This has long been how I have explained LLMs to non-technical people: text transformation engines. To some extent, many common, tedious, activities basically constitute a transformation of text into one well known form from another (even some kinds of reasoning are this) and so LLMs are very useful. But they just transform text between well known forms.
And while it appears that lots of problems can be contorted into translation, "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail". Maybe we do hit a brick wall unless we can come up with a model that more closely aligns with actual human reasoning.
I'm a highly secular person and I see people constantly say things like "spiritual but not religious/dogmatic" and I cannot figure out what that is supposed to mean. What does it mean?
This is so tough, though, because the things happening in the world really, genuinely, do matter and its very hard to realize that our passive emotional reaction to them is not meaningful, probably actively bad for us. If I could snap my fingers and do one thing, I'd obliterate social media from the face of the earth.
I've tried a few types of churches of reason and they are pretty sad, honestly. Hard core, dedicated, non-religious person here, so I'm not saying that people should go to Church, but I've never seen anything approximating a Church of Reason that would have satisfied my (admittedly minimal) social desires.
I hear you. For me things that have worked are those that are built around a hobby -- travelling to the wooded hills, astronomy, music recitals, caring for strays / abandoned pets.
I think this is a misunderstanding:
> This is democratic erosion and why United States founding documents are singular in their importance.
Founding documents don't do shit. What one needs is a culture which is perpetually hostile towards power. All problems of power are social problems. No law, founding document, principle is going to prevent people from doing stuff if they want to do it.
You also need the formal mechanisms by which rule of law is upheld, protected against mob rule, and has a feedback loop in which course correction is possible. A culture hostile to power isn't stable without stable principles and a leviathan by which those principles persist, which is the whole point of the American experiment. The founding documents laid out a system intended to address the problems of the era, persist into the future, and adapt to the needs of each generation while protecting and maximizing the liberty of each individual.
If all you've got is uniform hostility to power, you've lost the plot and won't ever get past small scale tribalism.
I think its reasonable to argue that the founding documents have become subverted by changes in the political structure of society. From this point of view a too rigid adherence to the founding documents is just as problematic as a too weak one. In the end, it is the citizens which make the difference, not the structures. Any structure put into place will face relentless pressure from those who want power and citizens must be ready to present relentless counter-pressure.
Yeah, for France just compare reactions to these measures to the marching in the streets and general striking behavior you get from austerity measures, and the subsequent backpedaling by authorities. I can only conclude the average person there either just isn’t aware of this, doesn’t understand the implications, or doesn’t value these sorts of digital access erosions in the same way.
Power. Real power. The power to kill you, take your property, harm your family, tell lies about you on the news, etc.
I've always been surprised by the naivety of tech people with respect to this question. The only possible solution to power is power itself. Software can be a small part of that, but the main part of it is human organization: credible power to be used against other organized holders of power. No amount of technology will let you go it alone safely. At best, you may hope to hide away from power with the expectation that its abuse will just skip over you. That is the best you could hope for if all you want are software solutions.
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