josh-sematic

The only reason gerrymandering works as a tactic in the first place is that neighborhoods DON’T have a statistically uniform distribution of the population. So “Steven and Sally live in the same neighborhood” is not a very good way to look at issues like these.

Switching cost for a DB and switching cost for an inference API are very different things. They’re going to have to create lock-in with something other than model intelligence if they want to play Oracle’s games.

TI-83 was also my gateway drug into programming. Good memories!

Can attest that Tidal is basically completely satisfying as a Spotify replacement for me. I use a dedicated podcast app and buy any audiobooks I want from Libro.fm Haven’t looked back.

Still continue to slowly build my CD + mp3 collection in case this wonderful era of “cheap subscription for almost all the world’s music ad-free” doesn’t last forever.

Do you get a perpetual use license when you buy this way? Are they DRM locked so you’ll lose access if someone shuts down their server?

Why would I hire Alice to work for 4 days a week when Bob is willing to work for 5 at the same price (assuming both are equally productive, even if AI has made that productivity extremely high)? So long as there is an oversupply of qualified workers, I doubt working hours will change. To do so would require social contract changes like for the standard 40-hour work week.

A much closer analogy than the pen one is a SAAS company having an EULA. As annoying as EULAs are I don’t think it counts as being malicious or subversive if you are very open and clear with your prospective customers what that EULA contains?

Seconded. I truly consider that podcast a gem of our culture. I know of no comparable resource for generally curious people willing to try and think deeply about things.

The “recursive” part comes from the fact that you have an AI which was developed by an AI (that was developed by an AI (that was developed by an AI (…)))

Less bad, yes. But still bad. There will definitely be demand for the compute, the question is whether it will be enough to keep the value of it at the levels you’d expect if the tenants were in a monopoly/duopoly world. Competition puts downward pressure on margins and that’d translate into pressure on data center leases.

100%. I have sometimes wondered if China is playing the long game with the open weight models trying to tank the margins of the US labs so these profits don’t materialize and the US economy (currently predicated on the net that they will) suffers. I think this is a coherent strategy beyond just “don’t let the US control AI as a strategic asset.”

I think the point is probably to help convince people that the watermarking doesn’t perceptibly impact quality, which is a concern some people have (whether well founded or not).

They need him to continue evangelizing how to get a single individual to burn $87k/month so the corporations who have to actually pay usage pricing will actually make them bank :)

I don’t know that I’d call it that much of an outlier position. Compatibilists, functionalists, and plenty of physicalists in general would deny that qualia exist or that they’re a well-defined notion.