Technus
@Technus@lemmy.zip
- Comment on Why it’s a mistake to ask chatbots about their mistakes 2 days ago:
I like how you’ve deliberately ignored the specifically chosen wording of my statement, and completely disregarded the rest of my point, simply because you perceive it as counter-factual in your world-view, thus exhibiting the exact kind of behavior you were talking about. That’s really funny.
- Comment on Political map of the Americas 2025 2 days ago:
Maybe swap California and Canada, US and Florida.
- Comment on Why it’s a mistake to ask chatbots about their mistakes 2 days ago:
A neurotypical human mind, acting rationally, is able to remember the chain of thought that lead to a decision, understand why they reached that decision, find the mistake in their reasoning, and start over from that point to reach the “correct” decision.
Even if they don’t remember everything they were thinking about, they can reason based on their knowledge of themselves and try to reconstruct their mental state at the time.
This is the behavior people are expecting from LLMs but not understanding that it’s something they’re fundamentally incapable of.
One major difference (among many others, obviously) is that AI models as currently implemented don’t have any kind of persistent working memory. All they have for context is the last N tokens they’ve generated, the last N tokens of user input, and any external queries they’ve made. All the intermediate calculations (the “reasoning”) that led to them generating that output is lost.
Any instance of an AI appearing to “correct” their mistake is just the model emitting what it thinks a correction would be, given the current context window.
Humans also learn from their mistakes and generally make efforts to avoid them in the future, which doesn’t happen for LLMs until that data gets incorporated into the training for the next version of the model, which can take months to years. That’s why AI companies are trying to capture and store everything from user interactions, which is a privacy nightmare.
It’s not a compelling argument to compare AI behavior to that of a dysfunctional human brain and go “see, humans do this too, teehee!” Not when the whole selling point of these things is that they supposed to be smarter and less fallible than most humans.
I’m deliberately trying not to be ableist in my wording here, but it’s like saying, “hey, you know what would do wonders for productivity and shareholder value? If we fired half our workforce, then found someone with no experience, short-term memory loss, ADHD and severe untreated schizophrenia, then put them in charge of writing mission-critical code, drafting laws, and making life-changing medical and business decisions.”
I’m not saying LLMs aren’t technically fascinating and a breakthrough in AI development, but the way they have largely been marketed and applied is scammy, misleading, and just plain irresponsible.
- Comment on Wikipedia loses challenge against UK Online Safety Act rules 3 days ago:
Even as an American with everything going on here, this bullshit makes me feel bad for the Brits. How fucked up is that?
- Comment on GitHub folds into Microsoft following CEO resignation — once independent programming site now part of 'CoreAI' team 3 days ago:
All aboard the enshittification train! Choo choo!
I mean, it’s been well underway for a while now but this is certainly a transfer over to an express train.
- Comment on LLMs’ “simulated reasoning” abilities are a “brittle mirage,” researchers find 3 days ago:
I get scoffed at every time I call LLMs “glorified auto-correct” so it’s nice being validated.
Anyone who actually has a grasp of how Large Language Models work should not be surprised by this, but too many people, even engineers who should really know better, have drunk the Kool-aid.
- Comment on Battlefield 6's beta been treating you to infinite loading screens? EA are on the case 6 days ago:
A triumphant return to the series’ roots with the exact same game-breaking bugs as Battlefield 3 had. Nice job, EA.
- Comment on AMD CPU Transient Scheduler Attacks security flaw revealed 5 weeks ago:
No information on the 9000 series, why? Kinda sus.
- Comment on The Computer-Science Bubble Is Bursting 1 month ago:
Kinder, the Brookings fellow, said she worries that companies soon will simply eliminate the entire bottom rung of the career ladder.
What the fuck do they think is gonna happen when the current seniors start to retire? Are they just betting that AI is gonna be good enough to replace all of them then?
Cue all these companies in 5-20 years’ time having to completely rewrite their software stacks because they have no fucking clue how any of it works anymore.
- Comment on You can do it. It's an easy one 1 month ago:
i 8 sum apple pi - Comment on A few horny memes are acceptable surely 1 month ago:
There’s a starving furry artist out there who would jump at the chance to take your commission.
- Comment on 16 Billion Apple, Facebook, Google And Other Passwords Leaked — Act Now 1 month ago:
The article is full of typos, too.
Who let this dreck out the door? Did Forbes lay off all their editors or what?
- Comment on In the side-scroller automation game Sandustry every single pixel is a simulated resource 1 month ago:
I downloaded the demo last night. It’s pretty fun but definitely rough around the edges. I hope the developer is amenable to feedback.
- Comment on In the side-scroller automation game Sandustry every single pixel is a simulated resource 1 month ago:
I’ve found that demos can be a double-edged sword.
I picked up the demo for A Bumpy Ride after watching a YouTuber play it. I really enjoyed it, but it only lets you play for one in-game day so there’s only so many times you can do that without progressing before it gets old. I still find myself jonesing to play it but I can’t really do anything but wait for the full game to come out.
- Comment on In the side-scroller automation game Sandustry every single pixel is a simulated resource 1 month ago:
Instantly wishlisted. My inner child is screaming with delight. I’ve wanted a game like this for literal decades.
I’d try to build machines and industrial flows in falling sand games but never be able to manage anything much more complex than distilling saltwater because of the limitations of the game.
- Comment on [Opinion] Firefox is dead to me – and I'm not the only one who is fed up 1 month ago:
It’s still using the Blink engine, so it only provides an illusion of competition just like all other Chromium-based browsers.
If the web becomes nothing but Chromium, then Google can dictate web standards as they see fit.
And don’t count on Apple to save you, either. WebKit’s monopoly over browsing on iOS is slowly being eroded by anti-trust rulings. The first browser most people will install when they have a choice is Google Chrome.
Ditching Firefox entirely because of a few missteps by Mozilla is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
- Comment on Minnesota Shooting Suspect Allegedly Used Data Broker Sites to Find Targets’ Addresses 1 month ago:
That’s what I figured after thinking about it, that there had to be some procedural reason for it.
- Comment on Minnesota Shooting Suspect Allegedly Used Data Broker Sites to Find Targets’ Addresses 1 month ago:
Which, funnily enough, would also qualify the murders as first-degree under Minnesota state law: www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/609.185
- Comment on Minnesota Shooting Suspect Allegedly Used Data Broker Sites to Find Targets’ Addresses 1 month ago:
The suspect faces several charges of second-degree murder.
This baffles me. Looking up your fucking victim’s addresses isn’t enough evidence of premeditation to qualify for first-degree charges?
- Comment on Researchers claim spoof-proof random number generator breakthrough 1 month ago:
And ofc the original paper is paywalled.
- Comment on China claims to have developed the world's first AI-designed processor — LLM turned performance requests into CPU architecture 2 months ago:
It’s probably just regurgitating stuff from a paper from 2017 that no one paid attention to.
Which has value in itself, I guess. It’s just intellectually dishonest to say the AI came up with the solution.
- Comment on Turning Portal 2 into a Web Server 2 months ago:
As someone with a lot of web backend engineering experience, this had me yelling at the screen at a few points, but really cool nonetheless.
- Comment on Worm time 2 months ago:
- Comment on Worm time 2 months ago:
The problem is that my brain would immediately jump to picking apart the premise of the question. How did it happen? Is it permanent? Is your consciousness trapped in there or is it gone forever? The kind of thing that’s obviously just going to piss off the person asking.
I feel like what the question is really asking in a very roundabout way is whether you love that person unconditionally. That even if something happens such that they can no longer be the person you fell in love with, that you’ll still love them just the same. But that’s the problem: as a cynic, I believe all love is conditional; if it doesn’t seem like it, that just means you haven’t found out what the conditions are yet.
Obviously that’s not the right answer. So to me, it just seems like the question is a trap. Either you accept the preposterous hypothetical and give some sappy answer to make the other person happy and avoid a fight, or you get outed for the cold, unfeeling asshole that you actually are inside. But maybe that’s the point.
- Comment on Worm time 2 months ago:
In the unlikely event that I end up in another relationship, what the hell is the right answer to the worm question? I’m pretty damn sure I’d get it wrong.
- Comment on Microsoft finally solve the Linux dual-boot issue after 9 months 2 months ago:
I just figured that they’d decided dual-booting was for losers back when Windows 10 started overwriting GRUB with its own bootloader after every update. I have no doubt at least one middle manager over there whines constantly about how much developer time is wasted because they don’t have total control over the hardware. Probably the same guy who keeps trying to make the Surface Tablet a thing.
- Comment on xAI’s Grok suddenly can’t stop bringing up “white genocide” in South Africa 2 months ago:
This likely means Melon Husk himself went in and started fucking with Grok’s prompt to push his agenda, and in the process completely broke it.
- Comment on The clueless people are out there among us 3 months ago:
If you find yourself unplugging things a lot to turn them off, you may be interested to hear the switch was invented not long after the light bulb for exactly this reason.
- As if that’s the only reason you’d ever unplug something.
- Vampire loads. Turns out, most things don’t completely turn off anymore. Yes, it adds up.
- Comment on The clueless people are out there among us 3 months ago:
So do we. But we don’t need as many of them, usually just for areas with a lot of electronics like entertainment centers or computer desks.
US electric code requires an outlet like every 6-8 feet (~2m) along a wall so you shouldn’t need to string extension cords everywhere. For the most part, it works pretty well. I have 5 outlets alone in my 12x12ft (~3.6x3.6m) bedroom.
- Comment on The clueless people are out there among us 3 months ago:
It does not. Some devices may have that on their plugs, but it’s certainly not standard.
One night when I was 14, I tried to plug in my phone charger beside my bed in the dark and was accidentally touching one of the pins when it made contact.
Fortunately, I wasn’t completing the circuit and I was electrically isolated laying on my bed, so I didn’t actually get shocked. But I did feel a buzz in my finger like you get from those prank toys that shock the victim. That’s a sensation I will never forget.
Not defending our plugs at all.