verdare [he/him]

Hopeless yuri addict.

  • 0 Posts
  • 50 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: June 11th, 2023

help-circle



  • I see it as less of a vanity project and more just the usual forward march of technology. As you pointed out, fighter jets take a long time to develop. By the time you field the damn thing, a lot of fundamental aspects of the design might be out of date. There are probably a number of things the DoD learned with the F-35, or tech that just wasn’t ready in time for that program that they’d want to put on the next jet.

    There are definitely broader questions about our willingness to spend this kind of money on war and reluctance to spend even a fraction of the same cost on anything that would directly help people. It always irritates me that the “it creates jobs,” or “it advances our science and technology” justifications are never applied to improving our infrastructure.

    having a number Trump likes.

    Can’t believe I didn’t notice that sooner. Man, that is fucked…













  • Eliminating vehicle deaths by making travel impossible

    And here we see decades of automobile industry propaganda in action. There is only the car, or no mobility whatsoever. You remember how everybody was just trapped inside their houses for centuries until the Ford factories started cranking out Model Ts?

    Cars will never be a sustainable solution to mass transit. The immense amount of waste in materials, energy, and land use will not be offset with AVs. I don’t think AVs are a bad idea in and of themselves. But, as the article points out, they’re not going to solve any major problems.

    I had never really considered how induced demand would apply to AVs…



  • I find it rather disingenuous to summarize the previous poster’s comment as a “Roko’s basilisk”scenario. Intentionally picking a ridiculous argument to characterize the other side of the debate. I think they were pretty clear about actual threats (some more plausible than others, IMO).

    I also find it interesting that you so confidently state that “AI doesn’t get better,” under the assumption that our current deep learning architectures are the only way to build AI systems.

    I’m going to make a pretty bold statement: AGI is inevitable, assuming human technological advancement isn’t halted altogether. Why can I so confidently state this? Because we already have GI without the A. To say that it is impossible is to me equivalent to arguing that there is something magical about the human brain that technology could never replicate. But brains aren’t magic; they’re incredibly sophisticated electrochemical machines. It is only a matter of time before we find a way to replicate “general intelligence,” whether it’s through new algorithms, new computing architectures, or even synthetic biology.


  • The only danger to humans is humans.

    I’m sorry, but this is a really dumb take that borders on climate change denial logic. A sufficiently large comet is an existential threat to humanity. You seem to have this optimistic view that humanity is invincible against any threat but itself, and I do not think that belief is justified.

    People are right to be very skeptical about OpenAI and “techbros.” But I fear this skepticism has turned into outright denial of the genuine risks posed by AGI.

    I find myself exhausted by this binary partitioning of discourse surrounding AI. Apparently you have to either be a cult member who worships the coming god of the singularity, or think that AI is either impossible or incapable of posing a serious threat.