So do you have any thoughts about implicit personality variables Claude is hiding within each instantiation?

I like the FP though I wonder if you were going for funny in the "You say that like it would be a bad thing" genre. A whole lot of the code that was written yesterday and today was bad code enabling bad ideas, so no code tomorrow isn't bugging me too much.

However the joke I was looking for involves how much easier it is for humans to learn to think like machines than vice versa. I think that's a bad thing (per the old warning from Sydney Harris) but I also think that's the path of least resistance that too many, probably most, people will follow. There will be at least two other groups. Probably a large group of people who refuse to go along and who get discarded as "low-value" losers and a small group of people who are smart enough to go beyond thinking like machines. The "beyond" people will be competing at the level of using the tools without being used by them, and the few who win that competition might be planning to rule the world with a robot's iron fist (controlled by obedient (?) AIs).

Going more directly to the story, I did a fairly complicated system recently using Claude. Because of token limits, I used several instances, which led me to the belief that there are implicit personality variables that make Claude more or less useful. My time and effort was MUCH smaller than when I did the same system using PERL and every test I've been able to think of says the AI version is better than mine, which doesn't make me feel good even about my programming skills, even allowing for the peculiarities of PERL. (But I have been lucky enough to work with and for some top-tier programmers and I've learned that I'm not at that level...) However the most interesting thing was that the new version got me to reconsider the problem and now I see a much better way to handle the UI. (But I hate the depending on Claude so much that I am declining to do another version? And I'm too afraid of thinking like ChatGPT to use that one again?)

I think you are quite confused about what "politics" means. Or maybe you are simply trying to use an extended definition? Easiest way to find out might be to ask where you think the lines are, but it seems obvious to me that your reasoning can be applied to make anything fit as a political problem. I could probably play the same game, though (judging by past posts) I seem to prefer economics as the catchall category.

However your reply is sufficient to explain why you probably get few Funny mod points. What I mistook as an attempt to be funny would have depended upon a deep understanding of the reality and "Frankly, my dear, I think you don't give a darn about reality."

Okay FP but you didn't get your Funny mod points. Maybe you confused the moderators when you mentioned success without success criteria?

This is a government of politics first. Or maybe vengeance first? Or perhaps it's personal profits first? Or popularity in the latest poll? Whatever it is, safety is not on the main list of priorities. Plenty more volunteers eager to join up if the first ones die.

But I thought the funniest posts were the ones that suggested the YOB would go. I couldn't buy the premise of the "wants to name something on the moon" joke because there's no golf course there. (Yeah, I know one of 'em hit a golf ball, but... On the safety side, I wonder how NASA made sure the ball wouldn't explode when struck under lunar conditions.)

Did you read your own joke? Did you consider the premise of your joke?

However you changed your sig so my attempted joke lost both its context and its premise. The "dynamic" hint in your new sig suggests that I should include it here, but... This "discussion" merely seems to be another example of "what happened to" Slashdot.

Just sadness

Too late to go for funny, but I didn't leave any ribbon. Maybe that explains your Canadian rudeness?

If you were qualified to be an editor you would check your sig for a possessive usage and manage the sig character limit more effectively. ;-)

It appears I have to quote it against the censor sock puppets with mod points, but I mostly wonder what part of it annoyed them so much. The philosophic flavor? Or is Social Security some kind of third rail, even in the indirect reference via "pension"? Can't really claim I was disappointed because I no longer expect any helpful references or even thoughtful replies from Slashdot... (There are individual exceptions, but in general the tl;dr appears to be mostly automatic after a paragraph or two.)

My memory of the "discussion" has already faded. Quite sure there was no memorable Funny post or I would remember the joke now. Not that long ago. Also think I managed to dig up some mention of social security after I had posted, but can't recall if it was substantive or not. Is it worth looking around to see if I thought there was some part of the discussion that was worth a reply? Or perhaps the joke is that I was "called back" to the post by a belated positive mod point?

I'm quoting your FP because that moderation appears to be intended as censorship. For what extremely little it is worth on today's Slashdot, I think you are raising an interesting point, probably even an important point, but not doing it well. Positive spin would be to say you felt constrained by the FP problem and wrote in haste. Negative spin would question how well you write. Today I feel positive, except that I believe the FP thing is on the LONG list of problems Slashdot cannot address because of the defective business model. (Long time since Slashdot felt like a friendly place with many substantive discussions... But I still like the "feel" of the input window for the editor. Why?)

However I'm mostly branching back to a higher perspective and I hope my Subject is less vacuous than "Really?" I think this story is about one aspect of a much larger problem with what the google has become. Is there any among you (assuming anyone still has the attention span to read a second paragraph) who still believes "Don't be evil" has relevance in today's google?

Mostly I try to limit my google exposures these years, but I still have contact with a number of google apps. The overwhelming theme is that the quality is getting worse, often in ways that suggest short-sighted or even evil motivations. (In order of decreasing time, I think it's close between Maps and YouTube at the top with Gmail and Gemini and Calendar on a lower tier. Should the weather summary count as a google app? Now I feel like the google is pervading and invading my life...)

However I think there is a simple reason why things are getting worse. The "good" people are leaving or being driving out of the google. Many of the people who leave seem to be hoping to do better things. Apparently they think they have more chances to make the world better from outside of the google? (Also anecdotes of former friends who seem to have changed since become part of the the google. And not for the better...)

The people who are left behind inside the google seem to be more and more focused on money. The FP focused too narrowly on military money. The big money these days is in crypto and AI scams, and that's where lots of evil people are concentrating their efforts. Dare I say naturally?

SIX paragraphs? How dare I? I wait with bated breath for the tl;dr responses.

Thanks for the joke, though I think the story had much more potential for humor.

There was one period in my motley career when I actually ran the customer service department. Main reason I was able to provide any actual customer service was because no such department existed. No trace in the business plan that the VCs had funded. But it had to be done, so I did it (while mostly doing the job I had been hired for at night from home).

I actually learned quite a lot from helping the customers and from training other employees in how to help customers. I also learned that some people will never believe that they've been helped, but they still helped me understand what customers wanted and there were even times when the ingrates helped me find new ways to solve customer problems or ways to offer new services.

It would be interesting if someone wrote a "business history" book about how customer service was destroyed. At least I haven't found that book yet. I think Microsoft will be prominently featured for innovations in new ways to treat support as a cost to be minimized. Silly me to think support was about making customers happy and finding new ways to serve the customers. The google is just following the established "new tradition" on this one. Any leads to books or authors? My leading candidate would be Michael Lewis, but I think I've read all of his books and he never went there. Perhaps Michael Cusumano could write it? If he's still alive, which I doubt... But what does the AI chatbot say?

Okay, sort of a form of a plan for the joke I was looking for... "Synergy" was inevitable, but I was looking for a "Where's the value?" version, perhaps patterned after the ancient "Where's the beef?" commercial.

I don't think there is any real value left in today's stock market, though it has innovated in new forms of Ponzi schemes. Rather than going outwards looking for fresh suckers to bring in more cash, the way traditional Ponzi schemes worked, the stock market is now going inwards with fresh imaginary valuations of various shares that mean nothing, but which can be used to borrow actual cash for super-living expenses and private jets and all that fine stuff. The old metrics of inventory and past sales and price-to-earnings and all that junk ("beef"?) mean nothing now (against imaginary "synergies").

Me? Thanks, but no beef of the edible sort. I prefer chicken. Even though my cup of metaphorical beefs runneth over.

But it was in Delaware before that and my next guess is that it will go back as soon as it becomes less politically convenient. Perhaps RSN? Just a matter of expertise in writing favorable laws for corporations and the reality that Texas has never been long on expertise. There should be a joke about it...

Pretty sure I tried it at least one time in the past, but didn't get any satisfaction or money back. At various times via various mechanisms the shares have come out of escrow status, and then they go back... Another funny story about how my Japanese brokerage firm went from #3 to bankrupt a long time ago. But I think the fundamental problem is that the stock market game is rigged in favor of big investors and small investors are just treated as collateral damage.

I have some funny stories about single shares, but since I can't write jokes, I'll just summarize the results. Really hard to sell single shares, so they eventually wind up in escrow in Delaware. At this point it seems pretty clear they are just waiting for me to die and then the state gets to keep them. Just a few shares here and there. Not a big deal in my case, though I'm sure many cases are larger, but multiplied by large numbers and I conclude the state must be making out like a bandit.

Anyone around here actually live in Delaware? Are you getting any benefit related to the profits from escrowed shares? Or even better if you know the magic person working for Delaware who can sell my shares and send me the money. At this late point I should settle for any significant fraction of the face values?