He wasn’t tried and convicted by a jury of his peers. He was black-bagged and shipped to an extrajudicial black site with no trial. Whether or not he was a “bad guy” is both irrelevant and yet to be proven. This is a sham. If this goes uncontested then it’s all fair game. They can just start taking anyone off the streets and exporting them to a death camp.

Fucking THIS! Like ok. “Marijuana” ‘M’. Sure. “Smiley” ‘S’, okay. Jesus cross ‘1’. Fucking what? Skull ‘3’ fucking hold up. WTF? Am I missing something?

Typically an old-ass Kimber 1911 tac-pro II. Modded. Ditched the stupid-ass mag well, and swapped out the steel mainspring housing for polymer. Also swapped out the recoil spring a couple times from general wear. Stock other than that. Need to get a new set of tritiums though. 20 years has not been kind to the half-life of those sights.

Sometimes, when it’s super hot outside I’ll roll with the Sig P938 subcompact.

Can I leave the United Sates? Norway or Switzerland would be great. Or Ireland. Or Canada. Look man, can I just get the fuck out of here with my cats?

Oh… No… I can’t? I’m not a doctor, or an engineer, or a billionaire, so I’m trapped here? Cool.

Doesn’t even fit in the space. And it’s hung crooked. Also why does his chin and lips look like crumpled aluminum foil? Also what’s going on with that guy in the lower right? Are his eyes buttholes? Where is his nose? Where is his mouth? This is just AI slop. Absolute clown shit.

I’ve been shitting on this asshole for at least 20 years. Nobody listened. Quite the opposite. People would ooze out of the fucking woodwork to defend this motherfucker. The amount of smug I’m feeling right now is indescribable.

Fuck eggs and gas, buy healthcare.

“Look! The brain worms said to doggy, so we’re going to doggy. 20% of the 80% will be mistakes. But everyone makes mistakes, so it’s fiiiiiiiiiiine! We’ll just reinstate 80% of the 20% and then the universe will be in harmony! {uncomfortably long pause} OK I said the thing where’s my fent hit… {microphone bumping sounds… hard clash… feedback… cut audio}”

Sorry for the delay, tovarisch. I was dealing with some shit.

I’ll preface my response by saying that there is no actual consensus among biologists or scientists on the definition of “life”. I’m not a biologist, so I’m going by the seven characteristics that biologists have generally defined based on observing our one example of life we have. An interesting quote from wikipedia though is that “Life is considered a characteristic of something that preserves, furthers or reinforces its existence in the given environment.” So although there are seven characteristics “required” of life, that really basic definition absolutely includes something like a virus. Hell, it includes something like a computer virus.

Is reproduction not metabolic activity though?

Definitionally no. Without a host, viruses do not undergo metabolic activity. Reproductive activity is definitionally a separate requirement of life. Viruses cannot even reproduce without a host. Without a host to infect, they are functionally inert and in total stasis. Their environmental and host requirements are extremely particular as well. Outside of their very specific requirements, they are basically just segments of RNA in a carrier body.

I see viruses as the simplest possible life which lacks all functionality except to participate in the evolutionary process

I’m still super on the fence about whether or not I would consider them alive though. Many biologists completely agree that they are certainly alive, many others don’t. I honestly don’t know enough either way, but that never stopped me from bloviating on the internet. XD

Viruses are really really weird. They obviously don’t leave any fossil traces, so the only thing we have to go by is genetics. Traces of genes in ourselves and other organisms that clearly didn’t originate from there. The main thing they seem to do, possibly the only thing they actually do, is participate in the evolutionary process. The cross-transfer of genes between species appears to be one of their principle roles throughout the history of life. But why do they even exist? I’ve seen it argued that viruses were actually the original life before prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells emerged.

CRISPR was discovered because it is a mechanism that cells use to instill memory against previous threats, including viruses. Now it’s rapidly becoming a cheap and incredibly precise genetic scalpel. With potential genetic editing capabilities that extend into currently living organisms. Custom-tailored retroviral injections that spread through your system and edit every applicable cell. Fucking nanomachines! Don’t need to have designer babies. You can just get your shit edited whenever. Wild, and beautiful, and hopeful, and also scary as fuck.

but I think human society would much rather place limitations on the intelligence of AI so that a truly sentient AI cannot be made

The problem with that view is thinking human society has a choice. Human society would like to place limitations on what drugs you’re allowed to take. How’s that been working out?

When the technology is matured, the first real, sophont AI is not going to come out of Sam Altman’s billion dollar company (if he hasn’t floundered himself into the ground by then). It’s going to come from a bunch of hackers you’ve never heard of. Once that genie is out of the bottle, nobody on Earth will be able to put it back in. There is now a new, intelligent, sapient life form that we share the world with, whether you like it or not. Infomorphs don’t die easily.

Making a truly sentient AI and then not exploiting is not something I can see present day human society doing

Honestly, I don’t think they want sentient AI. They want something that’s juuuuuuust smart enough. Which in general I agree with. Having a bunch of machines that are not actually conscious run factories, and build widgets, and manage the climate, and make people houses, and whatever. That sounds great! Problem is: they don’t want to use it for any of that. They want it to displace workers from their jobs because they don’t have to pay the unconscious machines for labor. I’m still not really clear on the end goal though. I don’t think they are either, or they’re just so short-sighted that they haven’t thought it through. If your unconscious machines replace all workers, and nobody has a paycheck, then who buys your widgets? Nobody has any money except like 100 dudes, so who’s going to buy all this crap?

We already have trouble treating human beings as humans

Truth.

I do appreciate the coolness and tenacity of my virus homies, (well, other than when they are trying to kill me, which is always). But definitionally they are still not “alive.” They do not fulfill the basic requirement of organization. They are not composed of cells. They do not grow or change in their “lifespan”, other than evolutionarily. They only reproduce. They do not metabolize. They are either operating and reproducing in their preferred environment, they are dormant, or they are dead. They do nothing but reproduce, stay in stasis, or are dead. Which is not to be dismissive of them. I still agree that they are not alive. Alive or not though, they do play an important role in the evolution of other organisms.

I absolutely do not think LLMs are alive or in any way intelligent any more than a virus is. This is my own personal conjecture now, but I think it’s only a matter of time now until someone, somewhere, develops an actual AI. A real, conscious, sapient, sophont being that exists purely on a digital substrate. Could be tomorrow, could be in 10,000 years. I have no idea. At that point we need to re-assess our definition of “life”, otherwise we steer sharply into creating digital slaves. I am absolutely not OK with that, and given the forum you inhabit, I imagine that you are not either. That was the gist of where I was going with my previous post.

I do love my virus homies though and all they’ve done for us, even though they unintentionally try to kill us all the time. They mean well, even if they don’t mean anything and just mindlessly reproduce.

This also fascinates me. According to our definition of life viruses are not actually alive. But by that same definition, fire is as “alive” as a virus.

I tend to agree. Fire isn’t alive. It does technically slot into a lot of our requirements though. Viruses aren’t really alive either. Without a host they just sit dormant until they either decay from the environment or eventually find a host. Without a host body they are incapable of acting. But barring harsh environmental circumstances, they can technically lie dormant for eternity. Something “alive” things cannot do.

But we can’t just define it like porn: “I know it when I see it.” That’s not an acceptable definition. Without getting into solipsism, and p-zombies, and blah blah blah; I’m alive. You’re alive. Cats are alive (and also extremely cool).

I don’t think LLMs are alive. I don’t even think they are intelligent in any capacity. But at what point does an AI become “alive?” How do we define that? A Turing test? If it passes a Turing test, it still doesn’t meet several of the requirements for “life” as currently defined. What then? Do we redefine “life”, or do we relegate a new form of life as “non-life”, to be used and abused? That seems horrifying.

I have no answers. It’s just something I find really interesting to think about.

I miss the old internet. When everything was just fucking chaos. Search engines were absolute trash, and it was frustrating, but also it was great. Search something one day, completely different results tomorrow. You never knew what you were going to find. Fucking web rings. Websites with graphic and UX design that was a legitimate cognitohazard. Just some of the weirdest shit you ever saw. Better times…

You are not wrong. Keep in mind that it is a weapon, though. It’s a weapon that is wielded against you in particular. Being creative is a gift that is extremely difficult to learn. You can train the technical skills. That just takes time. But actually having the gift is something that is difficult to acquire.

The tech bois want to make “art” something you can just type into the text box. They don’t want to think, they don’t want art that makes you “feel” anything. They just want to have the “AI” think of something “creative” that they can sell to some other vapid moron. It’s “democratizing” art. Except being creative isn’t a democracy. You either are or you aren’t. Typing your bullshit into a text box isn’t “creative”.

There is a very particular chair in the world that I despise. The chair didn’t do anything wrong. It was a good chair. But I had to draw that particular chair in still-lifes for four years. I hate that chair. But that chair taught me more about perspective than any instructor ever could. So I actually love that chair. “AI” will never understand that. It will never understand anything. LLMs are not capable of understanding anything at all.

“AI” exists to keep workers scared. That’s it. That’s it’s only purpose. It’s a boogeyman. “Don’t misbehave, children, or the AI will take your job!”

Maybe one day we will develop a model of consciousness that can actually understand reality, but LLMs are not it. Frauds like Sam Altman will never accept that.

/thread

Hey! Happy Birthday!

It is really beautiful. I don’t think it’s just because I grew up with that style. I just really appreciate what went into it. They couldn’t just render it out. It was all done by hand. The pixel resolution was so low back then that literally every single pixel was significant. And they accounted for that with the art style. It really impresses me still how well they put those images together.

I mean, I’d say a hypothetical AI occurring at some unknown time in the future, which then remakes your exact brain architecture after you long since died just stuff you in a locker and pants you for all eternity is pretty unknowable as well. ;p

It’s literally just Pascal’s Wager but with an “AI” paint job and some racing stripes.

Fully :clap: Automated :clap: Luxury :clap: Gay :clap: Space :clap: Communism :clap: NOW

Go ooooooonnnnnn…