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Cake day: June 8th, 2023

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  • People being convinced that something is conscious is a long, long way from a compelling argument that something is conscious. People naturally anthropomorphize, and a reasonably accurate human speech predictor is a prime example of something that can be very easily anthropomorphized. It is also unsurprising that LLMs have developed such conceptual nodes; these concepts are fundamental to the human experience, thus undergird most human speech, and it is therefore not only unsurprising but expected that a system built to detect statistical patterns in human speech would identify these foundational concepts.

    “So rocks are conscious” isn’t, at least in my opinion, the classic counter to panpsychism; it’s an attempt at reductio ad absurdum, but not a very good one, as the panpsychist can very easily fall back on the credible argument that consciousness comes in degrees, perhaps informed by systematic complexity, and so the consciousness of a rock is to the consciousness of a person as the mass of an atom is to the mass of a brain.

    The problem with panpsychism is, and has always been, that there’s absolutely no reason to think that it’s true. It’s a pleasingly neat solution to Chalmers’ “hard problem” of neuroscience, but ultimately just as baseless as positing the existence of an all-powerful God through whose grace we are granted consciousness; that is, it rests on a premise that, while sufficiently explanatory, is neither provable nor disprovable.

    We ultimately have absolutely no idea how consciousness arises from physical matter. It is possible that we cannot know, and that the mechanism is hidden in facets of reality that the human experience is not equipped to parse. It is also possible that, given sufficiently advanced neuroscience, we will be able to offer a compelling account of how human consciousness arises. Then—and only then—will we be in a position to credibly offer arguments about machine intelligence. Until then, it is simply a matter of faith. The believers will see a sufficiently advanced language model and convince themselves that there is no way such a thing is not conscious, and the disbelievers will repeat the same tired arguments resting on the notion that a lack of proof is tantamount to a disproof.







  • Platypus@sh.itjust.workstotumblr@lemmy.worldSSDE
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    28 days ago

    Because the stakes of this election are so very, very high. Trump genuinely and explicitly wants to create a fascist state; it’s borderline incomprehensible that somebody would choose to sit out and let that happen just because they don’t like Biden.



  • OK so… demonstrate it? Explain how, with absolutely 0 maintenance for 20 years (or whatever you consider a reasonable time to bring every single road up to bicycle and pedestrian usability standards), the roads would be able to support the flow of commuters, emergency vehicles, and deliveries. You can appeal to your own authority all you want, but it’s worth just about jack if you don’t back it up.


  • Platypus@sh.itjust.workstoHumor@lemmy.worldJoin the movement today
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    29 days ago

    Given that it takes a long time to bring a street up to standard (budgeting, design, contracting, and constructing), that would probably be 10-20 years at an optimistic estimate to get every street up. In that time, under your proposal, the roads would become undrivable, and therefore:

    • Emergency vehicles would be unable to operate. Thousands die.
    • Traffic increases exponentially as the usable roads become increasingly infrequent and commuters flock to the few good ones. The above problem is made worse; gas usage increases dramatically as more and more cars sit idle for hours a day.
    • Highway safety plummets. Thousands die in avoidable crashes.
    • Roads become impassible to trucks. Deliveries of food and goods grind to a halt. Starvation, food riots, economic collapse follow.

    I’m all for increasing walkability and bikability; I’m fortunate enough to live in a city that is both, and it’s great. Proposals like this, however, do nothing but make it look like the movement is a bunch of “fuck cars” knee-jerkers who know nothing about infrastructure and can thus be safely disregarded.


  • That looks fairly tightly bonded to me–you’d probably be better off trying to cover it than remove it. There’s maybe a solvent, but without knowing which compounds are used for the lettering and the case, it’s a shot in the dark–always worth trying isopropyl alcohol for this sort of thing imo, but it also might damage the case.

    Unrelated, but the random blue “AI” slapped haphazardly on top is a beautiful piece of accidental comedy given That Company’s rollout of AI




  • does adding the copyright/license information do anything?

    Not a lawyer, but I’d be sore amazed if “your honor, he copy/pasted my Lemmy comment” flies in court, regardless of your copyright status. The same goes for those AI use notices–they’re a nice feel-good statement, but the scrapers won’t care, and good luck (a) proving they scraped your comment, (b) proving they made money on it, and © getting a single red dime for your troubles.




  • Platypus@sh.itjust.workstoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlAdvice on finding a partner?
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    2 months ago

    I had absolutely no luck trying. I went on dates, swiped apps, talked to every girl I thought was cute, and none of it went anywhere beyond some weird halfhearted relationships. About two weeks after I gave up altogether, I met a girl on my way to the water fountain and we just clicked. Six years down the line and we couldn’t be happier.

    I guess my best advice is just don’t sweat it. Be yourself, do what makes you happy, put yourself in situations where you’ll meet new people, and sooner or later somebody will come along.