UnpluggedFridge @ UnpluggedFridge @lemmy.world

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1 yr. ago

I use LLMs all the time for work and hobbies, but my work and hobbies are well suited for LLM assistance.

Writing boilerplate documents. I do this for work. I hate it. LLMs are very good at it.

Writing boilerplate code. I do not like writing docstrings, making my code more maintainable, enforcing argument types, etc. I do a lot of research code and I need to spend my time testing and debuging. I can feed my spaghetti into an LLM and it will finish out all the boilerplate for me.

Avoiding advertising is the best way to avoid influence, but remember that pretty much everyone wants you to change your mind ina way that benefits them. Avoiding influence altogether is impossible, and that influence is necessary to stay informed and make good life choices.

My advice is twofold. First, learn the logical fallacies and how to identify them. Second, account for uncertainty in your decisions. The most practical application of this second point is to favor decisions that leave you with more options in the future. This uncertainty should include you. Account for the possibility that your goals and views may change in the future, because they will.

I would never allow my DNA to be characterized or sequenced outside of a medical setting where strict privacy laws are in place.

The real problem with government housing in the US specifically stems from our worship of billionaires, which requires us to demonize the poor. If a rich man is selfmade due to his virtues then poor people must lack virtue. That worldview implies that no amount of help will redeem the poor. Thus safety net programs are half-assed at best, and cut to bare bones or cut entirely at the worst.

The narrative that government-run programs are useless just does not hold up to the evidence. Even the housing program you mentioned is an improvement over nothing. But take a look at some of our programs and imagine the horror of a private alternative: US Postal service (I can send a letter to the smallest town in Alaska with a single stamp), rural electricity, roads (my God could you imagine a private road system), public school. You need to remember that the alternative to any flawed government program is NOTHING.

You are getting downvotes because Tucker Carlson has weaponized the "I'm just asking questions" excuse to justify terrible takes on established science. People are finding you guilty by association. It is very hard to distinguish between actual curiosity and trolling, especially when bigots are constantly honing their messaging to appeal to wider audiences. Some people will get caught in the crossfire of our culture wars.

The cause and effect may be reversed there.

I do not want my information filtered through an opaque algorithm. My worldview is much too important to surrender to some corporation. I want to understand and have some control over any feed I use. My media diet includes Lemmy, AP news, PubMed/science journals, and conversations with friends and coworkers.

I am very happy with Lemmy so far. Some have pointed out there is less content on Lemmy, but that is a bonus in my book. It is not healthy to spend hours scrolling.

I have obviously simplified the role of dopamine in the brain to make it more digestible, but you are dead wrong about dopamine's role in intermittent reward and the link to gambling addiction. It has a very strong influence on behavior. Like many aspects of human behavior, the effect is not an on-off switch to enable gambling addiction. We have lots of things going on in our head that are, at times, working against each other as far as behavior is concerned. It is more like an analog adjustment that "pushes" toward a specific behavior much harder than it otherwise would. And this effect is just as powerful as addictive chemicals in potency.

This is a pretty complicated topic that touches video games, gambling sites, social media algorithms, and marketing in general. It also touches fundamental philosophical questions like the existence of free will.

We have lots of established law on which sort of "mind tricks" are fair play and which aren't, but we have not advanced those laws to keep pace with the science. Currently, lying is really the only thing off limits and is covered by fraud statutes. We also have some limits on marketing to children. But one could argue that there are several "persuasion" tactics that can be just as effective as outright lies in manipulating the behavior of others. In fact, licensed therapists are ethically barred from using these tactics, yet we allow salesmen, marketers, etc to use them at will.

I don't really have an opinion on this lawsuit, nor do I feel qualified to offer a solution. But let me give you an example of how the human mind works which underpins addiction to gambling.

Dopamine is a signaling molecule that regulates a lot of our reward responses. If I find honey in a honeycomb, dopamine gets released and now I am more likely to seek out honeycombs in the future. You can see how this is evolutionarily beneficial. Dopamine release reinforces behavior that increases survival. But let's say that only about 1/3 of all honeycombs have honey. Now I have a lower chance at a reward, so does that mean the dopamine release is likewise diminished? No, the opposite is true. Dopamine release skyrockets. Evolutionarily this makes sense, we do not want to miss out on a reward simply because the probability is diminished, so the high dopamine release counterbalances the diminished probability such that reward seeking behavior is reinforced so long as the probability of reward is reasonable (it peaks at about 1/4). In fact, dopamine is released even when the honeycomb has no honey. You can draw a direct line between this physical phenomenon and gambling addiction. What people don't appreciate is that this physiological response is very similar to addictive drugs in effectiveness. It can be hard to acknowledge that one of the reasons you are not a gambling addict is simply that you didn't start gambling to begin with, not that you are somehow superior to those that are addicted.

We have lots of behavioral quirks like this that can be exploited. At what point does this manipulation cross the line? That is a hard question. For me, gacha games cross that line. But if we want to enact meaningful regulations we need to acknowledge that these mind exploits exist and confront the fact that free will may not be as free as we hope.

Are people expecting journalists to get ahold of this body and do their their own autopsy? To seize evidence and do their own forensic analysis? There are no developments because there is no way for journalists to get more information. Without more information, there is nothing to report.

So we should abandon diplomacy precisely when it is needed most? When we withdraw our support and Iran and Egypt join the conflict, will it be easier to stomach the killing of even more children in more nations? After we cede our influence in the middle east and China expands its influence to fill the vacuum, we will be able to honor our treaty with Taiwan after an emboldened China begins bombing and killing their children?

This is the macabre calculus of geopolitics. This is the risk of reactionary policy. All of this is a hypothetical worse case scenario, but one thing is certain: if we withdraw our support, Israel will lose any incentive to stop the killing. More will die. And that would be the best case scenario.

I am really disappointed with the discourse concerning Biden's handling of the most recent Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Everyone is acting like Biden invented our alliance with Israel and is somehow personally responsible for our support of Israel. Geopolitical alliances are complicated matters that touch everything from international reputation to national security. They are fostered over decades. We have obligations to Israel that precede Biden and the recent conflict.

I understand the moral positions people are taking, and I agree that a genocide is taking place. But with anything geopolitical, these issues must be approached without hard lines and moral absolutism, because those ideals are what both sides are using to justify the atrocities we are witnessing. They both feel morally justified, and that the other side has crossed some hard lines. That is how diplomacy breaks down.

Those of you that want to see an end to the conflict need to understand that the official US position at this moment is aligned with you. But so many of you are proposing "simple" solutions that will not achieve that outcome. If we end support for Israel, they will not stop the genocide. What we will lose is leverage in negotiating peace and we will weaken the alliance with Israel, and the genocide will continue unhindered by US calls for restraint. You may argue that Israel relies on this alliance for security, and that is true, but you assume that other super powers would not jump at the chance to replace the US as a close ally to a nuclear power in the middle east.

Let's not forget how rash reactionary approaches to geopolitics threatened the NATO alliance during the Trump presidency. Our allies are already doubting if the US will honor the treaty, and this doubt extends to Taiwan, too. Weakening these alliances gives power to our enemies, full stop. Do you want to see war break out in the Pacific? Russia to expand its empire eastward? The Israel-Palestine conflict to extend to other Arab nations? Damaging these alliances will cause more war, not less.

Outrage against Israel is justified. But look past your nose before you jeopardize our key alliances. Diplomacy is slow and frustrating, but it is better than more war.

You are reporting one side of a three-sided coin. You can find instances of phage resistance linked to increased antibiotic susceptibility, decreased antibiotic susceptibility, and in most cases no change in antibiotic susceptibility. Studies linking phage resistance to increased antibiotic susceptibility are based on in vitro selections resulting in genetic disruptions that would never arise in a host, and are likely due to the relaxation of selective pressures when bacteria are grown in rich broth. For example, phage that use LPS as a receptor cannot infect cells with LPS defects, but those cells are so sick and mucoid that they become susceptible to just about any other stress, including antibiotics. We never isolate bacteria with LPS defects in the wild because they would go extinct in any competitive environment.

The real lessons we need to learn from phages and other antibacterial systems is that resistance is inevitable. These systems have built in flexibility and modularity to accommodate changes and mutate rapidly. Almost all of these systems follow a similar pattern: bind to target cell, get inside target cell, destroy target cell. There are many ways to accomplish each of those steps, and these systems are set up to rapidly evolve new ways accomplish each. This evolution is not limited to the slow single mutations we often associate with evolution. We often observe recombination where another target cell binding domain can be swapped in to generate a new functional system.

Modern phage therapy advocates suggest combination therapies, where multiple antibacterial agents are deployed to substantially lower the rate of resistance. But we will never get that number to zero. Also phage therapy is limited in efficacy based on the site of infection (phage do not penetrate tissues like small molecule antibiotics do) Instead of evolution being a brick wall for therapy, we need to play the game. We need to get off of broad-spectrum antibiotics, focus on functional modules (like cell entry, cell toxicity, etc), and reform our regulatory structure to enable mixing and matching of these modules in regimented phases in response to the resistance that we know will arise. Phage therapy is not the answer; the phage evolutionary cycle is the answer.

The recent trend of transferring individual rights to the state en masse is alarming. Even worse, the states are working in direct contradiction to experts in the fields they are regulating. Skimming over some of these recent laws, we see legislatures working against medical associations (reproductive health care and gender affirming care), sports rules authorities (trans athlete participation), and education accreditation bodies (this article).

The result is a gigantic state power that sees fit to decide what health care you receive, what the rules of your sports should be, and what constitutes a good education. We have set up institutions to tackle these problems due to the (now less) common assumption that these decisions should be made by experts and/or local stakeholders, and that politics should have no place in our doctors' offices, football fields, and classrooms.

But let's assume that politics and state power should reach into these spaces. Why would the laws work in direct opposition to the most trusted authorities in these fields? What legitimate purpose could that serve?

We do not give people the right to own nuclear warheads, despite the plain text of the 2nd amendment suggesting we have that right (the right to arms, not just guns). Compelling public interest requires a limit on this right. I don't think any reasonable person would disagree with this premise. The question comes down to what level of potential body count/property damage constitutes a compelling public interest? Focusing on guns specifically is a distraction. If we invented a firearm that could level a city would everyone have a right to own one?

Everything requires context. Sometimes kids hide things because their parents may react with violence or some other form of extreme punishment. But regardless of the reason, I would be concerned that these mandatory disclosure policies are stifling the 1st amendment rights of the children, and even worse they are doing so based on a specific viewpoint.

There are millions of things kids keep from their parents while growing up, and they do it for millions of different reasons, some good some bad and some goofy. Why do we need the government stepping in deciding which secrets, especially those that have nothing to do with the administration of education, are valid?

Congress controls the purse, not Biden. Hope that clears things up for you.

The dissenting opinion is unlikely to be heard. Here is another brain quirk for you: we hate seeing information that contradicts our beliefs. The attention-optimized algorithms of social media have made it possible to spend a whole day consuming information without seeing anything we disagree with. Traditional journalism is no longer the source of shared truth for our society, we have surrendered that to the algorithms with the net effect of fracturing society into groups with very different ideas of what the truth is.

IMO the recent rise of far-right political power can be directly attributed to the "post-truth" bubbles we have found ourselves in. I know I have overused the brain quirk gimmick, but these bubbles are creating a huge amount of fear and uncertainty. This over-stimulation of our amygdala reduces empathy and causes us to further constrict our in-groups. This makes it easier for power hungry politicians to push out-groups into "enemy" territory and leverage the fear of the enemy into raw political power.

I do acknowledge the irony, as I type this message, that I will be heard only by people that share my values. My hope is that you the reader see that empathy is the cure, and choose not to close off your in-group despite the feeds and the mod bans and the powerful men profiting from this mess.

Calling them out also will not work. Modern republicanism hinges on Democrats being the enemy. It is a belief that lacks any specific evidence, but the idea has been repeated so many times through accusations with no evidence, predictions that never come to fruition, and outright lies that never get corrected that from the perspective of a Republican, even if some single allegation is proven false, they are hearing so many bad things about their countrymen that some of it has to be true.

The Russians perfected this type of propaganda and it is based on a couple quirks in how our brains work. First, even a wacky lie pushes your beliefs in the direction of the lie. Second, if a lie is repeated it is more likely to be believed. Wrap this up in a major media ecosystem that says over and over "You can't trust other sources of information. Here are 10 reasons Democrats are pedophiles" and you have armed people storming into pizza shops searching for children locked in a basement that doesn't exist.

The final quirk of our brains that sort of seals the deal is that direct contradictory evidence to a belief does not weaken the belief, it makes it stronger. The believer rationalizes a defense of the belief in light of the contradictory evidence. Changing someone's beliefs requires an effort akin to cult deprogramming.