PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]

USA sux

“Gradient descent” ≈ on a “hilly” (mathematical) surface, try to find the lowest point by finding the lowest point near an initial guess. “Gradient” is basically the steepness, or rate that the thing you’re trying to optimize changes as you move through “space”. The gradient tells you mathematically which direction you need to go to reach the bottom. “Descent” means “try to find the minimum”.

I’m glossing over a lot of details, particularly what a “surface” actually means in the high dimensional spaces that AI uses, but a lot of problems in mathematical optimization are solved like this. And one of the steps in training an AI agent is to do an optimization, which often does use a gradient descent algorithm. That being said, not every process that uses gradient descent is necessarily AI or even machine learning. I’m actually taking a course this semester where a bunch of my professor’s research is in optimization algorithms that don’t use a gradient descent!

They created a good product so people used it and there were no alternatives when it got shit.

They created an inherently centralizing implementation of a video sharing platform. Even if it was done with good intentions (which it wasn’t, it was some capitalist’s hustle, and its social importance is a side effect), we should basically always condemn centralizing implementations of a given technology because they reinforce existing power structures regardless of the intentions of their creators.

It’s their fault because they’re a corporation that does what corporations do. Even when corporations try to do right by the world (which is an extremely generous appraisal of YouTube’s existence), they still manage to create centralizing technologies that ultimately serve to reinforce their existing power, because that’s all they can do. Otherwise, they would have set themselves up as a non-profit or some other type of organization. I refuse to accept the notion of a good corporation.

There’s no lock in. They don’t force you off the platform if you post elsewhere (like twitch did).

That’s a good point, but while there isn’t a de jure lock-in for creators, there is a de facto lock-in that prevents them from migrating elsewhere. Namely, that YouTube is a centralized, proprietary service, which can’t be accessed from other services.

Literally every corporation does or attempts to do the same thing.

Exactly. Every single corporation is evil and should be dismantled 🔥🔥🔥. This is just one of a thousand reasons to do so.

“Absolute evil” is a bit of a stretch, but it’s YouTube/Google’s fault (by closing off and centralizing their video platform) that it is impossible to go elsewhere for videos.

IMO I think people are gonna have to start swearing more online since it’s kinda hard to get commercial LLMs to swear.

Doesn’t change my answer, except that Putin/[insert dictator of choice here] shouldn’t be planning our destruction either, because no one should.

Also see this comment. Tl;dr: I literally don’t care about governments’ rights to defend themselves from each other when, in any case, it will be the rest of life on Earth that pays the price.

Sorry I ate it

Ok so if intelligence reports claim there’s a risk of a coordinated attack

The US is the only nuclear armed country with a history of actually using it. I’m a LOT more scared of the US doing the coordinated attack on someone than I am of the thought of any of the other nuclear armed countries striking first.

Also implying I trust literally anything the US intelligence machine ever says ever.

what do you think the US should do to defend itself?

Boring answer: Not fucking use nuclear weapons, that’s for sure. Diplomacy should be enough.

Honest answer: I literally don’t care about the US government’s “right” to “defend” itself literally at all. As far as the innocent people who actually live here, we will respond in the only way that our government has planned for us in any disaster scenario: get sacrificed to maintain continuity of government and capitalist power.

I did read the article.

IMO any politician advocating for anything less than permanent global nuclear disarmament needs to have spitballs lobbed at them perpetually without debate.

While the Biden administration is not putting a date on when it will happen, they are not ruling out that they are willing (and more importantly able) to nuke the planet if something offends them.

I acknowledge that this is not some bombshell piece of news because it is “normal”, i.e. the US military plans for various invasions and scenarios that they supposedly don’t intend to act on. But this kind of anti-social behavior is not only allowed, but publicly funded as if it’s supposed to benefit everyone. I’m calling it out precisely because it is normal.

My point is the fact that if you believe in nuclear nonproliferation, voting for either candidate won’t move the needle on the issue.

Vote Blue No Matter Who so that Bad Man doesn’t get into office and launch the nukes!

…

What do you mean the Democrats are the ones planning to launch the nukes?!?

If they were from a different instance

Does SDF have a bad rep? I know that not literally everyone on SDF is a leftist, but I do think a lot of us are.

Any similar housekeeping I’m probably forgetting to do for Linux? Debian 12 on all my systems if it matters.

Honest question: Why does it matter if he’s a transphobe when choosing which Fediverse software to use?

1. Because some people have actually financially supported him. I’m not trans, but I would be devastated to know that my money went to feed someone who wants to destroy me.
2. I already have trouble convincing transgender people in my social circle that Lemmy as a software is safe for them to use even with the variety of trans-inclusive servers like yours, and will be safe and inclusive in the future.

A great example of (2) is the fate of PolyMC. Thankfully, the other developers forked it into Prism, but transphobia put that whole project in jeopardy for a bit.

The software is FOSS and anyone can make their own instance.

IMO that’s why I’m not immediately dropping my account and running for the hills, but it’s still not good. Most people don’t have the technical skills or the interest in learning them to run their own instance.

I really want to understand what I might be missing.

IMO it’s that even though he does not personally control how Lemmy instances are run, and even though we do have a good degree of robustness to transphobia because the software is FOSS, it is still both morally and technically ill-advised to have a transphobe at the helm of an open-source software project.