In terms of nodes and simulation, Houdini is still lightyears ahead of blender. I say this as someone who loves blender and views the programs as complementary. But still, I was shocked at how deep Houdini is.

With that said, learning Houdini is an unrelenting gauntlet. Blender isn’t exactly easy to learn but it’s a walk in the park compared to Houdini. Even something as simple as creating a material and assigning it to an object is an exercise in frustration.

Reasoning models perform better than non-reasoning models because they’re able to refine their code in multiple steps. That allows any part of the program to influence any other part of the program, not just from start -> end.

Human thinking serves a similar purpose. Basically intelligence needs to be able to backtrack if you want better performance.

It means there’s lots of info on the internet explaining how to use the license and they can be relatively certain they won’t accidentally fall into some legal trap or misinterpret the license. It also means there’s legal precedent around the license.

All that to say, custom licenses are actually a big issue for small players.

It would be common decency to donate even a small portion of that $500 million, even if the license technically doesn’t require it.

Whether midjourney helps with those goals or not is a related, but different conversation thread.

- Job security is getting lower.

- Insurance is getting spotty, will this be covered? Maybe?

- Companies are testing dynamic pricing.

- The rise of prediction markets.

Eventually the economy is going to be constantly gambling on our lives. Every ounce of certainty is a potential money making opportunity.

It’s also subjective and dependent on the persons values, beliefs, etc.

The broader point is that self-interest is not purely logical because humans are not purely logical beings.

Looking under a microscope at one specific instance and saying “eh it’s not that bad, you’re overreacting” is disingenuous or at least putting your head in the sand.

I’m so tired of “there’s nothing preventing”, and “humans do that too”. Modern AI is just not there. It’s not like humans and has difficulties with adapting to novelty.

Whether transformers can overcome that remains to be seen, but it is not a guarantee. We’ve been dealing with these same issues for decades and AI still struggles with them.

If doctors gave mothers a vaccine that prevented down syndrome, at a high level, that would be the same as putting an anti-down syndrome drug in the water supply.

The point of the example is not about whether putting things in the water supply is good or bad.