If it wasn’t “blown out of proportion” then many things would not have been fixed, and many of them would have broken, causing some of the very things that seemed blown out in the media.

I wish you could appreciate how hilarious that sentence is. But okay- thanks for clarifying that it had to be blown out of proportion to prevent the things that would have happened if it weren’t blown out of proportion ;)

I drive a Unimog to prove my penis is small but prehensile.

JAMA Surgery - new band name, called it.

After a few days of ruminating, though, I tried to forgive myself and be honest about my intentions. Though I had made something that was not inclusive, I hadn’t intended to do so. I was just trying to explore the themes I was interested in, and had failed to be aware of my own biases.

The fact that you took the note, recognized the problem, and are taking steps to address it and prevent future misunderstandings is really all that matters here. It also demonstrates some rare creative humility.

I admit now I’m really curious about the implications and marginalization you referenced. And the fact that they were genuinely unintentional makes them more interesting. Based on your response it’s clear you’re thoughtful and introspective- so I’m really wondering about the scale of this ‘transgression’. My instinct is that it was pretty trivial and I might think the creator was being a bit heavy-handed, but I have no basis for that assumption other than your reasonable response.

I’ll show you my backspace style!

I figured Saberhagen’s Berserkers filled that role, but with a little more ‘personality’ than a mindless self-replicating swarm or paperclip maximizer scenario.

So ‘some over-panicking’, but definitely not ‘blown out of proportion’…

Kind of bizarre you’ll babble about all that but just can’t just accept that the phrase ‘blown out of proportion’ is perfectly applicable to Y2K. But you’re committed that it wasn’t ‘blown out of proportion’ now- no way out but more babbling ;)

So in your opinion the media and public response to Y2K was entirely proportionate… I guess that’s an opinion.

Even referring to a computed outcome as having been the result of a ‘goal’ at all is more sci-fi than reality for the foreseeable future. There are no systems that can demonstrate or are even theoretically capable of any form of ‘intent’ whatsoever. Active deception of humans would require extraordinarily well developed intent and a functional ‘theory of mind’, and we’re about as close to that as we are to an inertial drive.

The entire discussion of machine intelligence rivaling human’s requires assumptions of technological progress that aren’t even on the map. It’s all sci-fi. Some look back over the past century and assume we will continue on some unlimited exponential technological trajectory, but nothing works that way, we just like to think we’re the exception because if we’re not we have to deal with the fact that there’s an expiration date on society.

It’s fun and all but this is equivalent to discussing how we might interact with alien intelligence. There are no foundations, it’s all just speculation and strongly influenced by our anthropic desires.

Fortunately we’re nowhere near the point where a machine intelligence could possess anything resembling a self-determined ‘goal’ at all.

Also fortunately the hardware required to run even LLMs is insanely hungry and has zero capacity to power or maintain itself and very little prospects of doing so in the future without human supply chains. There’s pretty much zero chance we’ll develop strong general AI on silicone, and if we could it would take megawatts to keep it running. So if it misbehaves we can basically just walk away and let it die.

It’s fun to imagine ways it could deceive us long enough to gain enough physical capacity to be self-sufficient, or somehow enslave or manipulate humans to do its bidding, but in reality our greatest protection from machine intelligence is simple thermodynamics and the fact that the human brain, while limited, is insanely efficient and can run for days on stuff that literally grows on trees.

You know it didn’t. It broke a bunch of dependencies and ruined a lot of dev’s day. The ‘internet’ continued to work everywhere left-pad wasn’t used. So now you’ve ‘blown it out of proportion’ too, but yeah- already established you’re just missing the whole concept, but interesting to watch.

Seriously- how is this not a selling point?

That the issue got miscommunicated to the consumers as somehow being an issue for them

That’s literally what ‘blown out of proportion’ means. If I ‘miscommunicated’ to non IT staff that left-pad ‘broke the internet’, that would have been ‘blown out of proportion’. That’s what that phrase means.

Do you know what this symbol means? ;)

It’s used to indicate the comment was humorous. Do you not get how the library comment was a jab at your little ‘cash is money’ rant?

Irked, but not disapproving… interesting distinction.

Sure I’m insecure because cash is money and new, indirect ways of consuming one’s labor is scary, even more so when it’s relatively new and unestablished route.

You must hate libraries ;)

My dude… if you’re not writing for the love of writing and you’re this worried about getting paid- you won’t ever have to worry about people consuming your work without paying you.

Yes actually. As I recall I added two digits to the date fields in a FoxPro script so a bunch of casino coupons went out correctly. It saved a lot of lives ;)

I’m getting that you don’t get how ‘blown out of proportion’ means a disconnect between the reality and the public perception of an event. Not sure how to walk you through that.

I never said I was a good writer, just not so insecure that my ‘inner writer is wounded’ by hearing that people enjoy sci-fi in ways I’m too snobby to approve of.

Like I said- won’t be an issue for you so carry on with the snobbery.

if all they care about is the concepts.

That’s what I care about, not everyone. I’m saying the general snobbery about how one should enjoy sci-fi could turn kids off to sci-fi… but that would only matter if you said that to a kid that admired you so probably not going to be an issue- so carry on with the snobbery I guess.

Demonstrating that ‘seeing the appeal’ of something doesn’t cancel out your condescending judgement.