5 ms·

Am I the only one who sees a jumbled stream of barely coherent semi-thoughts and word salad?

threeseed 3y ago
The inventor of UML, Grady Booch deals with people like this on Twitter every day. People seem to think that because ChatGPT appears to be intelligent that somehow we are on the cusp of a new AGI world. And that we need to serious thought leaders like George Hotz and other arrogant tech-bros to rescue us. It's just crypto all over again. The real thought leaders are going to be those in academia, government etc. Boring policy people who know the subtleties of the real world far better.
- doubelstandard 3y ago
  The government and academia are mostly bureaucrats that go along with the conventional wisdom. Independent thought doesnt get tied down by bureaucratic organizations. Its always been like this and always will. Behind the appearance of boring personalities there are... boring personalities
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  Academics may know some subtleties better, but not of the real world.
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  Boring policy people are almost never thoughtleaders though, you require extraverted traits and populism to become one of those, do presentations at large conferences, that kinda thing.
- dadarecit 3y ago
  I hope you’re trolling, for your sake
floor_ 3y ago
[flagged]
- tysam_and 3y ago
  He goes from thing to thing a lot. He seems to be very strongly on the spectrum, and maybe even AuDHD. I can associate with how he thinks a little bit, though I've tried to let the temporally-extreme assholishness attributes go enough to not associate really with that side of him.
QVVRP4nYz 3y ago
Well, he always looked like a guy who can hyper focus on single task for few months. That is great aptitude for breaking security but not necessary for stuff that requires long process of development and improvement. In other words Comma.ai: https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/13/17561484/george-hotz-comma-ai-self-driving-car-scam-diy-kit https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/13/17561484/george-hotz-comm...
KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago
My problem with this isn't even that it's a bunch of strung together ideas without a clear narrative or conclusion; enough practice at this combined with actual deep field knowledge results in works like Godel, Escher, Bach. My problem is that GHotz is a shitty writer, has puddle deep knowledge of anything that isn't iPhone firmware, and watching him play at being a freelance tech journo and produce this kind of hollow pseudo-philosophy that is meant to sound epiphanal but comes across as deeply naïve to anyone with any actual experience in these topics.
- hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
  I have a morbid fondness for the fella, because he reminds me of how I sounded a few years back when I was tearing my hair out trying to figure out where all this stuff was going to go, while also being too drunk and too lonely to get any serious research done. I don't think I'd enjoy meeting him in person much, though. I get annoyed by loud personalities like that.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago
    I was a huge fan of him in the 2010s when he was fighting the good fight for right to repair / sideload / do whatever. He was a bit of an idol while I spent my own time hacking Xbox hard drives and building tooling to write xfat headers and such. It just seems he hasn't grown a jot since then. I've been guilty of writing stuff like this even in recent years, but I've grown enough to check myself and hold a higher bar for the quality of my writing. Assuming he did read this back to himself, the fact that he saw it as publishable is a bit sad.
- baby 3y ago
  I find him very entertaining to listen to, and I often end up agreeing with him, but he’s definitely not the most “coherent” individual out there (like jobs/woz/carmack/pg/etc.) At the same time, he’s out there talking and writing, I’m sure if he continues he’ll get good. Nobody’s born a good writer and you only become one by writing a lot.
seydor 3y ago
yes. a great blog post instead of an overstretched novel-lookalike that is meant to please the SEO gods
bartvk 3y ago
No, I also failed to understand what the writer attempted to bring across. I’d be very happy if someone could summarize the blog in one paragraph.
- stavros 3y ago
  "You don't need to worry about AI becoming a superintelligence because the universe is big and complex."
  - drawkbox 3y ago
    I think the point he is making is that competition will prevent others from being able to FOOM and 51% everyone else and "win" outright to the point that it is dangerous. Or competition will prevent one player from getting the "powder keg". Competition can do that if it is fair competition and a good game design. That is why rules and regulations are important in any game or it becomes Calvinball where the only rule is there are no rules and "it can't be played the same way twice" [1], which sounds great until you start losing to cheats. Though even that has some aspect of competition, the changing of rules in your favor while others change the rules in their favor. The flaw in the thinking is that there will be "fair" competition. Any game design with good regulations and caps on game theory advantages (especially the cheat) "fair" competition is attainable. In game theory, if the other side cheats and your side keeps cooperating, you will lose every time. There is a great little game theory game that highlights it here called The Evolution of Trust. [2] In a market with collusion, or excessive advantage, this may not be possible to retain fairness. Even right now we can see with overweight/top heavy wealth players in capitalism if there is collusion or one player gets too big, and there is no anti-trust or "blue shell", then that player will win every time. AI needs an anti-trust or "blue shell" to knock down any player that is too advanced, but that might not be possible. Doing that is barely possible in a market run by humans now. The market is a garden, you have to help the seeds and cull back the overgrowth at the top. This is so the whole garden can thrive, lower seeds, middle plants and large production. Right now the large overgrowth gets all the benefits, policy control, water and nutrients, taking over the garden and even harming themselves with the overgrowth. Most real world game theory and design would be horrible game design where the larger player always wins. Now imagine a game that the larger player controls the game design, you'd never be able to nerf them. If one player can get the "powder keg" everyone, we need the game to be able to "blue shell" the bigger and potentially colluding/cheating player. [1] Calvinball https://calvinandhobbes.fandom.com/wiki/Calvinball https://calvinandhobbes.fandom.com/wiki/Calvinball [2] The Evolution of Trust https://ncase.me/trust/ https://ncase.me/trust/
unsubstantiated 3y ago
> Am I the only one who sees a jumbled stream of barely coherent semi-thoughts and word salad? Probably one of the few given the majority of the comments are directly addressing and dissecting each point of the post. It is not jumbled, but it is 1) the way Hotz usually writes, 2) unconventional, 3) cross-domain laterally connected, and 4) somewhat heavy for a sunday morning read. Hotz generally doesn't do "barely coherent semi-thoughts." I think the label is needlessly harsh. He's just addressing the contemporary nonsense by bridging them together and calling their bullshit out. It's sad to see so many of the replies to your comment are people attacking him for no good reason.

The inventor of UML, Grady Booch deals with people like this on Twitter every day. People seem to think that because ChatGPT appears to be intelligent that somehow we are on the cusp of a new AGI world. And that we need to serious thought leaders like George Hotz and other arrogant tech-bros to rescue us. It's just crypto all over again. The real thought leaders are going to be those in academia, government etc. Boring policy people who know the subtleties of the real world far better.

doubelstandard 3y ago
The government and academia are mostly bureaucrats that go along with the conventional wisdom. Independent thought doesnt get tied down by bureaucratic organizations. Its always been like this and always will. Behind the appearance of boring personalities there are... boring personalities
nonethewiser 3y ago
Academics may know some subtleties better, but not of the real world.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
Boring policy people are almost never thoughtleaders though, you require extraverted traits and populism to become one of those, do presentations at large conferences, that kinda thing.
dadarecit 3y ago
I hope you’re trolling, for your sake

floor_ 3y ago

[flagged]

tysam_and 3y ago
He goes from thing to thing a lot. He seems to be very strongly on the spectrum, and maybe even AuDHD. I can associate with how he thinks a little bit, though I've tried to let the temporally-extreme assholishness attributes go enough to not associate really with that side of him.

QVVRP4nYz 3y ago

Well, he always looked like a guy who can hyper focus on single task for few months. That is great aptitude for breaking security but not necessary for stuff that requires long process of development and improvement. In other words Comma.ai: https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/13/17561484/george-hotz-comma-ai-self-driving-car-scam-diy-kit https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/13/17561484/george-hotz-comm...

KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago

My problem with this isn't even that it's a bunch of strung together ideas without a clear narrative or conclusion; enough practice at this combined with actual deep field knowledge results in works like Godel, Escher, Bach. My problem is that GHotz is a shitty writer, has puddle deep knowledge of anything that isn't iPhone firmware, and watching him play at being a freelance tech journo and produce this kind of hollow pseudo-philosophy that is meant to sound epiphanal but comes across as deeply naïve to anyone with any actual experience in these topics.

hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
I have a morbid fondness for the fella, because he reminds me of how I sounded a few years back when I was tearing my hair out trying to figure out where all this stuff was going to go, while also being too drunk and too lonely to get any serious research done. I don't think I'd enjoy meeting him in person much, though. I get annoyed by loud personalities like that.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago
  I was a huge fan of him in the 2010s when he was fighting the good fight for right to repair / sideload / do whatever. He was a bit of an idol while I spent my own time hacking Xbox hard drives and building tooling to write xfat headers and such. It just seems he hasn't grown a jot since then. I've been guilty of writing stuff like this even in recent years, but I've grown enough to check myself and hold a higher bar for the quality of my writing. Assuming he did read this back to himself, the fact that he saw it as publishable is a bit sad.
baby 3y ago
I find him very entertaining to listen to, and I often end up agreeing with him, but he’s definitely not the most “coherent” individual out there (like jobs/woz/carmack/pg/etc.) At the same time, he’s out there talking and writing, I’m sure if he continues he’ll get good. Nobody’s born a good writer and you only become one by writing a lot.

seydor 3y ago

yes. a great blog post instead of an overstretched novel-lookalike that is meant to please the SEO gods

bartvk 3y ago

No, I also failed to understand what the writer attempted to bring across. I’d be very happy if someone could summarize the blog in one paragraph.

stavros 3y ago
"You don't need to worry about AI becoming a superintelligence because the universe is big and complex."
- drawkbox 3y ago
  I think the point he is making is that competition will prevent others from being able to FOOM and 51% everyone else and "win" outright to the point that it is dangerous. Or competition will prevent one player from getting the "powder keg". Competition can do that if it is fair competition and a good game design. That is why rules and regulations are important in any game or it becomes Calvinball where the only rule is there are no rules and "it can't be played the same way twice" [1], which sounds great until you start losing to cheats. Though even that has some aspect of competition, the changing of rules in your favor while others change the rules in their favor. The flaw in the thinking is that there will be "fair" competition. Any game design with good regulations and caps on game theory advantages (especially the cheat) "fair" competition is attainable. In game theory, if the other side cheats and your side keeps cooperating, you will lose every time. There is a great little game theory game that highlights it here called The Evolution of Trust. [2] In a market with collusion, or excessive advantage, this may not be possible to retain fairness. Even right now we can see with overweight/top heavy wealth players in capitalism if there is collusion or one player gets too big, and there is no anti-trust or "blue shell", then that player will win every time. AI needs an anti-trust or "blue shell" to knock down any player that is too advanced, but that might not be possible. Doing that is barely possible in a market run by humans now. The market is a garden, you have to help the seeds and cull back the overgrowth at the top. This is so the whole garden can thrive, lower seeds, middle plants and large production. Right now the large overgrowth gets all the benefits, policy control, water and nutrients, taking over the garden and even harming themselves with the overgrowth. Most real world game theory and design would be horrible game design where the larger player always wins. Now imagine a game that the larger player controls the game design, you'd never be able to nerf them. If one player can get the "powder keg" everyone, we need the game to be able to "blue shell" the bigger and potentially colluding/cheating player. [1] Calvinball https://calvinandhobbes.fandom.com/wiki/Calvinball https://calvinandhobbes.fandom.com/wiki/Calvinball [2] The Evolution of Trust https://ncase.me/trust/ https://ncase.me/trust/

unsubstantiated 3y ago

> Am I the only one who sees a jumbled stream of barely coherent semi-thoughts and word salad? Probably one of the few given the majority of the comments are directly addressing and dissecting each point of the post. It is not jumbled, but it is 1) the way Hotz usually writes, 2) unconventional, 3) cross-domain laterally connected, and 4) somewhat heavy for a sunday morning read. Hotz generally doesn't do "barely coherent semi-thoughts." I think the label is needlessly harsh. He's just addressing the contemporary nonsense by bridging them together and calling their bullshit out. It's sad to see so many of the replies to your comment are people attacking him for no good reason.