very specific places and that’s not how our brain remembers the concept of “bike”
it’s only qualitative because we don’t understand it
when an LLM “experiences” new data via training, that’s subjective too: it works its way through the network in a manner that’s different depending on what came before it… if different training data came before it, the network would look differently and the data would change the network as a whole in a different way
and experience is ongoing learning, so if an LLM were training on things after the pretraining period then that’d allow it to be creative in your definition?
but in that case, what’s the difference between doing that all at once, and doing it over a period of time?
experience is just tweaking your neurons to make new/different connections
yeah that’s also correct and a very valid criticism
ml doesn’t understand jokes very well, so honestly it’s not a shit example lol
the other important thing with all of this is that even if your girlfriend is taking care, THEY STILL KNOW
people around you (or “you”, in this case) using these services impacts your privacy
is there anything we can do about that? probably not
but it’s worth being aware of
i’ve seen the bullet points from that article riffed in different ways, but i think that’s the most important part:
- They know you rang a phone sex line at 2:24 am and spoke for 18 minutes. But they don’t know what you talked about.
- They know you called the suicide prevention hotline from the Golden Gate Bridge. But the topic of the call remains a secret.
- They know you got an email from an HIV testing service, then called your doctor, then visited an HIV support group website in the same hour. But they don’t know what was in the email or what you talked about on the phone.
- They know you received an email from a digital rights activist group with the subject line “Let’s Tell Congress: Stop SESTA/FOSTA” and then called your elected representative immediately after. But the content of those communications remains safe from government intrusion.
- They know you called a gynecologist, spoke for a half hour, and then called the local abortion clinic’s number later that day.
i can’t find a single reference to that. i think you’re confused
for clarity, i think that the worst thing anyone’s been able to decisively prove about telegrams encryption is that it’s vulnerable to replay attacks… which in the context of privacy rather than full security isn’t suuuuper problematic
that’s not to say that there aren’t other flaws; that’s kinda the point behind “rule number 1: DONT INVENT YOUR OWN CRYPTO”: you just don’t know what flaws there are… AES (etc) has had a LOT of eyes on it
but for the most part, the negativity with the crypto boils down to what-ifs
yeah it’s only that because for the discover stuff plex has to find it on IMDB
and also the flip side: who the fuck cares if it’s flat and the government is lying about it?
change has nothing to do with people until it does… change is just change. change when it comes to people and social systems is effective only when it effects the majority of people that are touched by an issue. voting 3rd party after not for some time is change of a kind, but i wouldn’t call it social change
social change comes when a large number of people decide something should be different, and the mathematics and sociology behind first past the post means that it’d take something so close to impossible that it’s not worth classing in the realms of possibility for a 3rd party to have any effect on the political system
the reality of the system is that the US is a 2 party system… the statistics of FPTP, and the game theory that leads to defensive voting, spoiler effect, and any number of other bad outcomes ensures that
within such a system, you just can’t hope to have an outcome other than 1 of the 2 parties having any real impact, thus you have to change 1 of the parties to be the way you want it to be, or you must change the system
you could argue that voting 3rd party forces the parties to change their positions, but historically that hasn’t really happened so i personally wouldn’t hold my breath
vote defensively, and work to change the system… because changing the system is incremental, achievable, and less subject to the whims of a few
both sides support israel, 1 side is on the record as having said that israel’s reaction is overboard… no action still, but both sides are not the same
i’m absolutely not pink washing… republicans are horrific to queers… given that you’ve even suggested that, you’re pretty much beyond reason, but i will say: just look at the don’t say gay bullshit in florida… culture wars cause huge increases in suicide rates amongst the queer community
im not got blue no matter who; im vote in the way that’s most likely to produce a positive outcome in things you want to change… on every metric and category, right now, that’s getting as many people as possible to vote democrat… id suggest people look at republicans if they had policies that weren’t detestable around:
… but they don’t
the only other candidate that’s reasonable possible to be in his place is far worse
so there’s that
well, as far as the EC goes the democrats have a vested interested in removing it… the republicans would fight tooth and nail to keep it because there’s no way they’d win honestly, but that’d be the single biggest help the democrats could hope for
and as far as voting systems go, that’s why yoh start locally… afaik there are some places that use alternative voting systems to vote in the federal election… a big change is, you’re right, basically impossible… but small changes? who knows!
i’m not talking about doing nothing, but point your effort where it can make change… voting 3rd party is a hopelessly ineffective way of making change… it’s a dream, and that’s it. it makes you feel good, and that’s it, but it’ll never EVER change anything… that is just the mathematics and sociology of how the voting system works
work towards changing from first past the post and removing the electoral college (there are effects to do both of these things that ARE making progress! some of them are even close!)
only THEN can you vote 3rd party and not have it a complete waste
but in the meantime, i beg you, vote for the party that isn’t actively campaigning to persecute minorities, who gave you at least a half way form of socialised healthcare, who’s at least trying with green energy, whose policies and positions are at least internally consistent for the most part
and most importantly, vote for the party that isn’t trying to make it harder to vote for anyone else, because you can be sure that gerrymandering, fucking with the supreme court, playing bullshit political games with voter ID all makes it harder to vote in a 3rd party candidate too
okay, well if the republicans had their way i’d be tortured forever in conversion therapy, there’d be no movement at all on green energy, the solution to homelessness would probably boil down to if you’re going through a rough patch it’s execution time, christianity would be mandatory
both sides are NOT the same… 1 side is mostly inept, and the other side is actively trying to persecute people, to which i’d say
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
a healthy democracy requires others to have privacy. people like investigative journalists need to be able to blend in with the crowd and expose government wrongdoing
blending in the the crowd is the important part: if everyone cares about privacy, nobody sticks out for caring about privacy… but if nobody cares about privacy, the investigative journalist suddenly looks really obvious and can be targeted much more easily
if someone doesn’t think they have anything to hide, that’s fine (wrong, but fine) however they can help to make sure the government acts appropriately simply by not splashing data around everywhere for all to see