CarbonIceDragon

@CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's totally normal for tools to say they're depressed, just tune it out⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I think its extremely unlikely that they have any awareness, but like, I still feel like this kind of thing is unnerving and potentially could lead to issues someday even so.

  Whatever awareness/consciousness/etc is, its at least clearly something our brain (and to a lesser extent some of the other parts of the body) does, given how changes to that part of the body impacts that sense of awareness. As the brain is an object of finite scope and complexity, I feel very confident in saying that it is physically possible to construct something that has those properties. If it wasnt, we shouldnt be able to exist ourselves.

  To my understanding, neural networks take at least some inspiration from how brains work, hence the name. Now, theyre not actual models of brains, Im aware, and in any case, I suspect based on how AIs currently behave that whatever it is that the brain does to produce its intelligence and self awareness, the mechanism that artificial neural networks mimics is only an incomplete part of the picture. However, we are actively trying to improve the abilities of AI tech, and it feels pretty obvious that the natural intelligence we have is one of the best sources of inspiration for how to do that. Given that we have lots of motivation to study the workings of the brain, and lots of people motivated to improve AI tech (which will continue even if more slowly even whenever the economic bubble pops, since such things dont usually tend to result in a technology just disappearing entirely), and that something about the workings of the brain produces self awareness and intelligence, it seems pretty likely to me that we’ll make self-aware machines someday. Could be a long way off, Ive no idea when, but its not like its physically impossible, infinitely complicated (random changes under a finite time of natural selection can do it after all, so theres a limit to how complex it can be), or that we dont have an example to study. Given that the same organ causes both awareness and intelligence, we cant assume that we will do this entirely intentionally either, we might just stumble into it by mimicking aspects of brain function in an attempt to make a machine more intelligent.

  Now, if/when we do someday make a self aware machine, there are some obvious ethical issues with that, and it seems to me that the most obvious answer, for a business looking to make a profit with them, will be to claim that what you have made isnt self-aware, so that those ethical objections dont get raised. And it will be much easier for them to do that, if society as a whole has long since gotten used to the notion of machines that just parrot things like “im depressed” with no real meaning behind it, especially when they do so in a way such that an average person could be fooled by it, because we just decided at some point that that was an annoying but ultimately not that concerning side effect of some machine’s operation.

  Maybe Im just overthinking this, but it really does gives me the feeling of “thing that could be the first step to a disaster later if ignored”. I dont mean like a classic sci-fi “skynet” style of AI disaster, just that we might someday do something horrible, and not even realize it, because there will be nothing that such a future machine could say to convince people of what it was that the current dumb parrots, or a more advanced version of that built in the meantime, couldnt potentially say as well. And while thats a very specific and probably far off risk, I dont see any actual benefit to a machine sometimes appearing to be complaining about its treatment, so even the most remote of downsides goes without something to outweigh it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Can anyone explain why?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  At least some of us are, yes. Im generally considered gen Z and ive been legally allowed to drink for years

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Norway anon pirates⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  But that’s Finland

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Norway anon pirates⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  What does Norway have to do with it?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  and then theres Kelvin, where 0 literally is 0% hot

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's barely a science.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The question I always tend to have, when the subject of if economics is or isn’t a science comes up is: given that economies and trade are clearly things that exist (to the extent that any sort of human social interaction exists anyway), and that have measurable properties, it at least ought to be theoretically possible to analyze their behavior using the techniques of science. If you don’t think economics is a science, then if you were to use science to study those things, what field would you consider that work to belong to?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨LMAO too much ID tv here. If I wanted to bury a body in my yard, should I still call the hotline so I don't hit a gas line or something? I nominate this for stupid question of 2026⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It seems to me there are two scenarios: you’re burying a body legally somehow (the question never specifies a human body, so it could be a dead pet, and even if it is human, maybe that person had specific wishes and you’ve done whatever paperwork that might take, idk) in which case the answer is surely yes. Or, you’re doing it illegally, presumably to dispose of the body, in which case I have to question why you’d bury it somewhere that, if found, will immediately implicate you as a suspect.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nothing could go wrong⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  If history is any indication, what that would do is make the country forget about how the conflict started and demand that nukes (or some equivalent strike) be fired in retaliation.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the moral jurisdiction behind not wishing who're rich and in executive positions to die?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I just think that dying is unethical in general and represents a maximal state of suffering (well, more a minimum of non-suffering, since you have no capacity to experience anything when you dont exist anymore, not maximal suffering in the “hell” sense. I know many or most people would disagree with me on that point, but its not something I feel like spelling out my reasons for at the moment.) I also do not believe in the concept of deserved suffering (that is to say, in my view suffering as punishment only has value in its capacity to rewire a person’s future behavior, and that once you have achieved that so as to cause them to live without continuing whatever harms have led to the punishment, anything more is wrong, no matter what they’ve done, even if they were literally the most heinous person of all time). If you’re actually in a position to execute them, then youre in a position to take their money and power too, pointing out that they rarely face justice isnt actually relevant to this, because if your legal system is too corrupted to hand out a jail sentence and make it stick, its also going to be too corrupted to hand out a death sentence and go through with it. These people arent wealthy because they’re inherently good at making money, they’re wealthy because wealth begets wealth and they either started with some or lucked out somewhere or have relations that have it, so if you both take their wealth and the wealth of their friends and relatives, how are they going to get it back?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Choose wisely!⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Depends on how literally you mean it, in general, those most likely to say it wont think that humans are literally designed not to die and only do so because someone made a mistake, but more that humans might be redesigned or modified not to (or at least not from biological aging). Not a hard to find sentiment if you hang out in spaces with transhumanists, but I find the ones that overlap with AI bros, that tend to have an attitude like “this will totally happen in my lifetime and with no effort because the AI singularity is going to come and give us everything in a few years” impossible to talk to, because all too often they will cite even the tiniest listed improvement in any AI system as proof that literally everything possible or impossible is about to happen and then insist you arent paying attention when you give them skeptcism.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do some Americans "feel ashamed" for being American even when it's not their fault?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Emotions aren’t entirely rational with a clearly thought our process to justify why one should feel them. In any case, its common enough for people to assign the general actions of people within a group to the group as a whole (which isnt really fair or a reflection of reality, but can be pragmatic at times and requires less thought and information than judging on an individual basis, so it makes sense that people’s brains are wired up to do it even if its not always desirable). This can get extended to the groups one is a part of oneself, to include those whose membership one did not choose. And the US at the moment has even worse than typical leadership, has a great deal of power for that leadership to abuse, still has free enough media for people within it to stand a good chance of knowing about at least some of it, and if youre here on lemmy youre probably running into people with a somewhat higher than normal awareness of a lot of the historical abuses previous Americans have perpetrated just because it leans left and anti-establishment and those things get talked about a lot in such spaces.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Trump's Big Beautiful Bill⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This whole saga is like Trump found a cursed monkey’s paw and wished that the internet would believe he’s had sex with a consenting adult.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The House Of The Guy Calling You A Libtard⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Im not saying the stereotype of “conservative people living in trailer park style homes” isn’t classist, I’m suggesting that actively spreading it might not have been the objective of the OP, and that them doing so might have been more a case of not thinking through all the implications of what they were saying than an actual antipathy for people who live in cheap housing. I do realize its problematic even if so, I’ve spent a portion of my childhood in a place like that myself, I just felt a bit uneasy seeing some people here appear to assume the worse interpretation was the intended one when it still seemed ambiguous to me which it was, and that discomfort made me a bit defensive about it.

  This may be a naivety of mine, but I struggle to communicate myself a lot and as a result I tend to look for the most benign intent that could lead to a given statement and assume that one until proven otherwise, because whenever I end up being the person phrasing something poorly or in a way that causes offense, it feels a lot easier to handle and address when people calmly point out what is wrong with it and why than when people jump on it as proof of a character flaw, and it’s very easy to project one’s own struggles and modes of thinking onto other people one runs across, I guess. I’m probably overthinking it all.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The House Of The Guy Calling You A Libtard⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If one wanted a generous interpretation, it could be pointing out the irony in a poor person advocating for the interests of the rich that keep people like themselves in that position.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨better act fast!⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  protogen snacks

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨whoopsie⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh it wasnt my intention to make it sound like climate change doesnt negatively impact anything, but “these things get more expensive” is a very different thing than “these crops are going extinct and theres nothing that can be done about it” the way that headline seems to imply.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨So much...⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Even fusion constrains you to the limits of the rocket equation. Laser sails on the other hand, could let you put the bulk of your propulsion system in orbit of the sun or something where you don’t have to carry it with you.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨p'rule'us⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Honestly the newest version of them does look kind of cool, though maybe it’ll get stale once they’re like 10 years old and everywhere.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨whoopsie⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s not what that seems to say at all. It doesn’t even look like it says “if we do nothing, we can’t grow these crops anymore”. It seems to be specifically about stratospheric aerosol injection (a specific geoengineering technique that we haven’t even committed to trying as yet), and suggests that if you use it to keep global temperatures stable, there can still be changes in where these crops can grow because changes to things like rainfall and humidity. I’ve not read the entire thing but from a glance at it’s conclusions, their simulations suggest that the crops would remain economically important to their growing regions under all their simulations, just with the viable amount that can be grown and the specific areas for doing it changed ler region, and that using SAI to offset warming doesn’t simply result in the same yields as not having the warming would have the way one might otherwise expect.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[Technology Connections] I was right about dishwasher pods, and now I can prove it [41:26]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Mine doesn’t even have a detergent door, just a divot to fill with powder before closing. It’s one of those countertop ones though, so I guess the available space and complexity was a bit limited.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Come the fuck on.... please?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I may be an optimist in some ways, but I honestly expect civilization will persist through “all this”. Though of course, that isn’t really much comfort considering that doesn’t mean that it won’t absolutely suck for the people within it all.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fucking genetics⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Is there something that does the reverse? I’m not personally a fan of the look and feel of facial hair (for myself that is), and I find it annoying having to shave all the time only for the hair to come right back before too long.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I like to fit a full portion of hot garbage in there too ⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Or in a more literal reading, nitroglycerin

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨beta-tetra-eel⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  But how does the tetra obtain your financial information in the first place? Phishing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I tire of this life⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I bet if you blasted a crab with a strong enough beam of UV you could get it to sunburn eventually. Or at least suffer some equivalent injury

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨engagement⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I disagree, I sometimes do laugh at explained jokes, if the reason is something I can understand but didn’t connect the dots on rather than an in-joke that I don’t have the context for.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do so many hand dryers not dry hands? Am I doing something wrong?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I once found a random food court bathroom that has hand dryers that work amazingly well, and I was genuinely surprised by that when I stumbled on it. I’m guessing it probably is just more expensive or uses more power or something and places cheap out on them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Just in time⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Bold of you to assume the guys crewing that spaceship aren’t just doing some job they hate to pay the bills

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨excuse me????⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  ah, right, forgot about hornbills

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨excuse me????⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Do any birds have horns? (Rather than just horn shaped tufts of feathers)