The only time I’ve had an extended “conversation” with an LLM was when I was trying to get DeepSeek to talk about Taiwan’s independence. At no point did it ever feel like I was talking to a human. It felt a lot more like I was “hacking” it than I was chatting with it.
It’s sad that there are humans so starved for human contact that they’ll talk to an LLM as if it were a person. But, it’s even more sad that there are people who can’t distinguish the slop an LLM puts out from things a human says.
The AI in Her was able to pass as a full person. But, what we’re seeing now is that humans are not good at understanding the difference between a real person and a program designed to simulate a human.
IMO it’s like the mirror test which is designed to see if an animal recognizes itself in the mirror, or thinks it’s another animal. The LLM breakthrough is basically that we can now have a computer program that is in no way intelligent or self-aware, but it is able to simulate those things well enough to fool many / most humans.
There is no reason for it except for the mindset that perpetuates that we can’t
Theoretically every human could just cooperate too, but that’s not how humans work. Humans are animals and a lot of society exists to suppress and channel animal behaviours.
We should try, bit by bit, to get to a post-scarcity society, but we should also acknowledge it’s going to be hard and take a long time.
Give it a rest dude, go touch some grass.
But, why choose that image to go with that text?
Snow plows for roads exist and often just run and run and run to keep roads open.
Which is very expensive, but necessary because of the shitty climate. What’s your point?
Give it a rest dude, go touch some grass.
Nah, they’d never name an app after the act of speaking ineptly in a stuttering and faltering manner. The real app must be “Humble” or “Humble Bundle” or something.
You’re an electromagnet?
Now imagine if there was some way a government could take a percentage of that and put it towards improving society as a whole.
Yes, some form of “giving pledge” where the amount was standardized and there was no option to back out. Radical thinking here.
… and that’s why I joined ICE.
(Seriously, why is the image some guy wearing a face mask?)
Don’t lie to me, c’mon.
I’m not lying. I’m picking a well known person who isn’t famous because of their art, but whose art is often shown on the Internet. I’ll grant you that the art is often shown for shock value, but I’m not trying to “use him to disgust”. I’m merely making the point that if you talk about how much “buzz” an artist’s work gets, he’s going to be right near the top.
Either, Hitler is talked about quite often, in which case, yeah, he’s more significant than Picasso
Hitler is definitely discussed more often than Picasso. I’d even say that Hitler’s art is discussed more often than Picasso’s art. It may be for shock value, but again, if you’re using “this person’s art is talked about often” as an indicator for how relevant their art is, then he’s going to be in the conversation.
Or, he isn’t, because nobody gives a shit about his stupid castle paintings,
People don’t give a shit about his castle paintings as paintings in themselves. That’s the point I’m making. They’re not talking about his art because his art is worth talking about. But they’re talking about his art because of who he is. If what matters is how often an artist’s art is discussed, then his art is important. I don’t think it should be, but those are the rules that are being suggested.
People talk about him, they don’t talk about his art
They talk about him and they talk about his art:
https://old.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/pm0rxq/nice_painting_though/
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-just-enjoyed-one-of-hitlers-artworks
https://www.tumblr.com/cleanmemes/56159658268
Hitler is very important: Sure. He is. Now what?
I dunno, you’ve decided he’s important. Now I guess you go discuss his art? I’m having no part in it though.
Ooh, wheat! Great. What about fruits? They’re important for a balanced diet.
It turns out that Canada imports 50% of its vegetables and 75% of its fruit.
But do go on, tell me how Canada’s climate isn’t limiting in what it can produce domestically.
The video says that there were more than 500,000 bike share trips in Toronto in the winter months. Let’s be conservative and say that “the winter months” are just December, January and February. The reality is that there’s ice on the ground until May pretty often, but let’s just pretend it’s 500,000 trips in 3 months to make the numbers seem as big as possible.
Is that big? Not really, 500,000 trips in 3 months is 167,000 trips per month. Meanwhile in the summer it’s 1 million trips per month. So, cycling drops by a factor of at least 6 in the winter. That’s massive.
And yes, I’ve watched that Not Just Bikes video. It makes the point that in order for people to bike in the winter, you need massive infrastructure that Canada refuses to spend on. The city in question in the video, Oulu, makes it a priority to clear the bike routes within 3 hours of a 2 cm snowfall. Theoretically could that be done in every rich city in the world? Sure. Is it realistic it will ever happen anywhere in Canada? Doubtful.
I stand by what I said, “winter is a major factor”. Do you have any idea how much it would cost to commit to clearing all the bike routes within 3 hours of a 2 cm snowfall? You could argue that the cost is worth it, and that the cost is smaller than doing similar things for cars, but it remains a major factor.
Besides, it wouldn’t even make sense to have snow clearing like Oulu unless they first built a dedicated bike network for the city. There’s no point in just clearing the “bike lanes” which are just a tiny strip of pavement next to the gutter.
Canadian cities aren’t doing enough to build mass transit and bike lanes. But, even if they did, the weather sucks in the winter. And Oulu, is colder than Toronto. But it’s slightly warmer than Ottawa and Montreal, and significantly warmer than Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary. So, even if you replicated all the bike lanes from Oulu, committed to clearing the snow as quickly as they do in Oulu and made cars and fuel as expensive as they are in Europe, Canada would probably have nowhere near the number of winter bikers as Oulu per capita. Canada is much colder, cities are designed around cars, and people have “car brain”.
It’s about the meaning behind the art
How do you determine the meaning behind the art? Who gets to determine that?
You are making a fundamental mistake: that art is venerable by nature. I.e., if it is not venerable, it is not art.
Anything can be art, but most things are not good art. I’m not interested in wasting my time with bad art. A badly made movie is art, but everything is art, so what does it matter?
The nazis were not good artists.
The Nazis were effective artists. Just look at their rallies. Their aesthetic was ideal for what they were trying to achieve. It’s not the sort of thing I’d want around my house. But, the Germans were coming out of a time when they had been defeated in WWI and then humiliated by having to make reparations to the French. Their style was “we’re powerful, manly men”, which appealed to people as a contrast to the humiliation of post-war Germany.
You keep bringing Hitler up in an obvious attempt to disgust
I’m not trying to use him to disgust. I’m just pointing out that if the frequency with which art is discussed is important, then he’s an important artist. I think if you focus just on the paint on the canvas, he was not at all important. He doesn’t seem particularly skilled, and he didn’t seem to do anything interesting or new.
Does “importance” come with a trophy or something?
If you consider “whose art should we study?” to be a trophy, then I suppose it does. I’m sure that question gets asked pretty often, and I think if your answer is Hitler, or Jim Carey, or Ringo Starr, you’re not making good use of your time.
Hey, if you want to focus on the biography of the artists, and everything that isn’t on the canvas, you can do that. I think the focus should be on what’s on the canvas, and how that makes someone think and feel.
Your way seems to be proto-influencer culture, where someone is famous for being famous, and being famous means their work is more important.
Also, some things haven’t changed, but should have.
Yeah, the kitchen smells the same, mom’s laugh is the same, dad’s still using the same chipped mug.
But, dad’s prejudices haven’t changed, they’ve only calcified a bit more. Mom’s learned helplessness has only gotten worse. The old disagreements never got resolved, they just got shelved, ready to be taken down again when the time comes.
Plus, the parents think that you, their kid, hasn’t changed. They still see you as helpless and in need of their guidance, even when they’re having increasing difficulty navigating the world because things are changing too quickly for them to handle. Hence the old meme of “take your resume, walk right into that office, and demand a job!”
I get the appeal of nostalgia, and it’s sometimes fun to pretend that things haven’t changed, but it’s better to realize that time keeps marching forward and try to adapt to the new situation.