Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | kelseyfrog's commentslogin

It sounds like you're saying that if a computer had infinite precision then hallucinations would not occur?

The way neural networks work is that the base neural network is embedded in a sampling loop, i.e. a query is fed into the network & the driver samples output tokens to append to the query so that it can be re-fed back into the network (q → nn → [a, b, c, ...] → q + sample([a, b, c, ...])). There is no way to avoid hallucinations b/c hallucinations are how the entire network works at the implementation level. The precision makes no difference b/c the arithmetic operations are semantically void & only become meaningful after they are interpreted by someone who knows to associated 1 /w red, 2 w/ blue, 3 w/ clouds, & so on & so forth. The mapping between the numbers & concepts does not exist in the arithmetic.

Oh, I thought that the embedding space of the residual stream was precisely that.

The arithmetic is meaningless, it doesn't matter what you call it b/c on the computer it's all bit strings & boolean arithmetic. You can call some sequence of operations residual & others embeddings but that is all imposed top-down. There is nothing in the arithmetic that indicates it is somehow special & corresponds to embeddings or residuals.

Ah ok, so if we had such a mapping then models wouldn't hallucinate?

Maybe it's better if you define the terms b/c what I mean by hallucination is that the arithmetic operations + sampling mean that it's all hallucinations. The output is a trajectory of a probabilistic computation over some set of symbols (0s & 1s). Those symbols are meaningless, the only reason they have meaning is b/c everyone has agreed that the number 97 is the ascii code for "a" & every conformant text processor w/ a conformant video adapter will convert 97 (0b1100001) into the display pattern for the letter "a".

So kind of like if you flip a coin, the sampling means the heads or tails you get isn't real?

> Classifying accounts as child accounts

It's ok to drive Dad's truck unless he catches you and tells you no.


We've tested this in the small with AI art. When people believe they're viewing human-made art which is later revealed to be AI art, they feel disappointed. The actual content is incidental, the story that supports it is more important than the thing itself.

It's the same mechanism behind artisanal food, artist struggles, and luxury goods. It is the metaphysical properties we attach to objects or the frames we use to interpret strips of events. We author all of these and then promptly forget we've done so, instead believing they are simply reality.


>The actual content is incidental, the story that supports it is more important than the thing itself.

The actual content of a work of art is the expression of lived experience. Not its form.


How do you think mathematicians solve problems?

In the same vein as, "it's the police who create crime."

They literally do. There's been numerous cases of undercover cops manipulating mentally ill people into committing crimes they otherwise wouldn't have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqwJFuntco4


Not to mention planting evidence, fabricating claims made to the courts, and so on.

And coveting thy neighbor's lemon pound cake.


That's great. Any serious proposals?

I wouldn't tell you how to parent your children, and all I ask is the same consideration in return.

I just see it as an unnecessary hill to die on. Its not possible to win on those conditions so why spend energy on a failed outcome? I wish those who shared the sentiment found an effective method to achieve their goals, but online message board activism doesn't pass the sniff test.

To me it's a public health issue and shares the same, "you can do what you want, but I will not be forced into participating," that resulted in the invention of chin diapers. To an outsider both look like pathological demand avoidance[1].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathological_demand_avoidance


It seems like the example you give points to undesirable consequences as a direct result of government intervention. Is your example meant to be a point against any sort of legislation regarding age verification?

So what’s your suggestion?

Surely you don’t support ID gating the Internet?


How old are you?

It's a general principle but too simplistic to contribute to a solution.

I believe I should prevent you from starving, willfully or negligently harming (in a serious way), or denying significant education or medical care to your childern; I believe you shouldn't be able to take your children into some adult places like strip clubs.

The strip clubs also have an obligation to keep out your children and need a method to do so, in this case the online 'strip clubs'.

The question is, given other priorities such as privacy, what is the best method? I think it's parental tools in OSes, including the ability to setup accounts for minors.



> Being able to see ourselves as something beyond our job (our means of survival) is a luxury.

Being able to see ourselves as something beyond our job is the examined life. It what makes life worth living.

We should be incredibly skeptical of a social system whose default is to have individuals primary identify by the work they do. That necessarily sets people up for continuous identity foreclosure and psychic famine in a self re-enforcing feedback loop.

Frankly it's cringe to primarily identify by profession.


If only there was a way to decrease sunlight supply so we could monetize access to light. It would make vertical farming a much more real option.


love it! thx

Montgomery Burns already tried it

Or, go the other direction, and make sunlight available at night in certain locations by using a mirror in space. https://www.reflectorbital.com/

Fuel density wouldn't be such an impactful attribute if the US military and geopolitical situation and strategy were different.

Fuel density is logistically important and the US geographical position means that density is more important to the US than other nations. In other words, if we forecast that we'll be fighting foreign wars, fuel transport is an logistical problem that optimises for density.


Fuel density matters to things like cars and semi-trucks. Right now you can’t build an electric version that can fully refuel in minutes. That makes fast, long-range travel impractical in an electric vehicle.

https://insideevs.com/news/758625/byd-megawatt-charging-demo...

"It's called Megawatt charging because it delivers 1,000 kilowatts of electrical power at 1,000 volts, which is twice as powerful as the fastest chargers we have here in the United States."


Actually a few other HN threads have just discussed the latest Chinese electric cars that refuel in 5 minutes for a 250 miles range and which have a 500 miles range when fully charged.

That makes fast, long-range travel quite practical in an electric vehicle.

While this model greatly improves the charging speed, other electric cars introduced this year use sodium-ion batteries, which are heavier than lithium-ion batteries, but they have the advantage that in cold climates they do not lose either capacity or charging speed down to temperatures as low as minus 40 Celsius degrees, removing other limitation of electric cars.

So hydrocarbon fuels are likely to remain non-replaceable only in aircraft and spacecraft, where weight really matters.

However, hydrocarbon fuels can be synthesized from water and carbon dioxide, passing through syngas, by using solar energy, just not at a price competitive with fossil fuel.


Me searching for the electric tanks. ¯ \ _ ༼ •́ ͜ ʖ •̀ ༽ _ / ¯

Edit: I found them :D


I do not know if any such tanks are in production, but there where experimental electric tanks, just not with batteries, but with turbogenerators.

Great question! Turns out there are. The U.S. Military's Abrams Tank Is Going Hybrid [1]. I'm sure we'll get some comments saying why it's a terrible idea[2].

1. https://insideevs.com/news/784805/abrams-m1e3-hybrid-tank-vi...

2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47484044


They didn’t make it past the drones.

and I wonder which blown up tank would pollute the environment more

If you're worried about the environment don't get into wars. If you're in a war, worry about winning.

Wars of the future will make heavy use of drones. They don't run on hydrocarbons.


I don't really think that's really high up on military priorities list. But happy to be proven wrong on that.

tanks must represent like 0.001% of fuel consumption lol Road uses like cars, trucks and buses is 47% of all oil, and clearly an enormous fraction of that can be converted to use electricity instead

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: