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"Requires"/"needed".

LFS is about the muscle memory; the documentation; the cohesiveness.

I always recommend it to people and consider it foundational to my understanding of How Stuff Works.

Whether that amounts to a hill of beans in the AI world remains to be seen.


It is more how stuff is compiled than how stuff works.

Fundamental things like how processes are scheduled are not explained by LFS.


"works" is a loaded term. LFS is how the rubber meets the road, you want how the rubber is made, for that you need something like https://www.baeldung.com/linux/processes-guide or https://linux-kernel-labs.github.io/refs/heads/master/lectur...

I'm surprised at the lack of reference to Asimov[0] in this context.

It may be the case that he was too idealistic, but those Three Laws seem foundational to discussion of what we do with AI.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics


those laws are simple instructions made to a robot. the instructions given to AI models are complicated and numerous. It might be the case that you could bake, "and by the way, don't hurt any humans" into the instructions, but it is already way beyond the idealistic three laws, as you mention.

They remain interesting principles.

One could find the crickets on this topic a tad bit ominous.


"Making it worse? Gemini! Gemini! Gemini!"*

*AI meets Life of Brian


Yeah, but then you can use another round of AI to break these things down to crayon level, no?

Or is it just all PFM? (Pure, Fanciful Magic)


Refereeing who is permitted to say what based upon credentials is a popular sport these days.

I would never advocate they not be allowed to say it. But I also am sick of hearing wildly unrealistic takes.

So I guess that that's a good thing? What would coasting mean?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-gear_bicycle


It's a suprisngly apt analogy, considering with Arch you are always compiling ...

Did you mean Gentoo?

I know someone in pharma.

They drop insane money up front to do a trial, get approved, and then have low single-digit years to recoup all that investment before the new medication goes off patent a competitor markets a generic that blows up the market and likely isn't as well-tested.

And then, in the extreme case, you might get blown away on the street and have your murderer canonized.

But I guess that AI will fix all these perverse incentives Real Soon Now.


> And then, in the extreme case, you might get blown away on the street and have your murderer canonized.

Ahem

That was health insurance. Different beast.

Not excusing pharma, but that bit of extreme casting doesn’t really belong in the conversation.

Like most things in life, “It Depends” is probably applicable, here. Copyright, patents, and trademark exist for a reason.

Abuse of these structures, is the real issue.

Like people that argue for unfettered capitalism, or total legalization of all vice, we need to think about basic human nature, when discussing these things. That doesn’t happen, usually. It’s either all or nothing. We don’t consider that moderation, and benevolent structure, are possible (which they might not always be, considering human nature).

The hard part is imposing just enough structure to ensure that we get maximum effect.

About a month ago, there was a post about the “Pareto Front,” that point at which maximum desired effect is achieved, with optimal resource usage, and side effects. The zenith.

That can also apply to social infrastructure, but it’s really, really difficult, and lawyers and social scientists don’t think that way.

I honestly feel as if very few people take basic human nature into account, when designing pretty much anything.


Pay attention to "might". The difference between health insurance and pharma is academic when hate-mongers are asserting authority.

That can be applied to anything, including tech. I don't think bringing in extremes, improves the conversation.

I seem to remember a guy living in a cabin, writing manifestos, and mailing bombs to tech people and academics.


So someone who has suffered incurable harm and damage at the hands of health insurers is a "hate monger" while the health insurance executive prioritising their company profits over human health is just a normal person doing their normal job?

If that's true then that value system is entirely messed up and needs to be burned to the ground and rebuilt.


To paraphrase John Calvin, "The mind is a factory for rationalizations."

Once we've set ourselves up as judge; jury; and executioner, the unintended consequences abound.


Apt. And that fits both parties in this situation.

Anything from a funnel to a reduction gear on a ship is an example.

Does low verbalization imply that a concept isn't widely known?

Or is this blog post, itself, an example of impedance matching?


The argument is much cleaner if immutable past actions remain un-weaponized.

If somebody wants to tap me for reparations over chattel slavery in the US, and all I can say is that my in-country ancestors fought for the Union.

Which, along with $5, will get you a cup of coffee down' the beanery.


> I feel anger about the inability of our political systems to rein in the power of capital. While I can rant about politicians a lot, I still prefer a democratic government to have power instead of billionaires. It essentially just comes down to making some decisions in a coordinated way, but most people are not even aware of the problem.

I don't even know what this passage means, outside of some theoretical Platonic ideal "philosopher-king" figure whose existential half-life would be a week or so in a real political campaign.


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