The apocalypse isn't coming. We must resist cynicism and fear about AI | Stephen Marche n the field of artificial intelligence, doomerism is as natural as an echo. Every development in the field, or to be…www.theguardian.com A commentor on this Grauniad article downplaying the recent AI hype joined the chorus of those believing that LLMs are nothing new or particularly alarming. The comment assumed the form of an argument from common sense — the belief that computers cannot have common sense, to be specific:

Just as a point of linguistic detail, there are languages like those in the Amerindian group in which the genders are animate and inanimate. The debate about inclusive language does not translate well into languages with such different conventions. Not to trivialise the very real struggle for non-discriminatory usage, but perhaps we should recognise just how much our social conventions may be dictated to us by an arbitrary grammatical inheritance.

The problem with TDD, it strikes me, is one analogous to evolution and its difficulty in reaching adaptive "islands". It's a you-can't-get-there-from-here problem. Evolution by natural selection is exceedingly efficient at sorting through an enormous phase-space of possible solution by taking a long series of small steps. In 200 generations…

That's hardly surprising, since Windows is basically the virtual equivalent of a pizza with pineapple on top. I like the idea of a religion that mandates Linux, as my personal morality mandates the same thing. Closed ecosystems are morally wrong. All hail Torvalds!

"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." Growth will end, there's no question of that. However, in other ways you are too pessimistic. Firstly, most of the environmental problems stem from a small portion of the population: The richest 10%. Most growth in emissions…

It is worth remembering that the First Crusade began with the burning-out of the Jews of Worms and Mainz. Where they ended is open to interpretation, but the Crusading spirit can be considered to have continued up to and including the annihilation of pagan native Americans under Spain. …

There is no demonstration that shrinking the amount of information processed would shrink the economy. None. Straw Man. Blocked for reasons of criminal stupidity.

Speaking of history, there is an interesting graph here of energy use over time. Needless to say, it grows with the economy. https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption

Right. I did a similar calculation 20 years ago about moving "off-planet" to gain more energy. As your calculation shows, we'd need to expand faster than light speed to reach enough stars in 2,500 years. …