Wish I had some mod points. Well said. If you are going to use proprietary software, you have to play by their rules. Lots of other LLMs are available (LLaMA and BLOOM come to mind) that have no TOS to get in the way of your use case.

The issue is not energy density. The issue is emissions. Energy density matters fuck all, because the choice logistics companies face is between maintaining profit levels and roasting the planet, or accepting lower margins and not roasting the planet. You sound a lot like the guys who want to improve health care by teaching ambulance drivers to drive faster...cheap to implement, with measureable results to show the stockholders, but completely missing the point.

Now maybe some generative AI tools will change things, but right now there is a large part of the PC market that simply cant extract much value from more hardware.

I think you are on to something. A tablet/netbook/phone is all the computer power many (most?) people really need. But I think when people realize that AI is going to make it very, very, easy to generate all the content they want based on their own kinks and fantasies, they are going to start buying rigs with the same fervor as gamers do. It may take awhile -- a few years -- for it to happen, but it will happen, I'm almost positive. Generative AI is going to open the PC market up to artists, musicians, and anybody who has ever wanted to draw, or compose music, or write a novel, but didn't have the resources (time, money, or talent) to pursue it as a career.

The recent writers strike in Hollywood (and the ongoing SAG/AFTA strike) is just a taste of how AI is going to disrupt the content marketplace. The reason the writers strike dragged on so long, and the reason SAG is still negotiating is because these groups need to force producers and production companies to recognize that generative AI is a real threat to their livelihood. Prompt ChaptGPT to give you a skit based on Monty Python's "Summarize Proust" bit (I tried "Summarize Heinlein") to see what I'm getting at...

Here's the prompt and Bard's response:

how much would a dyson sphere with the raidus of the Earth's orbit mass?

The mass of a Dyson sphere with the radius of Earth's orbit would be about 1.3 × 10^27 kilograms. This is about 100 times the mass of Jupiter, or about 0.01% of the mass of the Sun.

To calculate the mass of a Dyson sphere, we can use the following formula:
Code snippet

M = (4/3)R^3

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where:

        M is the mass of the Dyson sphere
        R is the radius of the Dyson sphere
          is the density of the material that the Dyson sphere is made of

In this case, we can assume that the Dyson sphere is made of the same material as the Sun, which has a density of about 1.41 × 10^3 kilograms per cubic meter.

Plugging in these values, we get:
Code snippet

M = (4/3)(1.5 × 10^11 m)^3(1.41 × 10^3 kg/m^3) = 1.3 × 10^27 kg

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As you can see, the mass of a Dyson sphere is incredibly large. It would take a massive amount of material to build such a structure, and it is not clear if we would ever have the technology to do so.

A legit CS degree from a legit four-year university is more than just a credential. It gets your foot in the door, and it serves to distinguish you from your peers, when it comes to promotions and pay raises. It demonstrates that you have discipline and focus. NB: Granted, a four-year degree in CS doesn't mean you are a going to be a stellar sysadmin. Quite the contrary, in my case. I'm lousy at coding, I struggle with shell scripts to this day, and I need to refer to cheat sheets whenever I have to actually troubleshoot something on the floor. But I keep getting pay raises and promotions because I have a real CS degree from a real university, unlike certain colleagues of mine, who are competent sysadmins, but for some reason haven't gotten a real credential. A legit CS degree from a legit university means you have the discipline and the tenacity to see something through to its end. Management wants people who can commit to projects that may take months or years to return an investment. Somebody who sat through four years of college and retained enough of the information to get a diploma is the person you want on projects like that.

...with the imitation game. Humans are a system of systems -- if an AI can function as an end-point in a process that includes a human on the other end of that process, then the distinction between human and non-human processes is probably a false distinction. I think this is what Turing was driving at, and what provokes such existential dread in people that are worried about AIs taking over -- because it means, at some level, the AI has removed some sense of their identity as a human. AIs already have taken jobs away from radiologists. If large language model AIs like ChatGPT and Dall-E are any indication, then lawyers probably do need to prepare to defend against the incursion of AIs on their turf. I remember reading forty years ago in "Neuromancer" about AIs firing off lawsuits at each other and thinking, "That'll be the day." Well, it seems that if that day isn't here yet, it is definitely getting closer.

hmmm. Your concern over the legality of hackers dismantling Putin's infrastructure is misplaced. To be honest, this is just the start. The thousands and thousands of hackers that have already started the process are being joined by state-level actors. I seriously doubt anybody is going to convene a court of law anywhere to go after the crews that take Russia back to the stone age. Putin is the one needing to experience some consequences for his behavior, and I hope he ends up a cautionary example for other despots who think they are above the law that you are misguidedly trying to invoke.

Hmmm. The supply chain would be much more timely and less of a cost burden if truck drivers didn't have speed restrictions "imposed from above" on public highways. Ditto fabs, if they didn't have all those worker safety and health restrictions "imposed from above." Nothing is more important than protecting profits, certainly not public safety. Good on you, sir.

Not sure what version of chess you are referring to. In my version of chess, you *can* get pieces back. And in my version of chess, you can certainly get new powers, by getting those pieces back and giving them more power. Your version of chess would seem to be lacking pawn promotion.

True for many users, but not all users. For military/corporate/enterprise users, the decision point on when to apply patches needs to be shifted downstream to people who know the environments, and know the threats, and can make rational decisions about the risks, i.e. the goddamn sysadmins. For for all other users, somebody needs to make the decision on their behalf, and that means as far upstream as possible, and that could very well mean the damn devs.

Hacking a naive linux user provides the same payoff to the hacker that hacking a naive windows user does, but thanks to the ever increasing numbers of user-friendly linux distros (I'm looking at you, Mint) the effort required to compromise a linux box is no longer the barrier it used to be. Microsoft understands that freedom = 1/security. They are acting rationally and responsibly given their base of naive users. Linux, god help them, needs to understand this simple calculus, before it's too late.

lol -- as long as you don't let Lucas subcontract any of the parts, a brit rocket should be just fine. (We know why you guys like warm beer -- you all have Lucas refrigerators...)

Is silencing someone who insists that 2 + 2 = 5, or that the earth is flat and at the center of the universe, censorship? These statements are lies. Shutting down assholes telling these lies is not "censorship." Taking any other position on this means you are supporting lies and the people that tell them. Not a tenable position.

You wouldn't want people lying to your kids, would you? Fuck no. You'd do whatever was in your power to silence them. Trump and the 73M people that voted for him deserve the same treatment as any other liar. Liars aren't tolerated in *any* society.

Silencing Trump, or silencing one of his trumptard base that uncritically propagate his lies is not controversial. Your implication that there is a problem with stopping the spread of lies is really, really problematical, and that is just me being diplomatic. You really just need to be gagged until you come to your senses.

There is no slippery slope here -- allowing a lie to propagate because *you* think it is censorship to kill it in its tracks simply means *you* need a serious dose of re-education. You are part of the problem, and need to be removed from the dialogue with the same alacrity as the liar.

Geesh. I though Americans were litigious. Are you also going to enact legislation to stop EVs from being called "cars" because they don't have IC engines? Why would this even matter? People who want meat are not going to be bamboozled by marketing -- one glance at the ingredient list is all it should take to clear up any confusion about the composition of the product. Or do Europeans really need that much hand-holding at the supermarket? Seriously, man, get some perspective.

You are blaming the victim. If my grandmother can't surf the net safely, the fix isn't to let her get scammed to teach her a lesson. Only libertarian nutbars think that way.

Toxic cesspools on the net need to be purged -- as quickly, violently and publicly as possible.

Think about it: When cops find a meth lab in a neighborhood, they burn it down. They do not allow it to continue to ruin lives in the name of teaching people a lesson.

So...no. Your attitude towards this issue is wrong. Demonstrably wrong.

Take a broader view. The win is carbon sequestration for profit. Conservatives who think AGW is a hoax will remain unmoved (can't fix stupidity, you can only work around it) but if this process turns out to be commercially viable (read: cheaper concrete) they will shrug and support it, which *is* a net gain for people who want to address AGW.