Notices by Resuna (resuna@ohai.social)

@ErikJonker @david_chisnall

That's the point. Giving directions to a machine requires math. Using the term "language" to refer to machine instructions has led people down the wrong path over and over again and led to monstrosities like COBOL and Perl and "Congratulations, you have decided to clean the elevator!"

@cstross

John Brunner's slang in The Stardroppers was already embarassing when I read it in the '60s. He really hit his stride in Stand on Zanzibar and Shockwave Rider though.

@davidgerard

@cstross

Taste is woke?

@patrickcmiller Well they already subverted the definition of "AI".

@inthehands

Twas always thus.

"Part of the appeal of COBOL, I think, is that it makes a tantalizing false promise of allowing humans to give instructions to computers in something like human language, expecting the same kind of common-sense interpretation we expect of humans."

My first job was in COBOL, I was still in high school, an intern, I knew nothing about business, and I didn't understand what the code meant. They basically had to undo everything I had done.

@lolgop

"Tesla will likely fix the myriad of issues owners are facing; however, Tesla should do so before permanently harming its brand."

Bit late for that.

@shiflett

Mis-spelled "keming".

@thomasfuchs

Also, everyone should have their own mailserver!

@gerrymcgovern

Hallucinations are the whole way they work. They make up plausible text, if it happens to be accurate that's accidental.

@stevehayes @gerrymcgovern

I kind of hate the comparison between the routine failures of this kind of software, and humans occasional mistakes, because they really aren't all that similar.

@krnlg @stevehayes @gerrymcgovern

Exactly, there's no magic, and in some cases we can even track down the exact training text or images that led to a particular generated result.

@stevehayes @krnlg @gerrymcgovern

That's not the same thing, and you know it's not the same thing, I think you are just carrying on a meme that you think is funny a bit too far.

@stevehayes @krnlg @gerrymcgovern

Large language modules are a dead end digression that is sucking all the oxygen out of actual AI research. There is huge potential in this area and it has been hijacked by con artists.

If you want a stupid historical analogy, it's like someone was trying to build a mechanical horse and everyone was excited by the idea of regular carriages being pulled by steam horses.

But they were just painted canvas.

@stevehayes @krnlg @gerrymcgovern

Don't mix up neural networks and large language models. Neural networks have a number of useful applications, image recognition being one of them.

Large language models are a tool based on neural network design that produces a parody of the source data as a plausible continuation of the prompt. This is useful for passing the Turing test and generating spam. It is not however a reasoning system or a viable path towards AI.

@mjg59 Ask me about having punctuation in my name.

@goatsarah @cstross YES! I've been saying that for some time.

@shortridge I remember that one, by the last paragraph where he used the word "millilightseconds", at that point the vague "this seems familiar" feeling collapsed into "yes I've read this before". Something something quantum something.

@lanodan @hj @halva You are good people.

@erispoe @Brendanjones @jamie @GeePawHill

The problem is that the law defines actions that are actually the actions of individual members of the organization as actions "by" the organization.

It is possible in the case of criminal actions to say "no, this agent of the corporation made the decision and is liable" but it happens rarely and requires blatant malfeasance.