What's odd about the current moment is that in the very same era in which it seems there is conclusive evidence (LLMs) that quantum explanations are not necessary to explain at the very least linguistic intelligence as advanced linguistic intelligence is possible in a purely classical computing domain, there is at the same time an insistence elsewhere that consciousness must be a quantum phenemonon. Frankly I am increasingly skeptical that this is the case. LLMs show that intelligence is at least mostly algorithmic, and the brain is far too warm and wet for quantum effects to dominate. Why should intelligence be purely classical but consciousness (another brain phenemenon) be quantum? It lacks parsimony.
> it seems there is conclusive evidence (LLMs) that quantum explanations are not necessary to explain at the very least linguistic intelligence as advanced linguistic intelligence is possible in a purely classical computing domain
Any reference explaining this? It isn't clear to me that LLMs have proven advanced linguistic intelligence
In just 2-3 years we've gone from primitive LLMs to LLMs reaching Graduate PhD-level knowledge and intelligence in multiple domains. LLMs can complete almost any code I write with high accuracy given sufficient context. I can have a naturalistic dialog with an LLM that goes on for hours in multiple languages. Frankly (and humblingly, and frighteningly) they have already surpassed my own knowledge and intelligence in many, probably most, domains. Obviously they aren't perfect and make a lot of errors - but so do most humans.
If LLMs are capable of writing code and code is what they are created with, what's keeping LLMs right now from entering into a loop where they are themselves creating new AI with more advanced concepts than we've ever known?
You are delusional. Each and every LLM (by design) is uncapable of having arbitrary long conversation as it has finite context window, and hallucinate left and right. But that is all irrelevant, as Penroses point is not about that.
In fact what Penrose saying is that LLMs are Searles Chinese rooms, as they lack qualia, and he offers quantum processes as basis for the qualia, however vagues it sounds.
So the point is not intelligence, not consciosness; cats arguably has less intelligence than LLM, but they clearly have emotions and are conscious.
Just for the sake of discussion, how do you know they lack qualia?
I don't want to say they have an internal experience, but the whole point of the question of consciousness and qualia is that we still don't know what causes them and how they are represented in the world.
The two main hypotheses seem to be that either, they are emergent phenomena which occur on top of the brain's neural and hormonal architecture (along with memories, outside experiences, etc) or that they are some sort of separate entity that exists independent of biology and even known physics and the brain is merely a "receiver" of some sort. (In earlier times, people were calling this entity a soul. My personal impression is that theories wanting to explain consciousness through Unexplainable Quantum Stuff are mostly continuing this very old worldview and dress it up in modern scientific terminology)
If consciousness was "just" an emergent result of certain neural interactions and memories - with no physical "secret sauce" needed - then there is no known fundamental reason (yet) why that same kind of emergence couldn't take place inside an LLM.
First of all, just for sake of discussion, it is not normal to try prove negative statements. In any case it is hard to make definitive arguments about phenomena observable internally, such as qualia.
Now, we can make reasonable claims that
1. we are conscious systems,
2. we are very complex physical systems, far exceeding complexity of LLMs.
3. LLM only very superficially resemble real human itelligence, not even close, hallucinate left and right, get easily off the track.
3. Higher animals, primate and espercially very low IQ people, anything that have neural networks resembling all show obvious signs of consciousness.
Emergent properties by the way do not cut, because if you squint enough you'll see that emergent properties do not exist without an intelligent observer, without intepretation. Say, emergent property of bird flocks; well the whole idea of bird flock is figment of human imagination, physical world does not have birds, let alone flocks. So consciousness can be "emergent" in typical sense of the word, it can be the result of working neural network, but it will be forever closed to analysis, as it is by definition outside of externally observable world.
Anyone who thinks LLMs have not come a long way in approximating human linguistic capabilities (and associated thinking) are in fact, engaging in (delusional) wishful thinking regarding human exceptionalism.
With respect to consciousness, you are doing nothing more than asserting a special domain inside the brain that, unlike the rest of the mechanisms of the brain, has special "magic" that creates qualia where classical mechanisms cannot. You are saying that there is possibly a different explanation for intelligence as consciousness, when it would be much simpler to say the same mechanisms explain both. Furthermore, you have no explanation for why this quantum "magic", even if it was there, would solve the hard problem of consciousness - you are just saying that it does. Why should quanta lend themselves anymore to the possibility of subjective experience/qualia than classical systems? Finally, a brain operates at 98.6° and we can't even create verifiable quantum computing effects at near absolute zero, the only place where theory and experiment both agree is the place quantum effects start to dominate. The burden of proof is on you and Penrose as what you are both saying is wildly at odds with both physics, experimental and theoretical, and recent advancements in computing. Penrose is a very smart guy but I fear on these questions he's gone pretty rogue scientifically.
It's the old fight between materialists and spiritualists. The majority is still undecided and maybe now is yet another pivotal moment in history when we must make a choice. Supporters of the mechanical consciousness idea will join the materialists, and those who favor the quantum interpretation will join the spiritualists.
"Doing them swiftly, efficiently, and -- most of all -- completely is one of the most critical skills you can develop as a team."
That all sounds great. However, I'd like to understand what teams are actually able to do this, because it seems like a complete fantasy. Nobody I've seen is doing migrations swiftly and efficiently. They are giant time-sucks for every company I've ever worked for and any company anyone I know has ever worked for.
The fact that it takes decades to master such a mundane task may mean the entire approach is wrong. The article hand-waves a lot of the complexity of "automating as much as possible."
In my opinion, the solution lies in append-only software as dependencies. Append-only means you never break an existing contract in a new version. If you need to do a traditional "breaking change" you instead add a new API, but ship all old APIs with the software. In other words - enable teams to upgrade to the latest of anything without risking breaking anything and then updating their API contracts as necessary. This creates the least friction. Of course, it's a long way for every dependency and every transitive dependency to adopt such a model.
I thought Observability in this context means the ability to introspectively make sense of why the LLM output what it did, which is a difficult problem because the model parameters are effectively an unintelligible morass of numbers. Does this help with that and if so how?
Pretty sure this just structures logs for requests to common 3rd party LLM providers. Which I guess is useful, but it's not some kind of problem unique to LLMs.
Correct- the summary is misleading marketing. This is just normal system / service observability. What people mean by observability in the LLM context is specific.
I wouldn't call it misleading marketing - it is what it is, similar to what you can get today from tools like Langsmith, etc - Observability for the LLM part of your system, but using your existing tools. You can further extend that to monitor specific LLM outputs - but that's just another layer on top of that.
Not talking about just monitoring outputs though. I'm talking about monitoring the internals of the model as it reaches its output. The entire issue around interpretability / observability inside the LLM's model is the hard problem, one for which considerable resources are being dedicated to solve - not simply hooking the public-facing APIs up to observability tools like any other service API. This is just conventional telemetry. Calling this LLM observability implies there is something special about it and unique to LLMs in particular that enhances introspection into the AI model itself, which is not true. The title is highly misleading, classic startup-bro fake-it-til-you-make-it hustling crap, and deserves to be called out.
I guess I'm not sure that there's a practical difference between "It's marketing" and "This is what the market rate is for a CEO." In other words, firms need to pay this much because that's what other firms are paying (at least.) That's not marketing - that's just the unfettered market at work. Which is why it needs to be fettered. I agree with the salary cap idea, because the market will naturally keep raising the price without bound unless there's something to counteract that, and it is terrible for the labor market as a whole (and even the company as a whole) to be paying so much for a CEO when the same amount could buy dozens or even hundreds of workers.
A salary cap doesn’t change the market rate! It just obfuscates it.
Salaries for public companies locked at 10M/yr? Ok, now firms have to compete on amenities. (Your current firm gives you a free car? Ours gives a jet, a personal Michelin star cook, and complimentary beverages)
You'd think so, right? Look up why corporations started providing insurance to their employees. Look into why your compensation is not just a salary, but salary, bonuses, stock (options or RSU's), etc.
AFAIK health insurance is special-cased by law. I had to pay (a trivial amount of) tax on imputed income from IBM's life insurance. The IRS is wise to a lot of perks like company cars.
How about no salary cap but a maximum difference factor between the highest paid and the lowest paid in any company?
Not sure what the figure should be (x10?, x20?, x50?, x100?). That way companies that want to pay higher saleries to their CEO would have to increase everyone's salary.
But there would need to be a way of stopping companies just using shells and subcontracting all the real work to low pay subsidiaries.
An escape from something like this is why companies no longer employ their own janitors, but rather contract that out.
The IRS rules went in that said that with the exception of your executives (that is a whole other conversation), everyone has to have the same plan for insurance and pensions. Since they did not want to give out that much money for janitors, they got kicked out of the companies.
Not buying it. Tesla has a huge share of a growing pie. They will continue to grow as the EV market grows. While I agree that the past few months were not good, the long-term outlook for EVs is positive and therefore Tesla's outlook is positive.
Just because we have all decided we hate Elon Musk doesn't mean everything he has done is bad and destined to fail.
Being first doesn't necessarily make a good outcome. Leadership is the most important to keep it going. Many incredible companies/products have failed as soon as leadership has failed. Musk is more and more worrying investors and customers. It doesn't mean it's going to fail, but it leaves more and more space to.
It’s not destined to fail. But Elon’s jumping the shark has absolutely harmed Tesla sales.
Personal anecdote: I got into the Tesla ecosystem with a model 3. All it took was one test drive and I was sold.
I went on to buy solar and powerwalls, because their prices were literally a fraction of every one of the six local solar companies I got quotes from. Heck, solar plus 3 powerwalls cost the same as just solar from the local clowns.
To your point that not everything they do is destined to fail: I’m still considering getting a couple more powerwalls because with tax incentives and utility rebates they’re a staggeringly good deal. And no one can see the Tesla logos in my basement.
But not only have musk’s idiot antics welded my wallet shut when it comes to not buying another Tesla car, I’ve got a set of emblems from a Mazda 3 to replace the Tesla badges on the one I’ve already got so I can stop feeling embarrassed to be implicitly advertising for them everywhere I drive. The alternative to the badges was a bumper sticker I once saw which said something like “I bought this before Elon jumped the shark”.
I’m bringing personal experience based on having spent $100k with his company– befor le he outed himself as a racist doofus.
You’re bringing quippy contradiction and downvotes. Are you just a fanboy, or do you work for his reputation protection service?
You’re also wrong. You don’t get to tell me what is or isn’t embarrassing for me. That’s for me to decide. Swapping on different badges is, in my world, funny; having a logo associated with an overtly racist man-child on my car is, in fact, embarrassing.
> Are you just a fanboy, or do you work for his reputation protection service?
Neither, I think the Tesla is a well functioning and decently engineered product. It does hurts that Elon is such a big ego and I don't agree with his rants on X.com, He is a extra juicy target for any kind of news or tabloid outlet. I don't attach my identity too strongly with Tesla's or Elon's brand so I just drive the thing around and appreciate it as a good tool that functions for me.
> You’re also wrong. You don’t get to tell me what is or isn’t embarrassing for me.
Fair enough, It's your car, maybe not for me, but absolutely fine for you to enjoy, mod, and change it up however you like.
I find it weird when someone brands one product with the logo of a competing product. I see this when people debadge and rebadge their Honda Civics with Lexus, Audi, and Mercedes logos. I know this is an expression of appreciation for the luxury brand they like but I feel confused by the action none the less. Why not just sell your car and buy a Mazda, is my natural next line of thinking. It's just my opinion, I shouldn't be prescriptive on how others should use their cars they own. You do you and if that makes you happy and hurts no one then thats fine with me,
Oh give me a break. That’s so condescending to African Americans. If African Americans bought a certain kind of shoe, it’s because they liked the shoes. It’s fun to try shoes. People make their own choices.
To be sure, this kind of research, whether ‘craft’ or ‘natural’ is the correct word, is simply too risky to continue. The juice is not worth the squeeze.
Literally just flew on a United Airlines 737 MAX 9 one week ago. It seems like the craft I flew on has probably been grounded in the week since. I noticed that we were flying on a MAX before boarding and nearly asked to switch flights, but consoled myself that I was being irrational and that the planes were almost certainly fine now. Guess my confidence was misplaced.
FWIW, it's only the Max 9s which have this issue. The Max 7s and 8s don't have an exit in that location (too few seats) and the Max 10s require an exit door to be installed in that location, not the door plug.
It's only the Max 9s that have the option of the door plug, if the installed seat count is below the threshold where an additional exit is required.
Yes, this seems like a top to bottom culture rot problem at Boeing sacrificing quality control in exchange for reduced costs.
A few years ago, I had read that certain airlines demanded planes manufacturered in Washington rather than South Carolina, and I wonder if that information actually ends up being a useful signal for better quality planes.
> A few years ago, I had read that certain airlines demanded planes manufacturered in Washington rather than South Carolina, and I wonder if that information actually ends up being a useful signal for better quality planes.
The one with the blown door plug supposedly came off the Renton assembly line. No one is safe.
Correct, but I've seen a lot of confusion that its a systemic problem (ala MCAS) with the Max family. It doesn't look that way. It looks like a manufacturing problem on one particular variant.
The 8 had the great MCAS crashes (boeing solution ? tell the pilot to turn it off when it happens !), the 7 has anti icing that burnout the engine nacelle and make it fall (boeing solution ? being exempted from the certification requirement of your engines not falling off and we will fix it in a few years !), the 9 has doors that fall off (boeing doesn't even have a solution on that one, but they know others bolts are at risk too since they warned to check the rudder bolts on jan 5), ... At this point it's a systemic problem with the MAX overall. The only one without issue is the 10 and it's because it's not out yet, but Boeing want a fast track on certification for it because obviously they're doing so good with these there is no need to fully check it.
And frankly this time we're talking about the worst of the worst, the basic first step of making airplanes : being able to ensure parts of it doesn't fall off for no reason. This is not a design issue, not a cost cutting "they didn't put enough sensors" reason, this is straight up "their manufacturing is bad and their QA is not able to catch it", ... These things have barely started flying and 5 of those are already affected (well, 6 ...), this is absurd.
Sure MBA taking over tends to kill engineering companies ability to make great product, but even Hewlett Packard is still able to make printers that print (they suck, but that's by choice from them)...
I've seen a lot of confusion that its a systemic problem
United found loose fasteners in a different locations on each of the five aircraft they found loose fasteners on. This is right on the heels of another emergency AD for the MAX about loose fasteners in a completely different location. That definitely hints at a systemic problem.
If you expand the scope a bit, Boeing's had nasty assembly and manufacturing problems across its whole model lineup. I highly doubt this is a one off problem.
Just had all my connections cancelled. So extra day in San Fran for me which is less than ideal, but probably better than being on the flight if something happens.
It was total bedlam at the airport when I got in this morning however. With almost no flights available to replace the grounded ones.
Another red eye special for me tonight but at least no connections.
The safety margins on flying machines is really high, so while Boeing really should figure out what the hell is going on, the plane didn't fall out of the sky after a depressurization incident. It failed to a known state (ideally by design!)
That it didn’t fall out the sky is largely due to the door blowing off at a lower altitude by some fluke or miracle. Had this happened at cruising altitude we’d be telling a different story.
I actually don’t want the developer experience of co-location. There are millions of things that are totally irrelevant happening in my company’s (thousands of engineers) monolith. The noise in the commit log is considerable. Isolated repos are smaller, and reduce useless coupling.
I get that it's not a universally applicable solution. I guess at a certain point of scale your organisation would grow out of complete co-location.
But I don't think we have to go with the 100% co-location approach as well. A large monorepo could be organized into domain specific mini-monorepos with co-location benefits.
I think Google, Meta, Microsoft, Twitter, Uber [1] and the thousands of engineers that these companies (and many other companies) employ, would disagree with you.
Sorry, but in what world do sales of electric cars going up and market share of electric vehicles increasing lead to the thesis that "fewer people are buying electric cars?"
Oh - I get it. It's the world where this publication wants clicks for ad revenue.
"Sure, electric vehicles are becoming more and more widely adopted, but wouldn't it be better for this article if they weren't?"
The actual title of the article is "What happened to EVs" and the page title is "Why America's electric car push isn't working". I don't know where the HN title is coming from, whether it's an update of the article's title because of precisely what you're advancing, or if it's heavy editing from the submitter.
Generally speaking the article exposes that the pace of adoption as stated by DoT didn't grow enough to meet their 2030 goal (i.e. The second derivative is going down), and goes on to explain why.
I think the article is fair, I think its title also is, I think the HN title is problematic unless you slap "than required to meet 2030 goals".
So "the fewer people are buying electric cars" canard is still living in a caption under the banner: "Fewer people are buying electric cars — the slowdown hints at a problem at the heart of America's EV push."
We’ve come full circle to Hearst and Pulitzer duking it out for the title of world’s richest liar.
Alfred Nobel at least felt guilty for introducing high explosives to warfare. The prize was his penance.
Everything I learn about Pulitzer says he’s a piece of shit, and I don’t know why anyone would want to win a prize named after either of those two oligarchs. But it does say something very on the nose about the epicycles in news reporting.
> Instead of seeing EVs as one piece of a plan for more sustainable transportation, America has focused on using EVs as a one-to-one replacement for gas guzzlers. But this one-size-fits-all solution fails to address our broader transportation problems, meaning emissions targets are likely to be missed and other transportation problems will continue to go unaddressed.
and
> People in Norway own more cars than they have in the past, in part because EV incentives encourage people to buy more cars, and the government has no plans to reduce how much people are driving.
"The government has no plans to reduce how much people are driving"? Huh? Obviously, the narrative of this article is anti-car. That's the "broader transportation problems" that they're referring to in the first quote. They could care less if the cars are producing emissions or not, they're just trying to manifest an anti-car future.
Market-share is a cumulative metric, representing the sum of all purchases over several years. Sales is a flow metric, representing the sum of purchases in a given year. Market-share can increase, yet sales can be down in a given year.
