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Large language models not fit for real-world use, scientists warn — even slight changes cause their world models to collapse
  • An important characteristic of a model is "stability." Stability means that small changes in input produce small changes in output.

    Stability is important for predictability. For instance, suppose you want to make a customer support portal. You add a bot hoping that it will guide the user to the desired workflow. You test the bot by asking it a bunch of variations of questions, probably with some RLHF. But then when it goes to production, people will start asking it variations of questions that you didn't test (guaranteed). What you want ideally, is that it will map the variants to the best workflow that matches what the customer wants. Second best would be to say "I don't know." But what we have are bots who will just generate some crazy off-the-wall crap, and no way to prevent it.

  • 52 House Democrats Voted for Defeated Bill Enabling Trump Assault on Nonprofits
  • Liberal never really meant left. Traditionally "liberal" was more an old-timey word for libertarian.

    Even more recently "liberal" was just kinda an upper-class socially conscious do gooder who would always be reactionary if they felt personally threatened in any way.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cdqQ2BdgOA

  • U.S. won’t withhold aid to Israel, walking back threat over conditions in Gaza
  • Several theories:

    1. Epstein was mossad. There are a lot of tapes with a lot of people.

    2. Lots of Zionist billionaires: America is a plutocracy that acts on their behalf

    3. Some sort of "great game" calculus of keeping a client state for regional instability (Biden apparently believes this based on old speeches)

    4. Biden in particular has a melted brain. Many people have pointed out that Reagan was tougher on Israel than Biden has been. Reagan would set red lines and then say "you will comply."

  • 2024’s other big loser? The mainstream media. Is there any path forward?
  • Ezra Klein's picture is in the dictionary next to the "neoliberal" entry.

    Right before the election he was on a Bloomberg podcast doing a premature endzone dance promoting Kamala's suburbs-and-cheney strategy. The Bloomberg person asked about unions and Ezra pretty much said there should be consequences for the Teamsters not endorsing her after Biden 'bailed out their pension.'

  • Europe Can’t Fund ‘Lost’ War in Ukraine Without US, Orban Says
  • History has misjudged Jeffery Sachs according to... Jeffery Sachs!

    Let's be real, he's the main guy pushing the "NATO expansion" theory of Russian aggression everywhere, and it exists mainly to cover for his own crimes.

    What's more likely: that Russian revanchism came from anger over some arcane treaty negotiations, or that it came from the absolute collapse in material condition, civil society, population, daily lived experience and life expectancy that Russians experienced as Sachs and his evil clients dismantled the once-great civilization for their own enrichment? What do you think Marx's assessment of those two theories would be?

    Sachs is a bag man. He helped the oligarchs destroy Russia and then he made himself useful to the new ruler when they were gone. He also spends a lot of time in Beijing and has a lot of good things to say about Xi as well. The guy's a serpent.

  • Sanders: Harris Lost After Democrats “Abandoned Working Class People”
  • https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-signs-bill-block-us-railroad-strike-2022-12-02/

    The U.S. Senate voted 80 to 15 on Thursday to impose a tentative contract deal reached in September on a dozen unions representing 115,000 workers, who could have gone on strike on Dec. 9. But the Senate failed to approve a measure that would have provided paid sick days to railroad workers.

    "It was tough for me but it was the right thing to do at the moment -- save jobs, to protect millions of working families from harm and disruption and to keep supply chains stable around the holidays," Biden said, adding the deal avoided "an economic catastrophe."

  • Zelensky says he is unaware of details of Trump plan to end Ukraine war
  • I saw this as the supposed plan:

    per WSJ: It may propose delaying Ukraine's NATO membership for 20 years, establishing a 1,200 km demilitarized zone along the current front line, and leaving 20% of occupied Ukrainian territory under Russian control—while the U.S. would continue arms support under these conditions.

    The problem is, this isn't an acceptable plan according to Russia. Russia has insisted that:

    1. Ukraine retreats from all of the oblasts that are currently partially occupied by Russia (Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson) as well as giving up claims to Crimea, and Russia takes ownership of everything without a fight
    2. Ukraine's army is demobilized and Ukraine is demilitarized
    3. Ukraine is banned from joining any international organization, not just NATO (so no EU for instance)
    4. Ukraine receives no more military aid fro the west.

    Trump is going to find out that you can't unilaterally declare peace.

  • Pressure on Canada to Export Water Will Be Immense
  • The great lakes compact is pretty aggressively supported by the Great Lakes states. There would be a pretty massive domestic fight if the west tried to take any water.

    In fact the Great Lakes Compact was created after Canada tried to start shipping Lake Superior water to Asia in the 90s.

  • Logan Square landlord evicts tenant for flying Palestine flag
    chicagoreader.com No evictions—or movie tickets—for solidarity with Palestine - Chicago Reader

    Logan Square residents and neighbors respond to a tenant eviction with a boycott of the Logan Theatre.

    No evictions—or movie tickets—for solidarity with Palestine - Chicago Reader

    The scumbag also owns the Logan Theater.

    51
    Good news! CTA is fixed! (According to the CTA)
    chi.streetsblog.org Has the CTA actually been "Meeting the Moment"? - Streetsblog Chicago

    The agency says yes, but the Active Transportation Alliance and Commuters Take Action have critiques.

    Has the CTA actually been "Meeting the Moment"? - Streetsblog Chicago

    > CTAction noted that the agency boasted of improvements to the the percentage of scheduled rail and bus run delivered, but failed to mention this was due to scheduled service being cut by 21 and 13 percent, respectively. "The total number of trains dispatched per day has not increased at all since August of 2022. The CTA continues to call this "schedule optimization," insulting the intelligence of riders who know that service has been cut."

    1
    NASCAR Cost Chicago Millions in Road Work and Overtime – South Side Weekly
    southsideweekly.com NASCAR Cost Chicago Millions in Road Work and Overtime – South Side Weekly

    CDOT work and police overtime for the street race add up to more than $3 million.

    NASCAR Cost Chicago Millions in Road Work and Overtime – South Side Weekly

    More overtime was credited to NASCAR than any other special event so far this summer except the Pride Parade, for which officers were credited with 31,297 hours. The 2023 Pride Parade crowd estimate was nearly a million people; NASCAR projected it would attract about 100,000 attendees over the course of the weekend.

    1
    Is the Chicago reddit getting astroturfed by NASCAR?

    Currently there are five PRO nascar posts:

    • I invite everyone to turn on the NASCAR TV broadcast
    • NASCAR crew members help fix a car's bumper after it was involved in a fender bender across from the garage area on Lake Shore Drive
    • Unpopular Opinion, but i think the NASCAR races will be awesome
    • OK Chicago,this Nascar thing is fun, Now do Formula 1
    • This checks out…(Randy Sax guerilla marketing link)

    and three ANTI nascar:

    • Meanwhile, we’re doing 15mph on 90/94
    • Worker dies while setting up Chicago NASCAR race
    • Chicago’s Nascar Weekend Offers Headaches, Little Economic Gain

    Two of the pro-nascar posts are obvious guerilla marketing (the "LSD pit crew repair" post and whatever that Randy Sax thing is). One of the Anti-articles is just news about an unfortunate event.

    I think Nascar has hired social media PR/sock puppet groups to astroturf Chicago reddit. I wonder if it's the same people Paul Vallas hired...

    1
    main @midwest.social anachronist @midwest.social
    What's with all the gun spam?

    My main midwest.social stream is current full of ads for guns and gun parts. Did I do something wrong?

    4
    InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)AN
    anachronist @midwest.social
    Posts 15
    Comments 587