skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Questions about innovation in Erlang/OTP ecosystem
Hi I'm currently at a universities and I started learning Erlang but the external ecosystem is pretty bland and all of the recourses are mostly concentrated around Elixir.
Do you personally think there is a market for a new Erlang framework/PaaS similar to Django, to help with speeding up development and deployment of Erlang apps?
And Or do you know if any developers/companies would be interested to see a new framework develop ?
It adds up when you consider how small the group of players is. It's small-friendship-group drama as opposed to large-friendship-group drama.
>these are the people who think they are best qualified to prevent an artificial superintelligence from destroying humanity

do they believe that?

they happen to be the ones who can pull the brakes in order to allow someone on earth the chance to prevent it.

if they don't pull the brakes and if humankind is unlucky that superintelligence emerges quickly, then it doesn't matter whether or not anyone on earth can figure out alignment, nobody has the chance to try.
This was all orchestrated from the start. I cannot believe this thing just happened. There will be a conversation/chat/email leak in the future stating how MS always wanted to dissolve the Non-Profit part of OpenAI and take over it. All this drama, I cannot believe this. This feels like it was scripted by a child eating crayon. What the fuck. This was all planned from the start.
They could have bought themselves some points by saying "...and that's how the Death Star works, you need a massive space station as a power source if you want to do it more than once."

But no, lasers.
> The biggest loss of all, though, is a necessary one: the myth that anything but a for-profit corporation is the right way to organize a company.

This is a big picture idea that we should examine more closely. Right now, in the heat of the chaotic collapse, it's easy to conclude that for-proft corp structure is the only way to go. But I think we should take a "proof is in the pudding" approach and remember all the amazing things that OpenAI accomplished under it's non-conventional org structure. Maybe that non-conventional org structure was a key ingredient in OpenAI's success? Sure, we now know that "long-term stability" does not seem to be a quality of this org structure, but nonetheless it seemed to have lots of other desirable qualities.
Have 500-750 key employees departed? Or even threatened to depart? OpenAI has (well, had) 770 employees, you think Microsoft will lure away 70-97% of them?
Who Controls OpenAI?
It's a tough life and nobody owes you a job. It was no different when I graduated during a recession so nothing special or new here.
I'm happy to flesh this idea out together if you start a github discussion or issue (feature request).
The world according to a gas molecule and the world according to a statistician.

This needs to be amplified + defensive caveat regarding subscription to any “youtube” theories. That said, a member of a large organization, such as the US military, will have many stories to tell and phrase “FUBAR” iirc came out of the US Army. In fact, even being in smaller commercial enterprises, one sometimes wonders that anything gets done at all!

But things get done. The military can plan, provision, conduct, and win wars. Systems tools and state-spaces are the tools of top level control mechanisms. So, yes, things can be chaotic when viewed from a narrow perspective, but from another top level perspective, there is order.
Related story:

“YouTube artificially slows down video load times when using Firefox”
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38345858
Indeed, just like committing homicide and having a baby cancels out.
Whatever they did, MS is not an environment where ideas thrive or execution sparkles.

They've always been mediocre and probably always will, I can't see any particular purchase, or poach, changing that.

But they do have heaps of money. It's not clear that will be enough.
Interesting - in my experience people working in non profits are exactly like those in for-profits. After all, if you’re not the business owner, then EVERY company is a non-profit to you
Here's a tldr timeline chart for the recent openai events
I've changed the LED to pulse at early interactions, blinking was too crude indeed.
Ai generated
Can OpenAI now make their stuff open source? ;-) Or better yet, public domain. It seems a shame to fail at their initial promise AND have it all go to Microsoft alone.
And of course Sam is totally not involved in any of this, right?
Altman leaving wouldn't harm the OpenAI API.

80% of the company leaving would.
How does it compare to HVM [0]? It is an alternative to GHC that in some cases is orders of magnitudes faster, at least from their benchmarks.

[0] https://github.com/HigherOrderCO/hvm
I completely get where you're coming from on this, and agree in many ways, depending on the situation.

Keep in mind, though, that what we're talking about here is a massive shift in the philosophical underpinnings our existence. It's quite possibly the difference between being able to send intelligent 'life' to other stars or not (which from what we know so far, we're the sole keepers of in the universe). It also opens the door to fine tuning our collective sense of ethics, and increasing cooperation on solving long term problems. Inequality included. The stakes couldn't be higher.

Of course, there are many dystopian possibilities as well. But you can see why people get excited about it and can't help themselves. Someone is always going to keep trying.
Okay, I'm sold on the delay, but where's the code that detects non-chrome?

Do they serve different js based on the user agent header? If they delay chrome too there's no foul.
It kind of depends on the type of artist. I use it to illustrate my stories, for example, and I'd be upset if someone claimed my writing doesn't count as art-

But I've spent well over a decade learning to write. I don't have any skill in drawing, and I don't earn any money from my writing. (...and last time I tried to hire an artist, they bit my head off when I offered an example of what I was after.)

So I'll use AI art, because it's that or no art.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38347672.
> Is there no concern from you or people that share this idea about this technology falling into the arms of state actors that won't be so moral about it?

I'm deeply concerned about it falling into the arms of private actors, specially the worst of them, M$.
Outside of AI x-risk, there's very little chance that any of these scenarii (short of an asteroid) would eradicate mankind. There's just so many of us, in so many places.

Even total nuclear war would, based on the Fermi estimates I've seen, not be able to do it.

We can agree that things are not all rosy, but picturing as "so bad we might all disappear" is a bit far-fetched.
You seem to forget that Hanlon's Razor isn't a proven concept, in fact the opposite is more likely to be true, given that pesky thing called recorded history.
The anti-Microsoft stance of HN readers never ceases to amaze me, not just talking about this thread. I've seen people even accusing Microsoft of orchestrating the board to fire Altman and cause this cascading of events, based on no evidence other than some imaginary plot because Microsoft is always evil. Yet those comments get upvoted and breathed more oxygen into. Seems more likely that the OpenAI board just grossly miscalculated their own power/sway. It has happened countless times in history in both small and large companies. This is just an example of one that involves a tech behemoth.
> Until now, the government of Argentina has abused its currency monopoly by printing money, with devastating consequences.

With devastating consequences for the middle class.

It's printing money to keep entitlements for the poor and to keep the rich from paying for those entitlements (more than they already are).

Does Argentina even have a middle class anymore?

I was looking at wealth inequality - and to be in the top 10% in Argentina - you need barely more than $100k.

It seems like, historically, a decent chunk of the top 10% wouldn't even count as middle class in Argentina right now.
It is time for regulators to step in and propose structural remedies. VC culture has shown itself not able to run these companies for betterment of mankind, anyway.
If you're going to implement your own queue, you can make it run for however long you want.

Again, I'm getting downvoted. The whole point of my comment isn't about using GCP Tasks, it is about what I would do if I was going to implement my own queue system like the author did.

By the way, that 30 minute limitation can be worked around with checkpoints or breaking up the task into smaller chunks. Something that isn't a bad idea to do anyway. I've seen long running tasks cause all sorts of downstream problems when they fail and then take forever to run again.
It was more like a case of the author not having AMD hardware to test their automated installer: https://github.com/Acly/krita-ai-diffusion/issues/76
Murder on the AGI alignment Express
Gravity well. You would exit hyperspace before hitting the planet. Same concept as how the Interdictor class Star Destroyers prevent hyperspace/pull ships out of hyperspace.
Wait I’m completely confused. Why is Ilya signing this? Is he voting for his own resignation? He’s part of the board. In fact, he was the ringleader of this coup.
Author, do you also have page statistics? It would be interesting to see how much the HN derank kills traffic.
Risk: Too Much, Too Little, the Wrong Kind, or the Wrong Measure?
Stranger things have happened. Maybe in a decade or two if Sam stays at MSFT? It does not seem like his profile, but people can change.
Great for China, Russia and Iran too.
Why would the board be silent if that was the case?
Being discussed here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38345858
I don't think this is generally true. There are exceptions, such as a monopoly on some scarce natural resource. However, there's a quite limited market for such opportunities. It's extremely difficult if not impossible to completely corner some market, even without regulations.

In general, it's not true that companies would merge without regulation. Why would Apple merge with Samsung? It doesn't make any sense.

Usually, regulation causes monopolies to form. A prime example is the patent system, which literally grants a monopoly to an idea. There would be much more competition without IP protection laws, which in my opinion doesn't belong in capitalism. For example, if all Apple's patents and copyrights were openly licensed, there would be much more competition with higher quality, but cheaper products.
Chaebol (Korea) and Zaibatsu (Japan). The former are still very much alive and kicking, while the former was more or less snuffed out in the post-war period (as is my understanding).
The White House does have an AI Bill of Rights and the recent executive order told the secretaries to draft regulations for AI.

It is a great time to be a lobbyist.
This seems like pedantics…? Yes, they technically make a profit, in that they bring in more money in revenue than they spent in expenditures. But it’s not going towards yachts, it’s going toward hospital supplies. Your comment seems to be using the word “profit” to imply a false equivalency
You only have to look at humanity's history to see that people will make this decision over and over again.
If you don't like it, why are you engaging?
of course. most of my friends have switched to chrome just because of these "oopses" or niggles. switch to chrome and "it just works". it's not just google here... a lot of heavy javascript sites just don't care to make things work in firefox now.

I keep chrome/chromium around for "broken" sites and to chromecast even. It is what it is.
If you're dreaming about people bailing on contracts they signed over some kind of personal vendetta, you may not be one of the good guys.
- Ilya may have been partially motivated by ego, Altman being the public face, he was left out of Time 100 AI leaders in favor of Greg, etc.

But Ilya Sutskever is on the Time 100 Most Influential People in AI 2023 list, assuming that's the one you're referring to.
But didn't he start this? Like, did they think "I'll shoot for the king; if I miss, no big deal?"
I just can’t identify with any of the main characters, so it’s a bit of a bummer.
> The board is made up seemingly random selection of people, one of them leading a potential OpenAI competitor.

Does this refer to someone in particular?
Honestly? I don't believe ChatGPT has much value for state actors at all, especially in Military.

They have their own kind of AI technology which serves different purposes and we probably know nothing or very little about it. It's not like they will be sharing their tech with the World, much less open sourcing it.
I agree that would be the way to do it, but now we're no longer talking about simply 'fixing' the implementation of the existing API but rather introducing a new function you have to use.

`setenv()` would only be safe if your program never uses `getenv()`, and calls to `getenv()` are so numerous and all over the place that for most non-trivial programs it would be hard to ensure they never happen.

There's also the rub that `setenv()` is not part of the C standard, it's POSIX. I don't think the C standard would ever introduce `tgetenv()` to fix a problem it doesn't have, so non-POSIX code would have to continue to call `getenv()` since that's all that is available to them.
Many java editors (notably, eclipse) work the same way, _if_ you configure them to do so_: Just run it, don't worry about the compilation errors. If the code never hits that segment (in java, if there's a syntactical error in source code, that entire class cannot be used, but if it's a semantic error (e.g. a reference to a function that doesn't exist, which is syntactically perfectly valid, that's a semantic error), only that method is 'tainted'. If you hit a tainted area the debugger kicks in, freezes the process, and breakpoints on the spot. You can then fix it if you want and continue, or inspect the stack and state of e.g. local vars and learn something.

What I find surprising is how few programmers I talk to are aware of this, let alone use it. I find it a significant productivity boost.

Extrapolating away from debuggers: Everything should be warning, nothing should be an error. Then adopt a policy that you don't check in warnings. I find it utterly insane that 'unused variable' is treated as an _error_ (in the sense that it prevents compilation). It.. just isn't.

I hear _lots_ of noise in the line of 'well but my dev team will just ignore that rule', but that's a "doctor it hurts when I press here" issue. You don't solve that by just being more beliggerent, you fix that by having a chat with the team.

I wonder what 'friendly' means in the context of 'a programming language', but if its: "Assuming you are not a complete idiot", that's a plus, I guess.
It's literally the top article on the front page right now https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38347868

See also https://twitter.com/karaswisher/status/1726598360277356775 which was merged into that discussion above
What are they talking about?

Yes the world is in a better place and the "Silicon Valley cronies in their Venture Capital towers" focusing on profit are causing all the AI innovation while Ilya wants to slow it down..
> He's a cosplayer.

Oh, you mean in addition to being an ancap?

Anarcho-capitalism is a nonsense label to allow libertarians to cosplay as anarchists without having to give up on their positions of power. It seemingly only exists so rich people can be against paying taxes or having to follow laws and regulations while getting to pretend they're revolutionaries "fighting the system".
> HN is not responsive because it urgently needs a performance upgrade and is on a single core.

Seems to be fine all days without Altman drama.
Not claiming to know anything about any persons differences or commenting about that in any way.
I would say Google is one of the few companies that directly benefit from OpenAI+Microsoft hitting a heavy patch of turbulence.
>Abingdon is such a weird little place

Abingdon emigré here, happy to +1 that sentiment.

I lived there from the early aughts until 2012.

It's where Sophos is headquartered, too.

I have no connection to the place these days, but if you want some hyper local blog action, have a look at:

https://abingdonblog.co.uk
Who are you gonna believe? Vox or your lying eyes?
... and Microsoft will continue to find ways to annoy you, harass you, and make your life slowly more and more difficult until you reinstall them. Just as Microsoft has always done.

Any investment you've made in Windows, including investment in learning how to use it, is a sunk loss. Move on.
>The carbon footprints of the investments were calculated by examining the equity stakes that the billionaires held in companies. Estimates of the carbon impact of their holdings was calculated using the company’s declarations on scope 1 emissions – direct emissions from sources owned or controlled by a company – and scope 2, indirect emissions.

Well, that seems a downright wrong way of assessing their "personal" footprint, don't you think?
That's some off-putting content to show new users. I suspect they're an ideologically driven platform?

*edit, their press release section removes all doubt.
Why does it have to be all or nothing? Why not non-profit in the start when you need to attract scientists and engineers who are in it for the challenge, and then change to for profit when you need to attract product managers and people who will scale the company and make it sustainable.
I don't see any mentions of Google but I personally think it's Google that will be the main beneficiary of chaos at OpenAI. After all, weren't they the main competitors? Maybe not in product or business yet but on IP and hiring fronts?
Something can be both unethical and commonly done. In fact, some quite seriously unethical things were commonplace for centuries and others are commonplace now even though most consider them unethical at heart. Skipping ads needs to be ethical or unethical because it is, that it is done is irrelevant.
Why be surprised? This is exactly how it has always been: the rich aim to get even richer and if that brings risks or negative effects for the rest that's A-ok with them.

That's what I didn't understand about the world of the really wealthy people until I started interacting with them on a regular basis: they are still aiming to get even more wealthy, even the ones that could fund their families for the next five generations. With a few very notable exceptions.
Love how people are invested in OpenAI situation just like typical girls in their teens from 2000 in celebrity romance and dramas, same exaggerated vibes.
I believe in second chances. From the GitHub link:

> EDIT 5 years later: You can see in the edit history of this comment what I originally wrote here; I was upset and said unkind things that I regret, and which nobody deserved to hear. I apologized at the time and I still feel I should apologize again, unequivocally. I was in the wrong here.
Depends on how much of that is paper money.

If you’re making like 250k cash and were promised $1M a year in now-worthless paper, plus you have OpenAI on the resume, are one of the most in-demand people in the world? It would be rediculously easy to quit.
What again is the evil and harmful thing, Pocket is doing to the users?
> it is mostly criminals shooting each other not terrorists

Nobody is born a criminal. Gang violence is expanding like a plague because of the collapse of society / government / whatever you want to call it in the lives of young people. A young person (usually adolescent) who is victimized by criminal gangs (and they need victims to exist) will not receive any protection or help from neither the police, the military, the schools, parents, family or anybody. Usually they're told just to take it and keep their head down. Criminals exploit boys by having them run errands or just squeeze them for money, girls are instead exploited sexually.

The civil society has nothing but bottomless contempt and even outright hatred towards teenage boys, so there is no dignified route of life for them unless they come from one of the few families that care for their future. Joining a gang becomes the easy way for them to find some dignity and respect among their peers and even in civil society. This has been going on for decades among the poorest in places such as the US, but now it happens to "middle-class" boys in Sweden and other places, because this middle class would rather see their own children be victimized or killed than make any effort to pass on their middle-class status to their kids. So it's not "mostly criminals shooting each other".
I never said I lost or not, the fight was undecided since it was broken up... You time and time again read things into my comments I haven't said. I said I don't think a person will lose in a serious(Which I take to mean a fight until one party is physically unable to continue, death or knockout) 1v1 fight with a cat, nothing more, nothing less. Please quote the comments where I "have different concepts what it means to lose a fight" in every one of my comments.

In fact I just read back the entire thread. None of my comments are aggressive. You were the one who came out of the woodworks swinging with your: "says someone that's never been in a fight with a cat" comment.

Anyway I'm done with this topic. Apparently whether a cat can defeat a human is too serious a topic for two people on this site to be able to discuss it in a civil manner.
Same for me. Teams didn't even allow me to join about a year ago, but a few weeks ago it just worked. I can't even remember the last time I encountered a site that wouldn't work in Firefox tbh. Am I just lucky?
>I think he's not as known in the outside world but it's really difficult to understate the amount of social capital sama has in the inner circles of Silicon Valley.

This definitely sounds like someone the average person - including the average tech worker, exceptionally income-engorged as they may be - would want heading the, "Manhattan Project but potentially for inconceivably sophisticated social/economic/mind control et al." project. /s
It would have been a 4D chess move for Microsoft to have instigated this, by making the board to make the first move. Allowing to break the status quo at OpenAI, and allowing to run the project at full speed.
WarpStream co-founder here. Implementing the Idempotent Producer feature for the Apache Kafka protocol was definitely a fun challenge for us. Please let me know if you have any questions!
Ultimately people care a lot more about their compensation, since that is what pays the bills and puts food on the table.

Since OpenAI's commercial aspects are doomed now and it is uncertain whether they can continue operations if Microsoft withholds resources and consumers switch away to alternative LLM/embeddings serrvices with more level-headed leadership, OpenAI will eventually turn into a shell of itself, which affects compensation.