It is really easy to way over think, or over feel, AI.

Sometimes it's just a really good interface that matches the task well.

Think of all the people that still avoided getting a computer a decade or two ago, because "online" was so unnatural and creepy to them. Obviously, the internet had and has those places. And frankly a lot of social media still is.

But it can also just be wikipedia, making flight reservations, etc. When that is all it is doing, what you want it to do, that is all it is.

An automated language interface can just be a really good note collector/collator.

Personally, I look forward to the wise, well dressed, well spoken, waist-up robot bartenders we have been promised by movies for decades. Not creepy at all!

But if we choose some random mean body part X, then people i, whose Xi < Xm, won't be very happy.

> It's OK to compare floating-points for equality

Unless you use any compiler I write. As a purist, '==' for floats and doubles will be undefined. And by undefined, I mean unrecoverable. And by unrecoverable, I mean they may be able to extract most of the fragments of silicon, aluminum, and dynamic island, and "put you back together again". But you will "think different".

Unless you are comparing references. References are ok.

If it's possible to isolate that part of the code, and essentially freeze it for long periods. At least people would know it wasn't being tweaked under them all the time.

That is my half of a bad idea.

I have something coming out soon (just working on it). Your client (browser) has hashing algos built into it. So the browser can run a hash of all the front end assets it serves. Every commit merged into main will cause a hash of all the public files to be generated. We will allow you to compare the hashes of the front end files in your browser with the hashes from the public GH project. Interested to know what you think...

That sounds like a good idea. Any step toward transparent security is a good one.

There are many markets where open source has been nipping at heels for a long time.

Obviously product areas differ for reasons structural and happenstance. But there is definitely a pattern that occurs, where open source fast follows commercial advances, benefiting from having a clear target to develop for.

Which is of course, a great service. Even if it never unseats the commercial version, it forces the owners to reinvest more in improvements, by undermining their moats. As well as providing a much better value alternative version for many people.

A decentralized alternative would be making proportional ownership of railway stock, relative to distance from a rail station, a condition of business permits.

Suddenly all the businesses will be very pro-rail, as they benefit both directly and indirectly from its competent management, capacity growth and reach, even far from their own business. Especially far from their business.

Not claiming to know this works, but there are often many ways to solve a problem once the problem is well characterized. This insight that rail creates a great deal of indirect value is really helpful.

Indirect value is a battery. Voltage. Ready to power economic growth along whatever path the created-value to investment-return circuit gets closed.

The most successful at communicating their view that they are the most successful. Whether they are or not. But that means they are. By that metric.

Has another animal proposed they are more successful by a different metric?

Crickets?

> The most successful at communicating their view that they are the most successful

To who? Other humans?

It's seagull mating season where I am, and I don't speak seagull, but I'm pretty sure one of the things they're trying to convey to their fellow seagulls is that they're extremely successful.

Can't argue with it either. They're very much alive, which is the best you can be in this particular competition.

You sound like you’ve never been disdainfully stared at by a cat..

Really interesting article though. I’m very hopeful AI can help work out how all these things interact.

So, the most successful at arrogance? In other words, the least successful at humility? Ironically, since humble and human share a common root. Just playing devil's advocate here, but what you propose is not a good metric to maximize.

Corn, albeit not an animal has been pretty successful in terms of number of individuals. Their bi-pedal underlings have cleared swathes of land and take meticulous care of their well-being so they can bask in the sun undisturbed.

Until they are cut down and bombarded with micro waves by the very same bi-pedal underlings.

Or a single magic mutation.

And if we ran an experiment where we gave it to some apes…

Let’s observe their reactions to a big slab of obsidian.

huh, I always assumed they were metal-clad objects with something inside

wikipedia tells me they are machines, but not what they're made of

That's code for 101.

No. It's code for the thickest, densest book on the subject that you're ever gonna not read, as it actually assumes you're experienced in the subject and goes into everything except intro level topics.

See e.g. Petzold, et al.

I'm getting flashbacks to Spivak, who wrote a 2000 page "introduction" to differential geometry.

To be fair to Spivak, he did say it was comprehensive introduction. :)

Example:

A: The reason it all works is <waves hands>.

B: I have no idea what <waves hands> means.

A: Exactly.