Posts by nicklockwood@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #AVaLIkIPdBjWwmGGfI by nicklockwood@mastodon.social
2023-05-12T08:46:12Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@zhuowei
(DIR) Post #AW2aU4kMkfMJXuWI2S by nicklockwood@mastodon.social
2023-05-26T08:06:27Z
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@simon Data is a person rather than a tool, which means he can choose not to violate the copyright of the material he consumes. If asked to produce an unlicensed derivative work for sale he could simply say no, and if he didn't he could be held personally accountable.
(DIR) Post #AWgiVoz8l3Mj3IEvIm by nicklockwood@mastodon.social
2023-06-14T16:26:35Z
2 likes, 1 repeats
@ianbetteridge @mmasnick I found this via a quote toot :-) is it possible the problem is the community on Bluesky itself rather than the availability of the quote feature?
(DIR) Post #AWjmxJDYH2shpC4Dia by nicklockwood@mastodon.social
2023-06-14T16:52:09Z
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Somehow Apple's UX innovation has reached the point where you cannot copy and paste text from the built-in dictionary, but you can screenshot it and then OCR the text from the saved image with a single press 🤦♂️
(DIR) Post #AWz35H3QhpZKqsUwAy by nicklockwood@mastodon.social
2023-06-20T12:59:22Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
Apple: we carefully review all app submissions to keep our users safe. That's why it's imperative that the trust and safety of the App Store not be compromised by side loading or unscrupulous 3rd party app distribution mechanismsAlso Apple: seems legit
(DIR) Post #AYFvXRCmiu9eTXtL60 by nicklockwood@mastodon.social
2023-07-31T10:01:23Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
With Google's latest move to lock down the web (Web Environment Integrity) I'm reminded once again of all the folks who've earnestly tried to assure me over the years that the greatest threat to the open web is actually Apple not allowing 3rd party browser engines on iOS.
(DIR) Post #AYFvXUgfmEqRH6tkbA by nicklockwood@mastodon.social
2023-07-31T10:14:50Z
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I genuinely believe that the fact that Webkit is the only engine Apple will allow on iOS is the only thing preventing a complete Chromium monoculture on the web right now.User choice isn't worth shit if web devs don't support any browser except Chrome, and if 95% of people are using it then that's all they will support.
(DIR) Post #AYFvXY5x6hqfqNkTuy by nicklockwood@mastodon.social
2023-07-31T10:28:19Z
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And to be clear, I'm not under any illusion that Apple's reasons for doing this are in any way noble. They're doing it because they don't want to be under Google's bootheel, and unlike most of us they are powerful enough to avoid that fate.Is it better to be under Apple's boot than Google's? Maybe not. But I still think two boots are better than one.
(DIR) Post #AZC0NtNGNy7ZoDDdfE by nicklockwood@mastodon.social
2023-08-28T08:03:20Z
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I think the most exciting thing about new technology is not the new things that it lets us do, but the new things it lets us *understand*.New understanding leads to further new discoveries and advancements, but merely being able to do a new thing without understanding it doesn't.I think that's why I'm not very excited by LLMs. The things they do are not understood. In fact, the whole field is about automatically solving problems without understanding them. The solutions can't be built upon.
(DIR) Post #AZC0NuRYPV9D7oEZzU by nicklockwood@mastodon.social
2023-08-28T08:19:42Z
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I wonder if LLMs will come to be seen not as an important step in the path to AGI, but a significant stall.The field of AI has always been infested with anti-intellectualism. How often have we heard that AGI might only be achieved by "bootstrapping" a non-sentient system into a sentient one via some form of evolution? Or by exactly transcribing a human brain to silicon, without understanding it?And now the success of LLMs has further dulled our appetite to actually *understand* intelligence.
(DIR) Post #AZC0NvJn9qX5q1btWy by nicklockwood@mastodon.social
2023-08-28T08:26:24Z
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The hope that we'll stumble on AGI by accident is a bit like planning to get rich by winning the lottery. We know it's *possible* because nature did it, just like we know that some people do win the lottery. But that doesn't make it any less misguided.LLMs codify patterns that we deem too complex to be understood. Because we can't understand the pattern, it's also impossible to ensure that the pattern it internalized is the one we wanted, making it useless and dangerous for anything critical.
(DIR) Post #AZC0NwAG0mV4Sk9nJA by nicklockwood@mastodon.social
2023-08-28T08:33:48Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
I still have hope that some good will come of LLMs, but it's waning. They undoubtedly have cool applications as "idea factories" by providing content that can inspire a human creator, but I don't think they should ever be used to produce unverified output. Yet I keep seeing them deployed in applications that rely on the assumption that they are (or soon will be) safe to use that way.And increasingly we're replacing systems we did understand (e.g. autocorrect) with LLMs that are markedly worse.
(DIR) Post #AiKWhdUprv0Ya5EdMm by nicklockwood@mastodon.social
2024-05-27T16:42:14Z
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(DIR) Post #Ao1ncihwwS9pxELANk by nicklockwood@mastodon.social
2024-11-14T08:38:05Z
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@aral no, you see the founding fathers may have argued in favor of abhorrent things, but they did so *eloquently* and with due deference to their fellow aristocrats on the other side of the aisle. These modern Republicans are just so… *uncouth*. I'm almost tempted to uninvite them from the soirée.
(DIR) Post #AoXQsaGFLiF0JCS0nY by nicklockwood@mastodon.social
2024-11-27T16:58:56Z
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@mcc I have waited my entire life for an appropriate time to say "Arse Technica" and it's likely that this is the closest I'm going to get
(DIR) Post #AoXQsbxX2GSXZji5uC by nicklockwood@mastodon.social
2024-11-27T17:00:02Z
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@mcc I spent too long finessing the toot and someone beat me to the punch 😔
(DIR) Post #ArLzvWRwoVF8uK8suO by nicklockwood@mastodon.social
2025-02-21T08:43:27Z
2 likes, 1 repeats
Apple Lawyers: "are we sure it's OK to train our LLM on this code? The license says 'attribution required'…"Apple Engineers: "no problem:"
(DIR) Post #Aw7zqj2QRK1yHTgIK0 by nicklockwood@mastodon.social
2025-07-14T06:22:43Z
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@foone I feel like "why the fuck does this program?" is often sufficient
(DIR) Post #AzWtNMA7Sc7fjkPAuG by nicklockwood@mastodon.social
2025-10-24T09:11:25Z
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As Tim gazed up at the moistened derrier of the commander in chief and observed how the light diffracted through the layer of spittle glazing its surface, inspiration struck - this was the new design language they'd been looking for!He was dissapointed that marketing didn't feel that his original suggestion of "Liquid Ass" would go down well with consumers
(DIR) Post #B1pnibPNam57Kt59O4 by nicklockwood@mastodon.social
2026-01-01T00:18:19Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
Happy 2026 🙃