I rarely have something good to say about Dutch tax policy, but fuck yes!

Two things I found interesting:

Effects are concentrated among users who seek direct solutions: Persistence costs were concentrated among participants who prompted AI to solve tasks for them directly. Using AI for hints or clarifications did not produce significant impairments.

So that’s a major caveat.

Another interesting thing would be to know if this is an AI effect specifically, or a technical aid effect generally. For instance, would a calculator produce similar results?

I’m not very convinced by this article. A lot of the “realities” are not, they’re policy choices. Just as an example, the notion of the non-driving elderly adult having to be taken by their child to some office to get an ID is just a consequence of the US choosing not to have compulsory and free or nominal charge ID for all residents. Most of the other objections are equally dependent on specific policy choices, which may apply in some places and not others.

Oddly, I have a friend who’s not much into SF but absolutely loved Quicksilver (and the whole Baroque Cycle). She also enjoyed Anathem. But Cryptonomicon or other Stephenson’s books left her uninterested.

I suppose it’s a matter of taste then. I don’t really mind the expository style. Incidentally, Greg Egan is also one of my favourites, and I’d say he does use some amount of exposition, for example in Diaspora, or the Orthogonal Series (amazing work).

I liked Anathem a lot. I think I enjoyed all of Neal Stephenson’s books up to (but excluding) Seveneves, whereupon I gave up on him. Anathem is one of my favourite books.

The whole notion of monks in space seems absurd because of how people see monks. But this is both ahistorical and contrary to the way they work in the book. Copernicus and Mendel were monks. And these particular ones were all about learning maths and theorics (physics). They didn’t optimise for technology, because they weren’t allowed, but they optimised for learning, for extracting information out of tiny details. I think they’d do alright in a scientific(ish) mission.

I get why people say this, but I like his digressions. It’s not just a matter of learning something new (though occasionally one does) but of how he uses language to express it.

Fantastic! I’m back in. Thank you so much.

I think PTH is not around, not sure about Apollo.

Heh, wrong type of tracker. :)

The dissolution of the SFRY was not just a tragedy, but a crime.

Excellent job, Wolfkiller.

Oh, and buying fossil overpriced energy in the bargain too. How truly good.

What was it that did it for you, the hypocrisy, the lack of contact with reality, or the blood lust?

Interesting article, and I definitely agree I prefer clear instructions when those are possible.

I only have an objection. When it’s said that no matter how well chatbots behave, it’s bad design, and that they’re being used to substitute expensive people; well, expensive people’s interface is chatting too. So in that regard I’m not sure there’s a meaningful difference. Obviously there is if the chatbot is badly behaved, but the article says that it’s a problem even setting that aside.

This is why in spite of the periodic verraten-ing the PSOE does, it is still measurably better than the alternatives.

It’s an NVDA add-on. It substitutes role announcements with specific 3d located sounds. And fortunately it does work. I should change the manifest to indicate it.

I’m going to be trying that today. I hope my Unspoken version still runs on this.

I’ve tried deep research from ChatGPT for legal issues. It’s almost right. But still requires significant human oversight. For example I asked it for a set of norms that govern an issue and some of them were out of date.

You can dress it however you like, maybe even plead necessity, but what you can’t do at the same time is say how democratic it is because this features exists (which they don’t).

Edited for spelling.

Wow, it’s like he chose those examples on purpose to make his argument as ridiculous as possible: open borders (except for all the people forbidden to leave), regular elections (except now they’re indefinitely postponed)…