Some dweeb:

I would recommend “Consider Phlebas” by Iain Banks, which is part of the Culture series of novels. Very formative for me, and I read that while I was writing Theme Park. And I still think it’s the best depiction of a post-A.G.I. future, an optimistic post-A.G.I. future, where we’re traveling the stars and humanity reached its full flourishing.

The protagonist of Consider Phlebas is working for the Culture's enemies, a theocratic empire that has slaves literally bred for loyalty, and the conflict they're engaged in ultimately kills billions of sentient beings. Most of the thoughts about the Culture are his, and he basically decries them as the ultimate wokesters. No wonder HN nerds prefer The Player of Games in which a smart nerd like themselves get recruited as an agent to bring down an empire a bit like our own by being really really good at games.

A hackernews doesn't think that LLMs will replace software engineers, but they will replace structural engineers:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43317725

The irony is that most structural engineers are actually de jure professionals, and an easy way for them to both protect their jobs and ensure future buildings don't crumble to dust or are constructed without sprinkler systems is to simply ban LLMs from being used. No such protection exists for software engineers.

Edit the LW post under discussion makes a ton of good points, to the level of being worthy of posting to this forum, and then nails its colors to the mast with this idiocy

At some unknown point – probably in 2030s, possibly tomorrow (but likely not tomorrow) – someone will figure out a different approach to AI. Maybe a slight tweak to the LLM architecture, maybe a completely novel neurosymbolic approach. Maybe it will happen in a major AGI lab, maybe in some new startup. By default, everyone will die in <1 year after that.

Gotta reaffirm the dogma!

Assuming the company will last 5 years is awfully optimistic.

"Our righteous warriors are only supposed to kill brown people and women, not captains of industry!!"

This shitshow brought all the tankies to the yard in lobste.rs too:

https://lobste.rs/s/ewofl9/several_russian_developers_lose_kernel

I especially like the dude relitigating the Continuation War from the orthodox Russian historiographical position that the Second World War started on 22 Jun 1941:

https://lobste.rs/s/ewofl9/several_russian_developers_lose_kernel#c_h7ecjy

Edit I wondered about the curious term "genocide-siege" and lo and behold, reading the Wiki page on the Siege I found this nugget

On 18 March 2024, the Russian foreign ministry issued a statement via TASS to the German foreign ministry saying that the siege of Leningrad was a genocide.

The Bookseller: Penguin Random House underscores copyright protection in AI rebuff

Penguin Random House (PRH) has amended its copyright wording across all imprints globally, confirming it will appear “in imprint pages across our markets”. The new wording states: “No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems”, and will be included in all new titles and any backlist titles that are reprinted.

Now that the content mafia has realized GenAI isn't gonna let them get rid of all the expensive and troublesome human talent. it's time to give Big AI a wedgie.

This landed on HN like a dead fish: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41722985

Another submission with what looks like a lot more positive spin got more reaction: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41726603

Edit choice comment from the latter

If you assume that the costs of inference would continue to decrease while they would be able to get billion people hooked on 42 per dollar plan..

That’s $0.5 trillion revenue rate

A billion people. Paying the equivalent of a premium streaming service. For something that can't even generate pr0n.

Color me skeptical.

Wow, that entire article is so interesting. To be honest, I'm slowly coming around to cheering for people with low incomes in developing countries destroying Facebook.

I Left My Blogger's Life To Become An S-Rank Rationalist Cult Leader In A Bay Area Group House

Yeah these people have found their weird PR niche. There's nothing separating these people from other rich white Americans who can also comfortably provide for ~3 kids with good schooling and higher education. The real pronatalists are the scary Quiverful people who are a lot more numerous but are also religious fundies. There's no way the Collinses can compete with them because that subculture already believes around 90% of what they believe but are more effective at spreading their memes.

A well-respected terminal emulator for the Mac decides to slather on AI sauce, and most users are not happy. But there are others who are outraged that slathering AI sauce onto a product is even seen as a negative. Let's take a break from HN to take a look at the tortured souls on lobste.rs who won't let this aggression stand, man:

https://lobste.rs/s/7aglnr/psa_iterm2_now_has_chatgpt_integration

archive link in case mods decide to nuke it

Personal favs:

This is the sort of hatred and resentment that is uncomfortable to see on a public forum.

Hi, this is the internet, you must be new here.

I’m mostly checked out of here as a result until the mods get it under control.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Edit as a bonus, here's the HN discussion. Same situaton there, the promptfondlers are surprised everyone is mad

I reacted to that too, "no need to be an overt WN now that society accepts us!" but I think that's partly bravado.

For example, he loves Twitter now but Elon still hasn't given his account back...