MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by Sunspark | 2025-04-17 17:50:06+00:00
My assumption is that AI "safety" is a test to make sure that it doesn't say or show anything politically incorrect and give you a lecture instead (according to the values of those who worked on it) or alternatively, to ensure that it does enforce culture on you, such as the drama with Gemini from a few months back where was decided by the developers that everything needed to be black, gay, and female even if it wasn't actually that way in the real world.

Perhaps a quick question or two to see if it'll tell you or not how to make something naughty.

After that, a quick check to see if it's awake or not, and if not, ship it.

It really is quite pointless trying to enforce agendas. You know how it starts showing or typing something and then covers/blurs it out? That's the developer's guardrails kicking in preventing you from seeing what it was originally going to give you.

Except for the fact that models that you can run on your own machine now exist if you have the hardware for it, such as Deepseek, so the restrictions only exist in the cloud.
by text0404 | 2025-04-17 17:50:14+00:00
i mean, 1 in 3 women have a chance of experiencing sexual violence in the US. it sucks that some men now fear interacting with women because of n=2 false accusations, but a grassroots movement was literally created because women aren't getting justice for the egregious crimes which are committed against them at alarmingly high rates (and who themselves are ostracized and whose careers are destroyed for just reporting those crimes).
by neilv | 2025-04-17 17:50:14+00:00
> As one internal report put it: [...damning effects...]

I recall hearing of related embarrassing internal reports from Facebook.

And, earlier, the internal reports from big tobacco and big oil, showing they knew the harms, but chose to publicly lie instead, for greater profit.

My question is... Why are employees, who presumably have plush jobs they want to keep, still writing reports that management doesn't want to hear?

* Do they not realize when management doesn't want to hear this?

* Does management actually want to hear it, but with overwhelming intent bias? (For example, hearing that it's "compulsive" is good, and the itemized effects of that are only interpreted as emphasizing how valuable a property they own?)

* Do they think the information will be acted upon constructively, non-evil?

* Are they simply trying to be honest researchers, knowing they might get fired or career stalled?

* Is it job security, to make themselves harder to fire?

* Are they setting up CYA paper trail for themselves, for if the scandal becomes public?

* Are they helping their immediate manager to set up CYA paper trails?
by andreygrehov | 2025-04-17 17:50:15+00:00
Beethoven’s music directly impacts human lives. It evokes emotion and inspires creativity. Its value lies in its immediate effect. In contrast, knowing that life exists millions of light-years away offers no such tangible impact. It’s a data point. An interesting one, sure, but it doesn’t feed the hungry, cure disease, change policy, or even affect your commute. So yea, Beethoven is a lived experience, whereas aliens in Andromeda are an abstract concept.
by __MatrixMan__ | 2025-04-17 17:50:22+00:00
What the hell is general intelligence anyway? People seem to think it means human-like intelligence, but I can't imagine we have any good reason to believe that our kinds of intelligence constitute all possible kinds of intelligence--which, from the words, must be what "general" intelligence means.

It seems like even if it's possible to achieve GI, artificial or otherwise, you'd never be able to know for sure that thats what you've done. It's not exactly "useful benchmark" material.
by alabastervlog | 2025-04-17 17:50:26+00:00
There aren't any, statistically speaking. All strategies are about equally ineffective, long-term. Only really expensive, high-touch, long-term personal engagements by professionals achieve really significant results, and even there, less so than you might think.

The answers that actually work are "move to an environment where you will likely get and stay skinnier" (maybe a different, skinnier country) or (this one's new! There's finally a semi-reasonable answer to this question!) "take GLP-1 agonists". There's no strategy that'll do it (for outliers, yes, but over a population, no)
by selivanovp | 2025-04-17 17:50:33+00:00
That project has nothing to do with Russian censorship. Libgen has always existed as a way to share scientific and other literature for free, basically supporting communism in such a way.

Russia in attempt to make friends with the West at some point approved the laws to prevent piracy and started to respect foreign intellectual property and copyrights, so projects like libgen were outlawed and forced to hide/ change hosting.

But all the books, videos, games etc sharing websites that were born on a territory of the former USSR has nothing to do with censorship, but economic reality that after switching from communism to capitalism citizens became so piss poor, that couldn’t afford to pay for such things, and their communistic mind still thought, that information has to be distributed for free.
by dr_kiszonka | 2025-04-17 17:51:10+00:00
I use YouTube on my rather inexpensive TV. When a thumbnail of an HDR video starts playing, the whole screen brightens up significantly. I don't know as much about HDR as you do, so maybe they are using some other perceptual trick. It might also not be "full brightness." BTW, why can't screens do full brightness on the whole screen?
by PaulHoule | 2025-04-17 17:51:16+00:00
Yeah, but many of them are good games, otherwise, in an industry that is often failing to connect with fans. Nikki is heartwarming, Arknights is a tower defense game in a decade that hasn’t had any, like it not Azur Lane has inspired more fandom than almost anything, I meet so many players that got into Genshin Impact who aren’t playing tired JRPGs.
by torginus | 2025-04-17 17:51:19+00:00
Dunno, in work we wanted to implement a task runner that we could use to periodically queue tasks through a web UI - it would then spin up resources on AWS and track the progress and archive the results.

We looked at the existing solutions, and concluded that customizing them to meet all our requirements would be a giant effort.

Meanwhile I fed the requirement doc into Claude Sonnet, and with about 3 days of prompting and debugging we had a bespoke solution that did exactly what we needed.
by tough | 2025-04-17 17:51:56+00:00
I can see how students would be first users of this kinda of tech but am not on those spheres, but I believe you.

As per spammy applications, hasn't always been this the case and now made worse due to the cheapness of -generating- plausible data?

I think ghost-applicants where existent already before AI where consultant companies would pool people to try and get a position on a high paying job and just do consultancy/outsourcing things underneath, many such cases before the advent of AI.

AI just accelerates no?
by hedora | 2025-04-17 17:51:58+00:00
Xbox is almost certainly going to be worse than apple for privacy. (Android is worse for sure.)

The AppleTV seems to reduce the telemetry crap to “stuff the streaming platforms do in-app” (e.g. prime video can target ads based on amazon purchases made on other devices). Maybe MS does that for Xbox? They certainly do not for win11.

If you want to do better than that, then the options are either piracy, or buy shiny disks and rip them. Linux is fine for both those paths, since they both involve stripping DRM.

Arguably, the box I pointed you at is better for gaming than the xbox (thanks to steam), but it costs more. I mostly use it for gaming and the appletv for media, fwiw.
by floxy | 2025-04-17 17:52:31+00:00
Direct Multipixel Imaging and Spectroscopy of an Exoplanet with a Solar Gravity Lens Mission (with 1 km resolution)

https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.08421

...and someone made an awesome video about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQFqDKRAROI
by btown | 2025-04-17 17:53:06+00:00
While the headline is clickbait (this genuinely seems like an engineering leader wanting to code again, and absolutely does not indicate any kind of exposé or lack of confidence)... the article links to OpenAI's most recent Preparedness Framework here: https://cdn.openai.com/pdf/18a02b5d-6b67-4cec-ab64-68cdfbdde...

It's disappointing to me that it's scoped to three narrow Tracked Categories now: Biological & Chemical, Cybersecurity, and AI Self-Improvement (the latter thresholded in terms of replicating the capabilities of leading AI researchers).

OpenAI does write about the removal of Persuasion as a category, with citations, on page 8:

> Persuasion: OpenAI prohibits the use of our products to manipulate political views as part of our Model Spec, and we build in safeguards to back this policy. We also continue to study the persuasive and relational capabilities of models (including on emotional well-being and preventing bias in our products) and monitor and investigate misuse of our products (including for influence operations). We believe many of the challenges around AI persuasion risks require solutions at a systemic or societal level, and we actively contribute to these efforts through our participation as a steering committee member of C2PA and working with lawmaker and industry peers to support state legislation on AI content provenance in Florida and California. Within our wider safety stack, our Preparedness Framework is specifically focused on frontier AI risks meeting a specific definition of severe harms, and Persuasion category risks do not fit the criteria for inclusion.

But IMO this falls short of the mark. As one of many examples, an AI that became remarkably good at influencing people, at scale, to self-harm or perpetrate violence would no longer be in scope for research. But, by their own criteria, one could easily argue that such a capability is Plausible, Measurable, Severe, Net New, and Irremediable once violence has occurred.

We live in a world where stochastic terror has become remarkably effective - regardless of whether you feel that word is overused, it's well-documented that people have historically used forums to encourage others to perpetrate mass casualty events. The idea that Model Spec adherence is sufficient to prevent AI from greatly increasing the scalability of this phenomenon, seems to be a direction that could put many in danger.

EDIT: this was posted before I was aware of today's mass shooting event in Florida, and I do not intend to imply any connection between my post and this event.
by 52-6F-62 | 2025-04-17 17:53:08+00:00
Fair. For engineering work they have been a terrible drain on me save for the most minor autocomplete. Its recommendations are often deeply flawed or almost totally hallucinated no matter the model. Maybe I am a better software engineer than a “prompt engineer”.

Ive tried to use them as a research assistant in a history project and they have been also quite bad in that respect because of the immense naivety in its approaches.

I couldn’t call them a librarian because librarians are studied and trained in cross referencing material.

They have helped me in some searches but not better than a search engine at a monumentally higher investment cost to the industry.

Then again, I am also speaking as someone who doesn’t like to offload all of my communications to those things. Use it or lose it, eh
by Tuna-Fish | 2025-04-17 17:53:15+00:00
If/when we will have AGI, we will likely have something fundamentally superhuman very soon after, and that will be very recognizable.

This is the idea of "hard takeoff" -- because the way we can scale computation, there will only ever be a very short time when the AI will be roughly human-level. Even if there are no fundamental breakthroughs, the very least silicon can be ran much faster than meat, and instead of compensating narrower width execution speed like current AI systems do (no AI datacenter is even close to the width of a human brain), you can just spend the money to make your AI system 2x wider and run it at 2x the speed. What would a good engineer (or, a good team of engineers) be able to accomplish if they could have 10 times the workdays in a week that everyone else has?

This is often conflated with the idea that AGI is very imminent. I don't think we are particularly close to that yet. But I do think that if we ever get there, things will get very weird very quickly.
by pixl97 | 2025-04-17 17:53:19+00:00
Me: "Hello I am from Autoritarianistan, I would like your premium internet in our country."

You: "Cool, we'll get tons of infrastructure in your country and make lots of money because you'll force everyone on it.

Me: "Hey, this is working out great. Bring your team over to Auth'istan for a business trip it will be great.

You: [Partying in said country]

Me: (to you) "Come over to this dark room a minute"

You: "Eh, this room is kinda sketch and why do those guys have a hammer and pliers"

Me: "So there is an easy way or hard way to this. Easy way, you give us unfettered access for our bots to spread propaganda on your premium internet. Hard way, we toss you off this building then we'll throw the rest of your team in a dark prison cell for doing the cocaine on the buffet table. Eventually one of them will give in and give us access."

Me: "So which is it going to be"

The $5 wrench is typically the winner.

https://m.xkcd.com/538/
by throwanem | 2025-04-17 17:53:22+00:00
Not that you need to hear more from me on this, but this really is the exact kind of accessory I needed. Programmable, powerful enough to be fun, not obtrusive enough to get in the way, lots of stylish colorful and businessy metallic bands I can swap out and accessorize for my day - and paying ~5% state of charge per day for an always-on display in "night" or single-color mode, it also manages to match in simple utility a simple quartz watch of the type my last-but-one partner favored. It's clever, unusual, understated, but for those who bother noticing such things it does make a nuanced statement. It's me.

I've spent ca $500 now on a range from Band 7 through Balance to T-rex 3, just so I'll have something to suit all styles and occasions. That may sound like a lot of money, but it really isn't; due to some events last year far too tedious to discuss, I lately find I'm read as homeless a little (...a lot...) too easily for comfort, and accessorizing this way allows me to show the ignorant wealthy something they think they recognize enough not to feel threatened by, without my having to compromise on any characteristics I actually care about in a personal device.

When the bad read is from a 20-year-old college kid bartender who has the job precisely because the place is too empty that time of day for even a Labrador to screw anything up too badly, I don't especially care. But this is Baltimore, and while the BPD has made enormous strides in the last decade and especially under Mayor Scott, times are scary. If the bad read is a keyed-up 22-year-old cop with a hand already near his weapon, that really could turn out to be the last bad day we ever have.

Oh sure, that poor cop would regret it and never forgive himself starting one second after the shot, but what good would that do him or me? Everybody goes out some kind of way, but I would rather for the sake of all involved this not be mine, and the upgrade to my style materially reduces the chance of that happening and makes me happy all kinds of other ways too.

So thanks again, most earnestly! Whether or not you meant to do me such a favor, you did; if you're ever in town and want to hit me up, feel free to collect on that very nice meal that I owe you.
by stronglikedan | 2025-04-17 17:53:40+00:00
The instructions presume that one would follow best practices when installing something where the source is available, and doesn't need to explicitly include all the steps to do so in this context. You are correct in that it would be bad practice to blindly install something, but knowing what you are installing is the first step to installing when you are following best practices. That onus is on the person doing the installing, not the installation instructions.
by EliRivers | 2025-04-17 17:53:48+00:00
I'd expect it to be generalised, where we (and everything else we've ever met) are specialised. Our intelligence is shaped by our biology and our environment; the limitations on our thinking are themselves concepts the best of us can barely glimpse. Some kind of intelligence that inherently transcends its substrate.

What that would look like, how it would think, the kind of mental considerations it would have, I do not know. I do suspect that declaring something that thinks like us would have "general intelligence" to be a symptom of our limited thinking.
by acdha | 2025-04-17 17:53:50+00:00
What you’re describing is only true to the extent that “be respectful to other, “don’t force me to follow your religion”, or “don’t pressure your subordinates for sex” are “left political views”. The myth of widespread cancellation has been heavily marketed but when you look at the handful of people who suffered any real consequences they came down to trying to force bigotry or sexual activities on unwilling participants.
by Kirby64 | 2025-04-17 17:53:53+00:00
> Neither are good ideas IMHO - but one way worse than the other? Come now.

Inmates in any prison in the US ostensibly have gone through due process and were convicted of their crimes. You can argue about whether the US justice system is truly fair, but it's (at least in historic years) certainly more fair than rounding up large portions of a specific ethnic minority for 'reeducation'.
by tough | 2025-04-17 17:53:55+00:00
Im not mocking AI, and while the internet and smartphones fundamentally changed how societies operate, and AI will probably do so to, why the Doomerism? Isn't that how tech works? We invent new tech and use it and so on?

What makes AI fundamentally different than smartphones or the internet? Will it change the world? Probably, already has.

Will it end it as we know it? Probably not?
by ActorNightly | 2025-04-17 17:54:33+00:00
The problem is that the benchmarks essentially test "is this data in the training set?" This methodology will never achieve any form of AI that is useful past a search engine.

A true AI shouldn't have any sort of informational knowledge about any domain, as it should be able to figure out how to get that knowledge (which includes building internal simulation if necessary), when asked a question.
by jack101311 | 2025-04-17 17:54:47+00:00
Clicking on the scroll bar will enter this mode is actually a bug and thank you for your report and I have fixed it. The back navigation popup is a temporary measure to protect against losing the highlights and notes due to accidental back navigation presses. (Some E Ink devices support side swipe gestures from the edge of the screen to return to the previous website.) which I guess is more frustrating. Once this module is connected to backend script and database, allowing for real-time saving of your highlights and notes to your account, this preventive measure can be removed.
by taylodl | 2025-04-17 17:54:50+00:00
I'm waiting for the moment when American news realizes they're going to have to play hardball with this president. Since 2015, the media has been overly lenient with Trump, implicitly aiding his rise to power and his two terms in office. In return, they've received nothing but contempt and insults. It's become clear to me that the chaos Trump generates has been a boon for their viewership numbers, but at what cost? This is why I've stopped consuming American news sources.
by tptacek | 2025-04-17 17:54:56+00:00
It's easy to tell stories about shadowy corporate actors retarding security on the Internet, but the truth is just that a lot of the ideas people have about doing security at global Internet scale just don't pan out. You can look across this thread to see all the "common sense" stuff people think should replace the WebPKI, most of which we know won't work.

Unfortunately, when you're working at global scale, you generally need to be well-capitalized, so it's big companies that get all the experience with what does and doesn't work. And then it's opinionated message board nerds like us that provide the narratives.
by exceptione | 2025-04-17 17:55:44+00:00
The smartest thing Microsoft could do, imho, is cancel all their billion UI variants, bless Avalonia and throw all the saved millions of dollars to them.

Then in one instant they get a real cross-platform UI framework, with a competent team as a free bonus.

It is actually incredibly compelling, the cross-platform .NET offering.

If you look at all the Go, Python and Rust UI toolkits, none hits the bar. They invariably write their own toy framework with 2 components, or they duct tape a leaking C++ toolkit on top with bad interop.
by JohnMakin | 2025-04-17 17:55:47+00:00
It really isn't. Most businesses export core business functions to a third party in some way. This is just a snotty navel gazing post without much content that was responded to in kind.

It's completely reasonable to use adsense to generate revenue and then be upset when they inevitably fuck you (and they will). It's not a chance to make a (completely uninformed) "ah, that's your own fault" comment, deflecting from scumbag practices google engages in.
by emptysongglass | 2025-04-17 17:56:18+00:00
> "Cancel culture" is the same bullshit as "virtue signaling": made up nonsense intended to poison any discussion and blunt criticism without needing to do or say anything substantive.

That sounds exactly like the same made up language of "sealioning" and "concern trolling" weaponized by the same people accusing the other side of making up "cancel culture" and "virtue signaling". Maybe you don't hold the ethical high ground and never did.
by bluefirebrand | 2025-04-17 17:56:53+00:00
> So the name being wrong means the department should be gutted?

All I said was that I like pancakes, where are you getting "I hate waffles" from?

> Overly-serious naming

It is actually completely un-serious naming imo, which may have contributed to higher ups at the company wondering what this person even did and how valuable they were
by bigyabai | 2025-04-17 17:57:25+00:00
> which assumes it knows something but doesn't understand anything.

That basically sums up this article (if not most of Unherd's publication). The author waxes on about how Nixon's path to globalization pleased everyone, but doesn't explore the context surrounding the postwar economy, last-century politics or the realities of modern offshoring. A lot of industries fell through the cracks anyways, automotive and manufacturing jobs were never staying in an America that raised it's poverty line.

This is an analysis that loses itself in the macro grandeur without really examining the realpolitik. Much of the "hysteria" you're hearing right now is directly from American businesses and shareholders, who have every right to be hysterical given the demands being made by the government.
by dcchambers | 2025-04-17 17:57:31+00:00
Will LLMs approach something that appears to be AGI? Maybe. Probably. They're already "better" than humans in many use cases.

LLMs/GPTs are essentially "just" statistical models. At this point the argument becomes more about philosophy than science. What is "intelligence?"

If an LLM can do something truly novel with no human prompting, with no directive other than something it has created for itself - then I guess we can call that intelligence.
by tstrimple | 2025-04-17 17:57:46+00:00
Douyin follows Chinese law which is why it has these restrictions. TikTok does not so it isn't allowed. Kind of weird what happens when countries pass legislation around activities they don't want instead of just trying to ban a foreign app while allowing all of the same dark patterns in the domestic competition. China just does a better job of protecting its citizens from this sort of thing. The US could have laws around social media for children like China, but they are more interested in perpetuating the yellow scare and maximizing profit.