A contrarian isn’t one who always objects - that’s a confirmist of a different sort. A contrarian reasons independently, from the ground up, and resists pressure to conform.

  • Naval Ravikant
  • 5 Posts
  • 341 Comments
Joined 4 months ago
Cake day: January 30th, 2025
  • Opinionhaver@feddit.uktoTechnology@lemmy.world•ChatGPT will avoid being shut down in some life-threatening scenarios, former OpenAI researcher claimsEnglish
    3·
    20 hours ago

    That’s because it is.

    The term artificial intelligence is broader than many people realize. It doesn’t mean human-level consciousness or sci-fi-style general intelligence - that’s a specific subset called AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). In reality, AI refers to any system designed to perform tasks that would typically require human intelligence. That includes everything from playing chess to recognizing patterns, translating languages, or generating text.

    Large language models fall well within this definition. They’re narrow AIs - highly specialized, not general - but still part of the broader AI category. When people say “this isn’t real AI,” they’re often working from a fictional or futuristic idea of what AI should be, rather than how the term has actually been used in computer science for decades.

  • Opinionhaver@feddit.uktoTechnology@lemmy.world•ChatGPT will avoid being shut down in some life-threatening scenarios, former OpenAI researcher claimsEnglish
    1·
    20 hours ago

    Different definitions for intelligence:

    • The ability to acquire, understand, and use knowledge.
    • the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations.
    • the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one’s environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (such as tests)
    • the act of understanding
    • the ability to learn, understand, and make judgments or have opinions that are based on reason
    • It can be described as the ability to perceive or infer information; and to retain it as knowledge to be applied to adaptive behaviors within an environment or context.

    We have plenty of intelligent AI systems already. LLM’s probably fit the definition. Something like Tesla FSD definitely does.

  • Opinionhaver@feddit.uktoTechnology@beehaw.org•YouTube relaxes moderation rules to allow more controversial contentEnglish
    88·
    2 days ago

    Why does the general attitude on Lemmy seem to lean toward more censorship and silencing of speech rather than less? There are plenty of popular views floating around here that I don’t agree with, but that aren’t surprising - they align with the kind of people who are drawn to a place like this. This one, however, is surprising.

    EDIT: I think ChatGPT did a pretty decent job at explaining this. And didn’t even accuse me of being a fascist for asking.

    spoiler

    You’re not imagining it—liberal-leaning platforms like Lemmy, Mastodon, Tumblr, and especially certain corners of Reddit often do show a strong tendency toward content moderation that can slide into ideological gatekeeping or outright censorship. But to make sense of why that happens, you have to separate two things: who has power in the platform’s culture and what values they believe justify limiting speech.

    Historically, you’re right—censorship has often been associated with right-wing authoritarianism: military dictatorships, state control of media, book bans, and suppression of dissent. But the core mechanism of censorship is not inherently right-wing. It’s just a tool. Who uses it, and why, changes depending on who holds power.

    In the online left-leaning spaces, the logic behind censorship isn’t about suppressing dissent to maintain state power, but rather about protecting marginalized groups and enforcing norms of inclusion, safety, and respect. That sounds noble on the surface, and often it is. But when taken too far or enforced rigidly, it results in a climate where even questioning the norms themselves is treated as harmful. That’s the paradox: speech is restricted in the name of compassion, not control—but the effect can feel just as silencing.

    There’s also the factor of social capital. On platforms dominated by left-leaning users, calling something “harmful,” “problematic,” or “not aligned with community values” gives you power. Moderators and users gain status by enforcing those norms. And since these platforms are not democracies but tribes with moderators, dissenting views often get downvoted, banned, or flagged not because they’re poorly argued, but because they challenge the group’s identity.

    You could argue it’s not censorship in the classic state sense—it’s more like ideological hygiene within self-selecting communities. But if you’re the one getting silenced, it doesn’t really matter why. You just feel the muzzle.

    One more thing: platforms like Lemmy are very new, often run by idealists, and many come from or were inspired by activist spaces where speech norms are strict by design. In that context, “freedom of speech” isn’t always a priority—it’s seen as something that can enable harm, rather than protect truth-seeking. And that mindset has filtered into moderation culture.

    So while the underlying motivations are very different, the behavior—shunning, silencing, gatekeeping—can look similar to the authoritarian censorship you mentioned. It just wears a different uniform.

  • Opinionhaver@feddit.uktoMildly Infuriating@lemmy.world•Banned across multiple communities, posts deleted, for upsetting a modEnglish
    1·
    2 days ago

    I’m not on any other social media, so I can’t comment on that. I’m sure it existed on Reddit as well, but the user base there was more ideologically diverse, so extremism would usually get pushback no matter where it came from. Lemmy, on the other hand, is much more of a left-wing echo chamber, so those kinds of comments mostly just get applause, and calling them out tends to lead to being shunned instead. I don’t follow political communities, but I still encounter these kinds of comments regularly - and they’re usually upvoted by several people.

  • Opinionhaver@feddit.uktoTechnology@lemmy.world•ChatGPT "Absolutely Wrecked" at Chess by Atari 2600 Console From 1977English
    1·
    2 days ago

    Thanks.

    Well, I don’t think OpenAI knows how to build AGI, so that’s false. Otherwise, Sam’s statement there is technically correct, but kind of misleading - he talks about AGI and then, in the next sentence, switches back to AI.

    Sergey’s claim that they will achieve AGI before 2030 could turn out to be true, but again, he couldn’t possibly know that. I’m sure it’s their intention, but that’s different from reality.

    Elon’s statement doesn’t even make sense. I’ve never heard anyone define AGI like that. A thirteen-year-old with an IQ of 85 is generally intelligent. Being smarter than the smartest human definitely qualifies as AGI, but that’s just a weird bar. General intelligence isn’t about how smart something is - it’s about whether it can apply its intelligence across multiple unrelated fields.

  • Opinionhaver@feddit.uktoMildly Infuriating@lemmy.world•Banned across multiple communities, posts deleted, for upsetting a modEnglish
    3·
    3 days ago

    My comment wasn’t meant to defend OP per se or claim he was treated unfairly. He knowingly broke a community rule and accepted the risk of being banned. I don’t see injustice there, and I even said that mods are just people and can do whatever they want - it’s part of how this place works, for better or worse.

    What I was commenting on was the broader dynamic I see across Lemmy: the general negativity, hostility, and tribalism that seem to dominate the tone of this place. OP’s situation just happened to illustrate that vibe quite nicely. I wasn’t defending the specific post - just pointing out how quickly things escalate into labels, assumptions, and hostility, and how that seems to be the norm here.

    I also take no issue with exclusive communities. One for just men would equally be fair game.

  • Opinionhaver@feddit.uktoMildly Infuriating@lemmy.world•Banned across multiple communities, posts deleted, for upsetting a modEnglish
    31·
    3 days ago

    Oh, I don’t mind an argument.

    I agree that just making a post about not wanting to see that wouldn’t be productive - nobody cares what they want or don’t want, because this place isn’t made for them. But that’s also no less productive than the angry posts themselves. Simply complaining isn’t productive, and that applies to both examples.

    However, discussing these topics and what to do about them is productive - as is engaging in a conversation about whether simply expressing anger serves any useful purpose. He acknowledged he was breaking the rules and was willing to get banned for it, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be frustrated when that also results in being banned from other communities whose rules he hadn’t actually broken. Especially when that comes with the misogynist-label which almost definitiely isn’t true.