ML is pretty long way from being able to make generalizations like that from…20 samples?

Thin scrollbars and window borders are pretty. Mobile buttons with only icons but no text are pretty. Hiding functionality is pretty.

That of course, is a racist idea, because it assigns group responsibility to the murders committed by individuals.

The most popular GPUs in use TODAY are 1650, 1060, 3060, 2060.

If Apple can get the M2 Macbook Air to run like one of these, it essentially makes the most popular laptop also the equivalent to the most popular gaming rig.

Certain looks get the most followers on Instagram. Movie posters are tested against focus groups. Market forces reward high end coffee shops that look a certain way. To me, the thread all of these have in common is optimization towards a certain goal.

And thus the sadness in our hearts is the feeling that aesthetics has been subsumed as yet another optimization problem.

What MS is doing is far more effective than if Google did the same thing in return.

People will always get around speech rules by speaking in code. China has probably some of the richest history of speech suppression followed by very clever subversive speech. The most recent example being the use of empty white sheets of paper to get around censorship algorithms.

So the censors now must police coded speech as well, and this is where things get extremely dangerous. Because one can take great liberties in defining what contains encoded wrong speak. You already see this in the left's frequent accusation of something being a "dog whistle" for something else.

During the cultural revolution, people were persecuted by the metaphors supposedly hidden within their speech. A setting sun? That's code for the downfall of Mao, who was frequently compared to the sun.

People have a freedom of who they associate with and do business with:

Boycott is when you decide not to spend your money someplace because you don’t agree with them. You’re exercising your freedom of association.

Cancellation is when a 3rd party demands that a employee/employer sever their relationship because the 3rd party disapproves of the employee. Here, a 3rd party is imposing on two other parties’ freedom of association.

Also, the substance of the speech is quite different:

- “You are wrong, and here are the reasons why” is debate.

- “You are wrong, and you should become unemployable” is cancellation. Cancellation is technically speech, but it is speech that is focused on imposing a high cost on other speech. Talk about the “paradox of intolerance” argument that the modern left loves to use.