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Comment Re:What is thinking? (Score 1) 289

The quote you provided didn't say LLM, it said neural network. Neural networks, like any model, can interpolate or extrapolate, depending on whether the inference is between training samples or not.

LLMs are neural networks. You seem to be referring to a particular method of producing output where they predict the next token based on their conditioning and their previously generated text. It's true in the simplest sense that they're extrapolating, and reasonable for pure LLMs, but probably not really true for the larger models that use LLMs as their inputs and outputs. The models have complex states that have been shown to represent concepts larger than just the next token.

Comment Re:Thank Tariffs Trump! (Score 2) 75

I too bought memory in April to avoid tariffs. I had to run a stupid python program to generate a dataset that required 96GB of RAM for a delayed project so I figured I might as well bite the bullet. DDR4 was still a good value at that point (it's a problem that can run overnight, performance wasn't too important).

But how are the tariffs limiting the manufacturing supply capacity of RAM factories in East Asia?

Do you have a mechanism to propose?

Do you think they're making enough to meet demand but then blaming tariffs to justify jacking up prices? All of them? It would be an interesting conspiracy but is there any evidence to support that theory?

Comment Re:If only a certain OS didn't end support (Score 1) 75

> How much is this problem is down to AI and how much to beautiful tariffs?

What mechanism are you thinking of where tariffs could limit supply of VRAM from East Asia?

Simple price increases, sure, definitely, but this is described by manufacturers as a supply & demand problem.

Do you have a different angle we should consider?

Comment Re:RFK isn't antivax (Score -1) 291

LOL so you only had to go back over a couple hundred years to find a single example of Russia "winning" without American help.

No you dumb fuck. That was just the biggest war you had zero involvement in. Russia has won most of their wars without your dumbass, like when they took 9% of Finland.

russia needs to rely on nuclear weapons or nobody will take it the lest bit seriously.

They've been utterly dominating your dumbfucked ass with conventional weapons.

russia was utterly dependent on America and the allies for WW2.

Utterly dumbfucked Nazi bullshit. Americans like Truman were quite explicit in wanting Germany to slug it out with the Soviets until both sides lost. You only got in the war when Soviets were in danger of saving Europe not just from Nazis but from capitalism.

Comment Re:It's not meant to be a competition (Score 1) 21

This isn't some kind of 'our neutrino observatory is bigger than your neutrino observatory' contest.

That's exactly what it is. When your science depends on a big expensive piece of hardware that most or (best) nobody else has, that's what you tend to talk about. Especially in press releases and grant applications.

Comment Re:What is thinking? (Score 1) 289

Neural networks generally don't extrapolate, they interpolate

You could test that if someone were willing to define what they mean by "generally" I suppose. I think it's fairly safe to say that they work best when they're interpolating, like any model, but you can certainly ask them to extrapolate as well.

Comment Re:Dumb (Score 1) 289

It was based on solving a maths equation.

True.

There's a big and very obvious difference between "scientific research" and "mathematics".

Ehhhhh

Nobody was out there putting clocks on satellites

Technically true, but they were definitely doing experiments. The inconsistencies in Maxwell's electrodynamics and previous physics were the hot topic of late 19th century physics. To the point where various people thought resolving them would put the finishing touches on physics. Even the popular account includes the Michealson-Morely experiment.

Einstein himself says in "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" (i.e. the special relativity paper):

It is known that Maxwell’s electrodynamics—as usually understood at the
present time—when applied to moving bodies, leads to asymmetries which do
not appear to be inherent in the phenomena. Take, for example, the reciprocal electrodynamic action of a magnet and a conductor. The observable phenomenon here depends only on the relative motion of the conductor and the
magnet, whereas the customary view draws a sharp distinction between the two
cases in which either the one or the other of these bodies is in motion. ...
Examples of this sort, together with the unsuccessful attempts to discover
any motion of the earth relatively to the “light medium,” suggest that the
phenomena of electrodynamics as well as of mechanics possess no properties
corresponding to the idea of absolute rest. They suggest rather that, as has
already been shown to the first order of small quantities, the same laws of
electrodynamics and optics will be valid for all frames of reference for which the
equations of mechanics hold good.

There were a whole bunch of relevant experiments. Lorentz reviews many of them in "On the influence of the earth's motion on luminiferous phenomena”, published in 1886.

Anyway, the author's point is not that AI can't think because it can't find the consequences of equations. Regular old numerical simulations and logic engines are pretty good at that, no AI required. His point is that AI can't think because it cannot generate ideas out of thin air, presumably the "pure reason" of ancient greek philosophy, and he uses Einstein as an example.

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