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ArbitraryValue

@ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works

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Robot cars can be crashed with tinfoil and painted cardboard (www.theregister.com)

A team of researchers from prominent universities – including SUNY Buffalo, Iowa State, UNC Charlotte, and Purdue – were able to turn an autonomous vehicle (AV) operated on the open sourced Apollo driving platform from Chinese web giant Baidu into a deadly weapon by tricking its multi-sensor fusion system, and suggest the...

ArbitraryValue ,

People seem to hold computers to a higher standard than other people when performing the same task.

ArbitraryValue ,

This is why my programs don't come with documentation. If you want to use them, the best I can do is a messy script that "works for me".

ArbitraryValue ,

Just drape your coat over your arm in front of you like an elegant gentleman. No one will ever suspect.

ArbitraryValue , (edited )

Their problem:

So apparently NetHack has a mechanic that slightly changes how the game plays every time it's full moon according to your system clock

The model wasn't trained on a full moon. They had a system to set up the environment for replicable results but it didn't include modifying the system time.

It reminds me of another bug with the system time, which a friend of mine encountered. He was working on hardware and he was getting a lot of units that worked fine at the factory, immediately failed at the client's location, and then worked again when they were returned to the factory. It turned out that when these machines were turned on, their embedded OS automatically queried some server to update the current time. The client's internet connection had such high latency that the server's response only came back after the machine was already in use. This generated a huge delta-t value that triggered the sanity checks and shut the machine down. The factory had a much lower-latency connection and so the race condition could never be replicated there.

As for the weirdest bug I ever encountered myself: a compiler generating bad machine code. I have often said that the worst part of programming is that the computer always does exactly what you tell it to, but that was the one and only time in twenty years that the computer actually didn't.

ArbitraryValue ,

Fear? My impression is that they're looking for trouble, not trying to avoid it.

ArbitraryValue ,

Before anyone gets too excited: some of their electrodes are no longer able to record a signal from the patient's brain. They're reprogramming their software to work with fewer electrodes. No one is being turned into a borg drone.

ArbitraryValue ,

You can state what you don't want, but no one will be paying attention. Except maybe the LLM reading your posts...

ArbitraryValue ,

I suspect it isn't even illegal, but I'm not an expert.

ArbitraryValue ,

So, uh, who will actually be paying for medical care?

ArbitraryValue , (edited )

There's not going to be a moment when the world suddenly goes from having oil to having no oil. Some oil reserves are relatively cheap and easy to extract. Other, very large reserves are currently so difficult and expensive to extract that doing so isn't profitable. As the easy oil gradually runs out, the supply drops, the price rises, and sources of oil that were not profitable at the old price become profitable. This maintains the supply of oil and stabilizes the price.

Eventually oil will become so expensive that alternative technologies will be cheaper than it. This will happen with plenty of hard-to-reach oil left. So it's true that the amount of oil is in principle finite, but that limitation isn't really relevant.

ArbitraryValue ,

One bad quarter and they're doing this? I don't even.

ArbitraryValue ,

It’s usually louder outside my house than it is inside my house

Isn't this what you would expect almost anywhere, unless you live with someone who is unusually noisy? Even when I lived somewhere where I usually heard only natural sounds, it was louder outside my house than it was inside because of the ducks, chipmunks, cicadas, etc.

Nurses Protest 'Deeply Troubling' Use of AI in Hospitals (www.404media.co)

“Life-and-death decisions relating to patient acuity, treatment decisions, and staffing levels cannot be made without the assessment skills and critical thinking of registered nurses,” the union wrote in the post. “For example, tell-tale signs of a patient’s condition, such as the smell of a patient’s breath and their...

ArbitraryValue ,

My experience with the healthcare system, and especially hospitals, is that the people working there are generally knowledgeable and want to help patients, but they are also very busy and often sleep-deprived. A human may be better at medicine than an AI, but an AI that can devote attention to you is better than a human that can't.

(The fact that the healthcare system we have is somehow simultaneously very expensive, bad for medical professionals, and bad for patients is a separate issue...)

Windows 11 Start menu ads are now rolling out to everyone (www.theverge.com)

Microsoft is starting to enable ads inside the Start menu on Windows 11 for all users. After testing these briefly with Windows Insiders earlier this month, Microsoft has started to distribute update KB5036980 to Windows 11 users this week, which includes “recommendations” for apps from the Microsoft Store in the Start menu....

ArbitraryValue ,

Note that you can turn the ads off quickly and easily. I agree that there's someone off-putting about an operating system with built-in ads, but a tech-savvy person will see them once and then never again. (A person who isn't tech-savvy probably won't care.)

ArbitraryValue ,

The summoning circle is broken! You're free!

ArbitraryValue ,

Reminds me of when my single friend told me he was going to make an effort to "look gayer". He got one ear pierced and a weird haircut but it worked and he's married now.

ArbitraryValue ,

I know this is "just a joke" but I still think it's harmful. Depression may be brought on by being in a bad situation but it isn't simply unhappiness or dissatisfaction with being in that situation. Antidepressants don't make a person artificially happy or numb. If you are clinically depressed because your life sucks, antidepressants may give you the mental fortitude needed to change your circumstances. There are drugs that people do use to try to cope which just make things worse, but you won't get then from a psychiatrist. (You can get the most popular one at the grocery store.)

It's not cool to stigmatize mental illness.

ArbitraryValue ,

I don't know about Oregon, but I see how people ride their e-bikes here in NYC and it makes me suspect that most e-bike/car collisions are the e-bike's fault.

ArbitraryValue ,

How would they fight it if they had the money? Did they have a significant use case other than piracy?

ArbitraryValue ,

Does it matter? I suspect that if that's what you did, you were one of very few people doing so, and the law doesn't require the absence of any possible legitimate use. In this case, something is illegal if it

is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;

has only limited commercially significant purpose or use

ArbitraryValue ,

It's a use case, but I would argue that it's not a significant use case.

Emulators are still legal in theory, but I doubt that it is in practice possible to make an emulator for a modern video game system without violating some other part of the law.

ArbitraryValue ,

This isn't exactly the most convincing argument against Rand's philosophy - the workers didn't invent the device and don't work any harder than they did before. Their feeling of entitlement to the profit from it appears to be naked greed unsupported by any moral principle. Acting in one's rational self-interest would include keeping them placated if they can credibly threaten violence, but their role as workers is completely irrelevant in that context.

ArbitraryValue ,

If I think that investing in capital and getting a return on my investment is a valid use of the money I earn but you do not, our disagreement is ideological rather than factual; who's right and who's wrong is a matter of opinion.

With that said, I do find it ironic that proponents of an ideology that has failed quite dramatically are accusing proponents of an ideology that has been quite successful of being insufficiently rational.

ArbitraryValue ,

I don't disagree with you on this, but I guess we're getting far from the topic of the comic. I'm not actually a big fan of Rand. (I did read Atlas Shrugged but I skipped the monologue.) I just don't think the comic in the OP is a good criticism of it either in theory or in practice. It bugs me because I think exposure to ridiculous caricatures of "enemy" ideologies leads people to support their own ideology uncritically - after all, the others are so obviously wrong!

ArbitraryValue ,

There's a joke that goes

I am Firm; You are Obstinate; He is a Pig-headed Fool.

By analogy,

I'm challenging offensive assumptions; you're asking stupid questions; he's sealioning.

A college is removing its vending machines after a student discovered they were using facial recognition technology (www.businessinsider.com)

A college is removing its vending machines after a student discovered they were using facial recognition technology::A photo shared on Reddit showed one of the vending machines with an error code suggesting it used facial recognition tech.

ArbitraryValue ,

Honestly, what's the big deal? Your face is not secret and anyone who feels like it can photograph you while you're out in public. Vending machines already know who you are if you use a credit card.

However, this is a good reminder to programmers: customers might sometimes see your error messages even if you didn't intend them to. Don't write anything Marketing wouldn't like.

ArbitraryValue ,

The alternative to military AI is not peace, it's war the old-fashioned way. Humans are bad at distinguishing civilians from enemy fighters; artillery shells can't do it at all. I anticipate that AI will make mistakes, but fewer mistakes than would have been made otherwise.

ArbitraryValue ,

we just increased the GDP of the forest by $200

Yes, that's how the GDP is measured. Each one produced a hundred dollars worth of entertainment for the other.

ArbitraryValue ,

I liked the name Bard... Gemini is just random and unrelated to the concept.

ArbitraryValue ,

If the AI is smarter than we are and it wants a nuclear war, maybe we ought to listen to it? We shouldn't let our pride get in the way.

ArbitraryValue ,

This time is different. If AI were to remain what it is today, the article would be correct, but AI won't. It's a fundamentally new kind of technology, unlike anything else that has ever been created by humans. It only seems like more of the same to some people because it's so very new and primitive compared to what it will be soon. This won't be humans losing their jobs, this will be humanity losing its job. There will be plenty of new industries created but they will be run by AI for AI.

With that said, it won't necessarily be bad. It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

ArbitraryValue ,

Mí fallo español? Eso es unposible!

ArbitraryValue ,

I feel terrible when stuff I buy says it was made with love. Do I deserve the love of someone who never even met me? Do I deserve love at all? That's why I prefer eating food made by unfeeling machines.

ArbitraryValue ,

From the article:

Both the “idle time”, which indicates a period of scanner downtime of ten minutes or more, and the “latency under ten minutes”, which tracks scanner interruptions between one and ten minutes are deemed illegal by the CNIL when it comes to data processing. The CNIL is using the GDPR as the legal basis of the case.

Amazon has also implemented a “stow machine gun” indicator to prevent mistakes. It signals an error if you scan an item less than 1.25 seconds after scanning the previous item. It sounds like a way to prevent double-scanning mistakes. But that’s a GDPR issue too, according to the CNIL.

I think these all seem like entirely reasonable things for Amazon to track.

ArbitraryValue ,

No, but I'm not paid hourly - if I sit around idle, I'm generally just wasting my own time.

ArbitraryValue ,

That's not what it means to breach an account...

Formula E team fires its AI-generated female motorsports reporter, after backlash: “What a slap in the face for human women that you’d rather make one up than work with us.” (www.caranddriver.com)

Formula E team fires its AI-generated female motorsports reporter, after backlash: “What a slap in the face for human women that you’d rather make one up than work with us.”::px-captcha

ArbitraryValue ,

you’d rather make one up than work with us

Yes? It's nothing personal, human women, but once "having a pleasant feminine voice" is something that machines can do more efficiently than humans, why shouldn't those machines be given the job?

ArbitraryValue ,

We're not talking about replacing Bernstein and Woodward here...

ArbitraryValue ,

I hate how crafting systems work in most games...

What I want: meaningful decisions about how to customize my character's equipment.

What I get: clicking all over the place like it's a 90's adventure game to collect pieces of shit so that I can put together a giant turd.

ArbitraryValue ,

A better title would be "Supercomputer that could conceivably simulate entire human brain, based on a rough estimate of what it would take to do that if we had any idea how to do that, will switch on in 2024".

ArbitraryValue ,

OS ships with a browser.

Boo!

OS ships with a browser.

Yay!

ArbitraryValue ,

To be fair, if I was a billionaire and I had the choice of helping ordinary people or doing something awesome, I would definitely pick to do something awesome. I respect Bill Gates for fighting malaria, but I would go for spaceships or robots.

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