I think the issue is not wether it’s sentient or not, it’s how much agency you give it to control stuff.

Even before the AI craze this was an issue. Imagine if you were to create an automatic turret that kills living beings on sight, you would have to make sure you add a kill switch or you yourself wouldn’t be able to turn it off anymore without getting shot.

The scary part is that the more complex and adaptive these systems become, the more difficult it can be to stop them once they are in autonomous mode. I think large language models are just another step in that complexity.

An atomic bomb doesn’t pass a Turing test, but it’s a fucking scary thing nonetheless.

I think they were joking. As in actually submitting bugs (adding bugs to the code).

I can’t really pinpoint why, but I barfed a little after seeing that video.

I agreed with you up until your last paragraph: that is some serious exaggerating. Never did the original commenter say that the solution was to kill all Palestinians.

I don’t agree with their view that eradicating Hamas followed by a temporary occupation by Israël will magically help the Palestinian people, but reducing an opposing viewpoint to a literal Nazi isn’t going to help or convince anyone.

Maybe give it a go if you haven’t yet? I’m also not a fan of web apps and prefer native applications, but it runs really well and is super impressive!

This looks insanely cool!

Haha as a Belgian this comment is hilarious. Like we’re all scrambling for ways to kill each other here without our poor guns.

The headline feels a bit alarmist to me. The article itself is a bit better and more nuanced, but still I feel they are putting way to much drama around this device while almost all these issues already exist as small slabs of electronics that we wear all the time. Combined with smartwatches, smartphones do almost all the spying that is described here and add some GPS tracking wherever you go.

This is not to say that this is not a big issue, merely that this issue is not related to this new device. And also I believe Apple is in fact the only big tech provider that actually tries to be somewhat privacy conscious (Google and Microsoft don’t give damn).

That would be “Free as in Freedom”!

I think he makes the mistake of assuming that every person has a similar life experience to his own. I’ve read his biography, and apparently he was extremely intelligent and acted like an adult from a very young age. It could be that he hated being seen as a child and saw himself as a fully functional adult in a transitioning body.

In everything he says and does there is an extreme single-mindedness: his extremely strict free software and privacy related ideas show this. I think he applies a similar single-mindedness to a clearly nuanced situation, namely that of conscent. The nuance of power dynamics and coercion probably don’t play a role in his experience and therefore he ignores it. This results in the very wrong and dangerous opinions stated in the article.

I am not saying this to excuse any of his opinions, this is just my interpretation of where it might come from. It’s sad that the people around him are seemingly unable to educate him on these topics, but I believe it might be the same stubbornness that made him the proponent of the Free Software movement that is causing him to not mentally grow on this specific topic. It’s a truly unfortunate situation, but one that should not be ignored and people who oppose him because of these opinions are right to do so.

I’m glad you bring up the power imbalance. The “both sides have been doing horrible stuff” only works if both sides have equal footing, which they clearly do not. This does not negate the crimes commited by Hamas, but extremism doesn’t come from nowhere and Israël has a responsibility in that.

This is extremely well put, especially the penultimate paragraph! Thank you for taking the time to put this in words.

There is indeed no moral equivalence, but where does it come from?

This culture of extreme jihadist violence is not something that suddenly came to being.

He talks as if both sides are equal, except in the way they commit warcrimes, but that is not true. One is a massive state that has money and military power that eclipses that of the other. The other is a country that has been losing land, homes and dignity with every passing year.

Being disgusted by warcrimes is the privilege of an army that is able to still do war without commiting them. With the massive power imbalance comes a genuine desensitization of the underdog to violence, as they feel no other way to fight and have a chance at winning or making a difference.

I feel like the author is choosing exactly what part to compare in both groups (the morality of their war tactics) while silently hoping that the reader forgets any other differences between the two parties.

I totally agree. What we perceive around us is the reality we are trying to understand. A simulation is by definition a copy or simplified version of something occuring in reality. Describing our reality as a simulation is just meaningless, as it just somehow moves the definition of reality as “something above or beyond what we can experience”. That is not useful and makes me think of flying spaghetti monster stuff.

Just look at issues in software you use.

Start with a simple project. Clone the code and try to build it (this is already a very big step in software development, so don’t be angry with yourself if it takes a while). Poke around in the code, change some stuff, get a feel for the architecture. Then see if there is an issue that you could help with. Ask questions on the projects communication channel(s). Most developers will be kind if you ask for help or advice.

Good luck! 🤞

But won’t those criminals always find another way of communicating? If you’re doing something illegal, it’s worth it to you to go through some hoops to have safe and private communication. All this does is remove that option from less tech literate people.

I agree, but even further: those articles should be open to begin with :)

Well, for me it was a bit to focused on visual programming, as I actually do know quite some programming languages and feel more comfortable with a full language.

But it has great tutorials, everything you create is yours, the full engine is Foss and it is very capable. I think it is the ideal engine for beginners, I remember thinking that I wished it was around when I was just starting out :).

The only paid stuff is if you want to use their online services (for hosting your game or leaderboards) and some assets are also for sale I guess (but this is the same in almost any other engine, e.g. unity asset store or Unreal). So no paywall in my opinion, again, the full engine is MIT licensed.

GDevelop fits your question 100% in my opinion.

Do you know any old people? Lots of them still have joyful and valuable lives. Also, quit talking about people in terms of “usefulness”. Sick people aren’t “useful”, disabled people aren’t “useful”, but they most certainly have a fucking right to live.

I agree that artificially keeping a person alive while they no longer have any joy or value in their lives might be wrong, but this is a very difficult assertion to make and is certainty a lot more complex than your “just kill everyone at 65”.

Also, the problem is not population, it’s how consumer focused our society is, constantly throwing away sustainable and ecological solutions for the sake of more profit.