timmg

5 ms·

31.
by timmg 4mo ago
There are a lot of things like this. My favorite is how elegant solutions often look simple in retrospect. So if you noodle on a problem for a while and then come up with a clever solution: once you explain it to someone they'll be li
32.
by timmg 4mo ago
I wasn’t assuming anything. I was asking whether the problem was bias — which we already see in some things that are highly regulated — or just wrong bias. I’m trying to understand what people think we should correct for.
33.
by timmg 4mo ago
Ironically, in the US it is ok to charge men more for car insurance, since they cost more in aggregate. It is illegal to charge women more for health insurance even though they cost more in aggregate.
34.
by timmg 4mo ago
> sing an LLM to make decisions about extending credit to offer worse terms (say) to women. In general, or if it isn't the correct answer? Like: young men pay more for car insurance than young women (today). This is based on statis
35.
by timmg 4mo ago
> There has been plenty of research that shows LLMs encode social biases. At the risk of stepping into a hornets nest: is that different than "knowledge"? Or maybe, what would it mean if an LLM had no social biases? (Would w
36.
by timmg 4mo ago
The way I've been thinking about it: there is too much money trying to pour into the market. That's why valuations are so high. Maybe getting more of these big private companies public will bring valuations down a bit. (Just my i
37.
Bernie Sanders: The Public Should Own Half of the Big A.I. Companies(nytimes.com)
17 points by timmg 4mo ago|15 comments
38.
by timmg 4mo ago
My first ever programming interview was like a group interview. There were three or four programmers asking me questions, one at a time. The only one I remember was to check if two strings were equal (in C). I wrote (maybe buggy) code to
39.
by timmg 5mo ago
There will be cheaper solutions. And they will generally be less capable than the more expensive ones. Just like most other products. But my guess is that the cost of SWEs themselves mean that the more expensive ones will be worth the del
40.
by timmg 5mo ago
> Pmf is this weirdly defined thing where "if you're not sure you have it then you don't". I'm not sure if this runs counter to your point or not, but: I don't see any future where LLMs aren't a core
41.
by timmg 5mo ago
I wonder if instead (or in parallel), Norway should build a set of training data and share it (for free) with all the model builders. Seems like making the frontier models know Norwegian and their culture is a better (or additional!) way to
42.
by timmg 5mo ago
All of these concerns are valid. But none of them are unique to datacenters. A golf course uses a lot of water. A factory can use a lot of power -- and generate pollution. A chemical factory could have all kinds of externalities (if not
43.
by timmg 5mo ago
Obviously, it's fine to be wary of any development in your area. But it seems like there is a certain amount of irrational(?) fear of datacenters. And I really don't understand it. I saw a poll recently that people would rather
44.
by timmg 5mo ago
Also see: Failsafe. An earlier film. Both seem to be influences of War Games.
45.
by timmg 5mo ago
Of course. (Though I didn’t see a mention of data centers in that doc? I did see “equipment manufacturers” mentioned specifically.)
46.
by timmg 5mo ago
If you click on the edit icon, you can see more data. It show 6 months worth. I thought it was longer. My mistake. But I guess I would still expect to see something over the past 6 months given the hysteria?
47.
by timmg 5mo ago
There’s another chart on that page that shows regional demand for electricity. That seems to have flattened or dropped. Not sure how to explain that, in the context of data center demand. Maybe I’m reading something wrong. Or maybe there
48.
by timmg 5mo ago
It's not clear from the article whether this is just datacenters -- or if that is just the convenient boogeyman. The grid operator for the northeast, according to my Governor, has been well-behind in building out infrastructure. Of co
49.
by timmg 5mo ago
Not the person you are replying to: but I think that's the point.
50.
by timmg 5mo ago
Honestly, I hate "free tiers" for SAAS products like this. For about 5 minutes, Google had a pay-as-you-go service on GCP for git. I used to use that, because I wanted to own my stuff. But (I guess) because everyone used "f
51.
by timmg 5mo ago
Maybe it's just me, but I'd love a "ThinWarp" -- just the terminal with the great UI, etc. I can run Claude Code there or whatever. But I personally don't need the AI in the terminal itself.
52.
by timmg 5mo ago
That cost has a lot to do with amortizing the construction costs of the plant. I expect that just running a plant is a lot cheaper than that. This is about *not* decommissioning working plants.
53.
by timmg 6mo ago
> It’s incredible how forgiving you guys are with Anthropic and their errors. Ironically, I was thinking the exact opposite. This is bleeding edge stuff and they keep pushing new models and new features. I would expect issues. I was
54.
by timmg 6mo ago
Oh, I see. Though, in fairness, that's probably the important part. Like a base model plus "coding smarts" is probably perfect for the situation. But maybe not as much value as I was thinking.
55.
by timmg 6mo ago
I thought Cursor has started making their own models. Did I confuse them with someone else?
56.
by timmg 6mo ago
Not the person you were replying to, but: did you read that letter? It is horribly argued. It's mostly poor analogies and non-sequiturs. It's no wonder Buzzfeed was the only place they could get to publish it.
57.
by timmg 6mo ago
This tweet shows it as a percentage of US GDP: https://x.com/paulg/status/2045120274551423142 Makes it a little less dramatic. But also shows what a big **'n deal the railroads were!
58.
by timmg 6mo ago
> it seems like you are simultaneously arguing for a science that holds itself outside public opinion, and one that is beholden to it. Apologies if I did a bad job explaining my opinion. But I was attempting to argue the exact opposite
59.
by timmg 6mo ago
As I said to another person on this thread: if scientists let their political views override their pursuit of truth, the public will (rightly) lose faith in science. So when you tell them to "trust the science" -- be it vaccinatio
60.
by timmg 6mo ago
I understand what you are saying and I don't disagree with the idea that bad actors will use science in bad ways. But I think going down this path of denying (or hiding) science that can be used for bad ideas ends up causing (rightly

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