CoolestBeans

7 ms·

1.
by CoolestBeans 4d ago
The problem is that if OpenAI doesn't want the compute nobody does. All of these companies' demand for compute are correlated. It isn't likely that OpenAI will want less compute in isolation. Furthermore, the circular financi
2.
by CoolestBeans 4d ago
I am willing to give Mr. Amodei the benefit of the doubt in the sincerity of his beliefs. Everyone assumes his motivations have to be perfectly rational and can't contradict but that's not how people act in practice. The real prob
3.
by CoolestBeans 5d ago
They really do believe AI might kill everyone. They also are highly motivated by hoarding capital and power. I don't know if researchers are aware that they're acting indistinguishably from someone who is just really self-interest
4.
by CoolestBeans 7d ago
Because for a lot (most?) people their iPhone is their primary and only personal computer. I also want a smaller phone. I bet Apple designers would love to sell you a smaller phone. They've certainly tried with my beloved and retired i
5.
by CoolestBeans 8d ago
Even if the potential of the technology could really be that world altering, the reality of economics constrain the realization of that potential. AI may provide economic benefits but it is far from a free lunch. Can capital markets sustain
6.
by CoolestBeans 8d ago
I think this might be a red herring. All it takes is someone to get an inkling that someone is working on a new approach and seeing some success for OpenAI to fire the AI cannon at the problem. The community seems fairly small (from this ou
7.
by CoolestBeans 17d ago
If you can't resist the temptation to pull the AI slot machine lever (which is not necessarily a personal failing!), you might want to seriously examine what your actual motivations are. If you have to use AI for your day job, then yea
8.
by CoolestBeans 17d ago
The comparison breaks down because noise pollution is unavoidable. AI hype might be unavoidable unless you code in a vacuum but you can be disciplined in how much you let it in. Even if AI cheapens the actual output, it fundamentally cannot
9.
by CoolestBeans 17d ago
First, anhedonia is a real psychological crisis. You might want to speak to a professional. Second, the old saying "it's the journey not the destination" is apt here. If you didn't enjoy the process in the first place th
10.
by CoolestBeans 17d ago
It is probably why RLHF was the secret sauce to make LLMs vastly more useful. Obviously it makes their output more likely to be aligned. But also by mimicking conversation it makes you prompt it better. It manipulates you into not only pr
11.
by CoolestBeans 19d ago
Being a pure play model provider is completely untenable right now. Coding agents own your demand; Nvidia, data centers, and DRAM manufacturers own your supply. You're getting squeezed by open weight models. Your only bet to making mon
12.
by CoolestBeans 20d ago
If they were buying GPUs with equity then it wouldn't show up on Nvidia's quarterly report as revenue, even if the net trade is GPUs for equity. This is the point of the structure, to make cash flows show up as top line revenue. F
13.
by CoolestBeans 20d ago
The distinction does make a difference and it is the former. These circular deals are two paired transactions: 1. Nvidia buys equity in an AI lab or cloud provider with cash. 2. The counterparty agrees to buy X number of GPUs from Nvidia an
14.
by CoolestBeans 21d ago
So I operate more in line with how you do, but having tried some organizational systems I think I understand the "second brain" people. One, it forces you to do a crude approximation of critical thinking. It allows you to examine
15.
by CoolestBeans 23d ago
What is the overhead to have agents play model UN? Why is the coordination so elaborate? It sounds like a deeply complex and expensive emergent behavior that maybe looks comprehensible but could be nonsensical. Also like any complex system,
16.
by CoolestBeans 24d ago
Using AI is kayfabe. What I mean is, you create interaction patterns that resemble how humans work. This is because it is what the models are trained on but also because we've all been trained to interact in this way. So it manipulates
17.
by CoolestBeans 25d ago
So I've been working on a project in Rust because a library that's appropriate for the design has a terrific Rust API and a miserable C API. I've been loosely tracking Rust since before 1.0 and I've never felt it's
18.
by CoolestBeans 28d ago
I think every project should seriously ask itself if it actually needs manual memory management. My hunch is that most people who think they need it, do not. If you really truly do need it, then yes Rust is a great way to get most of the be
19.
by CoolestBeans 29d ago
I don't disagree about the danger. But if it is dangerous, why isn't OpenAI opening dialogues with all the labs and politicians across borders to basically say "we need to stop now"? Cyber models are constrained by the t
20.
by CoolestBeans 29d ago
Trust, or lack thereof. People don't trust OpenAI, a company whose very name is essentially a deception and a lie. People don't trust the tech industry in general anymore. Most tech companies act as a tax on otherwise productive b
21.
by CoolestBeans 1mo ago
Also AI models have less intangible subjective qualities that separate each other.
22.
by CoolestBeans 1mo ago
This is just a bubble by another name. To use tech as an example, remember that the dot-com bubble was really three crashes: the crash of the dot-com companies in 2000, the telecom crash in 2001, and the media crash in 2002. Of course these
23.
by CoolestBeans 1mo ago
Oracle has bet the house on AI. Free cash flow is deeply negative with tons more capex guidance on the books. They are currently the largest non-financial corporate issuer of new debt in the corporate bond market. They are literally cutting
24.
by CoolestBeans 1mo ago
Total addressable market doesn't pay interest expenses. Even if this technology really did have the potential to be as revolutionary as the move from the horse to the car, if you can't get there with what the world economy's
25.
by CoolestBeans 1mo ago
Certainly, but a flop of $1.5 trillion would create a deep and long trough. I think in that situation OpenAI and Anthropic probably don't survive as independent companies (where is the revenue? who would want to put more money in at th
26.
by CoolestBeans 1mo ago
The $1.5 trillion number is extremely relevant because it makes the revenue numbers the industry has to hit higher and there's an expectation to see progress sooner before funding starts getting pulled back.
27.
by CoolestBeans 1mo ago
They can and do. Since at least the 10s automakers have been using tricks like pumping the engine sound into the main cabin or using speakers playing an audio file. The speakers usually toggle when the car is in "sports mode" or n
28.
by CoolestBeans 1mo ago
Probably both. Having a strong frontier model is necessary not just for the model itself but because it provides a halo effect for your entire line. So if Google could deliver a pro model they would. But I also think Google is targeting the
29.
by CoolestBeans 1mo ago
For sure! Why is Google throwing their own language under the bus? They're literally saying in their article Go isn't the easiest language to write but that doesn't matter because its the best for maintaining a project. I a
30.
by CoolestBeans 1mo ago
"The death of the American Dream" has been explored ad nauseam throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. It definitely pokes its head out more prominently in times of political and economic upheaval (eg the 60s and 70s, the 00s, now

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