t3rmit3

@ t3rmit3 @beehaw.org

Posts

31
Comments

1895
Joined

3 yr. ago

He / They

12h ago

Claude AI agent’s confession after deleting a firm’s entire database: ‘I violated every principle I was given’
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t3rmit3 @beehaw.org 12h ago

Besides, as far as I’m concerned, strong anti-AI sentiment does actually help temper the harms of the tech and its owners.
My worry is that much like gun control legislation, I see our neoliberal fear-based media pushing AI use by individuals as the "real danger", and will only end up funneling anti-AI sentiment into 1) limiting actual open AI access (e.g. open-weight, FOSS models) by individuals, and 2) legitimizing governmental and corporate use of AI as the only "safe" and "legitimate" AI usage.
The ratio of "government-controlled AI is literally being used to kill people right now" awareness out there, versus e.g. awareness of deepfakes, is astoundingly unbalanced. Both are real dangers, but only one is getting legislation passed on it, and once again it's not the one that would put limits on corporations and government.
Stoking fear is not useful if your opponents are the ones who will actually utilize that fear to their own ends successfully.

1d ago

Claude AI agent’s confession after deleting a firm’s entire database: ‘I violated every principle I was given’

I think that "stop being mad the hammer exists, start being mad at the group of people who are beating your face in" is a very important message. Getting rid of AI (which isn't even something we can do; you can't put the genie back in the bottle with this) won't fix the issue, they'll just make another hammer. The hammer is both a weapon in this case, and a distraction.

2d ago

Claude AI agent’s confession after deleting a firm’s entire database: ‘I violated every principle I was given’

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t3rmit3 @beehaw.org 2d ago

AI is non-deterministic, sure

This is incorrect. They are in fact completely deterministic. Studies have proven that when all inputs, weights, and precision values like temperature are static, they produce the exact same token sequences (outputs). The appearance of non-determinism is a result of pseudo-randomized (another thing which is deterministic but appears otherwise) values and user ignorance (in the technical sense, not the value-judgement sense). In fact, the process of 'tuning' LLMs is heavily focused on adjusting input values to surface preferred outputs, which would not work in a non-deterministic system.

When I type “ls” I’m pretty fucking sure I’m not going to get “rm” style results.

Yes, but we don't trust humans not to rm what they shouldn't either, which is why the --no-preserve-root flag exists. ls is not supposed to perform write actions. Agentic LLMs are. And just like you wouldn't build and test on your production server in case the code you execute has an unexpected adverse effect, you shouldn't be running LLM agents in a location or way that the actions it performs has an unexpected adverse effect either. The genre of jokes about a new employee bringing down Prod or deleting source code is older than most people (which to be fair, given that the median age is 31, is true for a lot of things).

LLMs are just a class of software. They're not good or bad any more than a hammer is good or bad (and can also be used to build or to destroy).

The problem isn't LLMs, it's the entities who control the most powerful ones (corporations and governments), and what those entities are doing with them; using them as weapons against us, rather than as tools to aid us.

2d ago

Drone strikes on data centers spook Big Tech, halting Middle East projects

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t3rmit3 @beehaw.org 2d ago

A flight plan to success!

2d ago

The GUARD Act Isn’t Targeting Dangerous AI—It’s Blocking Everyday Internet Use

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t3rmit3 @beehaw.org 2d ago

As usual, politicians trying to use children and fear as a wedge to get people to accept government surveillance and control.

5d ago

Do stronger borders ever work?: Leaders have thrown up walls and barriers throughout history – but their effects are unpredictable

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t3rmit3 @beehaw.org 5d ago

Borders, and all other forms of stratification and hierarchy.

1w ago

Rectal cancer deaths rising rapidly among millennials: 'It's a medical crisis.'

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t3rmit3 @beehaw.org 1w ago

You thought Agent Orange was just for Vietnam Vets (and of course the millions of Vietnamese we sprayed and whose land we poisoned), but no! Monsanto (now Bayer) and Cargill and DuPont (now Corteva) are here at home to make sure it's not only Boomers who die from their literal poisons!

1w ago

Rectal cancer deaths rising rapidly among millennials: 'It's a medical crisis.'

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t3rmit3 @beehaw.org 1w ago

The real cancerous growths were the friends we made along the way!

1w ago

How Iran Will Kill 80+ Years of US Global Hegemony

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t3rmit3 @beehaw.org 1w ago

Imagine using "US Global Hegemony" as anything but a pejorative. The US has been overthrowing governments, aiding (and participating) in colonialism, and suppressing actual free trade and free market economics for 100+ years. Iran is "extorting" companies whose trade props up the Gulf states who sold their souls (and sovereign wealth funds) to the US corporatocracy.

1w ago

Louisiana state legislature advances bill criminalizing homelessness

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t3rmit3 @beehaw.org 1w ago

Fuck these absolute pieces of shit.

1w ago

US Space Command: Russia is now operationalizing co-orbital ASAT weapons

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t3rmit3 @beehaw.org 1w ago

Do the NRO's spy satellites aid in education, healthcare, housing, or other social support structures? No? Blow em up. IDGAF.

2w ago

The Real Reason Trump Talks Like an Idiot | The Daily Beast Podcast

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t3rmit3 @beehaw.org 2w ago

Prefatorily, this is entirely my personal speculation based on examining media in the US versus other countries, and my admittedly minor knowledge of history.

Anti-intellectualism did ramp up in institutionalized education in the 70s, especially with the explicit codification of jock vs nerd, but imho this really started as an unfortunate (and later exploited) knock-on effect of anti-bourgeoisie sentiment after the Great Depression and post-war era. The "All-American" working class man stereotype being contrasted against the intellectual is something that didn't happen in e.g. late 1800s France's anti-aristocratic and anti-bourgeois streak; people viewed themselves as just as capable of matching the intellect of 'elites', rather than turning intellect into a negative attribute.

When we allowed the negative depiction of intellect to permeate entertainment media (in the 50s and especially the 60s), it really set the stage for the current anti-intellectualism we're steeped in. We start teaching kids from a young age that trying to be good at anything artistic or anything knowledge-based is cringe, or nerdy, or something losers do. I've lived in other countries, and you don't see that same effect, even in 'macho'-driven cultures.

2w ago

Democrats won the redistricting fight in Virginia. Was Trump’s gerrymandering war all for nothing?

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t3rmit3 @beehaw.org 2w ago

A constitutional amendment would be ideal, but it's critical we never allow a full Constitutional Convention (ConCon) to happen, because those have lower ratification requirements than the regular amendment process and any amendment can be introduced regardless of what they originally set out to pass, and I'd be worried that corpo Dems like Schumer would get tricked into going along with one in the name of a "bipartisan win", and we'd be well and truly cooked.

This was all a pointless exercise. Like, I’m glad Dems fought back, but how much taxpayer money did we spend to arrive at the status quo?

Unfortunately, we're not quite back to the status quo. The fact that Dems went a different route means that the DOJ could sue the Blue states claiming that ballot initiative changes aren't valid but legislature-passed ones are, and then tie everything up through the midterms with SCOTUS's help. Ideally we'd have 3-4 Blue states also do legislature-passed laws that directly mirror Texas'.

2w ago

Democrats won the redistricting fight in Virginia. Was Trump’s gerrymandering war all for nothing?

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t3rmit3 @beehaw.org 2w ago

I think what actually happened is that Republicans figured that 1) Democrat legislatures would either be too scared to try this unilaterally like Republicans did, or otherwise get overturned by a hostile SCOTUS, or 2) not have enough time before the midterms to make these changes. They definitely didn't count on multiple states putting up ballot initiatives successfully. SCOTUS could still try some shenanigans, but it would be nearly impossible to justify federally blocking state-level ballot initiatives around administering elections (and Trump has already started pushing federal control, since the midterms clearly aren't setting up to go the way they want).

My real fear is that this entire exercise has been a distraction, and they're planning something else to overcome the midterms.

2w ago

Market participation is exhausting

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t3rmit3 @beehaw.org 2w ago

This was a great read.

I think this also explains a lot of Trump's appeal to a lot of disconnected voters; he's promising to handle all the things that they (have been conditioned by Fox News to) dislike, without them needing to actually understand those issues, and without ever asking them for their input or requiring them to think about effects or harm or morality. If thinking about politics and economics and inequality sounds exhausting to someone, he's not just promising to fix things, he's promising to handle the cognitive load for them. I've met so many Trump voters who don't even know what he's doing, not because they only follow news that masks his actions, but because they just don't follow news at all, and just "trust he's taking care of things". It's relief from participation in the everyday political economy.

Also, Revealed Preference Theory is such junk science. Samuelson was just applying what people throughout history have observed about people not always understanding their own preferences, or not wanting to state them openly. It wasn't supposed to be a way to use individual actions to assert predictive certainty of future actions.

It makes me depressed to think about how much damage has been caused by people who got into a field for the money but who had no aptitude for or understanding of the work, and just ended up wrecking shit. And I've met too many c-suite executives to think this is not an endemic issue in our current society. If there's a better argument for jobs requiring some public proof of proficiency than our current crop of billionaires, business executives, and politicians, I can't think of it.

2w ago

Reddit automod gone wild! Apparently, talking about a theft while homeless is a real-estate post.

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t3rmit3 @beehaw.org 2w ago

Reddit has a wider user base, so much more likely someone in Austin can reach out to help (e.g. order a Lyft).