ah I get what you’re saying., thanks! “Good” means that what the machine outputs should be statistically similar (based on comparing billions of parameters) to the provided training data, so if the training data gradually gains more examples of e.g. noses being attached to the wrong side of the head, the model also grows more likely to generate similar output.

I only have a limited and basic understanding of Machine Learning, but doesn’t training models basically work like: “you, machine, spit out several versions of stuff and I, programmer, give you a way of evaluating how ‘good’ they are, so over time you ‘learn’ to generate better stuff”? Theoretically giving a newer model the output of a previous one should improve on the result, if the new model has a way of evaluating “improved”.

If I feed a ML model with pictures of eldritch beings and tell them that “this is what a human face looks like” I don’t think it’s surprising that quality deteriorates. What am I missing?

I can’t say if this specific one is authentic but I would not be surprised, as my company does the same: branded pride flags, t-shirts for their LGBTQ+ employees. And I’m torn on this, because I feel a bit bad about the branding aspect of it, but on the other hand the company putting their name to openly support all sexual and gender identities does seem like a good thing to do…

Yes, the irony of a company that produces more efficient ways of killing people being concerned with social issues does not escape me. But there are employees of the company who apparently support both (and good for them)

I agree with you, and that’s what I choose to think when I feel like the “best” version of me.

But there are moments (or a part of me) that has a way more violent disposition and feels differently about people who do terrible thing.

I’m a very calm person and not at all violent so please don’t report me to the police on the base of these posts… That violent part of me is small and weak, but I just think it’s important to acknowledge it because it’s also the part that makes me recognize that a rapist or a murderer is a person like me and that it might be me, with the wrong set of circumstances, life choices and frame of mind.

He mentions rapists and murderers. I choose to think that they don’t deserve to be given a gruesome death (or a death sentence at all for that matter) but I’d be lying if I said I have never felt that way when reading about some f-ed up stuff on the news. Maybe I’m also higher on the Hitler scale than I thought I was.

Shit, I’m sorry, it was insensitive of me to make that joke (well, half-joke)

Well, they probably didn’t do it very scientifically but if they could think of it and the tools existed, someone in history is likely to have tried it as a method for killing people.

Impaled people, for instance, could allegedly take days to die. Being slowly eaten by ants or rats sounds pretty painful too

There’s one called “life” that is pretty cruel too. It might take anywhere from seconds to more than a hundred years for it to eventually kill you and some.people get to experience a lot of pain throughout the experience.

Zorr’ak notes, page 2:

Earthlings’ nutrition consists mainly of elongated pieces of synthetic rubber. These can’t be fully digested, so consuming the nutrients they contain is achieved by inserting them repeatedly in one or more of the mouths that Earthlings have in different parts of their anatomy.

Zorr’ak notes, page 3:

Several attempts to feed the Earthling specimen we collected have failed. We are releasing it to avoid it dying from starvation

NY Post, page 3 headline:

Texas man claims he was abducted by aliens and anal-probed

haha, I do have a @hotmail.com account. Granted, nowadays I use it mainly as my “spam” account (to be clear: I’m not sending spam, it’s the account I give when I’m required to give an email or create an account) but hotmail was a big thing in the old days before gmail and that account still has sentimental value to me.

yeah, my bathroom is very small too