Maybe this one did have a rail!

Put wheel dollies under the car and wheel it into the cart storage area inside the store.

LLMs as tools,

Yes, in the same way that buying a CD from the store, ripping to your hard drive, and returning the CD is a tool.

It’s not about hampering proliferation, it’s about breaking the hype bubble. Some of the western AI companies have been pitching to have hundreds of billions in federal dollars devoted to investing in new giant AI models and the gigawatts of power needed to run them. They’ve been pitching a Manhattan Project scale infrastructure build out to facilitate AI, all in the name of national security.

You can only justify that kind of federal intervention if it’s clear there’s no other way. And this story here shows that the existing AI models aren’t operating anywhere near where they could be in terms of efficiency. Before we pour hundreds of billions into giant data center and energy generation, it would behoove us to first extract all the gains we can from increased model efficiency. The big players like OpenAI haven’t even been pushing efficiency hard. They’ve just been vacuuming up ever greater amounts of money to solve the problem the big and stupid way - just build really huge data centers running big inefficient models.

There’s nothing wrong with the fundamentals of the technology, just the applications that Westoids doggedly insist it be used for.

Westoids? Are you the type of guy I feel like I need to take a shower after talking to?

I love the fact that the same executives who obsess over return to office because WFH ruins their socialization and sexual harassment opportunities think think they’re going to be able to replace all their employees with AI. My brother in Christ. You have already made it clear that you care more about work being your own social club than you do actual output or profitability. You are NOT going to embrace AI. You can’t force an AI to have sex with you in exchange for keeping its job, and that’s the only trick you know!

There are many clear use cases that are solid, so AI is here to stay, that’s for certain. But how far can it go, and what will it require is what the market is gambling on.

I would disagree on that. There are a few niche uses, but OpenAI can’t even make a profit charging $200/month.

The uses seem pretty minimal as far as I’ve seen. Sure, AI has a lot of applications in terms of data processing, but the big generic LLMs propping up companies like OpenAI? Those seems to have no utility beyond slop generation.

Ultimately the market value of any work produced by a generic LLM is going to be zero.

Thanks for outing yourself as blue maga.

Tim Cook will happily support someone who will stop him from adopting children or getting married if it means apples market share grows by 3%.

Exactly. As you note, rich people can usually buy their way around most anti-LGBT laws. Imagine you’re a billionaire or megacorp CEO. Consider your workarounds for various anti-LGBT laws. Imagine you’re such a person but happen to be gay and/or trans.

Gay marriage ban? Hire a team of lawyers to draft a series of contracts between you and your partner. Marriage imparts hundreds of protections and benefits, but most of those can also be achieved with a mountain of legal paperwork.

Laws criminalizing gay sex? You live on a giant private compound. How will cops even know what you’re doing in there? Even if they could, you can hire the best lawyers money can buy.

Restrictions on gender ID markers? Move your official residence to a state that affirms trans rights. For a passport, get a second or third passport in the form of a golden passport (one where you invest some large sum in a country in exchange for citizenship there.) Now you have a document for international travel with the correct gender marker on it.

Bans on trans medicine? Fly overseas for any medical treatment you need. If they really crack down on it, get treated with those injectable hormone pellets. Fly out of the country a few times a year to have your hormones topped off. Do any surgeries overseas as well.

Bathroom bans? Your limo has a toilet in it. Or you comply, use the restroom of your birth-assigned sex, and have your team of bodyguards guard the door while you do so. Or, more likely, you simply never go places where you would have to use a public restroom in the first place.

The hard truth is that most discriminatory laws can be bypassed or made irrelevant if you have enough cash.

There are simply very few discriminatory laws that can’t be bypassed with enough money. They’re not at risk until people actually start being sent to camps. And, as you note, they can easily jet off to a friendly country in the event of that ever happening.

You have to select “prime eligible” items. Are these penny ebooks included in the minimum purchase total?

Exactly. In my experience it works like this:

1. Blue maga folks make a post bitching again about left-wing voters staying home - precisely what those left wing voters explicitly and repeatedly warned the centrist dems they would do if Biden didn’t stop weapons shipments to Israel.

2. In that post, blue maga folks will say, “well, for some reason all the leftists who spoke against Biden have mysteriously disappeared. We never hear from them again. I guess they were all just Russian plants.”

3. In the comments, they receive numerous comments from leftists who didn’t vote for Kalama, or in my case, someone who did vote for Kamala, but still fully understands why people didn’t vote for her.

4. Blue maga downvotes the Hell out of the leftist post instead of engaging in good faith. They downvote until their posts cannot be seen anymore.

5. Blue maga goes on pretending that the anti-genocide leftists have all just mysteriously disappeared.

There is a fundamental problem with slapping up tariffs with reckless abandon. After putting out enough tariffs, you find that all you have done is erect a trade embargo around your own nation.

Tariffs work if they are few and targeted. A tariff against a rogue nation as punishment for an invasion or covert nuclear program? That works, as you can effectively isolate the offender. But if you apply tariffs broadly, it soon becomes obvious that it is you who is the outsider, not the nations you are tariffing. All the nations you tariff can simply trade with each other and ignore you entirely.

No nation is indispensable to international trade. The South thought that King Cotton would save the South. They thought that without access to the South’s cotton, the British empire would be forced to intervene on the side of the Confederacy. Instead, all that happened was that the British eventually shifted cotton production to Egypt and India.

No nation is indispensable. No nation produces goods of such quality and affordability that the entire world trade system will bend the knee to accommodate their whims. You can put up a few targeted tariffs and keep things running. But if you apply them recklessly, eventually the global trade system simply cuts your nation out of international trade routes entirely, abandons you, and leaves you to your demons.

It’s what I call the Rapiscan systems

https://www.rapiscansystems.com/en/

I just call them the rape scanners.

My biggest pet peeve about the TSA is how they get all annoyed if you don’t know what randomly selected procedures they’ll be using today.

The TSA deliberately randomizes its security procedures. Different airports use different procedures, and the same airport uses different procedures at random. Sometimes you need to take your laptop out of your bag; sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you need to take off your shoes; sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you can just use the metal detector, sometimes they want you to use the rape scanner.

Which is fine I suppose; it makes sense to leave potential threats guessing. But the real problem is the attitude of the TSA agents themselves. It’s not just that they randomly select procedures; it’s that they get angry about it. Start taking off your shoes out of habit at a TSA line that today doesn’t require it? A community college dropout will soon be by, screaming at you for daring to take your shoes off in line. Start taking your laptop out when they’ve decided that today is a day for leaving it in? Some guy that couldn’t even meet the low bar of becoming a regular police officer will be in your face about it within seconds.

When I die, I want to be turned into a drone.

It’s a travesty that his inauguration will coincide with MLK Day.

Potash for quota I need. But no potash have I. However, tungsten I have. Is anyone I can I trade tungsten for potash?

You sound incredibly pretentious.

I’m sorry, but I’m not talking about McDonalds. I’m not talking about engineered food products. I mean a good thick slab of fresh bread made from flour, salt, a bit of sugar, and not much else. Served with a big dash of butter. That is heaven.

The healthspan stuff? Completely irrelevant to my point. What is the point of a healthspan if you deny yourself all the pleasures of life? Enjoy all things in moderation. But I firmly reject this whole, “well…have a little wheat bread if you muuust…anything else is abusive.”

“Do you even know what real food tastes like?”

Well you clearly know what your own farts smell like. Jesus Wept! Your head is so far up your ass you can see the contents of your own stomach.

You sacrifice and sacrifice, cutting everything out of your habits or diet that may bring you pleasure, only for the sake of extending your life. Then at the end of it all, you look back in dismay, in the dismal realization that despite your years, you have never lived at all…