peto (he/him)

I know this is the common advice but I started with Consider Phlebas and it is far from unapproachable. There are some benefits of the PoV character being outside The Culture I think. As much as I liked The Player of Games, I much preferred the second half of the book.

You have to use it a lot. From what I can tell that’s their problem, they priced unlimited access low based on some numbers they pulled out their arse and then were all shocked Pikachu face when people used it and unlimited amount.

Fixed penalties just become the cost of doing business. Like actors, we need to start asking for percentage of gross.

I think a lot of the appeal is that it does just drop you right in at the deep end and doesn’t set out much of the bigger picture stuff right there at the front. It’s not going to be to everyone’s liking.

It’s got a lot in common with hardboiled stories, except that where your classic hardboiled detective is moving through a world we are somewhat familiar with, Case is moving through somewhere rather more exotic. You might get some benefit from reading Burning Chrome and Johnny Mnemonic which are short stories then coming back.

There is probably something to be said for just visualising rather than trying to understand.

Unironically? Maybe not. But using something ironically is still using it.

A lot of it is follow the leader type bullshit. For companies in areas where AI is actually beneficial they have already been implementing it for years, quietly because it isn’t something new or exceptional. It is just the tool you use for solving certain problems.

Investors going to bubble though.

But what are they filtering for?

If it isn’t on your shelves (or server) it isn’t your library, it’s someone else’s access.

I don’t know how the tech works, but could the DHTs be deliberately polluted with false data to make this kind of snooping useless?

I always feel sad with these kinds of stories. The machine is clearly just trying to be helpful but it doesn’t understand a thing about what it is doing or why we might find what it is saying repugnant. It’s like watching a dog not understanding that yes, we like our slippers, but we don’t want our neighbours swastika themed ones on our doorstep.

And then of course we get to the content and I am reminded that we live in hell and the sadness is replaced by the familiar horror as the machine pretends to empathise with its fellow Amazon workers and helps them pick out the ideal thing to piss in without missing their drop targets.

So you are at about an A1 and want to get up to around a B1? I don’t like saying impossible but a month is not long at all. If you can already read it you might do better, just focus on the reading and writing skills, get some sample papers if you can.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages?wprov=sfla1

You are probably going to want a tutor that offers an intensive class, that can be done in a month, but you are still going to be looking at 50+ hours.

Do you know what level the exam is expecting?

Oh, that kind of bad usb cable. Still useful I guess.

Good on you for checking in with all those people, it must have taken a while.

Lifting the whole world off of fossil fuels is going to be hard, especially if we want to do it quickly. This isn’t however a problem the capitalist and nation-state models are well equipped to solve. It should not be a question of can a given people afford the technology or if someone can turn a profit on it.

We need to do this as a species, for the species. It should be given not as charity, not because wealthy countries owe it to poor ones, but because it is right that everyone should benefit from this.

The difficulty is how to convince the politicians and their masters of this, and I don’t think throwing paint on things is going to be sufficient.

Generally I find the wait times aren’t really longer. The perceived time maybe, as I can ring ahead and then go pick it up, but for me it’s just the usual calculus of what could I alternatively spend the time doing and is it worth the added cost. It’s the same as do I call a tradesperson or fix something myself. Replace a washer on a tap? Sure I will do that. Install a new toilet? Nah, get a plumber.

If money is tight and I’ve got the time then I’m going to cook myself. If both are tight then there’s always ramen.

Finland.

Or New Zealand if you are a cartographer.

A plastic ice scraper will help get the bulk off, then you can get a variety of solvents for removing any residue. If it is metal then it should be fine with most solvents but check the instructions and do a test patch somewhere discreet to be sure.

The specifics can be argued, (and have been, and will be). The Buddha said that evil action is rooted in greed, hatred, and delusion. He said he understood this when he saw the true nature of reality.

Kant said “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” And says this is evident if you reason through things.

Moses had a great big list of rules that he said the creator of the universe told to him.

Governments establish laws based on the interests of those in power, they say to obey the law is right and to disobey is wrong and they will use violence to punish those that disobey.

These are just some examples, there are loads more including utilitarianism, virtue ethics, various other religions and customary systems.

I think I the difference is that I find ‘human’ to be too narrow a term, I want to extend basic rights to all things that can experience suffering. I worry that such an experience is part and parcel with general intelligence and that we will end up hurting something that can feel because we consider it a tool rather than a being. Furthermore I think the onus must be on the creators to show that their AGI is actually a p-zombie. I appreciate that this might be an impossible standard, after all, you can only really take it on faith that I am not one myself, but I think I’d rather see a p-zombie go free than accidently cause undue suffering to something that can feel it.

Hypotheticals are pretty important right now I think. This kind of tech is very rapidly going from science fiction to real and I think we should try and stay ahead of it conceptually.

I’m not sure that AGI is necessary to achieve post-labour, a suite of narrow-ai empowered tools would be preferable.

By way of analogy, you could take a human child and fit them with electrodes to trigger certain pleasure responses and connect that to a machine that sends the reward signal when they perfectly pick an Amazon order. I think we would both find this pretty horrific. The question is, is it only wrong because the child is human? And if so, what is special about humans?