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slededit
searching PlanetScale…
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63 ms
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601.
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slededit
8y ago
The basis for my arguments are from English law. Who is guilty of what has been fine tuned over centuries. It's not enough that something bad happened. There must be either intent to harm or gross negligence. The modern trend both in l
602.
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slededit
8y ago
> The idea is not to try to predict the future, but, on the basis of the literature, to identify the expected side effects or unintended uses of this technology. What will you do with this information? > No, we’re not saying they shou
603.
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slededit
8y ago
> Firstly, this is for researchers/academics who are publishing in journals, disseminating ideas for new technology. The implicit assumption is the engineers will use it to make something bad. The scientists must anticipate what en
604.
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slededit
8y ago
I assume the common response to #3 is that the benefits outweigh the costs. Do you not consider that a compelling argument?
605.
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slededit
8y ago
I would like to engage more substantively with you, but I don't think I understand where you stand on this issue. Do you agree or disagree with the suggestions in the original article?
606.
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slededit
8y ago
This gets to the core of our disagreement. I don't believe second order effects (i.e. things that involve another human decision maker using your creation) to be knowable in the general case. The exception being if you specifically a
607.
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slededit
8y ago
> Moral culpability is shared and distributed across moral agents in time and space, as some function of causal distance and intent. Absolutely agree. > I think that engineers avoid thinking about these things, not out of humility, bu
608.
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slededit
8y ago
> That's just factually wrong. Mathematics. Philosophers. Logicians. All the living and dead theorists who built the abstract foundations essential for the functioning of our machines. People who deal entirely in the world of the ab
609.
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slededit
8y ago
Your argument has some basis in law and I do find it compelling. The nuance to my argument is that the original creator did not have nefarious aims. I believe that does make a difference.
610.
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slededit
8y ago
On what basis?
611.
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slededit
8y ago
Nobody would be discussing the moral implications of scientific discoveries if it didn't ultimately lead to machines that cause effect in the real world. Science and Engineering are inextricably linked in this discussion.
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slededit
8y ago
> But I think your attitude is really about letting engineers shirk their responsibility as moral agents. I absolutely disagree. That is why I specifically mentioned culpability for first order effects. If you build a gun for someone y
613.
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slededit
8y ago
> People who create something, who research something, should by definition have a better grasp on their topic than everyone else. To expect that they are more knowledgeable, and therefore better equipped to see what it means, and theref
614.
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slededit
8y ago
> If you know your software will increase emissions to illegal levels, and still write it, you are culpable. Again a first order effect > If you write software for autonomous cars that is not foolproof at detecting pedestrians, you ar
615.
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slededit
8y ago
Those are first order effects connected directly to the immediate aim of allowing transport over an obstacle. A civil engineer does not consider "who" will cross or what their aims will be. For example a bridge may allow an enemy
616.
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slededit
8y ago
The vast majority of CPU power dissipation is from dumping gate capacitance to ground - not the resistance of the interconnects. It's akin to filling (very small) buckets of water and dumping them back out billions of times a second. Z
617.
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slededit
8y ago
I disagree with you on the phrasing aspect for this specific case. When discussing an advertising message the phrasing is extremely important. Albeit the thread didn't invite substantive discussion on it because of the snark.
618.
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slededit
8y ago
I find this new trend of trying to predict how technology will be used - and presuming its users will either be evil or too stupid to use it responsibly incredibly patronizing. Engineers are not philosophers and should not be placed in this
619.
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slededit
8y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if the EU passed a law requiring domestic traffic to stay domestic. You could even argue existing privacy laws require it already - it just hasn't been enforced in that way. It's not a hard problem to
620.
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slededit
8y ago
This is the actual situation code blocks are designed for. Of course everyone just uses them for quotes...
621.
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slededit
8y ago
I watched some old taped TV documentaries on YouTube and checked out what happened to the companies in the commercials. A surprising number met their end by the FTC or some other government agency.
622.
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slededit
8y ago
Liability from the creditors. If a company is in default they must declare bankruptcy. Failure to do so leaves its officers subject to personal liability. When you fail to supply your customers with the agreed merchandise because you have n
623.
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slededit
8y ago
The FTC isn't bound by that and are happy to go after false advertising - neither are the creditors. Running a bankrupt company after knowing it is insolvent is one reason for piercing the corporate veil. They have a duty to minimize
624.
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slededit
8y ago
Even though they aren't making money customers did pay to use the service. You can't just change the terms after you get the money - they've just defaulted on their obligations. The officers are opening themselves up to liab
625.
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slededit
8y ago
GDP comparisons are worthless, but cash flow to debt is an important metric. If it was compared to cash inflows of the actual government entity it would be interesting (and depressing).
626.
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slededit
8y ago
its not really documentation per se. It's flaws programmers are prone to. Everyone has their own set. Knowing the author in an abstract sense speeds up the process.
627.
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slededit
8y ago
The typesetting is used to convey information though. I use indentation to convey information about connected concepts. The indentation of my in code comments conveys how important they are and whether we're at the start of a new parag
628.
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slededit
8y ago
They failed and the guy behind it joined DARPA. You may have seen their new electronics initiative posted here a few weeks ago - that's run by him.
629.
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slededit
8y ago
X86 used to have BCD instructions but they were killed in X64.
630.
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slededit
8y ago
It's only the really expensive ones that require a paid license. You generally aren't going to be getting a $3000 FPGA just to tinker around.
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