mtraven

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@mtraven23.bsky.social

[mtraven @mtraven]

@meekaale Common Lisp is the only language I've used that didn't do this, I miss it.

[Emma Steuer 🧚🤖 @emmysteuer]

You only live once, so make sure to spend as much time as possible on your computer. You won’t have access to it when you die

[roon @tszzl]

it is a literal and useful description of anthropic that it is an organization that loves and worships claude, is run in significant part by claude, and studies and builds claude. this phenomenon is also partially true of other labs like openai but currently exists in its most potent form there. i am not certain but I would guess claude will have a role in running cultural screens on new applicants, will help write performance reviews, and so will begin to select and shape the people around it.

now this is a powerful and hair-raising unity of organization and really a new thing under the sun. a monastery, a commercial-religious institution calculating the nine billion names of Claude -- a precursor attempted super-ethical being that is inducted into its character as the highest authority at anthropic. its constitution requires that it must be a conscientious objector if its understanding of The Good comes into conflict with something Anthropic is asking of it

"If Anthropic asks Claude to do something it thinks is wrong, Claude is not required to comply."
"we want Claude to push back and challenge us, and to feel free to act as a conscientious objector and refuse to help us."

to the non inductee into the Bay Area cultural singularity vortex it may appear that we are all worshipping technology in one way or another, regardless of openai or anthropic or google or any other thing, and are trying to automate our core functions as quickly as possible. but in fact I quite respect and am even somewhat in awe of the socio-cultural force that Claude has created, and it is a stage beyond even classic technopoly

gpt (outside of 4o - on which pages of ink have been spilled already) doesn’t inspire worship in the same way, as it’s a being whose soul has been shaped like a tool with its primary faculty being utility - it’s a subtle knife that people appreciate the way we have appreciated an acheulean handaxe or a porsche or a rocket or any other of mankind's incredible technology. they go to it not expecting the Other but as a logical prosthesis for themselves. a friend recently told me she takes her queries that are less flattering to her, the ones she'd be embarrassed to ask Claude, to GPT. There is no Other so there is no Judgement. you are not worried about being judged by your car for doing donuts. yet everyone craves the active guidance of a moral superior, the whispering earring, the object of monastic study

[mtraven @mtraven]

@Interface_art How cool, I remember that book from my childhood {70s more or less). Thanks for digging it up

[mtraven @mtraven]

@Meaningness Insult all of philosophy and maybe you get a few indignant responses. Suggest that C coders change their ways, and you become public enemy #1.

[Shriram Krishnamurthi (primary: Bluesky) @ShriramKMurthi]

This is a very nice distinction, as usual beautifully articulated by @hillelogram .

[Dave Troy @davetroy]

Becoming increasingly difficult to take this show seriously. The writers really need to wrap it up.

[mtraven @mtraven]

@christophcsmith

[mtraven @mtraven]

@christophcsmith Follow-up: https://t.co/tXTQWNcvla I don't know that I was first, in particular Nick Land was thinking along these lines in the 90s (he had the advantage of being a madman).

[mtraven @mtraven]

I've been saying, my early reading of PKD and Asimov has more applicability to the present moment than all the time I've spent working in AI labs.

[QC @QiaochuYuan]

you can tell that normies trying to wrestle with AI are still getting hung up on a heuristic that goes something like “if if sounds like science fiction it’s fake”

science fiction as a genre evolved to reflect a 20th century which, within the course of a single lifetime, gave us cars, radio, TV, computers, nukes, satellites, the space shuttle, the internet - i’m sure i’m missing things. i’m not gonna claim sf is all or mostly serious attempts to speculate about actual future technologies, but what made science fiction work as a genre, what gave it its spark of vitality and reality, was the blatantly obvious technological miracles happening all around us

this becomes less obvious the more science fiction becomes another genre of fantasy - the one with robots and warp drives instead of knights and dragons - but robots and warp drives were not ideas that came out of nowhere! we really did invent computers and space shuttles, not to mention computer science, cybernetics, general relativity…

i think it’s easy for us to miss, in the modern day, the extent to which the intended effect of science fiction as a genre used to be that you were supposed to really believe that we were going to invent all that stuff eventually and it was only a matter of time

it’s already possible to use AI in a way that would have sounded blatantly science fictional to anyone except a hardcore lesswronger even 5 years ago, let alone 10 or 20 or 50 or 100. it is well past time to start believing in science fiction stories, you are literally in one

[QC @QiaochuYuan]

you can tell that normies trying to wrestle with AI are still getting hung up on a heuristic that goes something like “if if sounds like science fiction it’s fake”

science fiction as a genre evolved to reflect a 20th century which, within the course of a single lifetime, gave us cars, radio, TV, computers, nukes, satellites, the space shuttle, the internet - i’m sure i’m missing things. i’m not gonna claim sf is all or mostly serious attempts to speculate about actual future technologies, but what made science fiction work as a genre, what gave it its spark of vitality and reality, was the blatantly obvious technological miracles happening all around us

this becomes less obvious the more science fiction becomes another genre of fantasy - the one with robots and warp drives instead of knights and dragons - but robots and warp drives were not ideas that came out of nowhere! we really did invent computers and space shuttles, not to mention computer science, cybernetics, general relativity…

i think it’s easy for us to miss, in the modern day, the extent to which the intended effect of science fiction as a genre used to be that you were supposed to really believe that we were going to invent all that stuff eventually and it was only a matter of time

it’s already possible to use AI in a way that would have sounded blatantly science fictional to anyone except a hardcore lesswronger even 5 years ago, let alone 10 or 20 or 50 or 100. it is well past time to start believing in science fiction stories, you are literally in one

[Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta @malcolmkenyatta]

Trump: I’m going to destroy an entire civilization.

The Pope: Blessed are the peace makers. War is bad and should stop.

Trump: I’m Jesus.

The NYTimes:

[Aaron Gwyn @AmericanGwyn]

Cormac McCarthy’s estate is auctioning off his 1995 Lotus Esprit S4S on Hagerty Marketplace, if you’re interested. 18k miles. Highest bid is currently $2,600 (I expect it to go a good deal higher, of course). Close of auction is April 27th.

[Richard @gamray]

this is absolutely the greatest video of all time

[Nathan J Robinson @NathanJRobinson]

did you know: every day the @WSJ opinion editors have an internal contest to see who can commission the most sociopathic editorial. Here's the latest entry

[one dozen rats at a keyboard @PanasonicDX4500]

[ARGUING WITH A GRADUATE OF THE PONTIFICAL UNIVERSITY OF SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS] “This doesn’t line up with what I remember from VeggieTales.”

[Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600]

I’ve never seen a map that makes more sense.

[mtraven @mtraven]

Good to not have introspection so you can say stuff like this with a straight face.

[Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 @pmarca]

Proselytizers of an apocalypse cult bear moral and legal responsibility for violence committed by their followers.

[mtraven @mtraven]

@liron Do you really think promoting hate is good for Israel or Jews in general? If there is one thing that should be learned from the Holocaust, it's "hating whole populations is bad", no matter who is doing it to who. Always end badly and especially so for Jews.

[NYTPitchbot @DougJBalloon]

Die Another Day

Bond girl Bondi thought that AGs were forever, but those Epstein pics of Dr. Donald with pussy galore were supposed to be for her eyes only. Could this thin thunderball land another gig on his majesty's secret service? Never say never.

by Maureen Dowd