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New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 952 posts.
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Licensing is neither feasible nor effective for addressing AI risks
Non-proliferation only benefits incumbents
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We don’t trade with ants
When discussing advanced AI, sometimes the following exchanges happens: “Perhaps advanced AI won’t kill us. Perhaps it will trade with us” “We don’t trade with ants” I think it’s interesting to get clear on exactly why we don’t trade with ants, and whether it is relevant to the AI situation. When a person says “we…
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The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973
The archives of declassified foreign relations documents from the United States, China and other countries can give us some insights. I’ve enjoyed reading some of the documents in Wilson Cent…
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LLMs are good at playing you
Large language models seem just like humans, but some of this is in our heads.
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Archive your Reddit data before it's too late
I've written a tool for creating a searchable archive of all your Reddit data.
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Do open source licences cover the Ship of Theseus?
I recently downloaded a single-page HTML template for a project I was working on. I wanted a good-looking scaffold to help me getting running quickly. The code had an attribution licence which I was happy to comply with. I ended up removing about a whole bunch of the HTML that I didn't need. That also allowed me to…
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You can't reach the brain through the ears
Why do we have to learn everything the hard way?
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I hate almost all software (2011)
It's unnecessary and complicated at almost every layer. At best I can congratulate someone for quickly and simply solving a problem on top of the shit that they are given. The only software that I like is one that I can easily understand and solves my problems. The amount of complexity I'm willing to tolerate is…
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Beware the Man of Many Studies
Low-quality literatures mean meta-analyses are frequently worse than single studies
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AI will save the world?
By Marc Andreessen
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Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami
There’s no way for me to know where your awareness starts with all this, so let’s just start at the beginning. Computer Shopper was a hell of a magazine. I wrote a whole essay about it,…
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Our right to challenge junk patents is under threat
The U.S. Patent Office has proposed new rules about who can challenge wrongly granted patents. If the rules become official, they will offer new protections to patent trolls. Challenging patents will become far more onerous, and impossible for some. The new rules could stop organizations like EFF,...
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Do we need copyright? (2012)
The concept of property is a social construction. Animals, such as cats, can own a piece of food, or a territory, but only as long as they are able to personally maintain a credible threat of violence. And animals can only defend concrete, physical properties, such as an area, a dead bird or a tree. … Continue reading…
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Over 70% of US household Covid spread started with a child
A study published yesterday in JAMA Network Open suggests that 70.4% of nearly 850,000 US household COVID-19 transmissions originated with a child.
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WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)
Imagine your performance at work was assessed directly from the amount of e-mails sent, the amount of time consumed editing a document, or the time spent in meetings or even moving your mouse. This may sound ludicrous but your boss might be doing exactly that.
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Setting time on fire and the temptation of The Button
We used to consider writing an indication of time and effort spent on a task. That isn't true anymore.
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CIA, MKUltra, and the cover-up of U.S. germ warfare in the Korean war (2022)
CIA & Army Counterintelligence involved in secret “processing” of U.S. POWs who confessed to using biological weapons against China, No…
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The planning of U.S. physician shortages (2020)
Misguided modeling created a "physician surplus" narrative, the harmful consequences of which we are still dealing with today.
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Own-goal football (2022)
In a 1994 qualifying match for the Caribbean Cup, both Barbados and Grenada attempted to score deliberate own goals – because it was the best strategy available.
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San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?
I lived in New York City for 8 years and never had anything major stolen. In San Francisco, it took 2 weeks…
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The greatest risk of AI is from the people who control it, not the tech itself
The history of technology suggests that the greatest risks come not from the tech, but from the people who control it
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Federal judge: Border searches of cell phones require a warrant
With United States v. Smith (S.D.N.Y. May 11, 2023), a district court judge in New York made history by being the first court to rule that a warrant is required for a cell phone search at the border, “absent exigent circumstances” (although other district courts have wanted to do so).EFF is...
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Statement on AI Risk
A statement jointly signed by a historic coalition of experts: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”
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Are you breathing? Do you have email apnea? (2014)
It’s believed that many of us spend seven hours or more in front of screens each day. In 2011, researcher Emmanuel Stamatakis, found that “…even those who exercise can’t overcome the detrimental ef…
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Rheinmetall pilot project for curb stone chargers for EVs
Rheinmetall launches first pilot project for innovative curb stone chargers with the City of Cologne and TankE