effingjoe

That’s why I said it’s more expensive, but large companies can make it up in volume. The extra expense only makes sense if you can take advantage of the E.G. increased transport capacity provided.

Isn't this functionally the same thing? What happens to smaller companies in this hypothetical? Are you not assuming that they get pushed out of the market shortly thereafter?

You’re assuming that LLMs can ever be made accurate. I think you might be able to make them somewhat more accurate, but you’ll never be able to trust their output implicitly.

I am assuming this. I am assuming that we're at the bottom of this technology's sigmoid curve, there is going to be a ton of growth in a relatively short amount of time. I guess we'll have to wait to see which one of us has a better prediction.

As a programmer I am absolutely not worried in the slightest that LLMs are coming for my job. I’ve seen LLM produced programs, they’re an absolute trash fire, most of them won’t even compile let alone produce correct output. LLMs might be coming for really really bad programmers jobs, but anyone with even a shred of talent has nothing to worry about.

You have described the state of LLMs right now. Programming languages seem like a perfect fit for a LLM; they're extremely structured and meticulously (well, mostly) defined. The concepts and algorithms used not overly complex for a LLM. There doesn't need to be much in the way of novel creativity create solutions for standard use cases. The biggest difficulty I've seen is just getting the prompting clear enough. I think a majority of the software engineering field is on the chopping block, just like the "art for hire" crowd. People pushing the limits of the fields will be safe but that's a catch 22, isn't it? If low-level entry is impossible, how does one get to be a high-level professional?

And even if we take your [implied] stance that this is the top of the S-curve and LLMs aren't going to get much better-- it will still be a useful tool for human programmers to increase productivity and reduce available jobs.

if we don’t adopt UBI, universal healthcare, and some amount of subsidized housing

This has been my stance for years. Automation is coming for all of us. The only reason LLMs are so controversial is that everyone in power assumed automation was coming for the blue collar jobs first, and now that it looks like white collar and creative jobs are on the chopping block, suddenly it's important to protect people's jobs from automation, put in safety nets, etc, etc.

Forgive my cynicism. haha

This feels like wishful thinking. Any automated system (cars, LLMs, etc) only need to be better than a human doing that job. Your example, for, um, example, ignores that self-driving trucks don't need to take sleep breaks, or bathroom breaks, or spend time with their families, etc.

Using the assumption that this is the bottom of the curve for this LLM technology and that we still have a lot of expansion in the tech coming in a relatively short amount of time, then I would guess that any job that makes art that is "work for hire" will cease to exist, and I imagine programming is going to take a pretty big hit in available jobs. I don't think you'll be able to get rid of human programmers altogether, but you'll need way fewer of them.

You shouldn't trust ChatGPT for that, but your company could definitely spin up their own LLM and then we're back at the problem.

I don't buy this. I am a cis, white, middle-class male. Should I vote only for my best interests, or should I take a wider view, and vote even if it will personally disadvantage me?

Voting against one's own best interests is not brainwashing, necessarily.

And this is still within my first point. They are definitely voting against their best interests, but it could just be that they find this an acceptable trade off to getting something else they want-- like more codified religion in the law, or bringing back the good ol' days (/s) of overt racism.

The point is that "they're brainwashed" is a cop out. And, not for nothing, a corollary to them being brainwashed is that they are not responsible for their actions, isn't it?

While I understand the urge to come to this conclusion, it's a simpler hypothesis that they just like the policies these people have pushed for, so much so that they disregard all the negatives that seem to be connected to Republican control (lower life expectancy, ineffective government programs[^1], lower standard of living, etc. You might call it "brainwashing" but that term in this context is too vague; they could claim we are also brainwashed with the same amount of accuracy.

Also, while it isn't your point, this would be a reason they keep getting voted in-- not a reason they run unopposed.

[1] This may be seen as a good thing, for some of them.

Because people keep voting for them, or they simply run unopposed.

It's to be expected for Christians (et al); a vast majority have been taught at a young age that the perfect society is one where a benevolent god makes all the decisions and you just shut up and do as you're told. It was never The People's Republic of Heaven; it's the Kingdom of Heaven.

You wouldn't happen to be a white, cis, male, would you? I ask because you seem to have a somewhat abstract concept of what politics is.

My point is that you shouldn't have made that comment at all. What purpose did it serve? You are aware that many people do take collective responsibility for their country, right? You would agree that if one is to take pride in the good, they should also shoulder responsibility for the bad, right? You are aware that when someone uses the collective "we", especially in the context of criticizing a country, that they may not (and are probably not) including their own personal stance in that comment, right?

You were trolling. The new question is: why? Are you so emotionally attached to the Marshall Plan being seen as an overall good thing that you needed to lash out? I don't get it. In fact, the only non-troll reason I see is that you do take credit for the good but refuse to take responsibility for the bad.

And since we're obviously belaboring this point: If not the individual citizen's responsibility, whose is it? Do you believe "every vote matters", or not? Do you believe in "of the people, by the people, for the people"? You may not feel comfortable taking pride in any national accomplishments, and that's fine-- I'm not sure there are even many in which to take pride-- but we all have a say in how society conducts itself and when it conducts itself badly, that is a failing for all of us. And if I'm being blunt, it has the same general feeling of some white man first learning about white male privilege and saying "You must be talking about yourself; I wasn't privileged!"

Well, first off, you should have never made the dig about "speaking for yourself". Unless, of course, you just didn't know what I meant or what we were talking about, which clearly you did. You may disagree with whether it's correct to have national pride, but in a comment where I was replying to someone who did suggest they had national pride, your remark is borderline trolling, and it is what caused by misunderstanding at your actual point.

I see from the link you provided that you're a mod of this community. Behave better, lest we end up right back where we were with Reddit.

Your entire discussion seems milquetoast at this point. You didn't mean this, you didn't say that. Even here you send mixed messages-- is "lacking harm" something to be proud of? You say: "honestly, yeah".

I think you're just wasting my time at this point.