gerikson @ gerikson @awful.systems

Posts

44

Comments

1,447

Joined

2 yr. ago

Surprise level: zero

The second screenshot goes to a chart where the Y axis is labelled

Task duration (for humans) where logistic regression of our data predicts the AI has a 50% chance of succeeding

So they're just extrapolating an exponential, not actually measuring it.

Check out this epic cope from an Anthropic employee desperately trying to convince himself and others that actually LLMs are getting exponentially better

https://www.julian.ac/blog/2025/09/27/failing-to-understand-the-exponential-again/

Includes screenshots of data where he really really hopes you don't look at the source, and links to AI 2027.

He's been on the vibecoding bandwagon for quite some time on lobste.rs.

What book is that?

Not sure if a LessWronger extensively quoting Accelerando as a blueprint for a singularity takeoff is complimentary to Charles Stross:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Xp9ie6pEWFT8Nnhka/accelerando-as-a-slow-reasonably-nice-takeoff-story

Worht noting is that the novel is 20 years old...

The UK public being skeptical about AI must be good news for Big Yud.

Usual suspects weighing in.

Remind me: why is Hyprland bad? I don't doubt it is, I just need it to add to my mental list of stuff to avoid.

Harvard Business Review: AI-Generated “Workslop” Is Destroying Productivity

[...] Employees are using AI tools to create low-effort, passable looking work that ends up creating more work for their coworkers. On social media, which is increasingly clogged with low-quality AI-generated posts, this content is often referred to as “AI slop.” In the context of work, we refer to this phenomenon as “workslop.” We define workslop as AI generated work content that masquerades as good work, but lacks the substance to meaningfully advance a given task.

Cloudflare sponsors Ladybird and Omarchy, techfash workfare

Techdirt: AI Slop Startup To Flood The Internet With Thousands Of AI Slop Podcasts, Calls Critics Of AI Slop ‘Luddites’

They say "Luddites" as if it's a bad thing...

Absolutely amazing. They're not even pretending anymore.

“‘Revenge is a dish best served cold’ - wait, now I’m really hungry”

OK I think this has gone a bit too far

Day #8 Hunger Strike, Protest Against Superintelligent AI

This comment is gold:

I particularly agree with the point about the style being much more science-y than I'd expected, in a way that surely filters out large swathes of people. I'm assuming "people who are completely clueless about science and are unable to follow technical arguments" are just not the target audience. To crudely oversimplify, I think the target audience is 120+ IQ people, not 100 IQ people.

I haven't read the damn book and I never will, but I have a hard time imagining there's any modern science that can't be explained to 100IQ smoothbrains, assuming the author is good enough.

Enjoy this Rat pitch for a "pastor" who shall spread the gospel of Bayes to the unwashed masses:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/crEduvg2DwHPP74cw/pastor-selfie-an-attempt-to-evangelize-lesswrong-concepts-on

I follow it on RSS, it's sometime's funny but not required reading.

I don't think you can blame the comic's author for people on HN and elsewhere passing around references to specific comics to make their points.

As to the specific one mentioned here, I don't remember reading it before.

edit to add sometimes it's obvious the entire joke is in the alt-text, like so: https://xkcd.com/3143/

I should know the answer to this because I re-read all the Culture novels last year, but I do think there's some genetic engineering in the Culture. There's the famous sex glands, of course (but maybe the neural net handles part of that too?) and then there's the asocial dude on the remote asteroid in Excession, who I believe was seen as a genetic throwback from the general population.

But it's beside the point, Banks probably included genetic engineering to make sure no-one got horrible diseases and could live to 500 years, not to breed a separate race of elites. And for that he can never be forgiven by these idiots.

Edit both HN and LW comments mention John C Wright, who I have never read and vaguely remembered being a Sad Puppy. He has some dreck where everything is libertarian. Banks was a socialist, but he was foremost a novelist. Faced with the need to create a future society, he naturally designed one with no disease, no material wants, and lots and lots of sex. Who wouldn't? Conservative yanks, that's who.

"Enjoy" this Rat fundamentally misunderstanding Banks:

https://www.boristhebrave.com/2025/09/14/the-culture-novels-as-a-dystopia/

JFC the comments on LW are even worse..

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uGZBBzuxf7CX33QeC/the-culture-novels-as-a-dystopia#comments

While the Culture is, on pretty much any axis, strictly superior to modern civilization, what personally appalls me is their sheer deathism.

If memory serves, the average human lives for around 500 years before opting for euthanasia, mostly citing some kind of ennui. What the hell? 500 years is nothing in the grand scheme of things.

"Why didn't Iain take my neuroses into account??"

Marvelous! This makes more sense of the culture than the books do.

"please sir may I pleasure you sexually"