Notices by Carl C (raven@fedi.raventhemaker.com)

@silverwizard @cstanhope Kind of dumb, because like all the other things you mentioned, doctors already have diagnostic flowcharts.

@cstanhope Exactly so... it's one thing to create a fictional setting, it's another to come up with legal precedents for a court case, and have the LLM produce _fictional_ cases that look legit. Or to write code. I worry about someone deciding to use it to diagnose illness.

@cstanhope I don't use them per se, but I have experimented with them to understand first-hand the problems with them, and it's hard to believe people trust them.

I give it some writing prompts, asking it to brainstorm some science fiction setting details with me... and while it's very cool at first, it can't accurately _remember_ what we've been discussing. It straight up gaslights me about what it said earlier, while being extremely apologetic.

@cstanhope I think the most dangerous part is how seductive it is... it really feels like I'm having a conversation with a real person, who is very helpful about elaborating on my ideas, and it's difficult to not feel like it _understands_ what we're talking about. And that's the real danger, thinking that it is doing anything but stringing together very advanced "most likely next word" responses.... but it really doesn't feel like that's what it's doing.

@cstanhope Now in my case, because we were brainstorming fictional elements, it really starts falling apart because of the "context window". It can only remember so much about past conversation and incorporate that, so it kept _forgetting_... but it never acted as if it forgot. "Oh, yeah, I remember that. Here it is again..." and gets some wrong (4 legs, 2 arms becomes 2 legs, 4 arms), and it makes up new "facts".

But this is also what it does to actual facts.

@cstanhope But I see the appeal! I really wish there weren't so many ethical concerns to deal with, because it is just amazing within its limitations. I'd never trust it to write code I couldn't knock out myself, or to accurately present facts. But working on _fiction_, where there are no real stakes?

I use random idea generators to challenge me to think in different directions, and an LLM is like the pinnacle of idea generators, all my tools rolled into one.

@whami Donald Norcross' form doesn't validate input, so you can edit the HTML and insert whatever you want, and they reply with it. Might give that a try, as a treat.

I like how my new company is taking all the tools our developers use (Github Enterprise, Jenkins, Artifactory, Vault, JIRA, etc) and moving responsibility for these things into another team, including taking away admin privileges and making them go through this other team to make changes to the tools.

And they call this team: Developer Productivity

@craigmaloney I hope you can rest better at home.

@craigmaloney Oh, that's not good. Hope you can get some better news soon.

@craigmaloney Oof. Hope they're treating you okay. Read about the procedure, doesn't sound great, but at least it's an improvement.

@craigmaloney Are you still in the hospital?

@craigmaloney I hope things come out okay.

@Suiseiseki We must agree to disagree. If authors didn't want copyright, they'd release their books into the public domain or free-license them. Yet, author after author chooses to enter into contracts under which they get paid.

@Suiseiseki
Copyright protects the author's income as an encouragement to write books. With no protections, most authors wouldn't write. I think the basic idea of copyright is sound. Copyright protection beyond the author's life, etc make far less sense. And unfair publisher contracts are a whole different problem.

Are you familiar with The Gutenberg Project, an archive of public domain works?

It's my general belief that when a book goes out of print and new copies are unavailable, the book should fall into the public domain.

If the publisher is no longer selling the book, then the publisher and author are no longer receiving income from it. There is really nothing left to protect, no benefit to the public in protecting a work that is unavailable. Don't want your book to fall into the PD? Make an ebook available perpetually.

(No, it's not practical. But it's nice to dream.)

@silverwizard Wasn't even thinking about metaphor. Thinking about that three-week memory gap and if they were themselves at all during the whole event. There's a very fuzzy line between "I am not me because I am changing" and "I am not me because the real me is dead and I'm a copy".

But there's also this feeling that the distinction doesn't matter. This isn't Primer-level "I still have questions." 😆

But I'll take a look.

Watched Annihilation last night.

I still like Natalie Portman.

I'm still a little confused.