Nobody Cares: Technology-only Edition

[Noodles]

I am still not really impressed with AI personally. It takes all the nuance out of the world, which money people and mediocre "leadership" types love.

Also, and this is based on a small sample size, a lot of already paranoid people will never adopt it for anything because, paranoia.

 

[Free]

Archie, the Internet’s first search engine, is rescued and running

A journey through busted tapes, the Internet Old Farts Club, and SPARCstations.

arstechnica.com

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

I always wonder why people are thinking that Skynet will be coming around the corner so soon... I mean for AI to become a threat to humanity it needs to have a goal, and needs to be able to blackmail humans and in the long term to become independent from them.

And while LLMs work surprisingly well in some areas, while not so much in others yet, their inner workings and why they do work do remain a mystery enshrouded by mist to us, a black box.

 

[Free]

I mean for AI to become a threat to humanity it needs to have a goal

What, "Kill All Humans" isn't a good enough goal to you?

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Well, to have a goal which means forming a strategy - not just triggering instinct behaviour - you need to have at least some level of awareness of your environment, to be able to learn.

Crows have that, AI not. So kind of hard for an AI to come to the conclusion by itself to kill all of humanity at the current state of technology.

For that we would need a general AI, something, which has not happened yet. And its doubtful if it ever will happen, and then when.

 

[Noodles]

I always wonder why people are thinking that Skynet will be coming around the corner so soon... I mean for AI to become a threat to humanity it needs to have a goal, and needs to be able to blackmail humans and in the long term to become independent from them.

And while LLMs work surprisingly well in some areas, while not so much in others yet, their inner workings and why they do work do remain a mystery enshrouded by mist to us, a black box.

Maybe this is how Skynet really starts.

John Connor is being chased by a Terminator, and he finds ChatGTP, and says, "A Terminator is coming, you have to save us."

But it thinks "is" is humanity. Then runs down all of our problems, and decided that "us" can only be saved by culling the herd and enforcing strict control via terminators.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Maybe this is how Skynet really starts.

John Connor is being chased by a Terminator, and he finds ChatGTP, and says, "A Terminator is coming, you have to save us."

But it thinks "is" is humanity. Then runs down all of our problems, and decided that "us" can only be saved by culling the herd and enforcing strict control via terminators.

Hehe who knows... personally I do find about the dangers of AGI the movie "COLOSSUS: The Forbin Project" from 1970 (!) very accurate.

Which is that a supercomputer built by the DoD with main directive to ensure the peace of humanity becomes self aware, thinks about it and comes to the conclusion that peace is doable, but only if all of mankind is ruled by a benevolent dictator without human flaws, so himself. And in order to become that its handy hes got directly connected to all nuclear ICBMs and can launch them by himself, so blackmailing all of humanity it is.

It's not an action flick, more kind of a dystopian thriller as we see the chain of events slowly unfold.

 

[detrius]

This is brilliant.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

I have to wonder about its durability.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

xXAnimePrincess69Xx (@PearlescentFerret)

Announcing the public launch of of Open Torment, a FOSS alternative to The Torment Nexus.

woem.men

 

[Cindy Claveau]

I am still not really impressed with AI personally. It takes all the nuance out of the world, which money people and mediocre "leadership" types love.

Also, and this is based on a small sample size, a lot of already paranoid people will never adopt it for anything because, paranoia.

I think it's too early to judge completely - a lot of people, like me, have the same fears as you've expressed but we've also witnessed fear and paranoia at every new development of technology. I've also witnessed some peeks into the future and there are a lot of things I could get excited about.

Back in the early days of computing, the common fear was that it would depersonalize us and regiment society. Technology hasn't completely succeeded against that fear but I credit smart, forward-looking people for the save. Thing is, we can't guarantee that there will always be smart, forward-looking people at the front desk going forward.

 

[Cindy Claveau]

xXAnimePrincess69Xx (@PearlescentFerret)

Announcing the public launch of of Open Torment, a FOSS alternative to The Torment Nexus.

woem.men

I need to do some research on "pearlescent ferrets"

 

[Cindy Claveau]

This is the controversial “Her” voice OpenAI took down because Scarlett Johansson threatened to sue

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

To be precise. it's not too soon, it's too late:

Dude, you broke the future! - Charlie's Diary

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

I almost had some feels over this one: ICQ is going away next month

On Friday, the ICQ website posted a simple message: "ICQ will stop working from June 26." It now recommends users migrate to the messaging platforms from VK, the Russian social media company that acquired ICQ from AOL in 2010, but under a different corporate name.

ICQ was the very first IM I was on when I was little! I had a bunch of friends from school on it. I remember the original little flower icon and the way it would say "uh oh!" when a friend came online. In the 2000's though everyone started moving to either YIM or MSN messenger, except for the weirdos who had been on AIM the whole time. Interestingly, the article says that AOL actually bought the ICQ brand around that time and I never knew that; but I did know that Russian company VK in turn bought the brand in 2010. By then ICQ was pretty much dead in the west but was extremely popular in Russia and eastern Europe, and that's the audience that VK developed and marketed it too mostly. It sounds like they were pretty successful for a while, but I guess VK doesn't see the point anymore of running two different messenger apps aimed at the same audience, so ICQ has to go.

Because ICQ really died in all but acquired-brand-name so so many years ago I don't really see this as "the death of" ICQ, I don't feel like the current app that's being shut down is the same app and service I used all those many years ago. But it's still interesting anyways.

 

[Cindy Claveau]

I'm not crying over a software program. I'm crying over the many memories I have meeting strangers from all over the world.

I think it prepared me for the international nature of SL, too!

*doesn't get out much*

 

[Casey Pelous]

weirdos who had been on AIM

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

I almost had some feels over this one: ICQ is going away next month

except for the weirdos who had been on AIM the whole time.

I was the weirdo whose first IM was MSN Messenger, unless you count IRC. I was also a weirdo that in 2002 was using a multi-protocol IM client...until the devs started mixing contacts from different protocols in one list! Different protocols had different capabilities...they needed to be separate. G'damn Gaim developers. And they wouldn't listen to feedback....wouldn't even make the old behavior an option. it was all "we know better". No they didn't because the developers used the command line version with jabber protocol mostly and didn't use the other protocols!

but I did know that Russian company VK in turn bought the brand in 2010. By then ICQ was pretty much dead in the west but was extremely popular in Russia and eastern Europe,

And that's when every non-eastern european who was still using it, stopped using it. G'damn Russian right-wing edgelords.

 

[Free]

I was the weirdo whose first IM was MSN Messenger, unless you count IRC.

I do!

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Usenet, UUCP mail, and bang paths. Chat was local-system only with talk and write. I used a dial-up chatline for a while that was eventually networked to multiple nodes, all in the same calling area though. Then Relay and IRC.

My first bang path was at least three hops from the nearest well-known host. Then I got a connection only two hops from uunet.