I am not a linguist but the deafening silence from Chomsky and his defenders really does demand being called out.

Syntactical models of language have been completely crushed by statistics-at-scale via neural nets. But linguists have not rejected the broken model.

The same thing happened with protein folding – researchers who spent the last 25 years building complex quantum mechanical/electrostatic models of protein structure suddenly saw AlphaFold completely crush prior methods. The difference is, bioinformatics researchers have already done a complete about-face and are taking the new AI tools and running with them.

believing that a large language model has any kind of awareness or actual intelligence is absurd

I (as a person who works professionally in the area and tries to keep up with the current academic publications) happen to agree with you. But my credences are somewhat reduced after considering the points Hinton raises.

I think it is worth considering that there are a handful of academically active models of consciousness; some well-respected ones like the CTM are not at all inconsistent with Hinton’s statements

Some of us adults are tired of other adults having imaginary friends and expecting to be treated like adults

This Nobel Prize winner and subject matter expert takes the opposite view

https://youtube.com/watch?v=IkdziSLYzHw&t=2730s

Most porn is much much more wholesome and tame than the pestilence, genocide, fratricide, infanticide, racism, sexism, and slavery that is recommended by that disgusting ignorant book

“The camera is the new gun”

Is “No Hamas” allowed?

Removed by mod

IIUC Epstein’s Island didn’t have underage boys, so Theil never paid a visit. I assume he has his own island and tries to keep under the radar

In case anyone hasn’t read this yet. The above is not really hyperbole

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html

“Vote Vance! Couches, not Kids!”

I don’t get it

You have hundreds of millions to billions of dollars worth coming in

Totally… well, legit as far as banks are concerned

Why TF would you store it on an unencrypted public blockchain where everyone can see every. Damn. Move.

A credit or debit card is way more private; at least only the bank, its affiliates, and your government are watching your transactions – not the entire internet

Once you have faith in a Sky Daddy, evidence doesn’t matter and Truth is whatever you “feel in your heart”

competition model only works in urban environments

I live in a rural area, my kids went to Montessori. 30 mins drive each way for me.

And of course there is the Internet now. It is not a drop-in replacement, but for some kids and some subjects it works very well.

We can have regulation, education requirements, and standards while still encouraging healthy competition.

TBF, there is a system in the US that tends to enforce mediocrity, spends a lot of money on bloated administration, and is both fearful of competition and willing to resort to politically dirty tricks to maintain their education monopoly.

I remember a Steve Jobs interview in Wired many years ago, he said his wish was for a group of energetic people graduating college to be able to start a school, just as readily as they could start a restaurant or a landscaping business – both of which, it should be pointed out, are regulated industries with licensing and safety standards.

merciles ridicule

… only entrenches people in their positions

Especially for religious identity and other identity politics.

The way to flip such positions is to provide role models, people who are still clearly identified in the group, but who embrace – to the degree possible – tolerant liberal democratic evidence-based social structures.

“We are in a race between education and oblivion” -R B Fuller

I think this is a really important point.

We as a society, as a civilization, have to figure out free speech/unfettered inquiry versus disinformation/objectively falsified (or even weaponized) speech

Reminder from Veritaseum not to eat microwave popcorn unless your body needs more PFAs

https://youtube.com/watch?v=SC2eSujzrUY