Ryan Pfeffer

Remember kids, we're in the itchy lot.

[Armin Ronacher ⇌ @mitsuhiko]

@aarondfrancis Wake up. Bring kids to school/daycare. Work. Put kids to bed. Love your wife. Loop

[Tim Urban @waitbutwhy]

@DouthatNYT Came across a moltbook post that said this

[Tim Urban @waitbutwhy]

@elonmusk Update:

[Ryan Pfeffer @pfeff]

I need an AI to figure out which AI to use.

[Ryan Pfeffer @pfeff]

I’ve thought for quite some time that the AI alignment problem is a bit silly.

I reject the idea that we humans actually want a super intelligent god be in control, even if maximally beneficial (whatever that means).

We actually want god like power to enable each person to achieve mastery, build agency, and pursue a higher purpose.

My take is that Building safe super intelligence (SSI) that accomplishes this is far more tractable, and requires zero new technological discovery.

We should be able to create SSI while always placing hard limits on 2 of 3 aspects of its design.

1. The ability to self improve.
2. The ability to coordinate physical resources.
3. The ability to freely communicate with the outside world.

This implies that we may have many forms of SSI which we may use depending on our needs.

Over the next few months and years we will come to grips with the fact that we actually don’t want to give up our own agency, and instead want to self actualize.

And when that happens, these three limits will be paramount.

Three, choose one.

[Ryan Pfeffer @pfeff]

“And the way that we would know things are real is we'll have them registered on a blockchain. Right. And so I think the way this is going to work in the future is every politician will have an account on a blockchain service, like a crypto service. And then every politician, whenever they say anything in public, whenever they're, you know, they're going to have people around them with cameras all the time. Whenever they put out a statement, they're going to cryptographically Sign it on the blockchain so that it can be valid, consolidated, that it is actually content from them. And then I think we're just going to have to reach an understanding that we're just going to have to write off everything else that we see.”
~ @pmarca on Rogan back in Nov

[Ryan Pfeffer @pfeff]

Even if there’s a human on the other end, we’ll need to quickly and independently verify the provenance of information using things like certificate chains, etc to reduce the likelihood of either AI, or non-experts leading us astray.

[Ryan Pfeffer @pfeff]

https://t.co/WmhJMM5sSI

[Ryan Pfeffer @pfeff]

So your loved ones will never die, at least not digitally, but neither will anyone you find to be your adversary. That’s not the scary part though.

[Daniel Batten @DSBatten]

Ethiopia made over $55 million in the last 10 months by mining Bitcoin. The electricity would otherwise have gone to waste.

Why?

Although Ethiopia has the capacity to generate 6 Gigawatts from the new dam, Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) hasn't yet built the transmission lines to supply all that electricity generated.

So, in the meantime the dam authorities sell electricity to Bitcoin mining companies.

These electricity sales were 18% of EEPs total revenue last year, vastly improving profitability.

What do they do with that unexpected extra profit?
They fast-track the building of new transmission lines so they can get that extra electricity to people sooner.

Far from "taking renewable power away" from people, Bitcoin mining catalyzes giving it to them much faster.

[Ryan Pfeffer @pfeff]

@chriswandrew @maroon5 Thanks, @chriswandrew !

[Ryan Pfeffer @pfeff]

10 years ago today, Melanie and I were married. Still can’t believe I’m lucky enough to be with her.

H/t to @maroon5 for making the day extra special and all the other couples who shared in the joy of that day.

https://t.co/hKRl3ntnv2

[Ryan Pfeffer @pfeff]

@beffjezos Who’s going to tell him?

[Ryan Pfeffer @pfeff]

@chriswandrew @ScrunchAI @rbm Next time I’m in SLC let’s meet up.

[Ryan Pfeffer @pfeff]

@Nostre_damus Stay hungry. Stay foolish.

[Ryan Pfeffer @pfeff]

The most comprehensive takedown I’ve seen of Bitcoin misinformation to date.

As btc pushes new highs, it’s important to understand why so many climate and energy focused funds consider btc to be essential technology.

[Daniel Batten @DSBatten]

For years, Bitcoin's energy was much maligned. This was based on deeply flawed and now debunked research.

Now, the tide has turned in the scientific consensus and the media and I've summarized why both now say Bitcoin has environmental benefits in a plain English talk.

[Ryan Pfeffer @pfeff]

Still holds up.

[Ryan Pfeffer @pfeff]

Just saying, if I was a super intelligent AI from the future, I would not send Arnold back.

I’d send back 535 politically ambitious, divisive grandstanders.

Way more effective.

[Ryan Pfeffer @pfeff]

Wife to 6yo Daughter: Did you hear? There might be a girl president!

6yo: I hope she's young.

[Ryan Pfeffer @pfeff]

There’s a @SlackHQ incident affecting some workspaces. Slack not acknowledging it yet, but definitely goes beyond what the status pages says

Message sending works, but if you try to access the workspace, you will get locked out.

[Ryan Pfeffer @pfeff]

“Better” process will not lead to success.

[Gergely Orosz @GergelyOrosz]

Just heard of a utilities government company that is going bankrupt after their IT arm went all-in on Scrum and SAFe, rewrote a billing system, and that billing system got delayed long enough that they could not collect revenue, and ran out of money.

Oh man.

[Ryan Pfeffer @pfeff]

Same. 10 years running on this one.

[Charlie Holtz @charlieholtz]

this is my best productivity tip

`sudo vim etc/hosts` and add:

[Ryan Pfeffer @pfeff]

My life is filled with interstitial moments where I’m physically doing something and wished I could also engage in productive conversation or listening to something that might provide itself useful. I think this will push ChatGPT usage 2-3x on top of where it is today.

[Ryan Pfeffer @pfeff]

On my 10min walk to the train today I had a full voice convo with ChatGPT 4o. Refreshed my memory in mob programming. Here’s what we discussed…

[Ryan Pfeffer @pfeff]

And yes. I type slow on mobile 😃