What you confuse here is doing something that can benefit from applying logical thinking with doing science.

I’m not confusing that. Effective programming requires and consists of small scale application of the scientific method to the systems you work with.

the argument has become “but it seems to be thinking to me”

I wasn’t making that argument so I don’t know what you’re getting at with this. For the purposes of this discussion I think it doesn’t matter at all how it was written or whether what wrote it is truly intelligent, the important thing is the code that is the end result, whether it does what it is intended to and nothing harmful, and whether the programmer working with it is able to accurately determine if it does what it is intended to.

The central point of it is that, by the very nature of LKMs to produce statistically plausible output, self-experimenting with them subjects one to very strong psychological biases because of the Barnum effect and therefore it is, first, not even possible to assess their usefulness for programming by self-exoerimentation(!) , and second, it is even harmful because these effects lead to self-reinforcing and harmful beliefs.

I feel like “not even possible to assess their usefulness for programming by self-exoerimentation(!)” is necessarily a claim that reading and testing code is something no one can do, which is absurd. If the output is often correct, then the means of creating it is likely useful, and you can tell if the output is correct by evaluating it in the same way you evaluate any computer program, without needing to directly evaluate the LLM itself. It should be obvious that this is a possible thing to do. Saying not to do it seems kind of like some “don’t look up” stuff.

Are you saying that it is not possible to use scientific methods to systematically and objectively compare programming tools and methods?

No, I’m saying the opposite, and I’m offended at what the author seems to be suggesting, that this should only be attempted by academics, and that programmers should only defer to them and refrain from attempting this to inform their own work and what tools will be useful to them. An absolutely insane idea given that the task of systematic evaluation and seeking greater objectivity is at the core of what programmers do. A programmer should obviously be using their experience writing and testing both typing systems to decide which is right for their project, they should not assume they are incapable of objective judgment and defer their thinking to computer science researchers who don’t directly deal with the same things they do and aren’t considering the same questions.

This was given as an example of someone falling for manipulative trickery:

A recent example was an experiment by a CloudFlare engineer at using an “AI agent” to build an auth library from scratch.

From the project repository page:

I was an AI skeptic. I thought LLMs were glorified Markov chain generators that didn’t actually understand code and couldn’t produce anything novel. I started this project on a lark, fully expecting the AI to produce terrible code for me to laugh at. And then, uh… the code actually looked pretty good. Not perfect, but I just told the AI to fix things, and it did. I was shocked.

But understanding and testing code is not (necessarily) guesswork. There is no reason to assume this person is incapable of it, and no reason to justify the idea that it should never be attempted by ordinary programmers when that is the main task of programming.

The problem, though, with responding to blog posts like that, as I did here (unfortunately), is that they aren’t made to debate or arrive at a truth, but to reinforce belief. The author is simultaneously putting himself on the record as having hardline opinions and putting himself in the position of having to defend them. Both are very effective at reinforcing those beliefs.

A very useful question to ask yourself when reading anything (fiction, non-fiction, blogs, books, whatever) is “what does the author want to believe is true?”

Because a lot of writing is just as much about the author convincing themselves as it is about them addressing the reader. …

There is no winning in a debate with somebody who is deliberately not paying attention.

This is all also a great argument against the many articles claiming that LLMs are useless for coding, in which the authors all seem to have a very strong bias. I can agree that it’s a very good idea to distrust what people are saying about how programming should be done, including mistrusting claims about how AI can and should be used for it.

We need science #

Our only recourse as a field is the same as with naturopathy: scientific studies by impartial researchers. That takes time, which means we have a responsibility to hold off as research plays out

This on the other hand is pure bullshit. Writing code is itself a process of scientific exploration; you think about what will happen, and then you test it, from different angles, to confirm or falsify your assumptions. The author seems to be saying that both evaluating correctness of LLM output and the use of Typescript is comparable to falling for homeopathy by misattributing the cause of recovering from illness. The idea that programmers should not use their own judgment or do their own experimentation, that they have no way of telling if code works or is good, to me seems like a wholesale rejection of programming as a craft. If someone is avoiding self experimentation as suggested I don’t know how they can even say that programming is something they do.

What is the reason to make one of these instead of wearing a regular respirator? They mention N95 masks being less comfortable, but this thing looks like the part that straps to your face is basically the same as a respirator. Just instead of filters you have to draw air through there’s a fan, but why do you need the fan?

Sure, if you think to do so before your computer doesn’t work

Lots of Windows machines come with the OS preinstalled but no install media, you will need another computer in that case.

I want an AI that figures out who would be likely to want to hear from me, and prompt me to start a conversation with them. That would be way better than Meta owning an ever increasing share of my attention.

TIL apt isn’t literally the same thing as apt-get

They mentioned Microsoft updating privacy agreements at the same time as other companies, and OP mentioned that the context was a discussion of a Windows ultra-keylogger type of feature, the implication is they’re in on this shit too

afaik 4chan doesn’t really raid other websites like they did years ago, but this other site does.

Well, this is what the relevant part of the video says:

USAGM disbursed $7.5M to these entities, in “what seemed to be an effort to delay the hearing or woo the judge”. Regardless, the latter has sided against USAGM, and just a few days ago, the agency has decided to back off and release the funds for the 2025 fiscal year.

So I guess funds were cut, but then the courts ruled the president doesn’t have authority to do this himself since the funds were allocated by congress, and so as of now they have been restored, although congress needs to approve them every year and there’s concern they might not do so for next year.

That’s a great way to do it, but human attention on your code is a scarce and valuable resource. LLMs are great for the sort of lazy stupid questions where you benefit from a quick answer, but also don’t want to waste someone else’s time on. When you are learning nearly all the questions you’ll have will be like this, your progress is gated on finding the answers, and even if you are taking a class and it’s someone’s job to look at your code and help you understand what’s wrong with it, you have to wait your turn for that and only get so much help.

There was actually one published a few days ago that concluded that it can be effective:

Participants with depression experienced a 51% reduction in symptoms, the best result in the study. Those with anxiety experienced a 31% reduction, and those at risk for eating disorders saw a 19% reduction in concerns about body image and weight.

However the person who did the study shares your concerns:

I asked Heinz if he thinks the results validate the burgeoning industry of AI therapy sites. “Quite the opposite,” he says, cautioning that most don’t appear to train their models on evidence-based practices like cognitive behavioral therapy, and they likely don’t employ a team of trained researchers to monitor interactions. “I have a lot of concerns about the industry and how fast we’re moving without really kind of evaluating this,” he adds.

Also they did another article about difficulties and pitfalls of making these things

Compatibility problems caused by third parties only targeting Windows are still Linux issues for the end user if they become a problem when they use Linux. It isn’t fair but that is the practical reality.

I think they would still try to go for it but yeah that option sounds good to me tbh

I don’t think it’s actually such a bad argument because to reject it you basically have to say that style should fall under copyright protections, at least conditionally, which is absurd and has obvious dystopian implications. This isn’t what copyright was meant for. People want AI banned or inhibited for separate reasons and hope the copyright argument is a path to that, but even if successful wouldn’t actually change much except to make the other large corporations that own most copyright stakeholders of AI systems. That’s not really a better circumstance.

I wonder if it would work to do this, except instead of scamming, gradually substitute your messages with those of another target, so ultimately they get set up with each other for real

Here is another excerpt which is more relevant to more extreme acts of political violence, which is referencing this essay:

So there’s a lot of reasons, only one of which is “uninvolved people clutch their pearls” ie. fear is generated and authoritarians get fed political capital to make things worse. There’s also direct relevance to the point being made in the OP article: its actual impact focuses on media spectacle, in which most participants are reduced to unconnected spectators. This leads to the narrative

After all, that CEO was replaced immediately, they’re still doing the same things, just now a lot of people are having fun posting memes about it, which is cathartic and enjoyable without being difficult or risky or meaningfully improving the situation. It doesn’t put them in a position where they have habits and social relationships that would enable them to actually do anything to help each other or exercise direct political involvement. From the OP article:

But when it comes to addressing the problems we face, no amount of posting or passive info consumption is going to substitute the hard, unsexy work of organizing.

Just remember that violence is so often counterproductive to the point where governments intentionally bait or false flag it as a core part of their strategy to take down activist groups. This article focuses on ways people can organize to help each other, rather than assassinations:

Here in New York City, in the week since the inauguration, I’ve seen large groups mobilize to defend migrants from anticipated ICE raids and provide warm food and winter clothes for the unhoused after the city closed shelters and abandoned people in sub-freezing temperatures. Similar efforts are underway in Chicago, where ICE reportedly arrested more than 100 people, and in other cities where ICE has planned or attempted raids, with volunteers assigned to keep watch over key locations where migrants are most vulnerable.

A few weeks earlier, residents created ad-hoc mutual aid distros in Los Angeles to provide food and essentials for those displaced by the wildfires. The coordinated efforts gave Angelenos a lifeline during the crisis, cutting through the false claims spreading on social media about looting and out-of-state fire trucks being stopped for “emissions testing.”

I’ve been reading a (confusingly named) book, The Anarchist Cookbook, which I think has some strong arguments about this stuff, here is an excerpt:

Solnit’s essay on the Oakland assault on Whole Foods is pertinent here: “This account is by a protestor who also noted in downtown Oakland that day a couple of men with military-style haircuts and brand new clothes put bandanas over their faces and began to smash stuff.” She thinks that infiltrators might have instigated the property destruction, and Copwatch’s posted video seems to document police infiltrators at Occupy Oakland. One way to make the work of provocateurs much more difficult is to be clearly committed to tactics that the state can’t co-opt: nonviolent tactics. If an infiltrator wants to nonviolently blockade or march or take out the garbage, well, that’s useful to us. If an infiltrator sabotages us by recruiting others to commit mayhem, that’s a comment on what such tactics are good for. Solnit quotes Oakland Occupier Sunaura Taylor: “A few people making decisions that affect everyone else is not what revolution looks like; it’s what capitalism looks like.” Peter Marshall’s book on the history of anarchism, Demanding the Impossible, points out that “The word violence comes from the Latin violare and etymologically means violation. Strictly speaking, to act violently means to treat others without respect … A violent revolution is therefore unlikely to bring about any fundamental change in human relations. Given the anarchists’ respect for the sovereignty of the individual, in the long run it is nonviolence and not violence which is implied by anarchist values.”