Sorry - I meant that Matrix Multiplication has been eliminated -- according to this https://entertainment.slashdot... "The paper doesn't provide power estimates for conventional LLMs, but this post from UC Santa Cruz estimates about 700 watts for a conventional model. However, in our experience, you can run a 2.7B parameter version of Llama 2 competently on a home PC with an RTX 3060 (that uses about 200 watts peak) powered by a 500-watt power supply. So, if you could theoretically completely run an LLM in only 13 watts on an FPGA (without a GPU), that would be a 38-fold decrease in power usage. "

I think there's been a breakthrough in the "matrix multiplication" used in training AI that is predicted to lower the cost significantly. And of course the AI bubble is leaking already. A significant percent of companies in Japan, according to a recent post here, are not going for it. Then there's the problem with global warming to be considered. Serving his customers is more of a threat to our security than falling behind in a metaphorical "race."

I hope the tools for building the future can be made available in the way Altman describes. As a long-time resident of Second Life and the connected grids of the of the open-source-based Hypergrid community, I've seen how that works. Second Life didn't start as a product but as a set of tools for the inmates to use to build Second Life. It was not sold as a game -- it's not a game. The first thing the original group made, so the story goes, was a beanstalk. What has followed has been very impressive. More recent attempts to build and commercialize "the metaverse" and sell lots of headsets and other cool hardware are really not gaining much traction. They are obviously commercial ventures that want users to be customers not creators. For me the nightmare scenario is turning the future over to the "magic AGI in the sky." By all means let's make the tools widely available. It's a better way to try to "control" the technology than a Presidential commission.

I like the emphasis on change in this comment. It seems to me that when we are confronted by change in the generations that follow us we usually see the change as a negative thing because we are immediately aware of what has been lost. It is much harder, maybe impossible, to know what has been gained. But I agree with the post and the idea that the kids know what skills they need to have to face the changing world and be successful. I think we just have to trust them to figure it out.

My attempts to run the windows software for High Fidelity in a virtual box on a linux machine with a good Nvidia card were frustrated because the program could not use the video card.

My recent appempt to run the Windows software for High Fidelity in a Virtual Box on a linux machine with a good Nvidia card met with frustration when I chould not get the program to see the card from within the box.

thanks for this. I thought there was something improbable about the "billions of monitors" headline but I don't have the tech expertise to know what.

How's this? "Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."-Thomas Jefferson any better? I thought bringing up the "NAZis" was a little mean-spirited -- isn't there a "law" about that -- in any political argument someone will bring up Hitler before X number of exchanges? How predictable. My point is that the preservation of freedom requires a vigorous commitment.

It's interesting to read this discussion on the anniversary of a famous speech in American history (1775). “There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free ... we must fight! ... Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! ... Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” Partick Henry to the Second Virginia Convention.

I think you make good points, but of course technology will replace traditional skills. That's the whole purpose of it. New skills will be needed. We don't have to manage horses if we have horsepower, but we might have to know how to fix a flat. But mostly what I want to get at is the whole orientation we bring to trying to understand new technology. We quite naturally use the old framework that the technology will be instrumental in replacing -- gradually if not suddenly. So we tend to end up with information about what is being lost. Trying to figure out what is gained in much more complicated -- maybe impossible.

Most of the studies I've seen about the impact of NEW technology on kids and education measure OLD skills and come up with statements about what is LOST. "Math skills" is a good example. How many of you were not allowed to use calculators in math class? Raise your hands. I remember when they were thought to imperil "math skills." A few educators saw them as game-changers and recognized that they enabled students even as they called for the development of new skills -- or a shift in the importance of various components of the skill set. It's very hard to see the real impact of new technology just because it's new. The things kids are learning from computers are things we have no words for - yet. I have confidence that there is learning going on, it's just not going to be learning that will enable business-as-usual to continue, so of course it's threatening.

"Another reason for vinyl's sonic superiority is that no matter how high a sampling rate is, it can never contain all of the data present in an analog groove," Lots of posts seem to take it for granted that more informatin represents better music. I grew up with vinyl and I can tell you that a lot of the "information" came in the form of background noise (hiss and pops). When I played my first CD, I was stunned by what I didn't hear -- and I am not in the line to go back to vinyl.