My guess is we skip 3.5 and go straight to 4 Pro. With the monthly Flash releases, releasing 4.0 Flash and Pro in 6-8 weeks would be a nice buildup.

(I work at Google but don't know anything that isn't already public)

We've moved a few times over the years and it's often surprising what is and isn't recyclable in different jurisdictions. This means I often find myself putting something into the recycle that isn't recyclable in my current jurisdiction.

Is this worse than just not recycling, let's say on a per unit basis? I.e. is one unit of recyclable material in the landfill more or less bad than one unit of trash in the recycling pipeline?

Not sure there's an answer, but it's a question I've pondered often.

This is a government entity procuring a product they need from a private entity.

You can dislike it, but it's not a handout. Words have meaning.

The government does procure services from private firms, this isn't new or special.

The online communities in question do more damage than good. They encourage isolation and spread social contagion.

We should do more as a society, absolutely! But these places are not “stop gaps” because they’re NOT helping.

We've created these unhealthy gardens where young people feel safe, removing any reason for them to engage in the real world. They don't thrive in these places, they slowly withdraw.

Tying your identity to the place where you're helpful and where that help is appreciated and acknowledged isn't mental illness.

Your work may have coherence and purpose, but if it doesn’t have significance then it isn’t the source of meaning you thought it was.

It’s like saying we shouldn’t call immigrants “aliens” because that conjures images of space. Where do you think the term comes from?

If you didn't know the word "duck", you could still see the duck, hunt the duck, use the ducks feather's for your bedding and eat the duck's meat. You would know it could fly and swim without having to know what either of those actions were called.

The LLM "sees" a thing, identifies it as a "duck", and then depends on a single modal LLM to tell it anything about ducks.

Humans got by for millions of years with our current biological hardware before we developed language. Your brain stores a model of your experience, not just the words other experiencers have shared with yiu.

I still don’t want to play with you, sorry.

Best of luck!

You have an enormous chip on your shoulder. You consistently make truth claims about entire fields that are still in debate and then you arrogantly shout over the other person when they disagree with you.

I strongly suggest you work on this. It will limit you in life. It probably already has. You probably already know how it has, even!

I'm not saying this to be mean, or because I "have nothing left to stand on." You're clearly intelligent and you clearly care about this topic. But until you mature and learn to behave, others will continue to withdraw from conversation with you.

Best of luck.