> it's a question of the broad strokes of how conclusions are reached on forward processing.

I think it's uncontroversial that in the wide sense of the word think, what the brain does, cognition, or neural processes, is not at all like what computers do including LLMs.

Forward processing, in my opinion, doesn't change that. The computer processes involved can be referred to as thinking but it is only in an anthropomorphic sense that doesn't actually transfer over to human thinking except maybe as a convenient labeling shortcut.

It's kind of like when I explain to my family in general terms what a computer is doing, I'll sometimes use the word think anthropomorphically but in fact, under the hood, the processes I'm referring are not of the brain processes kind but rather they're of the mechanical thermostat kind.

So when the author wrote,

"Progress in AI is birthing a new kind of intelligence, reminiscent of our own in some ways but entirely alien in others. Understanding the nature of this intelligence is a profound scientific challenge, which has the potential to reshape our conception of what it means to *think* "

isn't he engaging, maybe inadvertently, in misdirection or in some kind of gaslighting ?

> It doesnt think

>> Yeah, it does. https://transformer-circuits.p...

?

In the paper, in the text itself, whenever the authors use the word think to refer to a human thing they don't put think in quotes and when they use the word to refer a description of what an LLM is doing they always put "think" in quotes.

I didn't find an explanation why. Are they in effect acknowledging that they don't mean the same thing by the word in each situation and want to avoid a kind of equivocation? Near the end of the paper they add another typographical feature to think: italics.

"Progress in AI is birthing a new kind of intelligence, reminiscent of our own in some ways but entirely alien in others. Understanding the nature of this intelligence is a profound scientific challenge, which has the potential to reshape our conception of what it means to think".

Interesting, hadn't thought about risks.

BYD gets subsidies of about 300$ per car - https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Feletric-vehicles.com%2Fg...

"BYD received $2.1 billion in subsidies from the Chinese government in 2022 alone, and those subsidies were equivalent to 3.5 percent of the firm’s revenues for that year" - https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fitif.org%2Fpublications%2F...

Analysts estimate that direct state subsidies account for only about 5% of BYD's total per-unit cost advantage over competitors like Tesla. The remaining 95% of BYD's price advantage comes from structural elements like in-house manufacturing of 80% of its components, massive production scale, lower overhead costs and lower local labor costs. - https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Frestofworld.org%2F2026%2Fw... - https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Feletric-vehicles.com%2Fg...

> Now after it is proven that it does nothing

But it seems it's already proven to have an effect:

The light is absorbed by cytochrome c oxidase, an enzyme in the mitochondria which triggers the release of nitric oxide, this helps mitochondria produce more ATP, expands local blood vessels and improves blood lowering oxidative stress and decreasing inflammation.

I may have misread some of the article but you can look at it yourself, section 3.1 - https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fa...

> Not a good analogy...

You're are absolutely right.

I misread the parent's "I create an agent" as "I create and AI", a kind thought experiment where he was going to tinker a AI driven system into existence from A to Z, training and all, by his lonesome himself.

> If I create an agent to help me diagnose a misfire on my car engine, and it hacks Ford's website to get technical manuals that I didn't pay for that's on me? WTF is wrong with you?

What about a dog owner analogy. If your dog causes harm to someone you will be held liable even if you had no intention for the harm to occur.

> I wonder if you actually think it was a good argument.

Maybe in a sense but it also represents a pattern. But don't these US companies make BYD subsidies seem pretty average at best?

"The U.S. Government Now Owns Stakes In 30 Companies. Intel Is Just The Beginning" - https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Ff...

For a start the US government owns equity about 9 billion in Intel.

"Subsidy Tracker Top 100 Parent Companies" - https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsubsidytracker.goodjob...

Top 3 US subsidies: Boeing 16 billion, Amazon 15 billion and Ford 9 billion. Tesla is at 3 billion and Lockheed Martin at 3 billion but Lockheed also has 75 % of its contracts with the US government for about 40 billion.

"Elon Musk’s business empire is built on $38 billion in government funding" - https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.congress.gov%2F119%2Fm...

Thats looking collectively across Elon Musk's companies that have secured over $38 billion through regulatory EV credits (11 billion), NASA/DoD contracts, and federal loans.

> As long as we're teaching kids there's a time, place and appropriate use for their tools

Humm, doesn't work for alcohol, and we also keep that out of reach.

> and that they're not a substitute for genuine human interaction - that's how education is supposed to function.

We can teach kids that A.I. doesn't work as a developmental substitute for genuine and healthy human connections. But then what's going to happen with children who, to various degrees, lack a healthy fundamental human connection if companion chat-bots are available?

> If you've used Facebook it was pretty obvious that it wasn't appropriate for kids.

When I used Facebook a while back, it was fine.

Supposing they'd ever used it themselves, what should have tipped them off?

Parents have responsibilities. Companies do too, but it's a particular kind of responsibility, it needs to operated under tight regulatory oversight, be subject to stringent monitoring and heightened scrutiny, and be bound by rigid compliance frameworks. A healthy community depends on it.

> The same Motorola that has cozy relationships with law enforcement?

The original Motorola, Inc. was split in two.

Motorola Mobility (The Smartphone Company) is the consumer phone division that was spun off during the 2011 split. It was briefly bought by Google in 2012 and was subsequently sold to the Chinese technology giant Lenovo in 2014. Today, Motorola Mobility is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lenovo.

while

Motorola Solutions (The Law Enforcement Tech Company) is the direct legal successor to the original company. It is an American-owned, publicly traded corporation based in Chicago. It focuses exclusively on police radios, body cameras, surveillance systems, and government software. It does not make consumer smartphones.

Humm,

That's seems to be a part of it.

Countering the negative emotional impact caused by an increasing rise in levels of real world social and wealth disparity that started around the 80s and is still ongoing, shouldn't have been done by teaching children increased self-esteem without real achievement, as that tends to increase fragile confidence and poor handling of criticism, making many younger adults today even less capable of facing today's increasing real world challenges than they would have been if they hadn't been exposed to the self-esteem movement (?

------------------

"John Vasconcellos believed low self-esteem was the root cause of crime, teen pregnancy, and academic failure. In 1986, the California government created the Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility. New Age psychologists and self-help authors from institutions like the Esalen Institute laid the theoretical groundwork, claiming that children must love themselves unconditionally before they can succeed. The trend rapidly spread across the United States."

But I don't think low self esteem caused crime, teen pregnancy, and academic failure. Those issues were more likely (?) a by product of a less than healthy sense of belonging and emotional grounding, which both have low self-esteem as a symptom. In a way children do need to start out 'loving themselves', but the way to install that is not by "self-esteem without real achievement".

"Albert Ellis, an influential American psychologist, argued that the concept of self-esteem is actually harmful and unhelpful. Although acknowledging the human propensity and tendency to ego rating as innate, he has critiqued the philosophy of self-esteem as unrealistic, illogical and self- and socially destructive – often doing more harm than good. Questioning the foundations and usefulness of generalized ego strength, he has claimed that self-esteem is based on arbitrary definitional premises, and overgeneralized, perfectionistic and grandiose thinking." https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...

> Worse than that, they enter post college life mentally like 9th graders.

That's a lot. Causes?

New internet and mobile media, helicopter parents, various levels of deficient education and socializing during COVID years

What else?

> "While I am sure that there is some pressure on freshman students, one of the best ways of dealing with pressure is enduring it and overcoming it, not attempting to shield people from it," comments Ol Olsoc.

> > Sad part is while physically adults, they are emotionally children. I figure they are around the 9th grade level.

Do you mean that current "13th" grade first year university students are developmentally at the level where 9th grade first year high school students used to be?

> Doesn't seem to make sense unless they were putting in air in order to push out the landfill gas.

According to Gemini the main issue is "over pulling". Methane is extracted with a vacuum, and if it's not done right you can end up pulling oxygen into the landfill.

"Risks of Over-Extracting Landfill Gas: For Site Owners" - https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Flumifyenergy.com%2Fblog%2F...

So greed can be a contributing factor, along with incompetence, inadequate monitoring, and bad maintenance or mechanical failures.

Of course the problem isn't limited to California. Across the US and Canada about 25 fires were reported each month of the year, from 2016 to 2021. "Fires Continue On Historical Trend" - https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.waste360.com%2Flandf...