Comment Cryptos crashing (Score 1) 54
Memory crypto stripped - does this spell doom to other Cryptos as well? Trumpcoin, Bitcoin, everything crashing ?
JK. Actually happy that someone is still using "crypto" to refer to cryptography
Comment Re:They can only self-improve if they are capable (Score 1) 216
Now, if you apply a Transformer to the task of language prediction it is, at scale, highly capable, but at the end of the day it is just a mashup-generator recombining language patterns it was trained on into "novel" outputs.
What strikes me odd and surprising is that LLMs actually seem to use written language as an "inner voice" for their thinking. As they do not have that internal ability for thiking processes (as you described) they need to output their "thoughts" and continue reasoning from there. When using Agentic AI for development, this pattern is clear, especially when the AI is trying to debug an error.
Comment Re: They can only self-improve if they are capable (Score 1) 216
Yeah, exactly. I've never heard of anyone shooting up their AI lab. Which tells me they don't believe their AI is at all likely to wipe us all out.
Unless, of course, they work for the military and are convinced that they need their AI to combat against 's AI capabilities. We already have that on drone level, and it will expand further.
And to put it more generally, a single research might think that their actions will not matter that much. Someone else will do it anyway. In a not so dissimilar way how we, on a personal level, avoid combating climate change, as "it wouldn't make a difference anyway".
Comment Re: And replace them with what? (Score 1) 95
As you said, Linux distros and Postgres both heavily rely on US code. Even Linus has been a US citizen for over a decade now.
Yes, Linus also has US citizenship, but I believe it is just for helping with practical matters (and to not be considered an immigrant to be deported), as he is living over there. But he still has Finnish citizenship as well, and also identifies himself that way as well, as evidenced e.g. here
Comment The obvious is missing from this conversation (Score 1) 41
Why is everybody only focusing on California? They have at least some sense in their legislation, so they are fine.
What everybody should be screaming now about is the rest of the country - 49 states, where GM surely followed the same practice but does not receive even a slap on the wrist.
Comment Re:They Didn't Find "Something From Nothing (Score 2) 57
Interesting. How would you frame Casimir effect and virtual particles (virtual photons) related to that? There is no high energy collision involved.
Of course those virtual photons are massless, but still they seem to exist.
Comment Re:Meanwhile in Ukraine... (Score 1) 54
Maybe they should start talking to Reza Pahlavi and working out, say, a canal from the Caspian Sea to the Gulf of Oman, so that Russian shipping can get to the Indian ocean and trade w/ whichever trading partners they have - India, South Africa, anybody. Iran can benefit from such a canal just like the Egyptians and Panamanians do w/ their canals, and it can help jumpstart the Iranian economy
Now THAT would be an undertaking, looking at the topographic map of Iran....
Comment Re:I'll post it again for what few people will per (Score 1) 150
All technological revolutions have an S-curve structure. They eventually peak in value and diminish...
I believe you completely misinterpret that curve. The peak shown in the right hand graph is not for value, it is for the rate of growth (i.e. change). As the left hand graph shows, the value will stay there, just the rate of change will slow down.
And we are nowhere near the inflection point, is is still early days, i.e. good entry point.
Comment Re:So much conflict (Score 1) 150
One second we have reports that it makes people less productive, next second they're more productive.
Actually the speed of development IS that fast. Just 5 months ago Agentic AI coding wasn't there yet. Then came Claude Code, Sonnet and Opus, Skilling and Agents and things have changed. And remember, this is not the peak, we only have scratched the surface. It will become more skilled, cheaper, faster, easier to use. Just try now Opencode and Big Pickle model, there's a free tier (mind security implications though with those free models). You'll be surprised.
Comment Re:Sounds like securities fraud to me (Score 5, Insightful) 127
There's a word for this: extortion. The military has decided that if they cannot use Anthropic's technology in any way they please, that they will just ban all government use, in an attempt to force the company to violate their principles. Here's hoping Anthropic shows them that the real world doesn't work that way by spanking them with a volley of lawsuits that will keep government lawyers employed for the next decade.
Yes, this is extortion, and I think Pentagon has shot themselves in the foot with this. Other companies will now think twice before doing any business with Pentagon. Sure, they might get a few extra bucks from a DoD deal, but they also risk losing many times that, if/when Pentagon uses this extortion tactic again.
Comment Re:Like the DoD really cares about legality... (Score 1) 84
And Europe doesn't exactly have a track record of standing up to the US.
It is not about standing up to the US. It is about protecting corporations that want to retain at least some ethics. And punishing those, that don't.
Comment Re:Please, no (Score 3, Insightful) 33
The vast majority of astrophysicists think dark matter exists because of multiple lines of observational evidence, some of which are listed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#Observational_evidence
Sure, it's weird, but nature doesn't owe us anything.
Dark matter is not the problem. It is easy to imagine stuff which is not luminous, but still affecting galaxies. Dark Energy is the problem, invented to explain Supernova redshifts. I hope they get rid of it with this new evidence, forcing to rethink.
Comment Re:Where does innovation come from? (Score 1) 106
AI has learned the language
AI has learned the pattern of the language. It's a small but very meaningful difference.
Not unlike many people. https://blog.thelinguist.com/p...
Comment Re:Where does innovation come from? (Score 1) 106
A LLM can only give answers based on what it was trained on i.e. the past. I creates nothing new, instead it rapidly pulls together solutions from existing knowledge.
AI has learned the language from those code examples and repositories. What it does with the language is often (not always, mind you) original.
LLMs have learned English (and other languages) from vast amounts of written text. It is easy to use LLMs to create work that is original (say, prompt it to create a poem in Shakespearean style about AI utilizing tennis racket to paint a house - or whatever). Similarly with software development, AI has learned the syntax and coding styles for different programming languages, and utilizes that information to create original code.
Comment Re:AI coding (Score 2) 106
Being the AI is just using code scraped from public sources, including public GitHub, GitLab etc.. repositories. How are any Copyright licenses being handled I wonder.
Stop right there, this basic premise is false. AI has learned the language from those code examples and repositories. What it does with the language is often (not always, mind you) original.
LLMs have learned english (and other languages) syntax from examples, it is easy to use them to create work that is original (say, prompt it to create a poem in Shakespearean style about AI utilizing tennis racket to paint a house - or whatever). Similarly, AI has learned the syntax and coding styles for different PROGRAMMING languages, and can utilize that information to create original code. The syntax of the programming language is not copyrighted.
