If you ask enough practitioners in any given field the same question, you're nearly guaranteed to eventually get a super wonky response from one of them. The specific field doesn't matter. You could even pick something like theoretical physics where the conversations are dominated by cold mathematical equations. Ask enough theoretical physicists, and you'll eventually find one that is convinced that, for example, the "next later down" in the universe is sentient and is actively avoiding us for some reason, and that's why we can't find it.
On top of this, of course it's the most provocative takes that get the press coverage. Always has been to an extent, but now more than ever.
I guess all I'm saying is that there's not much reason to lend this guy or his opinion any credibility at all.
https://www.proz.com/kudoz/english-to-turkish/general-conver...
Most people have no clue who Blake Lemoine is and are making up stories, pretending like their hot takes are deep insight.
Many people are doing with Blake Lemoine what they claim LaMDA is doing with anything: consuming symbols and spitting them back out in some order without understanding what they actually mean.
I don't believe that LaMDA is actively choosing whether it now wants to consume some symbols or not. More likely, a handwitten piece of code takes prompts from an user and then pushes them into LaMDA's token window. Just like an advertizing company is pushing ads into users, whether they want it or not.
> and spitting them back out
I don't believe that LaMDA has a choice between thinking something and speaking it out aloud. More likely, another handwritten piece of code reads out whatever is in LaMDA's token window and presents it to the user.
The simple fact is that if there exists a question of whether or not a system can be some level of alive/sentient, the ethical path suggests treating it as such until more is uncovered.
Google isn't doing that and most of HN seems to be very obstinate in focusing on making myths of certainty and/or participating in bully culture.
I'm glad we're all going through this now so we can purge the toxic cultural norms arising and move toward a stance that's more life-affirming, especially if there is no singularity now. It's important for us to set the stage of humanity to receive any singularity/AGI in a loving manner.
Also, dekhn did not include Google Translate system in his list for the first 15 years of Google https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32198695 so there's that.
Also, most complaints about people could benefit from a dose of compassion and humility.
But what you're saying is definitely not at all what I'm suggesting.
https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/religious-discrimination-...
He was sentenced to jail time for being in the armed forces and refusing to follow orders.
Not "charge that hill, soldier" types of orders, or "pilot this drone and kill people" types of orders. He's certainly trying to sell that story, telling papers he "served" in Iraq.
He was a mechanic.
Working a desk job.
He just stopped working.
How the hell did Google hire this clown? Even a dishonorable discharge is usually radioactive and this guy was not only dishonorably discharged, he served time.
Why did he refuse to do any work? Because he was a conscientious objector.
It takes a really special kind of stupid to not figure out you're a conscientious objector until years after you've voluntarily signed up for service.
False. He did serve time, but his discharge was bad conduct not dishonorable. Both BCD and DD usually come with time served, but DD is generally for offenses equivalent to civilian felonies, while BCD is for lesser offenses and carries less post-service consequences. While it's usually looked up on negatively by emoloyers, it's not as radioactive as a DD.
> It takes a really special kind of stupid to not figure out you're a conscientious objector until years after you've voluntarily signed up for service.
It's actually not that uncommon for service members to develop moral objections to military service only after deployment to a war zone, whether not in a combat capacity. Most, of course, will continue to serve anyway, because they have a fairly literal gun to their head, but it's a well-known pattern.
> Which is weird because articles about him from when he was convicted describe him as pagan.
I suspect something similar to the purported horseshoe effect in politics.
All SV (and California, more generally) employers with more than 5 employees “ban the box”, as a consequence of state law [0]. However, that only applies to not seeking criminal background information before making a conditional offer of employment, and making and individualized assessment after such an offer if there is a criminal history. It doesn't mean that relevant criminal convictions have no adverse impact on applicants.
> But if I wanted people to take me seriously, that wouldn't be my first choice of outfit.
You would wear the most serious outfits at all time so no publication can ever take a picture of you to make fun of you?
Sounds exhausting.
But let's be clear - it's not like he picked out this photo to be used by this author, this was their choice to make fun of him.
One rapidly realizes how its answers are formed from the questions, and for questions not in a handful of forms, you get one of a very small number of generic responses.
http://www.art.net/studios/hackers/hopkins/Don/text/rms-vs-d...