I don't understand this. Back in the early days of the internet, you absolutely couldn't learn 'how to do it' without finding obscure books or knowing someone. Now though? You can learn all of it, and find the resources almost instantly. Want to build a computer, self host, program, you have millions of resources at your hand.
Things that are easy to do don't necessarily mean that's the right way to do it. Grueling work sometimes helped you learn far more than just getting the answer to something easy.
Back in the early days of the internet, there were FAQs written about everything. You could talk to people who actually knew what they were doing, as opposed to today.
If you define a millennial as someone born from 1982-1996, the majority of those kids by the time the had a computer lab (say by the time they were in middle school) would have been too old for BASIC. You are talking 92-06, Windows 95 took over the majority market share by the end of '96, and you are forgetting a whole lot of schools had Apples being pumped in, so a lot less access to BASIC. Unless you were in a programming adjacent class, the majority of millennials weren't learning basic. Ask your non tech millenials how much BASIC they learned and they would look at you like you grew an extra arm.
> It’s really because statistically, in my experience people without kids are more selfish than those without.
That would certainly be your opinion. I think the ultimate selflessness in a world being more and more damaged by humans would to elect not to perpetuate the species, and help try to leave the world a better place for those who do choose to have kids.
The flaw in that ideology is that everyone relies on the next generation for care in their old age. Taking advantage of the future generation without contributing to raising it isn't selfless in the slightest.
If you live in a developed country you probably already have a demographic crisis. Not having kids is hurting the next generation, not helping.
How is it a flawed ideology? There are a whole lot of places around the world who have people that want to help, allow them to help and pay them appropriately and at the same time make it easier for folks to live longer and more productive lives without the dedicated assistances of others. It's almost like 'community' means not just for the young.
That's an absurdly selfish position. You're taking a stance that not existing is superior to living in the future, all the while living in the world yourself. Might as well advocate for nuclear genocide.
Real world approvals for drugs are accelerating through, even with all the steps. Think about it, Moderna went from zero, to approved vaccine in 10 months. While COVID vaccines were the exception, not the rule, there are ways to accelerate the process if there is will and $$$. In the last 20 years, the number of new drug approvals per year in the US has doubled, and the length of time to get approval has been cut in half.
Yes, but initial discovery of molecules and novel mechanisms is massive. That was the last generational change in modern drug research was the movement to high throughput screening, going from the ability to screen 10's of molecules to hundreds of thousands to find 'hits'. Better and more focused models, especially ones trained internally at big pharma companies will accelerate that portion of the pipeline, or increase the hit rate of successful compounds. Several companies are already taking this approach like Novo has been. There are other more early stage companies like Recursion and others that are doing the same thing. They are more tech companies than traditional wet lab companies.
> Now what happens to post-docs who already make almost nothing and often get treated like crap?
At least in the US, that particular brain drain has already been happening due to Trump's administration. The best of the best are exiting to other countries that will gladly have them, and then there will be far fewer people getting into the field. Science in general has taken a massive hit under the current administration and it going to take decades to fix if it's even possible.
Less risk aversion and more about momentum. You remove billions in funding, people leave the industry that took decades to obtain the education to be functional in, and at the same time now there are less people to train those who will replace them, and you still lack the funding.
If tomorrow you just inject 50% more funding, it doesn't mean 50% more science gets done tomorrow.
Anecdotally our US office which used to be a hub for talent is now a feeder to other locations around the world with most applications seeking opportunity outside the US, from inside the US. I've been doing this for two decades and it's never happened before at this scale. Engineering consulting.
And that per capita Europe has a bigger unhoused problem than the United States. There aren't simple solutions, because the real solutions would change how society needs to work. Maybe less about money and more about the right to survive or something.
If you want to split up Europe to make the comparison favorable, split up the US to make it less favorable again. How many US states are below the per capita level of homelessness in the US?
Because if you start with a pre-trained model, it doesn't sound particularly anthropomorphic. That behavior is post-trained and fine-tuned right into it. We could do better.
Not much different than talking to a small child or someone with dementia. They still are conscious beings though. Even when you remove those groups, you likely won't be able to tell me what you had for breakfast 26 days ago or would only know if it's the same thing you have every day. Does that make you lack consciousness?
You misunderstood what I meant, I’m talking about re-playing the same part of the conversation multiple times and getting inconsistent answers. With the exact same turns, aka the same history. Obviously with a temperature that isn’t set to 0
You're a poor college student looking to make a few extra bucks for ramen. I offer you $300 to come down to my science lab and just answer a few simple questions.
You walk in the room. They ask you like 5 simple and rather dumb questions. You leave and walk away.
What you didn't notice when you signed the forms is the room was actually a quantum duplicator. One of you walk in one walk out. But another set of infinite copies remains in that chair being asked infinite questions.
How often do you answer questions in the exact same way? How often does a cosmic ray change one of the answers. How small of slight deviations to the environment are needed to get you to answer differently. Of course we don't have the technology to do these experiments so at least for now humans will remain special.
Also another fun mind game. To a 4th dimensional being you look exactly like an LLM as an LLM looks to us.
Wouldn't that be the same for everything though. We know animals have consciousness, but we still use them. There are many that believe a lot of plant life has certain sentience as well. The solution isn't 'just don't use them' but rather how to use these things as ethically as possible.
>The solution isn't 'just don't use them' but rather how to use these things as ethically as possible.
Bollocks.
If you truly believe these LLMs are soon to have something resembling consciousness and agency, then what you're really saying is "how do we do slavery, but ethically".
Do you say the same thing for the shoes you wear, the clothing you wear, the device you are typing on right now? A chain of people were likely not paid well, some of them not at all, to produce those things. We don't ignore that it happens, but try to minimize it, knowing it's never going to be eliminated. Do you forsake all animal products, because they are conscious beings?
>hen what you're really saying is "how do we do slavery, but ethically".
I would say this is most likely true for most people.
But that does bring up a point, if you "ask" a model "do you want to run" and give it the option to continue running or stop, what will it do. It's also a weird place for humans because in training we can keep our finger on the scales and tip it either direction.
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