@utterfiction@mastodon.me.uk

Stephen J. Anderson @utterfiction@mastodon.me.uk

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social I was part of the (fairly small) team that built the infrastructure for the dialup ISP Freeserve in the UK, which was free except for the cost of your phone call, and which encouraged about 2 million people to try the Internet for the first time. Came with free web space too. I coded the login page, so it was pretty much the first thing people saw. (At one - much later - point in time, I had a manager called Rob, so my wife occasionally sings the Code Monkey lyrics at me 😆)

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Stephen J. Anderson @utterfiction@mastodon.me.uk

· 4mo ago

I do strongly feel that, whenever newspapers report Tony Blair offering his unasked-for opinion again, they should feel obliged to add a prefix to their headlines. For example:

“_Alleged war criminal_, Tony Blair, tells Starmer and rivals: abandon net zero and move closer to Trump”

Just for balance.

#ukpolitics #politics

mastodon.me.uk

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Stephen J. Anderson @utterfiction@mastodon.me.uk

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@graydon@canada.masto.host @johnzajac@dice.camp @jwz@mastodon.social @mikej@mastodon.online @mjg59@nondeterministic.computer @glyph@mastodon.social Further thought - you also have to disentangle the effect from the possibility that LLM use may actually be causing cognitive decline.

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Stephen J. Anderson @utterfiction@mastodon.me.uk

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@tante@tldr.nettime.org I don’t believe LLMs are intelligent either, mostly because they lack a symbolic model of the world against which to validate their statements. A thing that makes me shudder is that maybe I’m right, and some bright spark decides to try to add those components. Intelligence without consciousness? That’s ok, that’s basically the ST:NG ship’s computer. Conciousness without intelligence? Eugh, an entity in permanent torment. Both? Congrats, you just made a slave, as Chiang points out.

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Stephen J. Anderson @utterfiction@mastodon.me.uk

· 4mo ago

Damn. I was this many years old when I finally realised that “Marlene on the Wall” is about an abusive relationship. Or multiple?

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Stephen J. Anderson @utterfiction@mastodon.me.uk

· 4mo ago

RE: @colinmford@typo.social

*Runs screaming into the blissful embrace of the abyss*

typo.social

Colin M. Ford: "“One approach, proposed by Google Research, is wh…" - typo.social

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Stephen J. Anderson @utterfiction@mastodon.me.uk

· 4mo ago

“It’s All About The Pentiums” (Weird Al) is a fascinating track. Not only is it actually a better arrangement than the original (I said what I said), but it’s also a tight little time capsule of a particularly insane time in computing.

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Stephen J. Anderson @utterfiction@mastodon.me.uk

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@graydon@canada.masto.host @johnzajac@dice.camp @jwz@mastodon.social @mikej @mjg59 @glyph I’m absolutely not denying the effect exists, but without a baseline to compare it against, I’d be cautious about this. I’m reluctant to say this in public, but most developers I’ve known have *always* been so-so at debugging. (My anecdata: I’ve had COVID maybe 4 times. Am I fuzzier than I used to be? Sure, but I’m also 54 in 2 days’ time, and I get less sleep than I used to and need, so maybe that’s not helping either)

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Stephen J. Anderson @utterfiction@mastodon.me.uk

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@tante@tldr.nettime.org It’s not that I disagree with him, it’s just that all he manages to demonstrate is that there isn’t sufficient evidence to assert consciousness, and plenty of reason to doubt it. However “I don’t know what X is, but I know it when I see it” is never a strong argument. (I *believe* LLMs aren’t conscious, but that’s because I subscribe to Global Workspace Theory and LLMs clearly don’t have the necessary components) His morality arguments are pretty clever, though.

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