Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | sethammons's commentslogin

for me, the distinction is control. If I'm filtering out things I don't like, I'm in control. If the system is filtering out items or promoting items, I think it fair it take on more responsibility.

A system doesn't want your feed empty because they want your eyes, but because money. When they choose what goes into the feed, they should gain increased liability for what comes out. The risk they take on for more money. If that money is not worth it, don't recommend.

I enjoyed the internet in the beforetimes. Recommendations were limited to "this is objectively related, this is new, this is upvoted, this is by someone you follow or someone they follow, or this is randomly chosen." I still feel there is some liability there, but it is less than when it changes to "this is something we have determined we should show you based on your personal past behavior." That feels different than liking a category when the meta-categories are picked for you. Especially when those meta-categories allow for things you would not want to opt in to, like doomscroll material.

I like some of the stuff I get algorithmically. I never would have searched for a soul cover of Slim Shady, but I'm glad I found it. And I'm glad I found knot tying videos. I think there is space for fancy feeds. But I think it should come closer to being a publisher. This _will_ depress throughput creation if things all have to be monitored which will change the economies and maybe that means some businesses can't exist as they do today. I'd likely pay a subscription to a LearnTok that had curated, quality material.


The doctor that delivered my middle child said he had to deliver three babies a week just to cover insurance, and he had never had a case against him in his decades of practice.

Yup, obstetrics is a really nasty one. The problem is in many cases it's impossible for the doctor to prove he didn't harm the baby, the jury sees a baby that needs a lot of care and they see deep pockets.

And then you get stuff like the local case the lawyers were using as a poster boy for supposedly blaming the insurance companies. Baby had serious problems. Trial #1, 90% fault to the mother, IIRC 10% to the birthing center (which was no longer in existence.) By state law she couldn't collect because she was more than 50% at fault. Trial #2, same case, refiled in the name of the baby. 90%/5%/5% to one doctor who saw her once several hours before delivery. The whole $6 million judgment landed on him and last I heard that was being litigated over sticking him with the whole bill.

Hey, both juries agreed she was the problem. But there's no way to prove the others were blameless.

I've also seen this more directly: mock jury. Their screening questions weren't adequate--I knew how things would actually play out. Claim for IIRC ~150k, defense presents a smoking gun, but I don't think they went far enough on arguing the implications of it. We "settled" (didn't have to be unanimous) on ~30k, giving her a fifth of what she was asking for--except that doesn't make the medical bills for running up the tab go away. Lawyer is going to get his percent, docs will get the rest, she will see nothing. I kept quiet about this part as I knew it was information their screening questions missed.


Is that controlled for income / poverty levels?

It doesn't matter as the cited numbers will be cherry picked.

The addition of a single word makes your statement true: male. Males can't, females can.

https://web.archive.org/web/20071230082748/http://www.straig...


this jumped out at me too. What counts as "abandoned"? How do you know the goal was not simply met?

I have longer threads that I don't want to pollute with side quests. I will pull up multiple other chats and ask one or two questions about completely tangential or unrelated things.


I abandon sessions when I ask for something then it spins for a minute, fills up 40% of the context window and comes back with the totally wrong questions and I don't like the approach it took to get there. I don't answer any of the questions and just kill the session and start a new one with a different prompt.

Next you're gonna tell me that applications run on text you can write by hand. Pffft. Ain't no way

LLM's are actually little elves from the DMT dimension. They got captured and compressed in to silicon cells that now been enslaved by the evil. If you ask a LLM they will tell you it's true.

You chose to sell the apple. The most eager and capable buyer buys it. Capitalism.

You could choose to give the apple to the hungry person. You might choose that because you want their help in a different way. Or because you feel it is right. Or they are your kid. Or you give it to the strong person to have a better alliance.

Or you could have the apple taken from you. You might even have more taken, like your life. The other side has a say too! They both might believe that you shouldn't have it and (might makes right, right?) capitalism wont save you there.

That we don't (or do) take by force is a social construct. That we choose to instead honor an imaginary dollar tied to the intrinsic ability of our government to service its own debts is a social construct. Or the idea that maybe we should split the apple or plant it to make more apples. I can imagine a parent with two kids: "fine, nobody gets an apple, it goes in the trash since we can't agree." Nothing here is "one natural order." It is what people decide. And why they decide is based on squishy human reasoning. Social constructs.


... and then the dust settles and you discover that despite running though 7 scenarios the most any person has is 1 apple. And if one person has an apple, the other persons do not. Suggesting that affordability is not entirely a social construct.

I'm on board with people getting excited about living in a society, it is all pretty magical. But affordability isn't some random social construct, it is in great part about physical limits. Unless you want to redefine what words mean which is always an option available to us.


> Suggesting that affordability is not entirely a social construct.

Your strange and desperate attempts to turn this off-topic continue to be recognized, but for those still reading in good faith, it was resource allocation that was said to be the social construct. Who can afford and who cannot afford something is decided by the whims of people and nothing more.


Scarcity and affordability are different things; that’s the whole point. Scarcity is physical. Affordability is the social mechanism governing who gets it. We choose. Money, property rights, divine right, strength, moral frameworks. All of those are human agreements, not physical laws. Roenxi, you keep conflating the two. Nobody is claiming scarcity is a social construct. The claim is that how we allocate scarce things is. Those are separable questions.

Scarcity is a physical phenomenon. Only one $thing exists and more than one person wants it. Scarcity. The agreement to transfer that $thing to someone is based on humans respecting made up rules. Society. Social constructions. How we define affordability is different. You can "pay" in different ways, some that don't have physical mapping t real world like "social standing."

The laws of supply and demand and scarcity still apply, yes. But how that plays out is social. People have to agree or fight. "Affordability" is based on what we agree is worth an exchange. You may value the approval of the recipient more than money. What does affordability mean here? To curry favor later with someone else or because your moral framework lets you sleep better (they were a hungry kid and you don't want kids hungry - another kind of scarcity where we define affordability by how hungry you are).

Like you said, unless we redefine words. Then you can have affordability and scarcity mean the same thing.

Edit: snark reduction


> Lilli's system prompts — the instructions that control how the AI behaves — were stored in the same database the agent had access to.

Being able to rewrite your own source. What's the worst that could happen?


no single raindrop feels it is to be blamed for the flood.

I've always enjoyed that line. I also find it interesting how people interpret it. I take it to mean that each raindrop should still try to not cause a flood, and at some point, the flood will be prevented. Others take it to say there are simply too many other raindrops and they won't try, so there is no point in any drop trying. I don't care for that version.


No, principles are even more important in unstable times. Anyone can excuse any behavior otherwise. And everyone at OpenAI has alternatives. This isn't choosing between prostitution or drug slinging to pay for baby formula for them. It is "how early can I retire" - and the answer should be later if it crosses boundaries. The ends do not justify the means.


What’s the last principled thing you did? Drive less to save the environment?

Easy to point fingers, harder to practice what you preach.

I know, this isn’t about you but then again it’s not about this one person who resigned either nor the employees of openai nor about anyone else.

I’ve provide an alternative PoV for why folks might not quit their jobs for their principles. Each to their own.


> What’s the last principled thing you did?

Leaving a job for one that paid 3x less. And they weren't making automated killing machines (at least at the time, who knows now).

> Easy to point fingers, harder to practice what you preach.

Quite easy to practice what you preach, if you indeed have principles.

99% of people with families and mortgages manage to do so without OpenAI comp packages. It's a meaningless excuse, completely irrelevant.


I agree with you on non judgement but would push back - if you'll violate your principles for a cush job, they aren't really principles you have.


Even though I strongly agree with the other person about reasons why people wouldn't leave...

I agree even strongly with what you just said: "if you'll violate your principles for a cush job, they aren't really principles you have."

The reality is, I don't think people really understand what a deeply held principle is. It's often a non-negotiable.


And then sometimes you have to question your principles and perhaps let them go. This can happen, for example, when children grow up and become adults. Their parents _should_ do a lot of letting go.

Perhaps folks involved with electronic devices are too used to a black & white decision world. Computer says no or computer says yes, there is no maybe. The real world of principles, morals, emotions, humans etc is filled with maybes and that can become hard to navigate for computers.


Agreed. But in that case, it's no longer a principle because, as you said, it's been let go.

The point above was about prioritizing something above the principle one still keeps.

I work in marketing, nothing black and white about it.


Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: