Ok, techbro lmao. Crypto using more fossil fuels in 2020 than AI will three years from now is a heck of a hill to die on.

So any other fiat currency not your own is not real?

No, any currency that is not widely accepted and is not able to be used to pay for necessities is not a real currency. Fiat currency is government issued. Crypto is in no way a fiat currency.

If you end up with “real” money, where’s the scam?

Let’s see… extreme volatility, lack of regulation, lack of consumer protection, the fact that many ICO’s have turned out to be scams really points to crypto being a scam. Not to mention that whatever profit you think you made in no way offsets the damage to the Earth from using more non-renewable energy than even AI (which is saying A LOT).

Got evidence to support that? Sure, you can also confirm with 30 seconds of Duck Duck Go.

Bitcoin- 173.42 terawatt-hours used in 2020-2021. It has increased since then.

UN Study: https://unu.edu/press-release/un-study-reveals-hidden-environmental-impacts-bitcoin-carbon-not-only-harmful-product

AI is estimated to ramp up to using 134 terawatt-hours by 2027. This means they use much less than that now, and are estimated to be below 2020’s bitcoin power consumption after ramping up for 3 more years.

Study, paywalled but with sources listed:

https://www.cell.com/joule/abstract/S2542-4351(23)00365-3?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2542435123003653%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

Bitcoin also uses over 60% non-renewable resources compared to AI which much more heavily leans into renewable in data centers. It’s not even a contest, crypto is extremely bad for the environment.

Oh, are you talking about the insanely high non-renewable energy used to mine coin and distribute, which is way beyond even AI?

Because I think it’s pretty evident that the coin halving heavily impacts our environment as it now takes twice as much energy to create the same value.

Actually giving a shit about the Earth 101 for ya.

Ah, making a mistake is spouting misinformation. I see you love hyperbole! I’ll be sure to tell my high school students when they get quiz question wrong their answers are misinformation because they didn’t study. See, I like hyperbole, too

If I can’t buy groceries, pay rent or medical bills with it, it’s in not a real currency. If I can’t bail myself out with it, it’s not a real currency. But sure, somehow paying money to get faux money that can’t really practically pay for my needs, and then needs to be reconverted to real currency to take care of my needs is somehow not a scam.

Also, I’m sure you’re super cool with the insane non-renewable energy cost of bitcoin mining and distribution. It far outweighs the energy cost of AI that everyone is complaining about.

Ah, so the people creating essentially get paid half for the same amount of work. That’s WAY better lol. Yeah, I’m not super into knowing so much about faux currency. I tend to deal with the real kind. So please pardon my mistake 🙏

What, you mean I read a headline and repeated it in the wrong context? Damnit. I totally should have wasted 20 minutes reading further about a faux currency that I can’t even buy groceries with

I mean, I don’t think accepting crypto would make or break any organization beyond a niche mom and pop operation. If they would die without accepting crypto, they are likely not going to be saved by it. I doubt there are many people, especially in the USA, who would or could only donate via that option.

In my personal opinion, crypto IS a scam and every organization would be best served dealing in real currency.

Probably because the overwhelming majority of people see crypto as a scam, and the market share for its use is trivial and better facilitated by actual currency. As well, it’s extremely volatile and the flagship coin recently halfed itself. It’s probably one of the worst things a company can accept in exchange for goods or services.

Thanks for clarifying. Cool project! I’ve been looking for a guilt free LLM that sourced its training data in an ethical way. Tell me if I’m way off base, but I take it your app is to the LLMs similar to how the Ice Cubes is an interface for the fediverse. Nice!

I wish you well with your project. If any of the models you work with fit what I’m looking for, or you know of any such models please let me know!

Sounds interesting! May I ask where the data used to train came from?

Implementing a better system would effectively abolish copyright, but I’m pretty sure most people agree with your sentiment.

I’m an edge case where I don’t believe ideas/land/medicine/stars etc can’t or shouldn’t be “owned” by any one entity. It’s not feasible to expect it in practice, of course. But humans love to carve things up and arbitrarily assert ownership. Some traditional Native American ideas on this are the closest to what I’m chipping away at.

Stalking is always a crime, and has a specific legal definition. For the federal level in the US per 18 U.S.C. § 2261A:

The statute specifies that it is illegal to engage in conduct with the intent to kill, injure, harass, intimidate, or place under surveillance with the intent to kill, injure, harass, or intimidate another person, where such conduct:

Places that person in reasonable fear of the death of, or serious bodily injury to: That person;

An immediate family member;

A spouse or intimate partner of that person; or

A pet, service animal, emotional support animal, or horse of that person; or

Causes, attempts to cause, or would be reasonably expected to cause substantial emotional distress to: That person;

An immediate family member;

A spouse or intimate partner of that person; or

A pet, service animal, emotional support animal, or horse of that person.

Scrolling through their social media is not stalking, unless you plan to harass or harm the person.

Copyright sure was useful for all the artists who had their creations scraped from the “open web,” huh (I am in this bucket). It would literally bankrupt me to enforce it.

Copyright only serves the wealthy, and rarely if ever protects I normal individuals who are well enough off to afford legal remedy. This is due to the cost to enforce, which is beyond most creators and a drop in the bucket for the wealthy. It is intended to and has been updated consistently to do just that.

We need some kind of protection, but historically copyright ain’t it.

Dear FBI guy,

You know I enjoy the fact that when I browse porn, we browse together. I attempt to take you on a journey with it— is it not your flavor? Let me know your preferences and I’ll try to meet you in the middle.

As well, I understand if you’re a little sore that I didn’t tell you the algorithm for the hash. It’s SHA-256. I know you would never give up on me, so likewise never gunna give you up.

I can assure you that everyone who has posted “on a list” publicly is on a list.

I like to make it trickier, and post cryptographic hash’s for my FBI guys to decipher:

03a3b754bc35a4a945f313e8a559d4af1a2f5e7e0f7b586c72f1a49e7e1e2372

This. I use LLM for work, primarily to help create extremely complex nested functions.

I don’t count on LLM’s to create anything new for me, or to provide any data points. I provide the logic, and explain exactly what I want in the end.

I take a process which normally takes 45 minutes daily, test it once, and now I have reclaimed 43 extra minutes of my time each day.

It’s easy and safe to test before I apply it to real data.

It’s missed the mark a few times as I learned how to properly work with it, but now I’m consistently getting good results.

Other use cases are up for debate, but I agree when used properly hallucinations are not much of a problem. When I see people complain about them, that tells me they’re using the tool to generate data, which of course is stupid.

Switching gears to Apple, I had heard of AppleTV but never was aware of the shows. I got it bundled when I switched music apps, and holy shit Ted Lasso and Foundation are amazing. I’m pleasantly surprised with the quality, though it doesn’t have as much content as the other services. But there’s also a lot less bullshit to sift through to find something good.

If you are at all interested, try just a month. You could watch most of the things that interest you in that timeframe most likely.

I’m about a month in and finished out two full series and working on a third.

I switched to Apple Music. It’s not my fav, but the bundle with other apple services made the price right for a family plan.

Twitter was hardly profitable, but Spotify has never posted a profit. In fact, they are more negative in regard to profit every year. Twitter and Spotify are very similar in that their main success is volume, but not profitability.

I have no doubt Spotify could or would sell and get even worse. Just like Twitter.

People use it BECAUSE it was free and feature rich. When they start taking away the latter to bolster the former, you’ll see a migration to the next best free, feature rich service. I quit Spotify 4 months ago, and I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything.