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I found the auto translate thing very funny. Like this woman is some train station in Mexico and after getting an invitation in Spanish to some music event she doesn't even try to say "Gracias".

Like yeah, obviously anyone would understand "Thanks" but come on. Was this part of the discussion of some long meeting? Like if she said a word in Spanish it would imply the Air Pods translate your words?

I'm obviously nitpicking but I just found it oddly funny.


Like this woman is some train station in Mexico and after getting an invitation in Spanish to some music event she doesn't even try to say "Gracias".

It was Union Station in Los Angeles, one of the busiest and most iconic train stations in the country.


I think there's plenty of interest, Samsung, Pixel and Motorola are just some of the companies with multiple generations of foldables. Besides enthusiasts, the type of person that might want an iPhone duo is someone that doesn't really use a laptop. The utility of a tablet for media consumption and light productivity with a small footprint is real thing.

The problems besides price (which are still insane) until now where:

- Materials not catching up, things like the older creases, dust ingress, etc.

- Software in Android being hit or miss, specially on with third parties. Apple has the muscle to make apps compatible with the form factor.

- The "standard" foldable aspect ratio sucking ass, the only major exceptions being the Surface Duo, the original Pixel Fold and the recent Galaxy Fold. Passport format is simply better.

>Imagine if Apple dedicated this huge engineering effort onto existing products.

For what? Slab phones are practically solved, the only things that might make a normal iPhone better besides incrementally better camera, battery and processors are not Apple approved. No expandable storage or cheap battery replacements for you. The only place for real advancemnt will be foldables for a while.


Ah, now the pearl clutching makes sense. Some of other children in daycare are from the bad and weird ethnicity. Would a 23andme be a good requirement for playdates then?


I didn't say anything about ethnicity - are you kidding me? My community has nearly all ethnicities.


The worry about people from other countries kinda implies it, but maybe I'm misreading.


How well does the average person know their neighbors when they move to a new place? Maybe if you had a routine where you and your children meet other families that live close to you... hmmmm


"Local man shocked that human child rearing is communal"


Maybe they are trying hedge due to the original book not being satirical?


This is a non sequitur. Yes, if someone doesn't actually believe in imminent AI doomsday they are not going full Sarah Connor on Anthropic. Yes, HN will not like if someone pipe bombs the office. What does it have to do with @ericmay's point?

He directly says "They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives", that's a claim of imminent threat to humanity. If he truly believes that, direct action shouldn't be off the table nor even be immoral. Obviously he might not have the temperament or simply be a pacifist, that's totally normal but the point is that tweets are weird even then.

Why just make some tepid tweets if you think humanity is at risk? Why doesn't he leak documents and messages with the unfiltered opinions of leadership? Why isn't screaming "we are going to die" in CNBC? You'know, try anything?

That's where the "take it with a grain of salt" is important, maybe this is just a jumping point to a better job in the next super safe AI lab (for realsies this time)


> Why just make some tepid tweets if you think humanity is at risk?

Who says that's the only thing he is doing?

> Why doesn't he leak documents and messages with the unfiltered opinions of leadership?

Again, illegal. You're asking him to sacrifice his life (somewhat similar to Snowden). You can call not doing that cowardice or wisdom, but not proof that he doesn't believe what he is saying.

> Why isn't screaming "we are going to die" in CNBC?

Because that is up to CNBC to broadcast. Do you really think you can just call them up and get a timeslot for your soap boxing? Also, maybe he believes the tweets are a start to achieve that. He sure managed to get a lot of attention through them already..

Now I don't know the guy, nor do I care much about his tweets or life. I just think some people here try to confirm their own worldview by fallaciously framing his behavior as suspect.


>Because if you don't, then you will be one of its targets when it does, inevitably, come into being.

Only if you don't spend 5 minutes thinking about the Self as a concept. Resurrecting someone by perfect simulation is a cool plot device for a novel like Altered Carbon (which ironically is really about wealth inequality) but not a serious hypothetical.

Even if we ignore that, no, super intelligent MechaGrok17 cannot make a perfect copy of you posthumously from your embarrassing Character.AI chats and IoT toilet data, the copy it still wouldn't be YOU. It would (supposedly) think and behave like you, but for all purposes it would be the Basilisk torturing a future stranger, or your descendants. I'm very much a fan of people not being potentiality tortured, so the rational action is to stop the creation Basilisk, or even just delay it so you aren't around for it. There's a bunch of other big assumptions that makes Roko's Basilisk really stupid, but they are unimportant. It's just theory crafting, like talking about the lore of video games or marvel comics. It doesn't help you understand their real motivations.

Roko's Basilisk is just recontextualized protestant Hell in a sci-fi coat of paint. It's the childhood anxieties of American nerds about hell and sin. The problem is that they are still culturally protestant. God doesn't exist or he's hands off, but in their minds there's still a open position for the wrathful and proactive God. If you think that you actually can create God for realsies, your very rational™ prediction of its behavior will coincidentally line up with your childhood fears.

Why is the spooky AI mad at you? Because you didn't worship it correctly.

Why do you obey it? Because if I don't it will torture me for eternity.

How will it do that? God is omnipotent, don't think about it.

Why don't try to stop it's creation? “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

All the scifi scaffolding and stuff like acausal trade is paint over Timmy's first panic attack on Sunday school 30 years ago.


There are a couple of different formulations of the Basilisk I've heard: I agree with you that the version that says the AI will create a simulation of you to torture for eternity makes no sense as an actual incentive for you to help bring it into being.

However, the version that says AGI—as in, the Basilisk—will be created within our lifetimes proposes that it will punish the actual person.

All that said, I will reiterate that I think the whole thing is utter nonsense.


us-east-1 goes down and half of the "extremely complex and robust technical infrastructure" that Silicon Valley types have built stops working.

The average computer toucher with delusions of grandeur would kill themselves if they had to moderate a public assembly or do a public facing job in a municipal office. Of course you believe that's peon work and your superior intellect with unlimited power as leader would build something better, cue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_Project


>who tips on Uber? People who aren't sociopaths, I'd say.

Non-americans don't. To me, being socially expected to tip for a Taxi feels like a parody from a sketch comedy. ditto for tipping barbers or expecting tips over 10%. The only time I've tipped a Uber was when me and my friends were at risk of losing a train. The driver (unprompted) went pedal to the metal to make it on time, so afterwards I gave him a couple of bucks.

Tip culture is bad for rideshare drivers in aggregate anyways. The apps carefully manage the pay of drivers on each market so necessary supply is guaranteed at minimal cost. If a expectation of tipping exists, the platforms simply pay less. Now drivers also have maximize for tips instead of just driving the goddamn car.


Fair enough- outside of the US, workers may get paid fairly. In the US, many service workers are in a system where the employer has externalized the cost to pay those employees to the customers. The system is awful, but I'm also not going to not tip if I can afford it.

FWIW, the real problem isn't tip culture, it is the power imbalance between labor and the company that is using that labor (without employing drivers), but I dunno how much of an audience that kind of argument has on this particular site.


> outside of the US, workers may get paid fairly

I don't think that's why there is little tip culture in eg east Asia. It's just... the price the business expects you to pay is mostly advertised upfront, it's known to everyone involved, why would you pay more if you got exactly the service you have ordered? It simply does not make sense.


My country has stronger worker protections (for now) than the US, but employers would be happy (and do try!) to externalize pay to customers via tip. It doesn't work because people find it insane and refuse the US inspired nag tip screens.

The US will never fix the externalization of salaries until the public refuses to tip at ridiculous percentages and situations. You'll see a 40% tip expectation at restaurants, your local dentist will install a tip screen. Just tip 10% at sitdown places and refuse emotional blackmail. If you feel any guilt, just make the habit to tally the dollar amount of "normal" tips and make monthly donations to your local food bank.

EDIT: My point is that tipping culture is unrelated to worker rights. Many countries with large informal economies (i.e minimum wage isn't enforced for most people) have no expectation of tipping. The reason Norwegians don't tip drivers isn't because they have a wonderful safety net, it's because there's isn't a social pressure to do so.

Mixing charity and payment of services is stupid and a moral hazard. Servers have shit wages in the US by law because people tip and the same is true (via algorithm) with rideshare drivers.


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