To me it's "search" like a missile does "flight". It's got a target and a closed loop guidance, and is mostly fire and forget (for search). At that, it excels.
I think the closed loop+great summary is the key to all the magic.
Which is kind of funny because my standard quip is that AI research, beginning in the 1950s/1960s, and indeed much of late 20th century computer tech especially along the Boston/SV axis, was funded by the government so that "the missile could know where it is". The DoD wanted smarter ICBMs that could autonomously identify and steer toward enemy targets, and smarter defense networks that could discern a genuine missile strike from, say, 99 red balloons going by.
It's a prediction algorithm that walks a high-dimensional manifold, in that sense all application of knowledge it just "search", so yes, you're fundamentally correct but still fundamentally wrong since you think this foundational truth is the end and beginning of what LLMs do, and thus your mental model does not adequately describe what these tools are capable of.
Me? My mental model?
I gave an analogy for Claude not a explanation for LLMs.
But you know what? I was mentally thinking of both deep think / research and Claude code, both of which are literally closed loop. I see this is slightly off topic b/c others are talking about the LLM only.
Sorry, I should have said "analogy" and not "mental model", that was presumptuous. Maybe I also should have replied to the GP comment instead.
Anyway, since we're here, I personally think giving LLMs agency helps unlock this latent knowledge, as it provides the agent more mobility when walking the manifold. It has a better chance at avoiding or leaving local minima/maxima, among other things. So I don't know if agentic loops are entirely off-topic when discussing the latent power of LLMs.
I dont see why phones can't come with a browser that does this. Parents could curate a whitelist like people curate playlists, and share it, and the browser would honor that.
Combined with some blacklisted apps (e.g., all other browsers), this would be a passable opt-in solution. I'm sure there's either a subscription or a small incentive for someone to build this that hopefully isn't "Scam children".
It's not like kids are using PCs, and if they use someone else's phone, that's at least a severely limiting factor.
They do, don’t they? Apple devices have had a robust whitelisting/blacklisting feature for at least a couple of years. I use it to block websites and apps to lessen my phone addiction. I’m sure Android offers similar features
Whoa whoa whoa let's not bring the accountants in!
Code isn't a liability b/c it costs money (though it does). Code is a liability like an unsafe / unproven bridge is a liability. It works fine until it doesn't - and at that point you're in trouble. Just b/c you can build lots of bridges now, doesn't mean each new bridge isn't also a risk. But if you gotta get somewhere now, conjuring bridges might be the way to go. Doesn't make each bridge not a liability (risky thing to rely on) or an asset (thing you can sell, use to build value)
Even proven code is a liability. The point of it being a liability is that it costs time and effort to maintain and update.
The same with the bridge. Even the best built and most useful bridge requires maintenance. Assuming changing traffic patterns, it might equally require upgrades and changes.
The problem with this whole “code is a liability” thing is that it’s vacuous. Your house is a liability. The bridge that gets you to work as a liability. Everything that requires any sort of maintenance or effort or upkeep or other future cost is ina sense a liability. This isn’t some deep insight though. This is like saying your bones could break so they are liability. OK, but their value drastically outweighs any liability they impose.
Code requires maintenance, which grows with codebase size, minus some decay over time. (LLMs do not change this, and might actually be more sensitive to this), So increasing code size, esp with new code, implies future costs, which meets the definition of a liability on a LOC kinda-sorta-basis.
It's not right but it's not wrong either. It at least was a useful way to think about code, and we'll see if that applies in LLM era.
"Available for use" and "Automatically rewritten to work in your codebase fairly well" is very different, so copyright is probably not the blocker technically
I think of the "tough warrior philosopher" messaging as the installation medium for this hack. All hacks need an attractive bait/installer.
Once the hack sets in, you start reading more b/c you identify partially as "philosopher", and you start to see more of the genuine, peaceful, forgiving side, like in Meditations. The "we are all flawed men" kind of thing.
> I think of the "tough warrior philosopher" messaging as the installation medium for this hack. All hacks need an attractive bait/installer.
The average young person who discovers stoicism via articles like this or via an influencer isn’t going to do a deep dive into classic literature as the next step.
They’re going to seek out more influencer slop that delivers more of what drew them to it: The prisoner/warrior bait about being so tough that you don’t care about anything.
The average young person probably does nothing at all. Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. Some percentage of people will come to Stoicism via an influencer and continue to dig.
But it's not a choice between good or perfect. The internet style stoicism becomes a sort of learned helplessness for people who skim articles and think it means you should assume everything is out of your control and instead focus on ignoring your emotions.
The contention is with "good". Is it good to have a bunch of people becoming emotionally stunted in case a handful dig further? Presumably there were people moved to stoicism prior to the current influencer trend, is that not good enough?
Do we have data that estimates how often people regress to become emotionally stunted from any cause (Stoicism, other philosophical readings, alcohol/drug abuse, Alzehimer's/other neurodegenerative conditions)?
That depends on how much credit you give to the average person. In this climate, probably a small amount, but I think the stoics would say that we should not judge them if they're not ready to hear the msg, but be glad they heard it and hope it settles in later.
For reference, we have two internet sat providers based in USA (starlink and kuiper), and both have more than 100-200 satellites that you state for Chinese providers.
If you add in EU providers, depending in how you count then, there's at least 2 or 3 providers who have more than 100 LEO satellites active.
Sure, but better for who? Most likely for the West I'd say. It's pretty bad for Persians as well but who knows what other leader would have done to them. If the regime falls I'd say good riddance but it's no guarantee for a better life or stability in the region.
There is no going "back" to absolutist monarchism because it was actually a highly evolved (over centuries) form of government that eventually became the political norms of Europe today. There are a lot of ways to go forward to an isolated dictator driven by a terrible fear of his own citizens however.
I meant an absolutist monarchy. This is really a dying form, though not yet totally dead.
Paradoxically, republics of today seem more vulnerable to authoritarian turns than the monarchies which survived the 20th century.
Probably because an elected leader has more legitimacy and thus can demand more political power, sometimes too much power. In a constitutional monarchy, there is always a psychological split between the sovereign and the prime minister or whoever gets elected to executive power, and one-man-shows are less likely to succeed.
To me it's "search" like a missile does "flight". It's got a target and a closed loop guidance, and is mostly fire and forget (for search). At that, it excels.
I think the closed loop+great summary is the key to all the magic.
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