jonahx

8 ms·

121.
by jonahx 7mo ago
Yes, I didn't mean to imply non-technical people need to suck it up and get comfortable with Unix man pages, say. I don't think that's possible on a large scale. But what might be possible is people learning to understand
122.
by jonahx 7mo ago
Agree completely. A solution would probably need to involve: 1. The alternatives being relatively easy to setup and use. This has already happened with some FOSS software. 2. Social norms changing around them (ie, it's "cool&quo
123.
by jonahx 7mo ago
I mean, they're impossible, and yet they happen. I've seen cigarettes and seat belts change in my lifetime. As a former smoker and denizen of the world of ubiquitous airplane and restaurant smoking sections, I would have bet any
124.
by jonahx 7mo ago
I could see myself making similar comments. On a practical level, they're valid. But maybe... If we are ever going to free ourselves of rent-seeking middle men, we simply have to make a cultural change where non-technical people do m
125.
by jonahx 7mo ago
I've often wondered this. I suspect not, though I don't know. You're right that the answer matters to understanding LLM limitations relative to humans, though.
126.
by jonahx 7mo ago
I don't disagree with any of that. My comment was only in relation to the question of human-specific capability that current LLMs may not be able to duplicate. I was not making the value judgments you seem to have read.
127.
by jonahx 7mo ago
> The story that humans have access to some pure deductive engine and LLMs are just faking it with statistics might be flattering to humans more than it’s accurate. Your point rings true with most human reasoning most of the time. Still
128.
by jonahx 7mo ago
I recently picked up Washington Square, and while it has that old-fashioned flavor you describe, I was struck by how readable the long sentences and baroque turns of phrase were. They flow well, they're easy to parse. And the chapt
129.
by jonahx 7mo ago
> They have to set vision and direction A prime example of corporate speak that is, as you rightly said, 'only effective among the "clueless"'
130.
by jonahx 7mo ago
I agree. I like the original piece Sommers wrote, as did the rebuttal author. I think the insight about "it turns out" has merit whether or not it works as a pg takedown. Nevertheless I also enjoyed the nothing-but-receipts reb
131.
by jonahx 7mo ago
Interesting rebuttal written by a HN reader when the original was published and made it to the front page in 2010: https://web.archive.org/web/20100309032112/http://blog.ethan...
132.
by jonahx 8mo ago
You should just whip up some simple cost plus payment, with a low plus. I'd probably use it now.
133.
by jonahx 8mo ago
So the hellscape that is the ad-based internet economy is a good thing because it's an indirect form of wealth redistribution? That's a new one!
134.
by jonahx 8mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplex Common for visualizing mixtures of three things!
135.
by jonahx 8mo ago
From gp: > Forcing people into a way to think via software is fundamentally authoritarian and sad. Completely agree. I understand the problem, and while I see this as a good faith attempt to solve it, something doesn't quite sit rig
136.
by jonahx 8mo ago
> People don’t do quadruple axels on the ice because they were somehow born with the ability, they can do it because they practice figure skating every day for years. You've changed my claim. My claim isn't that world-class at
137.
by jonahx 8mo ago
Few claims in the social sciences are more fully settled. I don't think you could find a researcher in the world at a major university making that claim that randomly selected children could be reliably turned into world-class mathema
138.
by jonahx 8mo ago
There are many, many people (math majors, competitive programmers, chess players, etc) who devote incredible effort to becoming better, and simply cannot reach elite levels. And while in most cases elite players are also putting in a lot o
139.
by jonahx 8mo ago
> Any child who read maths textbooks with enthusiasm for 3-4 hours a day for years could in theory at least get close to doing what he did No, they couldn't. And neither could most adults, for that matter. Innate ability is real.
140.
by jonahx 8mo ago
> The fact that you think that the rules of you being a father are somehow different than the rules of you driving to a appointment indicate that you have a completely incoherent world view based on two incompatible models of epistemolog
141.
by jonahx 8mo ago
I'm just saying it is the answer. To make an overly dramatic analogy, if you were kidnapped and asked why the kidnapper was able to hold you against your will, the answer is because they've chained you up and they have the gun,
142.
by jonahx 8mo ago
It definitely answers why. You are asking for an appeal to some moral justification. But there isn't one, and it doesn't matter. That's the whole point of "might makes right".
143.
by jonahx 8mo ago
> To think that whatever the AI is capable of solving is (and forever will be) the frontier of all problems is deeply delusional. AI got good at generating code, but it still can't even do a fraction of what the human brain can do.
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by jonahx 8mo ago
> The "AI replaces humans in X" narrative is primarily a tool for driving attention and funding. It's also a legitimate concern. We happen to be in a place where humans are needed for that "last critical 10%," o
145.
by jonahx 8mo ago
I would like to replace Ring with something fully local. Local ML/face recognition would be a bonus. Ability to sync to a private owned server owned by me would be a bonus. I'm assuming there are projects out there that would ena
146.
by jonahx 8mo ago
> learning (hopefully) about engineering Not a chance. If anything, the reverse, in that it devalues engineering. For most, LLMs are a path to an end-product without the bother or effort of understanding. No different than paid enginee
147.
by jonahx 8mo ago
But you can define the complex field C. And it has many benefits, like making the fundamental theorem of algebra work out. I'm not seeing the issue? On a similar note, why insist that "i" (or a negative, for that matter)
148.
by jonahx 8mo ago
> Im saying that the origin of complex numbers is the ability to do arbitrary rotations and scaling through multiplication, and that i being the sqrt of -1 is the emergent property. Not true historically -- the origin goes back to Cardan
149.
by jonahx 8mo ago
Or you can hand wave a bit and trust intuition. Just like the titans who invented it all did! The obsession with rigor that later developed -- while necessary -- is really an "advanced topic" that shouldn't displace learning
150.
by jonahx 8mo ago
> As such, there is nothing really special about e itself either. The only reason its in there is because of a pattern artifact in math - e^x derivative is itself Not sure I follow you here... The special thing about e is that it'

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