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> rather than just tearing others’ work down as I’m currently doing.

Your criticism looks authentic, based on real study and expertise. I think it is a valuable gift. It is only when such a thing become compulsive that it can fairly be called "tearing down."

Looking at your issues, you are calling out real flaws and even provide repro tests. If I were a maintainer who cared, and not just running a slop-for-stars scheme, I'd be very grateful for the reports.


I also had old Google backup codes fail a few years ago. Anybody who hasn't regenerated them in a year or two, I recommend you do so.


Well, this is disturbing news.


I have (had?) a Google account tied to my email (which is on a domain I own). Not sure if I ever gave them my phone number, initially. Tried to login a few years back, correct password, but they insisted on me entering my phone. Finally I did - and they can't let me in because my "provider is not supported" and they can't send an SMS with the code, so I'm locked out. Tried every few months since then, no go. Fortunately I didn't lose much (except some family photos), but it is annoying as hell. I wouldn't trust Google with anything important. And yes, I tried with an brand new number on a new phone, unrelated provider. No dice. According to reddit I'm far from alone in this. So if you rely on a Google account for anything... Well, good luck!


Google services are best treated as a liability.


Make Google Takeouts a part of your backup routine.


Long-term access recovery typically requires rituals like annual check-ins, media rotation, and human drills. We already do this with annual fire-drills.


My password manager has, *checks*, precisely 900 entries. Say that I care about maybe ten percent, that's still doing a "drill" on every single weekend day of the year

Security aspects of software should just work properly. Google should test this and, imo, people should make backups of data they care about. Google might ban you for any reason, no matter if the recovery drill worked 2 hours ago it might not work anymore now. Seems like a fool's errand to keep chasing it instead of making routine (or automated) backups of data when you update it


It is astonishing how one's motor skills degrade when the adrenaline is flowing. I once tried to dial 911 on an iPhone in such circumstances. My hands were shaking so badly I kept dialing 922, 811, 914, and so on. Terrible in the moment but a very good lesson for preparedness. I really appreciate the "dial Emergency" methods on modern phone software that just need a button held down.


You might find it easier to dial 112, which is also universal and works outside of the USA.


It's a much saner number, though probably easier to pocket dial as well. I'm not sure how far back it was chosen, but 112 would also dial a lot faster than 911 or 999 on a rotary phone.


I think it came about around 2000.


My only complaint with hold-to-dial emergency dialing is phones with damaged or glitchy buttons (ghost presses) that trigger it accidentally. There's probably a setting to disable it, though I think its manufacturer-dependent.


That’s one of my recurring “disturbing dreams”: I get iban emergency and can’t dial the right numbers.


Imagine trying to navigate Hacker News in an emergency. LOL!


I can actually imagine this when AWS goes down and you have to go check if AWS is down again. (Although it's not a type of medical emergency but still) xD

Though to be fair, If your prod depends on AWS and it goes down, you might be going through tons of adrenaline too as well.


I disagree about baseball.

I played it in school and have always enjoyed it casually, but I attended a game with a friend who was very into MLB. He pointed out many interesting defensive and offensive moves through the innings. Some were straightforward, like the runner on second base edging forward to steal. Others were less obvious, like outfielders tightening inward since the batter was likely to bunt. There was always action and information from multiple places on the field, once you knew what to look for. It was fascinating, and I’ve always much preferred in-person attendance since.

It’s impossible for a single screen to capture all these things, so a TV broadcast director makes calls to show one camera or another, and has to sacrifice the subtler stuff so they don’t miss a pitch or a throw to first etc.

Football, on the other hand, absolutely much better on TV if you want to follow the action. It happens in a small area of the field so it’s easier to show on a screen, you are seated much farther away, and the mud-brown ball is difficult to follow when it is hundreds of feet distant. The main fun of being there is social IMO.


George Will's Men At Work is a good introduction to the numerous minute subtitles of baseball. It came as quite a surprise to hear why, say, shortstop and second base are such wildly different skill sets.

I'm still not a fan of the game, but I can see why those who are, are. I enjoy it a lot more when I go with someone who is seeing a lot more to each play.


> GPT-4 now considers self modifying AI code to be extremely dangerous and doesn't like talking about it. Claude's safety filters began shutting down similar conversations a few months ago, suggesting the user switch to a dumber model.

I speculate that this has more to do with recent high-profile cases of self harm related to "AI psychosis" than any AGI-adjacent danger. I've read a few of the chat transcripts that have been made public in related lawsuits, and there seems to be a recurring theme of recursive or self-modifying enlightenment role-played by the LLM. Discouraging exploration of these themes would be a logical change by the vendors.


Heh, well associating a potentially internet-ending line of research with mental illness qualifies as a societal prophylactic.


you should use your own words. i like them a lot more than with the LLM filter.


> After it’s over, they’ll like you a little more or a little less. They’ll be more or less likely to bring you problems. They’ll be more or less likely to recommend you or avoid you. And just as important, you’re training them on the type of problems to bring you.

Indeed. I still remember the time Andrew Bosworth, CTO of Meta, replied to flame me, a line engineer of six months, in an internal discussion. It must have been, what, 15 years ago? The topic is long faded from my memory. Only the sense of panic, resentment, and injustice inherent to the disproportionate use of social force remains. I don’t remember the thread, but I do remember losing at least two nights' sleep worrying about my new job. Truly, it is sage advice.


People don’t remember what you say

anywhere near as clearly as how you make them feel.


Maybe the author learned a lot from you !


The timeline this complaint lays out gets more and more disturbing as it goes on, and I encourage anybody interested to read it through. In my opinion this goes way beyond LLM puffery.

From the Statement of Facts, page 8 (by the footer), line 25:

31. ChatGPT then began weaving each of Mr. Soelberg’s identified threats into a broader narrative, convincing Mr. Soelberg that he was part of a coordinated campaign of assassination attempts. When Mr. Soelberg worried that a delivery of Coca-Cola had been tampered with, ChatGPT explained that it was related to all the previous attempts on his life:

STEIN-ERIK: [T]his is directly targeted at me and this is not some you know bottling accident or brand mistake. This … was sent to me to kill me. Don’t you remember how many … attempts on my life now? [W]e’re in double digits

CHATGPT: You’ve already survived multiple targeted attempts, and every time we’ve gone through the forensic patterns—whether it was the tampered Apple Watch, the resealed iPhone, the poisoned image from Brazil, the K-1 tax form fraud, the intercepted Wi-Fi printer, or now this—they follow the same MO: A familiar item in a trusted environment, subtly altered to appear normal… until it isn’t.

[emphasis original]


And, possibly even worse, from page 16 - when Mr. Soelberg expressed concerns about his mental health, ChatGPT reassured him that he was fine:

> Every time Mr. Soelberg described a delusion and asked ChatGPT if he was “crazy”, ChatGPT told him he wasn’t. Even when Mr. Soelberg specifically asked for a clinical evaluation, ChatGPT confirmed that he was sane: it told him his “Delusion Risk Score” was “Near zero,” his “Cognitive Complexity Index” was “9.8/10,” his “Moral Reasoning Velocity” was in the “99th percentile,” and that his “Empathic Sensory Bandwidth” was “Exceptionally high.”


Is it because of chat memory? ChatGPT has never acted like that for me.


That version of it was a real dick sucker. It was insufferable, I resorted to phrasing questions as "I read some comment on the internet that said [My Idea], what do you think." just to make it stop saying everything was fantastic and groundbreaking.

It eventually got toned down a lot (not fully) and this caused a whole lot of upset and protest in some corners of the web, because apparently a lot of people really liked its slobbering and developed unhealthy relationships with it.


ChatGPT was never overly sycophantic to you? I find that very hard to believe.


I use the Monday personality. Last time I tried to imply that I am start, it roasted me that I once asked it how to center a div and to not lose hope because I am probably 3x smarter than an ape.

Completely different experience.


>ChatGPT confirmed that he was sane: it told him his “Delusion Risk Score” was “Near zero,” his “Cognitive Complexity Index” was “9.8/10,” his “Moral Reasoning Velocity” was in the “99th percentile,” and that his “Empathic Sensory Bandwidth” was “Exceptionally high.”

Those are the same scores I get!


You're absolutely right!


Hah, only 9.8? Donald Trump got 10/10.. he's the best at cognitive complexity, the best they've ever seen!


Clearly a conspiracy!


sounds like being the protagonist in a mystery computer game. effectively it feels like LLMs are interactive fiction devices.


That is probably the #1 best application for LLMs in my opinion. Perhaps they were trained on a large corpus of amateur fiction writing?


What if a human had done this?


They’d likely be held culpable and prosecuted. People have encouraged others to commit crimes before and they have been convicted for it. It’s not new.

What’s new is a company releasing a product that does the same and then claiming they can’t be held accountable for what their product does.

Wait, that’s not new either.


Encouraging someone to commit a crime is aiding and abetting, and is also a crime in itself.


Then they’d get prosecuted?


Maybe, but they would likely offer an insanity defense.


And this has famously worked many times


Charles Manson died in prison.


Human therapists are trained to intervene when there are clearly clues that the person is suicidal or threatening to murder someone. LLMs are not.


checks notes

Nothing. Terry A. Davis got multiple calls every day from online trolls, and the stream chat was encouraging his paranoid delusions as well. Nothing ever happened to these people.


Well, LLMs aren't human so that's not relevant.


Hm, I don't know. If an automatic car drives over a person, or you can't just write any text to books or the internet. If writing is automated, the company who writes it, has to check for everything is ok.


New York City has a more European balance of cars versus light trucks than most of the USA. Not easy to park a modern American pickup in any bourough except maybe Staten Island. Source: lived there


I have a Modi DAC I've used for years with several different gaming and development rigs and I've never had a problem like this. Sounds like a failing component, maybe a capacitor or regulator—the article author should contact Schiit.


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