Comments on: Open thread 1/15/24 https://thenewneo.com/2024/01/15/open-thread-1-15-24/ A blog about political change, among other things Wed, 17 Jan 2024 05:00:32 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 By: huxley https://thenewneo.com/2024/01/15/open-thread-1-15-24/#comment-2718509 Wed, 17 Jan 2024 05:00:32 +0000 https://www.thenewneo.com/?p=131699#comment-2718509 Why past tense? Is it because of [Paul Graham’s ]views on Israel and the Palestinians?

David Foster:

No. I’m not tracking that.

Graham preached the pure Lisp gospel for fast agile programming. Many of us were enthralled. In 2001 Graham announced an ultimate form of Lisp called Arc. It was released in 2008 and was a nothingburger.

]]> By: huxley https://thenewneo.com/2024/01/15/open-thread-1-15-24/#comment-2718508 Wed, 17 Jan 2024 04:52:58 +0000 https://www.thenewneo.com/?p=131699#comment-2718508 J.J.:

Please be sure that while I love tech, I am frightened by social media and the meteoric rise of AI.

]]> By: huxley https://thenewneo.com/2024/01/15/open-thread-1-15-24/#comment-2718507 Wed, 17 Jan 2024 04:50:51 +0000 https://www.thenewneo.com/?p=131699#comment-2718507 J.J.:

High IQ folks have their problems. I have been fascinated by W.J. Sidis:
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He entered Harvard University at age 11 and, as an adult, was said to have an IQ between 250 and 300, and to be conversant in about 25 languages and dialects. Some of these statements have not been verified, but many of his contemporaries, including Norbert Wiener, Daniel Frost Comstock, and William James, agreed that he was extremely intelligent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis
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Sidis did not have a happy, productive life.

]]> By: David Foster https://thenewneo.com/2024/01/15/open-thread-1-15-24/#comment-2718455 Tue, 16 Jan 2024 23:41:50 +0000 https://www.thenewneo.com/?p=131699#comment-2718455 Huxley….”for some of us, Paul Graham was a god. Perhaps a god that failed, but nevertheless….”

Why past tense? Is it because of his views on Israel and the Palestinians?

]]> By: J.J. https://thenewneo.com/2024/01/15/open-thread-1-15-24/#comment-2718406 Tue, 16 Jan 2024 19:37:57 +0000 https://www.thenewneo.com/?p=131699#comment-2718406 “155. Think about it. – huxley

I went to high school with a friend who had an IQ of 170. It was a disaster for him. He was bored and couldn’t relate to his peers. He was miserable, and never did realize his potential. He should have been in college, but it was a small town, the 1940s, and people didn’t know how to help him.

AI is the same. If it isn’t handled correctly, it will not reach its potential and it also has the potential to be very destructive.

I ask you if you think the tech world has helped humanity with social media? Has the internet been as successful as it might have been if better guard rails were put in place a longtime ago?

I don’t trust the tech community to get this right. I’m with Elon Musk in calling for a pause in the development of AI.

You, as a programmer, are enthralled by the progress that ChatGPT has made. I get that. However, consider how chaotic and dangerous the world of autos would be without speed limits, lane markers, stop signs, and all the other guard rails. I thinly AI needs to have guard rails put in place before the development proceeds much further. Yep, I’m an old curmudgeon. 🙂

]]> By: huxley https://thenewneo.com/2024/01/15/open-thread-1-15-24/#comment-2718398 Tue, 16 Jan 2024 18:55:43 +0000 https://www.thenewneo.com/?p=131699#comment-2718398 Paul Graham (founder of the venture firm Y-Combinator)

David Foster:

Not to contradict you, but for some of us, Paul Graham was a god. Perhaps a god that failed, but nevertheless….

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_(programmer)

]]> By: Rufus T. Firefly https://thenewneo.com/2024/01/15/open-thread-1-15-24/#comment-2718382 Tue, 16 Jan 2024 17:38:20 +0000 https://www.thenewneo.com/?p=131699#comment-2718382 “… it reminds me of those people who are trying too hard to impress people as to how smart they are, as opposed to being truly intelligent.”

Yeesh, David Foster, you could at least have the decency to wait until I’m not reading the blog to call me out like that. 😉

]]> By: David Foster https://thenewneo.com/2024/01/15/open-thread-1-15-24/#comment-2718349 Tue, 16 Jan 2024 15:49:38 +0000 https://www.thenewneo.com/?p=131699#comment-2718349 I asked ChatGPT to analyze Goethe’s ‘Faust’, specifically the theme of Ambition as portrayed in that work, with the idea of comparing its essay with the one that I earlier wrote on the same topic.

https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/69654.html

]]> By: David Foster https://thenewneo.com/2024/01/15/open-thread-1-15-24/#comment-2718346 Tue, 16 Jan 2024 15:44:28 +0000 https://www.thenewneo.com/?p=131699#comment-2718346 Paul Graham (founder of the venture firm Y-Combinator) referred to ChatGPT as an ‘artificial pseudo-intellectual’. Indeed, it reminds me of those people who are trying too hard to impress people as to how smart they are, as opposed to being truly intelligent. This doesn’t mean it and its descendents aren’t or won’t be useful, but certainly don’t think it’s as smart as, say, the commenters on this site, not to mention the hostess/

]]> By: huxley https://thenewneo.com/2024/01/15/open-thread-1-15-24/#comment-2718283 Tue, 16 Jan 2024 05:36:35 +0000 https://www.thenewneo.com/?p=131699#comment-2718283 Re: AI

I’m learning the cool way to say ChatGPT is geh-peh-dee, GPT, for them’s what’s cares.

Scientific American has a recent fun article claiming that ChatGPT 4 has a verbal IQ of 155. 155. Think about it. That’s a lot smarter than you or me.

https://bgr.com/tech/chatgpt-took-an-iq-test-and-its-score-was-sky-high/

We are looking at something serious here. There are legitimate arguments whether the curve is leveling off, increasing linearly or exponentially. But it’s going up for a while longer.

And AI is smarter than most of us already.

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