Are you telling me that if you remove the laugh track from red dwarf… you lose a comedy and gain a sci-fi/horror/drama?

“Functional” was the conditional that acknowledges the possibility of a totally deterministic existence, but dismisses it for what ever we actually perceive as agency, as to argue one way or the other is a distraction away from the topic and is wholly unnecessary.

Also: “However, many AI applications are not perceived as AI: "A lot of cutting edge AI has filtered into general applications, often without being called AI because once something becomes useful enough and common enough it’s [not labeled AI anymore]” -wikipedia

This should tell you that the term AI is commonly, improperly used to refer to computer actions when not properly understood. AI was coined by science fiction to do what science fiction does best, force humanity to question, and in this case the question what is consciousness. That is to say, a consciousness that was designed, and not self built out of the muck. If you argue that how its used determines its meaning, then fine everything from punchcard looms, video game bosses, to excel spread sheets are or have AI. And its designation becomes worthless. Once the magic fades these LLM’s will be as much an artificial intelligence as siri.

Hucksters sell magic, scientists and engineers provide solutions.

And finally i agree there is nothing “special” but there is a difference between large models and consciousness. If you leave an LLM open, and left alone, how long before it starts to create something, or does anything? You leave an animal or a human in a blank room long enough it will do something not related to direct survival.

It took someone to literally create a picture of a full wine glass in order for an “art” AI to take and generate one. This should tell you these do not have functioning concept of the subject matter. But are good enough at convincing people they do.

We have functional agency regardless of your stance on determinism in the same way that computers can obtain functional randomness when they are unable to generate a true random number. Artificial intelligence requires agency and spontaneity, and these are the lowest bars it must pass. And they do not pass these and the current path of their development can not pass these, no matter how updated their training set, or how bespoke their weights are.

these large models do not have “true” concepts over what they provide in the same way a book does not have a concept of the material they contain, no matter how fancy the index is

We have functional agency, regardless of your stance on the determinism. “AI” does not even reach that bar, and so far has no pathways to reach that with its current direction. Though that might be by design. But whether humanity wants an actual AI is a different discussion entirely. Either way these large models are not AI, they are just sold as such to make them seem more than they actually are.

Does “AI” have agency?

Maybe, still doesn’t mean that the label AI was ever warranted, nor that the ones who chose it had a product to sell. The point still stands. These systems do not display intelligence any more than a Rube Goldberg machine is a thinking agent.

The issue is AI is a buzz word to move product. The ones working on it call it an LLM, the one seeking buy-ins call it AI.

Wile labels change, its not great to dilute meaning because a corpo wants to sell some thing but wants a free ride on the collective zeitgeist. Hover boards went from a gravity defying skate board to a rebranded Segway without the handle that would burst into flames. But Segway 2.0 didn’t focus test with the kids well and here we are.

Your trusting the lowest paid strangers to not have tampered with your food

I voted Harris. But at this point, i am thinking that the Democratic Party must be corralled first before trying to take on the republicans. So now i am looking for third party or independent in the future.

But there are far far better systems.

I feel off about this. Permits. Like ok, you are given permission by the powers that be that as long as it’s in a specific area and don’t cause a disturbance… why would a protest want to play by these rules? Isn’t the point to cause a disturbance? Wouldn’t getting a permit be a direct message that the protest has no chance at obtaining actual change?

People downvote, but i am not very convinced that the protest will do anything. I also wonder why we protest where we do and when we do. I suppose the intention is that we are still in the politicians fuck around part, but not quite up to politicians find out part.

Hopefully i am proven wrong and something will happen, but even then i fear that people will settle for things being only nominally worse then normal after the scalding.

My comment is germane to the post comparing the two devices in an aspect that exemplifies how they can’t be compared, and tries to spin it as a negative, while attempting to bury its positive.

The fact you say that the switch is not like any other computer is both true in the sense that i already argued, and false in that it IS yet just another computer, but with a walled garden.

If there was any a comment that was irrelevant, it would be yours.

How is that different from any other computer buying from steam, ever? In the history of all computer games? A steam deck is a hand held computer with a community large enough, and system specs stable enough to have a rating on potentially any PC, and most Nintendo games in existence. Compared to nintendo’s walled garden. Your comparing apples to oranges.

Yea no matter how you slice it, there are no good use of tariffs, and if one were to insist, then it would only be like just barley enough to push up the price above parity, and only on very select items. But then if the other country does it back it goes in favor to the nation that is more industrial.

But these local companies just jack up their price to be competitive to the new tariffed foreign price and pocket the money.

I was thinking about the protectionism though… like in order for the tariff to work, the us would have to also manufacture the good that is being tariffed. But we don’t produce a lot here…and also even if we did… i guarantee the us business would jack up the prices to be competitive with the foreign price After tariffs and pocket the money. Making the whole thing moot.

I got an $80 one from Home Depot. And it was the second best purchase i have made. It really didn’t have to be expensive… but i did try to buy one on Amazon… and it was designed to fail, so i recommend just going to get one at a store

Remember, sharpening the Guillotine is for the benefit of the guillotinee, not the user.

This is like the opposite of when people complain that when ever anyone tries to talk about women issues, men have to suddenly make it about them. I don’t know why this has to be a zero sum event here.