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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 2nd, 2023

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  • The only reason this is “click bait” is because someone chose to do this, rather than their own mental instability bringing this out organically.

    This is my point. The case we are discussing now isn’t noteworthy, because someone doing it deliberately is equally “impressive” as writing out a disturbing sentence in MS Paint. One cannot create a useful “answer engine” without it being capable of producing something that looks weird/provoking/offensive when taken out of context; no more than one can create a useful drawing program that blocks out all offensive content. Nor is it a worthwhile goal.

    The cases to care about are those where the LLM takes a perfectly reasonable conversation off the rails. Clickbait like the one in the OP is actually harmful in that they drown out such real cases, and is therefore deserving of ridicule.




  • If someone is trying to do the most good with their money, it seems logical to give via an organization that distributes the funds according to a plan. To instead hand out money to people closest at hand seems it could be motivated more by trying to make me feel good than to actually make a difference.

    Furthermore, there are larger scale systemic issues. Begging takes up a lot of time. It becomes a problem if it pays someone enough to outcompete more productive use of time that could, in some cases, pay, and in other cases, at least be more useful: childcare/teaching kids, home maintenance, cooking, cleaning, etc. In contrast, state welfare programs and aid organizations usually do not condition help on that the receiver has to sit idle for long times to receive help. Add to this that begging really only works in crowded areas, which may limit the possibility to relocate somewhere where living might be more sustainable. Hence, in the worst case, handing out money to those who begs for it could actually add to the difficulty for people stuck in a very difficult situation to get out of it.

    This “analysis” of course skips over the many, many individual circumstances that get people into a situation where begging seems the right choice. What we should be doing is investing public funds even heavier in social programs and other aids to (1) avoid as much as possible that people end up in these situations; and (2) get people out of these situations as effectively as possible.








  • Indeed-- the way forward would instead be regulation to weaken the record labels hold on licensing rights: basically, if they license music X to streaming service A, any other reasonable competing service must be allowed to license the same piece of music for the same price. This would open for real competition in the space in a way that doesn’t necessaily drive down license fees.