zogwarg

Hi, I'm going to be that OTHER guy:

Thank god not all dictionaries are prescriptivists and simply reflect the natural usage: Cambridge dictionary: Beg the question

On a side rant "begging the question" is a terrible name for this bias, and the very wikipedia page you've been so kind to offer provides the much more transparent "assuming the conclusion".

If you absolutely wanted to translate from the original latin/greek (petitio principii/τὸ ἐν ἀρχῇ αἰτεῖσθαι): "beginning with an ask", where ask = assumption of the premise. [Which happens to also be more transparent]

Just because we've inherited terrible translations does not mean we should seek to perpetuate them though sheer cultural inertia, and much less chastise others when using the much more natural meaning of the words "beg the question". [I have to wonder if begging here is somehow a corruption of "begin" but I can't find sources to back this up, and don't want to waste too much time looking]

I feel mildly better, thanks.

Noooooooooooooo! Argh, I'll have to seriously consider using the fork FML.

EDIT: Not strictly required since apparently you have to provide an API key for it to be enabled, still it's not encouraging that the main developer thought this would be a good idea.

You've got to love the prompt jank: https://github.com/gnachman/iTerm2/commit/755dc2ed881d853f495ffaea2498452915e5e8cd?diff=split&w=0

EDIT 2: Given direct access to bad AI code to a dev workstation is bad enough, but given that the console is a primary way to connect to servers, where more havoc could be wrought, this is terrifying, I mean sure devs were already capable of bricking enviromnents, but supercharging "knowing just enough to be dangerous" is NOT a good idea.

Meanwhile some of the comments are downright terrifying, also the whole "research" output is overly-detailed yet lacking any substance, and deeply deeply in fantasy land, but all the comments a debating in favour of or against what is perceived as "real work", and in terms of presentation "vibes".

I mean my parents always said that fascist/cultish movements have issues distinguishing signified and signifier, but good grief. (Yes too much Lacan in the household)

And yet they can spit out copyrighted material verbatim, or near-verbatim, how strange and peculiar.

First efforts at bible digitization seems incredibly poorly documented online, and from a casual inspection in google scholar, not very well referenced. It's a pity it sounds like a fascinating topic, though 7 bits is likely for the first english versions yes (And according to this there are horrid 7-bits encodings for the ancient greek)

I read this as The Fifth Element, but it also (almost) works!

"I can predict the structure and interactions of all of life’s molecules"

I like the beautiful tangents into linguistics and arguing about how many present tenses English has, and of the dubious merit of distinguishing definiteness in articles.

Trying to invoke LLMs as a tool to pierce these supposedly pointless elements of the English language, for the benefit of non-native (or maybe non-confident native) speakers.

Where really this is exactly the sort of mistakes that LLMs can bring, it’s not just choosing between a non-standard and a standard spelling of a word (like for basic autocorrect) it’s choosing between valid forms depending on context and Intent, which no machine can divine.

My conspiracy theory is that he isn't clueless, and that his blogposts are meant to be read by whoever is his boss. In the case of using LLMs for automatic malware and anti-malware.

"Oh you want me to use LLMs for our cybersecurity, look how easy it is to write malware (as long as one executes anything they download, and have too many default permissions on a device) using LLMs, and how hard it is to do countermeasures, it took me over 42 (a hint?) tries and I still failed! Maybe it's better to use normal sandboxing, hardening and ACL practices, in the meantime to protect ourselves from this new threat, how convenient it's the same approach we've always taken"

Both. Humans are fundamentally a social animal, Rousseau's "State of nature" doesn't really exist.

Both society and humans are also the cure though:

• All individuals have the ability to discern and to choose good
• Society can teach what is good, and our tendencies to watch out for, and for the most part it also does this.

I don't believe the flaw can be eliminated, nor that the attempt would be ethical. Perfect is the enemy of good, you should teach people as best you can, but in the end still let them choose, anything else is thought-stopping cultish totalitarianism.

I like the quote from Terry Pratchett, (Granny Weatherwax)

And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.

I think the worst parts of society, and innate "laziness" leads people to treat others (or yourself) as things, but that it's also innate to "know" not to treat others (or yourself) as things.

I don't believe the flaw is hopeless, even if it stays with us forever (at the individual and societal level).

The article almost looks like satire.

If all script kiddies waste their time trying to use generative AI to produce barely functional malware, we might be marginally safer for a while ^^. Or maybe this is the beginning of an entirely new malware ecology, clueless development using LLMs falling prey to clueless malware using LLMs.

Not every rationalist I've met has been nice or smart ^^.

I think it's hard to grow up in our society, without harboring a kernel of fascism in our hearts, it's easy to fall into the constantly sold "everything would work better if we just put the right people in charge". With varying definitions of who the "right people" are:

• Racism
• Eugenics
• Benevolent AI
• Fellow tribe,
• The enlightened who can read "the will of the people" or who are able to "carve reality at the joints"
• Some brands of "sovereign citizen" or corporate libertarianism (I'm the best person in charge of me!).
• The positivist invokers of ScientificProgress™

Do they deserve better? Absolutely, but you can't remove their agency, they ultimately chose this. The world is messy and broken, it's fine not to make too much peace with that, but you have to ponder your ends and your means more thoughtfully than a lot of EAs/Rationalists do. Falling prey to magical thinking is a choice, and/or a bias you can overcome (Which I find extremely ironic given the bias correction advertising in Rationalists spheres)