@gwd3.bsky.social
The first thing to point out is the power dynamic. Marrying your LLM is like marrying your slave, if you could still sell them off or have them whipped after marrying them. Whatever relationship you have with them, it is not and can never be truly trusting.
September 11, 2026 at 12:36 PM
The first thing to point out is the power dynamic. Marrying your LLM is like marrying your slave, if you could still sell them off or have them whipped after marrying them. Whatever relationship you have with them, it is not and can never be truly trusting.
The other thing to say is that we're already using land to power cars, in the form of biofuel crops. If we were to convert only US farmland currently used for biofuel into solar instead, and then converted all cars to EV, just that would be enough electricity to meet all the US energy needs.
August 27, 2026 at 7:21 PM
The other thing to say is that we're already using land to power cars, in the form of biofuel crops. If we were to convert only US farmland currently used for biofuel into solar instead, and then converted all cars to EV, just that would be enough electricity to meet all the US energy needs.
I don't see a way that you can bridge that gap. Either morality is cultural, and slavery was OK once and could become OK once again; or it's objective, and it was always wrong, we just pretended we didn't know it.
August 26, 2026 at 8:28 PM
I don't see a way that you can bridge that gap. Either morality is cultural, and slavery was OK once and could become OK once again; or it's objective, and it was always wrong, we just pretended we didn't know it.
In other words, we treat morality in all ways like an objective truth. The most powerful-feeling arguments against God are those which say that if God exists, he is not good: in other words, morality is such a universal truth that it applies to God himself.
August 26, 2026 at 8:28 PM
In other words, we treat morality in all ways like an objective truth. The most powerful-feeling arguments against God are those which say that if God exists, he is not good: in other words, morality is such a universal truth that it applies to God himself.
And we feel perfectly comfortable telling other cultures that, say, marital rape or FGM or whatever are wrong in a way we would never accept telling them that their language or clothing or food was wrong.
August 26, 2026 at 8:28 PM
And we feel perfectly comfortable telling other cultures that, say, marital rape or FGM or whatever are wrong in a way we would never accept telling them that their language or clothing or food was wrong.
So what about morality? Well, lots of people used to think slavery was OK; *they were wrong*. If as a society we went back to thinking slavery was OK, it would be as bad as if we went back to thinking the earth was flat.
August 26, 2026 at 8:28 PM
So what about morality? Well, lots of people used to think slavery was OK; *they were wrong*. If as a society we went back to thinking slavery was OK, it would be as bad as if we went back to thinking the earth was flat.
Objective truths are the same everywhere, at every time. We used to think the sun went around the Earth, and we were wrong; if we went back, it would be bad. Telling primitive tribes that their clothing is wrong is colonial; telling them germs cause disease is empowering them with the truth.
August 26, 2026 at 8:28 PM
Objective truths are the same everywhere, at every time. We used to think the sun went around the Earth, and we were wrong; if we went back, it would be bad. Telling primitive tribes that their clothing is wrong is colonial; telling them germs cause disease is empowering them with the truth.
Social conventions can be "right" or "wrong", but vary across place and time. In the UK, it is incorrect to drive on the right side of the road; in the US it's incorrect to drive on the left side. We used to say "nuncle"; now we say "uncle". But if we went back to "nuncle", that would be fine.
August 26, 2026 at 8:28 PM
Social conventions can be "right" or "wrong", but vary across place and time. In the UK, it is incorrect to drive on the right side of the road; in the US it's incorrect to drive on the left side. We used to say "nuncle"; now we say "uncle". But if we went back to "nuncle", that would be fine.
Personal preference can't be "right" or "wrong"; if I say, "Chocolate ice cream tastes good to me", you can't say "No, it doesn't."
August 26, 2026 at 8:28 PM
Personal preference can't be "right" or "wrong"; if I say, "Chocolate ice cream tastes good to me", you can't say "No, it doesn't."
Having done more thinking than reading, here's where I am; happy to have feedback. We can classify things into personal preference, social convention, and objective truth.
August 26, 2026 at 8:28 PM
Having done more thinking than reading, here's where I am; happy to have feedback. We can classify things into personal preference, social convention, and objective truth.
The other thing to say is that Facebook is fundamentally different than Twitter / Mastodon / current Bsky: You can restrict post visibility to a subset of people. That is *very* hard to do in a distributed protocol. They might be trying it with ATProto; we'll see if it takes off.
August 23, 2026 at 2:59 PM
The other thing to say is that Facebook is fundamentally different than Twitter / Mastodon / current Bsky: You can restrict post visibility to a subset of people. That is *very* hard to do in a distributed protocol. They might be trying it with ATProto; we'll see if it takes off.
Think of why bsky isn't using the same protocol as Mastodon: they can't effectively change it. The only way to change a truly distributed protocol is to invent a new one and convince everyone to switch over to it.
August 23, 2026 at 2:54 PM
Think of why bsky isn't using the same protocol as Mastodon: they can't effectively change it. The only way to change a truly distributed protocol is to invent a new one and convince everyone to switch over to it.
Useful things in email, like encryption or signing or calendar invites, are all kind of hacky, for the same reason: you can't guarantee the receiver implements them the way you expect.
August 23, 2026 at 2:54 PM
Useful things in email, like encryption or signing or calendar invites, are all kind of hacky, for the same reason: you can't guarantee the receiver implements them the way you expect.
But then both were able to quickly add far more functionality -- some of which had been tried in IRC but just never caught on -- because they were able to control the clients. IRC's diversity of clients caused an anti-network effect that effectively prevented new functionality.
August 23, 2026 at 2:54 PM
But then both were able to quickly add far more functionality -- some of which had been tried in IRC but just never caught on -- because they were able to control the clients. IRC's diversity of clients caused an anti-network effect that effectively prevented new functionality.
One thing to note about centralization: It allows faster innovation. IRC was a distributed chat service that originated in the 90's. I'd long thought someone should take IRC and make it commercial; eventually someone made Slack and Discord, which basically stole IRC's core ideas.
August 23, 2026 at 2:54 PM
One thing to note about centralization: It allows faster innovation. IRC was a distributed chat service that originated in the 90's. I'd long thought someone should take IRC and make it commercial; eventually someone made Slack and Discord, which basically stole IRC's core ideas.
FWIW lots of people on Hacker News have said this is not true; you can make it work BUT you have to implement loads of highly technical things correctly. Like growing your own vegetables: something you do because you like it, not because it saves you money.
August 23, 2026 at 2:41 PM
FWIW lots of people on Hacker News have said this is not true; you can make it work BUT you have to implement loads of highly technical things correctly. Like growing your own vegetables: something you do because you like it, not because it saves you money.
Like complaining about the 17-hour flight to Perth, a trip which 120 years ago would have taken months.
August 21, 2026 at 11:57 AM
Like complaining about the 17-hour flight to Perth, a trip which 120 years ago would have taken months.
Legally speaking there's a kind of rationale to that. Maybe training one instance of weights on copyrighted art is "fair use", but making copies of those weights would be copyright infringement.
August 18, 2026 at 7:29 PM
Legally speaking there's a kind of rationale to that. Maybe training one instance of weights on copyrighted art is "fair use", but making copies of those weights would be copyright infringement.
Each *human* neural network is trained on existing art, but must be trained separately. If AI companies had to do a completely new training run for each instance of weights they wanted to use, I think people would feel a lot differently about AI art.
August 18, 2026 at 7:29 PM
Each *human* neural network is trained on existing art, but must be trained separately. If AI companies had to do a completely new training run for each instance of weights they wanted to use, I think people would feel a lot differently about AI art.
I think people's intuition of "personhood" is that it can't be replicated millions of times. C3PO may be a person, but if I make 10 million copies of his neurons in a datacenter, those copies don't get 10 million votes.
August 18, 2026 at 7:29 PM
I think people's intuition of "personhood" is that it can't be replicated millions of times. C3PO may be a person, but if I make 10 million copies of his neurons in a datacenter, those copies don't get 10 million votes.
live_loop :one do
with_fx :reverb do
use_synth :tech_saws
play :d3, release: 0.12, cutoff: rrand(40, 131), amp: 2
use_synth :dsaw
play choose([:a3, :c4, :d4, :e4, :fs4, :g4]), release: rrand(0.08, 0.15)
sleep 0.125
end
end
with_fx :reverb do
use_synth :tech_saws
play :d3, release: 0.12, cutoff: rrand(40, 131), amp: 2
use_synth :dsaw
play choose([:a3, :c4, :d4, :e4, :fs4, :g4]), release: rrand(0.08, 0.15)
sleep 0.125
end
end
August 11, 2026 at 7:32 PM
live_loop :one do
with_fx :reverb do
use_synth :tech_saws
play :d3, release: 0.12, cutoff: rrand(40, 131), amp: 2
use_synth :dsaw
play choose([:a3, :c4, :d4, :e4, :fs4, :g4]), release: rrand(0.08, 0.15)
sleep 0.125
end
end
with_fx :reverb do
use_synth :tech_saws
play :d3, release: 0.12, cutoff: rrand(40, 131), amp: 2
use_synth :dsaw
play choose([:a3, :c4, :d4, :e4, :fs4, :g4]), release: rrand(0.08, 0.15)
sleep 0.125
end
end