Ben

[CGP Grey 🐝 @cgpgrey]

Latest Cortex: State of the Workflow with the CEO of Obsidian, @kepano https://t.co/X4ePQGfAMD

[Ben @bbchase]

@rfxkairu @seconds_0 Any AI or data center post in r/Wisconsin will have people making threats in the top comments.

[Ben @bbchase]

@SenatorLuma @commanderbrks Rural fiber to the home could still be a worthwhile investment, but instead we gave AT&T billions to build more DSL.

[Ben @bbchase]

Twitter is much more pleasant if you put some cool art in your timeline.

[21 @twentyone21___]

heavy thoughts make nights longer

[Ben @bbchase]

@emmma_camp_ I'm a slow reader and 2-3 books a month would be a lot for me. But through the magic of self-reflection, I am able to not hold myself to other people's reading goals.

[Ben @bbchase]

@barnhab @LinkofSunshine Predicting and wanting are different things.

[No0where @No0where]

Yo Algo, can you show my art only to right people?

[Ben @bbchase]

@catpoopburglar @StatisticUrban But the vibecession predates corporate adoption of AI.

[Ben @bbchase]

@StatisticUrban @LinkofSunshine Maybe it's just that we're really bad at mentally adjusting for inflation. Similar to Hofstadter’s Law: "Inflation makes things seem worse than they are, even when you take into account inflation."

[Andy Masley @AndyMasley]

A lot of people have started saying that the "AI uses all the water" meme started with Empire of AI. I think this is definitely wrong, and what actually started it was the Washington Post article from 8 months earlier claiming that each ChatGPT prompt used a whole bottle of water.

This kicked the meme into the stratosphere. There are so many infographics made about AI mentioning that it uses a bottle per prompt, so many thousands of popular videos and images where someone holds a bottle begging people not to use AI. It got so much news coverage.

My claim in my new post (link below) is that I've found extremely strong evidence that this claim was based entirely on napkin math that ignored lots of simple things we knew about the hardware and software running GPT-4, and if you just account for those the cost drops by 50 to 200 times. This shouldn't have ever been allowed to influence the discourse at all, never mind get an infographic made in a major newspaper.

I think the Washington Post should either retract or correct the original article and make it clear that it was based on napkin math, or publish the methodology. The authors have never made it clear how they got the number, and if I'm right it shouldn't have been allowed to ever be the basis for a claim this strong.

[Sidd @nolightupstairs]

@StatisticUrban @lukeisamazing More relevantly, Americans still rate *their* finances as fine! Everyone thinks the economy must suck for someone else!

[Ben @bbchase]

@BowieFan2024 @StatisticUrban @lukeisamazing If the argument is "accurate CPI would confirm my conclusion that isn't backed by data" then maybe the CPI calculation isn't what's wrong.

[Hunter📈🌈📊 @StatisticUrban]

@lukeisamazing You can’t just totally ignore any attempts to accurately describe reality because it contradicts your priors.

Wage growth, for example, is up for everyone!

[Ben @bbchase]

@barnhab @LinkofSunshine Agree on 1 and 2, but 3 is just another vibes-based distortion of what the AI labs are actually saying.

[Ben @bbchase]

@dick_cheney_fan @LinkofSunshine Yes.

[Ben @bbchase]

@LinkofSunshine Remember 3 years ago when people were saying we were literally worse off than during the Great Depression? Vibes are a hell of a drug. https://t.co/9ZAbIHSTBu

[Ben @bbchase]

@willccbb "Welp, I don't want to keep you..."

[Andy Masley @AndyMasley]

Okay here's my argument for exactly how I think the "AI uses a bottle of water" statistic looks like it was miscalculated. It's a little in the weeds. Link below

[Ben @bbchase]

@TrentonWoodcox @hankgreen @gbrl_dick Facebook moved to EdgeRank in 2009. I think Twitter kinda slow-rolled it 2011-2016. Hank would know better than me, but I think YouTube's transition to a very personalized recommendation algo was ~2016 as well, but were doing algorithmic feeds for years before that.

[Ben @bbchase]

@i2cjak I'm was impressed by your resume and would like to offer you an opportunity to set your career back 20 years.