montagg

Reads to me like Proto-psycho-history. Attempting to model behavior mathematically, with the assumption that all human behavior can be modeled this way, and that these models can be useful for predicting human behavior.

Saw an article a quarter century ago in The Atlantic about simple population models as a way to explain more complex behavior. One was: randomly distribute blue and red cells across a 2D grid. Every frame, pick a random cell: if it has at least one color like it nearby, leave it. If not, move it to a random location. Over many generations, segregated color formed. The article used this to describe something about segregated communities forming. I offer no opinion about the credibility of the article, but it was fascinating to me as a baby nerd, and seems at least a little related to this article’s line of thinking.

Not exactly a coincidence. You don’t get an AI craze without wide availability of GPUs for training. Not for a much longer time.

Since there’s a new John Apple

It’s when people confuse User Experience Design, which is a systemic and architectural discipline, with UI Art, which is an aesthetic discipline. If you have someone who is professionally the latter doing the former job, you get things people think look good but don’t work well.

This isn’t even to knock either: UI artists are essential to making a UI understandable and enjoyable. But people think the skill sets are the same, and they aren’t.

Disclaimer: am a UX Designer.

The OP is absolutely not talking about making Candy Crush. They ARE talking about making art. Both can exist in the same world and be successful. The existence of and success of reality TV doesn’t negate the art of filmmaking and the enjoyment of watching a movie. Same with games.

And the folks productizing this are actively working against noticing its power by making it cutesy. It's a good product choice IFF it matches the capabilities, and it absolutely positively does not.

We should start with the assumption that humans are valuable and deserve to live with dignity. Any philosophy that doesn’t have that at its center is broken.

Life/teenagers find a way.

Comparing the two like this is interesting but there are fundamental differences. The US today could not delete tech companies, or the people who run them, the way China can its industries—and, crucially, the people who run them. The US’s version is personalist and would not survive even changing to another person other than Trump, not even going as far a a political party shift, which is possible in America.

Ah it’s the Wonder I always try to rush and can’t get to

We made it up. We made all this up. We do it for an outcome.

Intellectual property exists as a concept to foster the creation of more intellectual property. That is not the case for all private property, because I cannot copy your land or your car infinitely. That’s why IP rights expire at some point, or have fair use that doesn’t harm the IP rights holder, something other forms of property don’t have. Saying that they are equivalent is not foolish—I think that’s a bit extreme—but it doesn’t recognize that they have fundamental differences, and the laws around them have different intended outcomes.

I think AI training falls most likely in the fair use category of intellectual property: there is some societal benefit* that requires no actual harm** to the IP holder, therefore it’s a good trade-off for society if we poke a hole in the social construct of property to get that benefit.

*Let’s put aside the question of whether AI is good for society or private ownership of AI models is good for society. Important questions but separate from the theory. IF IT IS GOOD, it follows the above. If it is not good, then of course it does not.

**Also not a fully settled question. Again, an important debate to have and the tradeoffs here matter. If the harms are small enough, the societal benefit could be worth it. Both notes have to be true for this to be worthy of “fair use”.

Because the person found it fun is a valid reason. It’s kinda cool!

I’m pretty sure Apple will do this in macOS 28, and there are some details to improve (guessing from the animation, haven’t installed it). But, people can and should do things just for fun.

So replier is right here: Jobs had opinions about literally every detail, he pushed people to work out those details and challenge their own assumptions, and he talked about these things in public like a designer—not just about beauty but also HCI. You could see in his presentations that he understood the fucking details about why things were good. No tech CEO is able to tell you why their version of showing that a window is currently in focus is good, and on the off chance they do, they probably wouldn’t use the term “key window” because they don’t know it.

There was a Jobs story about how he was bothering the engineer who was working on the calculator so much about the layout that the engineer just made a layout engine Jobs could play with, so he could design it himself.

I do consider that fundamentally different from the people lower in the hierarchy though. That’s what I value about the Cook era keynotes: seeing Apple as not just a single person.

That’s very true—the dude was up everyone’s ass. But there is a difference between Steve being involved as a stakeholder and people who are closer to doing the work itself.

I mean yeah if I had to choose purely for entertainment value, I’d watch Steve all day. But I think it can also be true that seeing the people closer to the metal is very cool too. And I frankly prefer it to seeing Apple as only one person.