twothreeone

The Zuck then apologized for this undocumented API access leak and FB subsequently patched it out of their platform. It had nothing to do with running ads. We shouldn't let time paper over the details here.

[1] "It also gathered data from their Facebook friends, which reportedly resulted in Kogan having access to the data of millions of Facebook profiles". https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/10/facebook-cambridge-analytica...

Comment · 1 month ago

Worthless is a pretty good description IMO in the context of what Lean is trying to achieve: "enable correct, maintainable, and formally verified code". Tens of millions of lines of LLM vomit may be many things, but it often turns out to not be correct and certainly not maintainable. Formally verified remains as a thin fig leaf covering the uncomfortable truth that formal methods only provide assurances under assumptions (your toolchain, libraries, compiler, OS, and hardware are "correct" and don't expose some exploitable flaw).

It doesn't mean that it cannot improve over time, maybe the proof can be "minified" to a state where human reviewers are able to comprehend it; but as it stands there isn't really much insight or confidence to be gained from the artifact itself.

Comment · 2 months ago

Right, exactly that was what I meant. Thanks for clarifying. I remember being surprised by this when I heard it on NPR a few weeks ago.

Comment · 2 months ago

I mean they're right, rising oceans will be a drop in the bucket for the majority of us. Unless we act together, human civilization will end through the combination of breakdown of global trade, mass migration due to heat and resource wars, and collapse of our food chain. Ocean levels are just one of the side effects that goes along with rising global temperatures.

Beef production in the US is already down from 30 years ago. At some point you won't be able to raise cows anywhere, less alone feed them. Corn and wheat have seen tremendous fluctuations in the past and will likely continue to fall. Imagine corn yields dropping by more than 80% in the US [1]. Of course MAGA people will probably only notice once the shelves aren't being restocked.

[1] https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0906865106

Comment · 2 months ago

The implicit "men born outside the US are not men" is arguable worse.

Comment · 2 months ago

In the first case they (the US govmnt) could hold him (the citizen) in contempt (in a cell) indefinitely.

Comment · 2 months ago

While I tend to agree on the overall sentiment, I think this rebuke is inaccurate. Some of these "reasoning" models are trained using "Chain-of-Thought" where the model is presented explicit, intermediate reasoning steps (either by a human or some automation) that supposedly get it closer to the correct answer. These intermediate steps are what was originally called "thinking traces" - not what the model produces to mimic them.

But yes, anthropomorphizing model outputs leads to worse outcomes.

Comment · 2 months ago

Well, one obvious question is if the simulated brain experiences pain, or more generally can it suffer? And if so, how would we tell.

Comment · 2 months ago

But Matthew, think of the kids!!1

Honestly though, framing this as a "tech issue" doesn't help IMHO, it just muddies the water. Ever since RSA was invented privacy has been about educating people on how to use it effectively and _why they should care_. If voters now are choosing authoritarianism over democracy and individual freedom, I think we have to face the reality that after almost 50 years of fighting battle after battle on the technology front, we've largely lost the war on the home front in this regard.

Comment · 2 months ago

Yeah. This is basically why we need to "accelerate"..