One is a cybernetic system. It has sensors, a controller, a decision system, goals, and actuators. Arguably it's alive, but I think the definition of cybernetics is sufficient because it's objective.
I suspect 1M token context is questionable value because of the secondary effect of burning quota vs getting work done.
I think the model select that let me choose 1M made sense because I could decide if I was working on large documents and compacting more often was more effective.
GPU and RAM prices have definitely not made consumer PC's cheaper than they were before bitcoin blew up or before AI blew up.
Maybe you could make an argument that they are more cost efficient for the price point... But that's not the same as cheaper when every application or program is poorly optimized. For example why would a browser take up more than a GB or two of RAM?
And I'd postulate that R&D to develop localized AI is another example, the big players seem hellbent that there needs to be a most and it's data centers... The absolute opposite of optimization
We've had RAM shocks before. We nerds can't control the Wall Street or Virginians who like to break the world every so often for the lulz. However, a wobble on the curve doesn't change the curve's destination.
I think the mountain of things I don’t understand was already huge. It doesn’t stop me from getting a grip over the things I need to be responsible for and using tools to contain complexity irrelevant to me. Like many scientists have a stats person.
The risk is that civilization is over its skis because humans are lazy. Humans are always lazy. In science there’s a limit to bs because dependent works fail. In economics there’s a crash. In physics stuff breaks. Then there is a correction.
I am really enjoying this renaissance in CLI world applications. There's so much possible.
I'm working on a related challenge which is mounting a virtual filesystem with FUSE that mirrors my Mac's actual filesystem (over a subtree like ~/source), so I can constrain the agents within that filesystem, and block destructive changes outside their repo.
I have it so every repo has its own long-lived agent. They do get excited and start changing other repos, which messes up memory.
I didn't want to create a system user per repo because that's obnoxious, so I created a single claude system user, and I am using the virtual file system to manage permissions. My gmail repo's agent can for instance change the gmail repo and the google_auth repo, but it can't change the rag repo.
It doesn't force you go through risk modelling because by now most SOC2 platforms have templates you just fill in the blanks and sign off. Conversely, the auditors are paid by the company, so their incentive is to pass the audit so the client can get what it wants.
Because there's no adversarial pressure as a check and balance to the security, and AICPA is clearly just happy to take the fees, it's a hollow shirt. It's like this scene from The Big Short. https://youtu.be/mwdo17GT6sg?si=Hzada9JcdIPfdyFN&t=140
As usual, it's only people that care that force positive change. The companies that want good security will have good security. Customers who want good security will demand good security.
It’s not surprising. There has been quite a bit of industrial research in how to manage mere apes to be deterministic with huge software control systems, and they are an unruly bunch I assure you.
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