the people ordering it used are mostly very stupid

We met with my mom's tax preparer a couple of months ago. He wasn't able to get anybody's taxes done on time because his super-expensive tax prep software crashed and burned on him. I told him it was possible (if not probable) that the software had become vibe-coded and his problem was AI. He surprised me by going into raptures of joy over how great AI was. He then told me that he had invested tens of thousands of dollars in some dude who was developing a "reactionless space drive", and that this guy had solved all the problems he was having with it by using ChatGPT. I asked him if the dude had a working prototype and he said no, but it was sure to work now that ChatGPT had fixed it.

I considered explaining to him how LLMs work and what "confidently wrong" meant, but I thought better of it. Now I have to find a new tax preparer for next year.

I really don’t understand this perspective

This is honestly a strange thing to say. The only examples we have on the planet today of what we consider true intelligence are living animals. Why wouldn't it at least be possible that the properties of the signaling units that comprise these existing, observed intelligences (i.e. neurons) are fundamental to the task of replicating these intelligences? It seems to me it's the "statistical methods" that have yet to prove they're capable of producing true intelligence.

I will retreat to the fact that I said "true AI can be achieved by more accurate simulation of how real neurons and real neural networks function" and not "can only be achieved". Time will tell which approach works better.

I don't know who Chollet is but I'll look him up. Thanks for the reference.

I'm no lady! It's a Kids in the Hall reference. And I can't smoke any more because I'm now a school bus driver.

We dream in color, he dreams in red
His name is Fetterman

I'd love to get a sex change. I'll take "none" to "some", thank you very much.

FWIW I always felt my contribution would have been towards "real" AI rather than the current pseudo-AI stuff that is all the rage. In addition to being a programmer, I also have a background in evolutionary biology and neuroanatomy. The "neural networks" that are part of current AI were originally based on the understanding of how neurons function that existed in the 1970s, and they were (and are still) a poor implementation of that level of knowledge. IMHO true AI can be achieved by more accurate simulation of how real neurons and real neural networks function and how they have come about in the real world through hundreds of millions of years of evolution by natural selection.

That being said, "real" AI is probably going to be even worse for humanity than this current stuff is, so at least I'm glad that blood won't be on my hands.

need drugs to help?

Probably so. I also haven't smoked weed since 2021, and I never coded sober.

God damn, is there any bad news at all from yesterday's voting?

Make your own! ThatDudeCanCook on youtube has a great video on making your own kebab meat.

Annie, are you Oakley? Are you Oakley, Annie?

Saudi Arabia let Idi Amin live out the last couple of decades of his life in undeserved peace. Not that there's any kind of link between Saudi Arabia and Republicans ...

I haven't written a line of code since 2019. I have an old iOS project that I want to revive, but I genuinely wonder if I still have the ability to do anything with it. Fortunately, my motivation has tanked even harder than my programming skills.