And here's the thing, I'm sure there are meaningful differences. But then again there's also loads of similarities. A similar thing on the geopolitical stage is the status of Kosovo. The moment it was accepted as a separate entity you opened a floodgate. President of Croatia had a very nice clip about it a while ago, basically accepting both things to be true at once: Kosovo is a state that we need to accept but we also need to admit it was illegally taken from Serbia. This sort of duality (what Nader called being able to walk and chew gum at the same time, although for a completely different situation, I forget what the topic was) is very rare.

On HN i made the mistake of defending, for lack of a better word, a certain tech oligarch who shall not be named where I eventually made a similar point to yours and got downvoted to oblivion.

I could understand the framing being: all censorship is bad (even though I suppose this view would be called childish by some). I could also understand the framing that there is too much concentration of power in the hands of these corporations (and then the inevitable cries to break them up or nationalize them). But, for example, just pointing out that nobody was against these same practices when they were aimed at the other end of the political spectrum (SF billionaires were the darlings of the Democrat and not Republican establishment) causes such outrage from what I would guess are generally well meaning and intelligent people, that it boggles the mind.

It really seems to be something in our species that turns us into crusaders for certain topics. I can very well imagine that this same biological(?) impulses, where you are incredibly convinced in your own morality, must have led to the spread of early christianity (and then to the same or even larger degree, Islam). And it has to come from a place of conviction because otherwise u cant explain the zeal. And anybody who isn't as convinced (maybe partially agreeing) gets dealt with viciously. I'm making Tom Hollands point (in a very erratic manner), that what we consider modern universalism (aka wokeness) is a natural continuation of christianity. I would just go further and say that I think there is something in us all (to varying degrees) that we want to spread a certain gospel of what it is to be a moral person. And if someone disagrees they are not moral.

No but seriously, this. And a few comments above a commentator also mentioned on changing the training (again reeinforcing the LLMs to not seek behaviour like this) and obviously continuous work on harnesses (which I suppose, ought to be more paranoid).

But I always preferred the F22. That thing is beautiful and the metrics are insane. But for a while it seemed like there was no peer contender and they stopped the programme.

Hats off to Anduril for shaking up the space. Wonder if the Swedes will be able to match them.

Which would mean, as is so often the case, that the "killer feature" of the LLMs is also its biggest weakness and the two can't be disentangled. Now, we are inventive creatures and we might come up with a remedy for these issues, but what you basically see so far is more guardrails, the use of harnesses and building a whole bunch of infrastructure around the LLMs to get useful work out of them.

Which, btw is not a critique, I do it as well and it's a fun engineering challenge.

That being said, controlling android and apple mobile devices is kind of a big deal. And their video models are still top notch.

Haven't done any serious coding work with the flash models though — but I'm seeing more and more HN comments from people who seem to have picked it up for that in the last couple of months.

When I was less into tech (2010-2015), I hated how everyone fawned about Elon (remember Hollywood casting him in iron man?). As I started to transition into tech I remember being impressed by the design principles of his companies (simplify, remove complexity).

But I am absolutely baffled how his detractors don't see that exactly what you mentioned, that they are part of subset of society, with very strong opinions (think race, economics, religion) and can't fathom somebody having a different opinion without that person being immoral. And the worst part is what you mention at the very end: the mental policing of this group in the past 10-15 years. I liken it to a religious sect (ironically, even though they hate Christianity, probably closest to a new age christian sect).

I've had this discussion up here last week pointing out the vitriol Elon gets is, to my mind, for the wrong reasons (and the reasons are exactly what you mention).

I completely agree his foray was a fiasco (and his shareholders paid for it) and your colourful portrayal is more accurate than my shorthand, but I would argue that the comments would have been fewer (on this portal, maybe not on foxnews.com) if he had done the same thing in the Biden admin.

I will admit this is not always the case. But humans weren't built for consistency. And my point is merely (was making it to another commentator in this thread), that Elon gets more flak up here not because he is inherently less moral than, say Larry Page, but because more people on HN are ideologically closer to the other side of the political spectrum. Which, I will again reiterate, is fine. But then I would expect (or actually, see first paragraph - I wouldn't) that the vitriol would be consistenly dished. But it isn't. Now to be sure, partly this is due to Elon's move into politics and his personality, but I doubt he would have got the same amount of hate if he went into politics in the Biden administration.

As for the rest, especially in the US (im from the EU), we should invest in everything you mentioned and I wouldnt mind taxing Elon and his gang more either.

As to the first point: maybe it should. But look at how the aid actually works, what it funds (it was not politically neutral - btw nothing in the realm of society is) etc. I mean, not just USAID, a lot of these schemes are at the expense of people who pay the most taxes, to fund corporations that send aid to countries that otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford the commodities at the market price. Surely you can see that as a taxpayer you might support the dismantling of these orgs?

Now, I do agree that the ramp-down could have been 1-2 years and that the theatre around it shows the worst of Elon. And the current administration.