I know there is an XKCD about standards (and adding yet one more to create yet more confusion).
"Standards"
https://xkcd.com/927/

But that said, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are all terrible standards in many ways because of their complexity (and major design flaws like JavaScript having vastly too many global variables). Asa an alternative, what if, say, we all just used something like Scheme (or Common Lisp) to encode web documents and web code as S-expressions in some semantically standardized formats? Scheme can be very compact in its implementation.

Or as the XKCD mentioned here says:
"Lessons learned from implementing minimal Scheme six times"
https://twolodzko.github.io/po...
https://xkcd.com/297/
"Lisp cycles XKCD #297: âoeThose are your fatherâ(TM)s parentheses. Elegant weapons for a more⦠civilized age.â"

Now, it doesn't have to be Lisp-like.I get the paren hate:
"What makes Lisp difficult to read?"
https://www.reddit.com/r/lisp/...

And there is a lot to be said for significant-indentation languages like Occam or Python. Smalltalk is another great language. Or even some variant of a safe C.

Even a Forth-derivative perhaps that could be literally less than ~2K in size at the core. Although I get that there is a fine line between flexible and flabby in readability in a language that can change its own fundamental syntax or that makes naming intermediate variables unlikely as a form of documentation. Same with any language that supports arbitrary macros like C or Scheme which can change the fundamental nature of the language. Although at least in, say, Racket Scheme you see the language level set at the start of some code to know what you are getting into.

The main point is just that yet another adhoc problematical language like JavaScript was not needed (even as TypeScript papers over the worst warts). And CSS conceptually is broken for big projects ("Atomic" CSS is one style to help with that). And adding end tags with names in HTML (like XML) is another broken concept as are other aspects of HTML. Yes, programmers can work around and manage the issue in these web fundamentals, but why should we have to?

While a simpler browser for HTML etc is a good thing if it really is well written, better standards for encoding and sharing information will ultimately get us further and be more energy efficient and be more reliable and be more programmer-friendly.

I've long been a fan of triples for doing some of that data encoding, but that is even further out.

Tangentially, here is a Libre Plane 2021 talk I put together on free standards for social media being more important than free implementations:
"Free/Libre Standards for Social Media and other Communications"
https://pdfernhout.net/librepl...

I know this all may sound pie in the sky (and it is, given current social dynamics), but consider if we used the usual buggy lot-of-library junky (and now AI slop) code only with an intent to translate web content encoded in problematical standards into content encoded in better simpler standards for other code to consume. Sort of like Amazon did at one point with a server-side engine to process HTML pages and transform them for low-end Kindle browsers -- but in this case converting HTML plus CSS plus JavaScript into something like, say, S-expressions for web content that was not yet written directly n the simpler standards. Maybe the junky translator code might not be perfect, but it might be good enough and runnable in distant containers so that the local code that processed the simpler standards could be more secure and reliable.

Also related: "Simple Made Easy"
https://www.infoq.com/presenta...
"Rich Hickey emphasizes simplicityâ(TM)s virtues over easinessâ(TM), showing that while many choose easiness they may end up with complexity, and the better way is to choose easiness along the simplicity path. ... We should aim for simplicity because simplicity is a prerequisite for reliability. Simple is often erroneously mistaken for easy. "Easy" means "to be at hand", "to be approachable". "Simple" is the opposite of "complex" which means "being intertwined", "being tied together". Simple != easy. ..."

Ideally a group like the US National Institute of Standards and Technology or the US Library of Congress should fund this sort of work. And a group like Archive.org should have a lot of input to those standards on how to make the content simply versionable and simply archivable.

Anyway, just something I have been musing on and off again for many years...

Yes, but the authorized version of Pluto had extremely high performance without those elements.

The headline makes it sounds like the AI has just managed to play the game. But that's not what TFS and TFA are talking about. This is about the system beating the best human player at the game. In the meantime, in a very different game direction, there's a new Starcraft AI which learned the game playing against itself (similar to how AlphaZero self-trained) and is apparently beating almost all the humans even as it does some really weird stuff, some of which looks decidedly suboptimal https://relog.gg/razno/vesti/AI-Bot-Pluto-Invades-StarCraft-Ladder-and-Defeats-Professional-Players/1695?lang=2 .

Completely and utterly missing the point. That those people are being awful should be called out. That many of them are people who can dish it out but can't take it is worth calling out. Creating norms where "weirdo" is now a negative is a problem. Classically, the left was the group that was most willing to embrace people for being weird and recognizing that bullying people for being weird wasn't justified. Call out Musk for being a fascist asshole, sure. Don't help create a norm that undermines exactly the sort of tolerance we should support.

Yes, but life evolved pretty early on in Earth's history. That is evidence (albeit weak evidence) that life can arise somewhat easily.

Well, mostly. I'm not in favor of sexist insults either. But white supremacist lying sociopath, sure.

Sure. If you had said bigoted shit piece instead of weirdo in the first comment I would have agreed with you 100%.

99% Agreement. This absolutely is not a reason to dismiss anything. And the reason I'm not going to agree is just one word "weirdo." There's been this move on the left the last few years to use "weird" as a derogatory term, and it really isn't helpful or productive. But your essential point (without that issue) is correct.

This is a genuinely major achievement, and Starship as a system if they can get everything to look looks like it will really help the world. It is a useful reminder that the world is complicated and bad people can do amazing things. Elon Musk is a terrible person. But dismissing what SpaceX has done is not productive either. And there are a lot of historical examples of this, even just in rocketry. If one dismissed von Braun's rocketry because he was a Nazi, it would be the same problem. Or if one dismissed the math done by Teichmuller because he was a Nazi. It would be nice if technological and other achievement could only be done by morally upstanding people. But that's not the world we live in, which is part of what makes morality so important. The laws of physics don't care about how moral you are. It is up to every one of us to do the right thing.

On: "A Palantir spokesperson told Bloomberg the company "is not responsible for the underlying data nor identifying intelligence deficiencies" and that there is no evidence its software was at fault."

Is AI now an aspect of Mother Nature? Reminds me of:
https://2001.fandom.com/wiki/F...
  ""Let me put it this way, Mr. Amer. The [Palantir] 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake, or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the word, foolproof and incapable of error." -- [Palantir's] HAL 9000 to BBC reporter Martin Amer"

https://humanisticsystems.com/...
        "Dave: How would you account for this discrepancy between you and the twin [Palantir] 9000 [that did not kill lots of school girls]?
        HAL: Well, I don't think there is any question about it. It can only be attributable to human error. This sort of thing has cropped up before, and it has always been due to human error.
        Frank: Listen HAL. There has never been any instance at all of a computer error occurring in the [Palantir] 9000 series, has there?
        HAL: None whatsoever, Frank. The [Palantir] 9000 series has a perfect operational record.
        Frank: Well of course I know all the wonderful achievements of the [Palantir] 9000 series, but, uh, are you certain there has never been any case of even the most insignificant computer error?
        HAL: None whatsoever, Frank. Quite honestly, I wouldn't worry myself about that."

What do you call an AI (or human) that never asks questions, never seeks confirmatory evidence, never asks for clarification, never points out conflicting priorities, and/or never refuses illegal orders?

Onec again, the deeper issue is "the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity."
https://pdfernhout.net/recogni...
====
Military robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead?

Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land?

Biological weapons like genetically-engineered plagues are ironic because they are about using advanced life-altering biotechnology to fight over which old-fashioned humans get to occupy the planet. Why not just use advanced biotech to let people pick their skin color, or to create living arkologies and agricultural abundance for everyone everywhere?

These militaristic socio-economic ironies would be hilarious if they were not so deadly serious. ....

Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing. ....

There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. ...

The big problem is that all these new war machines and the surrounding infrastructure are created with the tools of abundance [otherwise they would not be so powerful or capable of so much rapid destruction as well as rapid creation]. The irony is that these tools of abundance are being wielded by people still obsessed with fighting over scarcity. So, the scarcity-based political mindset driving the military uses the technologies of abundance to create artificial scarcity. That is a tremendously deep irony that remains so far unappreciated by the mainstream.

We the people need to redefine security in a sustainable and resilient way. Much current US military doctrine is based around unilateral security ("I'm safe because you are nervous") and extrinsic security ("I'm safe despite long supply lines because I have a bunch of soldiers to defend them"), which both lead to expensive arms races. We need as a society to move to other paradigms like Morton Deutsch's mutual security ("We're all looking out for each other's safety") and Amory Lovin's intrinsic security ("Our redundant decentralized local systems can take a lot of pounding whether from storm, earthquake, or bombs and would still would keep working"). ...
====

In the US, in order to file win a lawsuit, one needs standing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_(law), which essentially means one needs to show one has been harmed by the action in question or one is specifically given permission to sue by a specific law. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm having trouble seeing how the people suing can argue they have enough harm that is a form that matters that they'll be able to persuade a judge they have standing.

I'm not sure any of those have money at that level. Aaronson in the past when he was doing quantum computing work refused to take payment or stock from quantum computing companies, so I'd be shocked if he has any money. As for monetary concerns, Hinton explicitly quit his well-paying job at Google so he would be free to talk about AI risk. So the narrative here is the exact opposite. And when the companies talked about deliberately slowing AI growth, stock in AI related companies went down, which undermines the idea that this is anything about their investments. But there's also a serious problem here if someone like Coxon can be dismissed as not having enough knowledge or experience, but people who have been involved in the industry for a long time can be dismissed because they may have financial ties. So can absolutely anyone be dismissed as irrelevant, either lacking in expertise or being too tied in to the industry?

I'm not sure what an hour memory here means, since context windows are measured in tokens. Even six months ago, LLMs could think for well over an hour before producing an output.

This seems odd at multiple levels. First, the people in the foundation labs if anything have more of an idea what is happening than the general population. They are seeing how models are made, what they contribute, and how they go run off the rails. I'm also puzzled by the claim that we're not at the exponential. Two years ago, AI systems could barely do AMC and AIMIE problems, basic high school math contests. Then the AI got to be good enough to do well on Putnam results. Then, early this year, AI got to be good enough to solve multiple open unsolved math problems, including Erdos 1196 https://www.erdosproblems.com/1196 , the Unit Distance Conjecture https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.20695 and many others, and the trends there are just continuing. That's one field, but it is one where the standards are most objective about what is happening. That certainly looks like exponential growth. I'm also puzzled by seeing the labs cannot get the AI to improve themselves is a good standard. From the perspective of a lot of people who are concerned, once that's happening, it is likely too late.

What you mean here is you agree with Yann. But the point is that lots of people who are as qualified as Yann, disagree. So if, as in your first comment, your primary problem with Coxon is lack of experinece, you should find this situation alarming. Worse, your complaint about Coxon was lack of lab experience, but in your new comment you object to people being too deep in the labs to be objective. This leads to the weird situation where no one is in a position to be relevant to listen to.

It is possible that LLM tech has its limits. But people were saying it was hitting its limit 4 years ago, and 3 years ago, and 2 years ago, and a year ago. 4 years ago, people who were saying LLMs were limited would not have predicted they'd be solving unsolved math problems. All those predictions turned out to be wrong. Why should saying it now be more likely? And what if you are wrong here?

So if the concern is these need to come from someone from a company not run by Altman, then we already have that. The OP is about that. And we've had containment breaches reported by Anthropic also. We also had a smaller scale but similar problem reported by an independent security group running an open-weight Kimi. You don't need to trust Sam Altman or anyone associated with him here.

A flyover isn't the problem here. The statement is.