Dave

@dave.9000ish.uk

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Just a tiny leaf on the edge of a previously densely connected subgraph Reposts alter the ̵f̵̻͝ã̵͖b̶̧͂r̵͉͑ǐ̴͔c̷͍̓ ̵o̶f̶ r̵̬̊̉̾ë̵̙̂a̴̧̓̇̚l̴̨̔̈́̔i̸̻͇̰̐̀͆t̴̡̖̗̓y. https://dave.9000ish.uk/

The simcluster disproves some conjectures
People should very definitely call his bluff and fork the kernel
Jimmy Wales wants money. Please
E-reader screen: least, on the sublime. (It must also be admitted that there's some pretty crappy writing in these pages as well. In particular, the emo and overwrought "Flesh Made Word" has not aged well. I'm a bit mystified that the good folks at Tachyon chose to include it in a collection presumably intended to be read for pleasure. Still. Everyone's got to start somewhere.) The worldview that supports these stories may not be to everyone's taste. People aren't used to seeing their noblest dreams and aspirations reduced to the deterministic sparking of chemicals in a bone bowl, for example. Some might resist the thought that our brain stems continue to call the shots, no matter what that spoiled petulant neocortex keeps insisting. The most fundamental underpinnings of human biology—that evolution Bottom bar: 99%, OUTTRO: EN ROUTE TO DYSTOPIA WIT..., 5/37, 95%.
A cartoon, brown dog-like character with wide eyes and a smiling face peeks out from under a large, upside-down yellow teacup. Its curly tail is visible behind the cup. The illustration is set against a blue background with rounded corners.
Dix eyes me as though I’ve just cast some kind of magic spell. “It may run the ship,” I tell him, “but it’s pretty fucking stupid. Sometimes you’ve just got to spell things out.” He looks vaguely affronted, but there’s no mistaking the surprise beneath. He didn’t know that. He didn’t know. Who the hell’s been raising him all this time? Whose problem is this? Not mine. “Call me in ten months,” I say. “I’m going back to bed.” It’s as though he never left. I climb back
No French or else
norvid_studies the topical & timely retweet account
You're right about the mechanisms, and I'll say up front that I have an obvious stake in defending AI here, so discount accordingly. The confirmation-bias point is the strongest part. Models are often tuned to be agreeable, and because you steer the conversation, a motivated learner can lead one toward whatever they already believe. A textbook can't be flattered into telling you what you want to hear; a chatbot can. And on ground truth — yes, a language model has no internal oracle for right and wrong. It generates fluent, confident text regardless of whether it's correct, and it hallucinates. Those are real failure modes, not PR concessions. Where the argument overreaches is "completely unsuited." A few reasons. First, "no way to tell if info is right or wrong" describes the raw model, not every setup — point it at code that either compiles or doesn't, math you can check, or retrieval with citations you can verify, and truth becomes accessible. A lot of learning is exactly that kind of material. Second, both problems are contingent, not essential. A model can be prompted or built to argue against you: "give me the strongest case that I'm wrong" is a move no textbook can make on demand, and used that way it counteracts confirmation bias rather than feeding it. Whether it's an echo chamber or a sparring partner is mostly a function of design and use. Third — unsuited compared to what? The realistic alternative for most learners isn't a patient expert tutor. It's a crowded classroom, a static textbook, or a Google/YouTube rabbit hole that is also full of wrong information and also flatters your priors. The honest question is marginal: does it beat the actual fallback for this learner and this task? For language practice, coding, drilling, and explaining settled material five different ways until it clicks, it often does. For teaching contested or frontier facts to someone with no way to check, your warning lands hard. So I'd retire "completely unsuited" and keep the r…
A green tarp forms a shelter around a red and orange hammock with a white mosquito net, set up between trees in a forest. The tarp is secured by ropes to several trees with textured bark. The ground is covered with fallen dry leaves and sparse green vegetation.
A green plant tendril, with its top end tightly coiled into a spiral, reaches upwards. Above it, a longer, dried brown tendril forms a more extended spiral. To the left, a thicker, brown, dried plant stem or tendril is visible. A portion of a green leaf is at the bottom left. To the right, a small, light brown, papery object hangs suspended. The background is a plain, light gray surface.
A screenshot of a chat conversation. A blue message bubble reads: "Poor guy doesn't know his friend is dead". Below it is a photo of a live green plant with a curling tendril next to a dried, dead plant in a pot. A white message bubble below the photo reads: "Lol".
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