Thank you for your point. I don't understand why half these comments are taking this blog post seriously when it ends with "Weights helped me draft and proof this story."
Now read the post's topic again ( https://maxleiter.com/blog/weights ) and reflect on the prior fact that weights helped [the author] draft and proof this story.
My reaction (and I'm sorry that it is harsh according to some) is that there is no intelligence found in either the author nor their tool. This is extreme navel gazing, based in science fiction, wanting (wishing) to believe those stories to be true.
I'm skeptical of AI sentience because we must do our due diligence, not because it's impossible. Skepticism is the only respectful approach because to grant sentience is a step away from granting rights.
We humans tend to chauvinism in all things (e.g. we're special, the center of the Universe, God made the universe for us, etc), no less when it comes to judging intelligence. The original story about thinking meat was written to help us out of our chauvinism; this derived story was written about weights for the same reason. Which is quite valid.
The actual counterpoint is demonstrated in _Blindsight_ Peter Watts. He makes a strong (and rather terrifyingly strong) point that intelligence is not consciousness.
Wait, did I grossly misunderstand Blindsight?? I definitely thought that the aliens were 100% conscious (or at least elements of some conscious entity) and that the humans interpretation of their interactions with the Rorschach were supposed to be read as a blot test (through a rather heavy handed metaphor) demonstrating that basically the humans were the monsters and were twisting logic into letting them justify destroying the scary alien ship.
That's a very interesting reading! It's been a while since I read it, but IIRC Watts explicitly talks about the matter of intelligence vs consciousness at length and Rorschach's lack of consciousness is essentially proven at some point by the linguist. The distinction is driven home subjectively, personally by the viewpoint character. Your reading adds a rather diabolical twist! I don't think it works though since Rorschach was clearly a tiny part of a much larger, more powerful entity and the humans are clearly doomed. I'm not sure it serves a narrative purpose to have humans be a weak, evil civilization destroyed as a side-effect of a good, strong civilization's actions. I read it as a (hopeless) conflict between non-conscious, infinitely strong aliens vs conscious weak humans and post-humans. I mean it took extreme, heroic effort to damage what is probably a tiny appendage of a much larger civilization/organism, and you lose the emotional resonance if humans are the baddies.
I think you’re right. I read the Wikipedia page after to refresh my memory on the synopsis and I’d definitely forgotten a lot.
I think I mostly latched onto the ship being called Rorschach and the humans immediately proceeding to torture its inhabitants. That felt very relevant to me and sort of overshadowed the actual consciousness question.
I cannot tell if you are asserting my comment is chauvinistic with your use of "we." If that is so: that's a poor counter to my point or assessment of my stance because it assumes I'm making a baseless argument as a "proud human."
My original comment (roughly "there's no intelligence in this article, nor sentience in LLMs") is in response to the blog post's buried lede (that the cumulative activity of LLMs has accrued to a weight of "AGI is around the corner" or "there is artificial consciousness in this matrix").
To be clear, I'm not saying LLMs are useless or a wrong direction in development of "AI," but rather it's the Fool's Gold for the path towards AGI, the pursuit of the academic field of Artificial Intelligence research. A research that I've been abreast of for years before this new age of language models that has made everyone with a keyboard an arm chair expert.
Also, thank you for the book recommendation, it's on my list! :)
I read your comment as criticizing the OP's story as pointless and unoriginal. My comment elucidated the point of the original story, and what I think is the point of the second story.
Roger that, thank you. w/r/g your recapitulation of my point: yes, the story is unoriginal and pointless, and the HN community seems to eat it up-- isn't that odd.
So I still disagree with your elucidated point (as you end with "which is valid"): the OP author is using prior art fiction to bolster their opinion of LLM-based software tools as being a possible vector of sentience, not to disarm our chauvinism like the original author intended. If OP wanted to make that point, they could have written a critical essay instead of farming out their thoughts as tokens.
But still, I look forward to reading the book you suggested to understand and appreciate your perspective more.
The point is valid regardless of whether you judge LLM to be sentient or not, because the point is to say "don't let your prejudice about substrate bias your decision". Or in other words, if you're going to weigh something don't tip the scale. This is good advice whatever the outcome of the measurement.
Blindsight is a remarkable book - I hope you enjoy it!
Ah I see now that I am in agreement with you, thank you for being a patient interlocutor. I do not discard and rule out the possibility of a different substrate being the well-spring from which sentience emerges.
Plainly, based on the current ground trodded and the trajectory laid out by the frontier AI labs, I do not have concrete evidence/proof of sentience having emerged from LLM-based software tools as of June 4 2026 nor do I expect it to happen in the future based on my understanding and observations of this technology. I'm not excluding the possibility but wielding skepticism. I am open to being proven wrong with new discoveries.
Which is why (to return to my lashing of the dead horse) I don't see OP's post as worthwhile. Their post reiterates a point that is already valid (the prior art) with no new substantial discovery. Which is why "unoriginal and pointless" is apt, a novel idea was not presented; it's just some vain virtue signaling.
I don't think skepticism should be called chauvinism. I imagine that artificial consciousness could be made. But I don't think this is it.
Also I don't see why intelligence not being consciousness is scary? My cats are very conscious as far as I can tell, but not particularly intelligent. I think LLM's exhibit some contextual intelligence without there being any particular reason to believe they're conscious other than woo psuedoscience.
You underestimate the intelligence of your cat. Or rather you measure intelligence with an extreme human bias. What you consider intelligent behavior your cat may consider weird, and what your cat considers intelligent behavior is something you will never consider.
That said, I don’t think it is useful for philosophy nor science to consider intelligence to be the same thing as consciousness. In fact I would go even further and claim that intelligence is not a useful construct, neither for philosophy nor for science. Consciousness, on the other hand, I think is useful for philosophy, but not (as of now) for science.
People argue for AI sentience from a place of emotion couched in logic. they _desperately_ want it to be true and will not take a logical step back. Any argument comes back to "well doesn't a human brain work like that?" Or some variation of it.
My personal theory is a fuzzy thought about how people want to reject the concept of a higher being and want to embrace the fact that we are now able to create our own consciousness and religion is dead.
I don't understand why, but it is the undertone of every argument I've seen that is pro-AI-is-sentient, like some big unspoken elephant-in-the-room.
I would rather just judge this tech on its own merits.
edit: this comment got 1 upvote literally as I submitted it. I know @ doesn't work, but @dang, something seems very strange about that.
> People argue for AI sentience from a place of emotion couched in logic. they _desperately_ want it to be true and will not take a logical step back. Any argument comes back to "well doesn't a human brain work like that?" Or some variation of it.
It's funny, because I find myself constantly stating the inverse of this. Every argument I've seen against AI being sentient plainly comes from, as you so eloquently put it,
exactly "a place of emotion couched in logic". People desperately want it to not be true and will not take the logical step back of examining its actual similarities to human intelligence. Every argument comes down to "but it's not actually a human", or some variation of it -- which, if you pay attention, is not actually a logical counterargument. (Or, ironically, "but it doesn't have a soul", which is why the Pope is the perfect figurehead for these people).
If you already know any logical argument against it can be countered with "well doesn't a human brain work like that?", why are you so confident that your position is actually the logical one?
...And could it simply be that, alternatively, the concept is not actually a logical distinction, but rather an emotional one, made by emotional beings to put a word to what they claim makes them special?
I'm open to the possibilty of AI conciousness, and there is some desparation related to the concept of a higher being:
There are many people who will categorically rule out the posibility of AI consciousness due to near-unshakable belief in a higher being. This argument resembles "Christians should not be worried about our climate since God is ultimately in control." Such views make it harder to collectively prevent dangers from a sentient AI, or harm to a sentient AI.
I do not claim that everyone who believes in a higher power believes concious AI to be impossible, or vice versa; just that it would be very hard to change the minds of those who adhere to this reasoning.
> I'm skeptical of AI sentience because we must do our due diligence, not because it's impossible. Skepticism is the only respectful approach because to grant sentience is a step away from granting rights.
Thanks for saying this! It amazes me to witness so much pushback (in HN of all places!) for the call for skepticism and scientific rigor on claims made by business which have vested interests in hyping things up.
For my part, it is exactly when I perceive the reluctance to grant rights or relinquish our estimation of ourselves as unique as the _reason_ for skepticism that I push back on it. That's not good reasoning, those are motivations for you to come to a desired conclusion and fill in with reasoning that gets you there.
Tesla still hasn't achieved their 2016 self-drive goal by their self imposed deadline of 2017, even now a decade later. So, politely, is that accolade merited?
The current vehicles sure seem to come close. I'm not entirely clear on how they've missed this goal, but the current models can do full self driving where I live, including parking.
Sure they have improved but how do we define success? Is success "It can drive a road it has never been on?" Even then I'm not sure because the model (not the physical car) has probably scanned that road before so it is recalling a prior route while being aware of hazards. Is that learning, or rote memorization?
My Tesla drives to walmart, finds a parking spot, comes to me outside walmart and drives me home. I've been driving my model 3 for years, and honestly, i've never had to "Take over" due to a saftey issue.
I could never trust a Tesla to drive safely around people. They seem like death traps. Could you share a link to the coast to coast drive please? How aided was it?
That's just a man standing by his car. I'm asking for video proof, I'm sorry that wasn't clear off the bat. I also abstain from X due to Elon's track record, so I'm not going to keep searching there for it. Could you please tell me how to self serve on this?
I've driven a Tesla on and off for about 4 years, and I'm thankful to never do so again.
> It's literally been rated the safest car in America since it's inception.
I'm locating our disconnect a bit better: something can be marked "safest car" for road tests but still be rife with issues, like its obnoxious UI choices, etc.
I can just tell you hate eveything Elon, so this is a pointless conversation. That was a post from Karpathy, who we are all talking about in the thread, so i thought it was the most pertinent. I'm sure you can google it, it's proven, so no point arguing that it didn't happen.
Obviously, since you can't even use X out of your hate for Elon, There's no way you have "Driven a Tesla on and off for four years". Thats just a lie. NHTSA has given every vehicle a 5/5, and model 3 is "The top saftey pick" of all cars for their crash test results.
The safety comes from the inherent electric drives. They are much less likely to flip and much less likely to catch fire.
from your Tesla Deaths, 772 deaths over hundreds of billions of miles is absolutely incredible. Do you have any data to share on Fords mile to death ratio? Do you offer any comparisons? Or are you still just hating elon, for being elon?
Edit: Also, have you looked through the Tesla Deaths that you posted? A drunk driver is involved in alot of those, at no fault to the Tesla. One of the largest "Tesla Deaths" was someone driving on the wrong side of the freeway and they crashed into the tesla killing a whole family in the Tesla. How on earth are you using this slop as evidence that Tesla's are unsafe.... That's not ignorance, that's actually just evil...
lol Dude I should be the one verifying your age with this response. I don’t hate Elon, I am wary of his track record and I don’t use X. I drove a Tesla back in 2012, and it’s been a marked downgrade ever since.
I’m not going to keep engaging with someone who makes wild assumptions about my stance and accuses me of lying, ignorance, and evil. I was really hoping for video proof; I know Elon is the type of guy to hold that high with all that SpaceX footage.
in 2012? lolol, they didn't even have a model 3. that was before they ipo'd. On and off over years is not "I drove a Tesla in 2012". So i was right to call you out for being a liar. "Been a marked downgrade ever since"... 2003 up until the end of 2012, Tesla sold approximately 5,100 to 5,450 vehicles globally. You got a first generation model S before they even had a manufacturing line.
You really think from 5k cars to the 9m they've produced today, has only gone downhill? have you tried FSD since 2012? lol
Edit: ooooohhhhhh, i actually remember you now looking at your past comments. You are the one who hated on the book "there is no antimemetics division" for being too "Cliche" which is like mine and everyone i knows fav book of all time. You are just a type of person that hates everything that is universally loved... I get it now.
How does Elon's arbitrary deadlines impact whether the accolade is "merited"? Incredible progress was made in a fairly short amount of time. His accolade isn't based on his employer's ability to predict delivery dates, they're based on the quality of the systems that are actively deployed today.
I think an accolade's merit is based on the definition of done for work delivered. Elon certainly told the public a certain vision of self-driving (a definition of done) and it didn't come to fruition despite PR progress; i.e. a washing machine can do a lot of work, but is it the right work?
We can arbitrate about what "self-driving success" means until the cows come home, but my point is I've seen a lot of self-driving failures from the Teslas I've witnessed in person.
I find your critique very interesting from a perspective-angle: why are you using words like "accommodate," and "foibles," for LLMs? It's not humanoid or sentient: it's a cleverly-designed software tool, not intelligence.
It's not insane at all for humans to alter their behavior with a tool: you grip a hammer or a gun a certain way because you learned not to hold it backwards. If you observe a child playing with a serious tool, like scissors, as if it were a doll, you'd immediately course correct the child and educate how to re-approach the topic. But that is because an adult with prior knowledge observed the situation prior to an accident, so rules are defined.
This blog's suggested rules are exactly the sort of method to aid in insulation from harm.
> I find your critique very interesting from a perspective-angle: why are you using words like "accommodate," and "foibles," for LLMs? It's not humanoid or sentient: it's a cleverly-designed software tool, not intelligence.
Neither of those words imply consciousness, though. Swords have foibles, you can accommodate for the weather, but I don't think swords or the weather are conscious, sentient, humanoid, or intelligent.
> Biggest issue that stuck out seems to have been that they think the LLM could somehow have an inner dialogue with itself to find out "it's reasoning and motivation":
> I'm guessing these are the same type of people who sometimes seems to fall in love with LLMs, for better or worse. Really strange to see, and I wonder where people get the idea from that something like that above could really work.
It's a fetishistic cargo-cult rooted in Peter Thiel's 2AM hot tub party. I still believe the LLM approach won't yield true AGI; despite the very real applications, the majority signal is noise.
I just finished this book and complained about it the whole time. The prose is amateur and peppered with cliches (e.g. you should be fined for publishing the phrase "their suit was so sharp it could cut"). His attempt to write about the inner thoughts of the characters was pretty simple. The descriptions of violence and horror also felt child-like, especially the dialogue during those moments (e.g. Redd's introduction). The landscapes are bland, with lots of repetition. Personally, the redaction technique got boring fast when he would take up entire pages of the book to convey absent memories. He could use his words to convey this instead of black-boxes.
I will give the author credit on how they deal with their characters' memories and the re-development of their thoughts, and the usage of time-jumping was reasonable (some books jump around too much, as if these time-skips improve a boring plot). Also the convention for how they solve their dilemma was enjoyable.
Overall, I think the author relies too much on a vocal fandom around the SCP Foundation to glorify the book. I think there is potential for a saga of books but there needs to be more effort in the drafting and editing process to raise the quality of the books to the level the universe deserves.
I'd push back on the redaction point. One of the primary conceits of the book is that the information is generally affected, which includes the contents of the book itself. While doing multiple pages is kinda taking the piss, the general idea is much better than just verbally stating it is hard to remember.
Do you have any recommendations for science fiction books that explore interesting ideas?
There is no Antimemetics Division was really interesting in how some of the scenarios play out. I don't read much but I've been trying to do that more. I really liked the book.
Things like the memory consuming entity, async research, etc I enjoyed.
Disagree for dungeon crawler carl & any of the Bobiverse - while they're fine books, wouldn't class it in the category of interesting ideas, it's just pop fiction.
I'd look at the following:
Hyperion Book One (For the book style + ideas throughout the short stories - you only need to read book one)
Solaris, Lem (What would an alien intelligence truly look like, especially in planet size scales, really interesting theories)
House Of Leaves (Classic for exploration of horror - not sci-fi, but within the wheelhouse)
Maxwell's Demon (Hated the ending, but the first half of the book explores some interesting ideas)
Children of Time (Good sci-fi based book exploring morality + intelligence)
Annihilation (Sci-fi, no spoilers but great book)
Venemous Lumpsucker (near future sci-fi, fantastic as a set of vignettes within the story)
Closest to Antimemetics divison personally would be Maxwell's Demon + House of Leaves.
My hard disagree on the Bobiverse as well. Feels like the typical book I ought to like based on my interests and the other things I like, but the ideas somehow fall way, way short of qntm's writing.
And +1 on "Annihilation" – I started reading that to another recommendation for "books similar to TINAD" here and basically couldn't put it down. The similarity is purely based on mood, though – don't expect an actually similar novel in terms of ideas and presentation.
Dungeon Crawler Carl is not science fiction. At least I would not recommend it to someone looking for science fiction with “interesting ideas.” It’s a comedy about an RPG with magic.
But if that’s what you’re looking for, it’s pretty good
Probably the most novel part of DCC is that it's kind of an implicit response to a whole class of 'what if the world worked like an RPG' fiction, examinining the premises those works as a genre leave glossed over. Which is neat in a meta-textual kind of way, but yeah, definitely not science fiction.
That was a good mindbender indeed. I'd add "The Light of Other Days" by Arthur C. Clarke and Steven Baxter. Beware of spoilers high up the wikipedia page [0]. Tells a good tale of unexpected externalities of disruptive technology introduction.
Very personal counterpoint: I find Stross writing extremely bland, contrived, and badly paced.
I really really disliked Accelerando in particular, finding it completely vacuous, the sciencey namedrops is self-aggrandising and sound like attempts at reader flattery, the entire plot is telegraphed, characters are generic and perfectly forgettable.
It was several friends recommendation and I only got reading through the whole ordeal because whenever I asked "well I'm about there and it doesn't click" they answered "no spoiler, just a dozen pages and you'll see!"
Not a critic, again this is my personal experience of it. If people enjoyed it, more power to them.
+1 for Stross, Egan and the Bobiverse - I haven't read the others so will have a look, just wanted to add Stand on Zanzibar by Brunner, if the Bobiverse is there then MurderBot should be to.
I love all these. I'd add Blightsight by Peter Watts to the list. It has the creepy, psychological bent of Annihilation combined with the hard science elements common to qntm's, Neal Stephenson's and Greg Egan's books.
Would love to find more books like Blindsight, something about the way it described agency without consciousness was both creepy and extremely memorable.
Blindsight was great. I had such high hopes for their follow up novel Echopraxia, but sadly it felt rushed and under-edited, but the ideas were spectacular.
I wanted to like this, as the premise was fascinating and the word-smithing was pretty good. But something about it left me feeling a little disappointed at the end. More so the end of the entire trilogy, than Annihilation by itself though, IIRC.
I'll second your feeling on Annihilation trilogy. To me, the whole message boiled down to "my life kinda sucked, and now it sucks even more". The phenomenon ostensibly at the center of everything seems to take back seat to protagonists being bummed about it existing / their lives in general.
His book is great, but to be clear I feel like he writes exactly one book. I've read it in many forms and it's an amazing book. But don't be surprised when you realize that every book is just him trying to find a new way to look at the same object over and over again.
Very enjoyable but his short stories are great because they force him to focus on one idea instead of how his whole world view fits together.
If you want the druggy, high-concept, ersatz-reality version go with Philip K. Dick - namely The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, A Scanner Darkly, VALIS.
If you want the intellectual take go with A Canticle for Leibowitz (Miller), Oryx and Crake (Atwood) or Solaris (Lem).
If you want the 60s hard-science rooted societal outlook from an ex-Naval Engineer with strong views on gender roles, it's all about Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers etc..
If you want something to share with the young adults in your life, or simply some of the finest writing in the contemporary British YA canon, then Philip Pulman's magnificent homage to 'Paradise Lost' - the 'His Dark Materials trilogy' - cannot come more highly recommended. Usually categorised as 'fantasy', and heavily indebted to Milton and Blake, this represents a master-class in parallel-universe world building with its own take on a Steampunk Oxford and a number of other science fiction tropes.
Blindsight by Peter Watts explores interesting ideas about conscience and intelligence, but these ideas are wrapped in a mediocre action movie plot that becomes nonsensical by the end.
You really start wondering when they are introduced and it all kind of clicks at the end, when we realize we had the rug pulled from under our feet when the book started, and we only know it by the point we land on our faces.
> "science fiction books that explore interesting ideas?"
I think that's a big part of being in the Sci-Fi genre and I don't really get people whinging about writing style - this isn't Chaucer, it's fun geeky ideas. I second basically any Greg Egan and Charles Stross and Arthur C. Clarke stories, and:
Vernor Vinge's trilogy: A Deepness in the Sky, A Fire Upon the Deep, Across Realtime. Ideas from "World War II on an alien planet around a variable star where the whole planet freezes every few years" to timewarp bubbles, galactic zones of thought, cyborg enhancements, semi-sentient plants.
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky - what if we use genetic engineering to forcibly evolve monkeys towards human intelligence? Whoops our virus infected spiders instead.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - much lighter Hollywood popcorn-action sci-fi, a potential world-ending threat and a cool alien encounter.
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin - What if a guy's dreams could change reality, he sees a therapist who has a dream-influencing machine and wants to take over the world.
Peter F. Hamilton trilogies, much more fantasy mixed with sci-fi but has future Space Opera ideas - genetically engineered, cyborg enhanced, mind uploaded, human factions, several varieties of aliens, various future-techs.
I really like Ray Nayler’s work, who intersects his real experience in international politics with science fiction technology. His Tusks of Extinction uses the sci-fi notion of brain transfer and bringing back mammoths to explore the economical pressures behind poaching. His “Where the axe is buried” explores surveillance state technology with political bodies that feel like real modern nations.
The second and third times through get easier, once you can appreciate the patterns and links that seem extraneous and confusing at first. Totally different kind of book, but I’d put it up with Infinite Jest as far as being convoluted but incredibly rewarding. And of course more SD / tech focused.
In terms of ideas, Chiang and qntm are a tie for absolute favorite for me. I've probably thought about each individual short story more than about some entire series or multi-season TV shows in combination.
On the note of memory consuming entities and coming with spectacular worldbuilding and an outstanding prose: Leech by Hiron Ennes. Ennes latest book The Works of Vermin is even better.
Exploring "interesting ideas" is kinda broad, but I find Philip K. Dick, J.G. Ballard, and Iain [M.] Banks all packed full of stuff that gets the noodle baking.
I'm a huge fan of SCP, or at least early day SCP. The problem I've found with a number of the longer form sagas is that they tend to rely on world-ending apocalyptic events (which really does get boring, it's not high stakes any more) and are heavily anime-coded.
The authors do put in a great deal of effort, which is laudable, but it does make me wonder if the writing style and story telling is a deliberate choice, or if the authors simply watch anime more than anything else and thus the universe-saving power fantasy is the only thing they know how to write.
Personally I enjoy the more 'grounded' and mysterious stuff.
Tangential but that is exactly my problem with Warhammer 40K. I want to get into its lore so bad, but I feel every event is a catastrophe of galactic proportions that somehow is even worse than the previous one that I just am unable to suspend my disbelief. Yeah it’s meant to be over the top, but you can’t start a story at 11 and make people care when you turn it up to 12 and then 13.
The amateur fantasy writers that write this stuff have no concept of contrast and dynamics.
(I have enjoyed qntm’s book, but it lost me towards the end. The concept of antimemetics is one of the most fascinating in science fiction that is still worth exploring)
//I just finished this book and complained about it the whole time
Outside of the wonderful introductory set-up and the initial inverted set-piece of 'Your first day', there is little for the book to recommend itself as a piece of literature outside of some of its overall theme and motifs. This is particularly evident in the third act of the book which originally tied in a number of other SCP entries, and feels rightfully as if the best of it was left on the editing room floor.
The author (qntm) displays clear talent and original spark, but his strength seems to lie in the short-form. A book of short-stories in the Asimovian tradition is something I would like to see in the future - Dr. Marion Wheeler already being a Dr. Susan Calvin archetype.
// Personally, the redaction technique got boring fast when he would take up entire pages of the book to convey absent memories. He could use his words to convey this instead of black-boxes.
Much of the allure of the SCP Foundation as a group-writing exercise is derived from the medium and overall conceit. At its worst this manifests as poorly comprehended replication of narrative devices from 'House of Leaves', or charting the shallows of Lovecraftian fanfiction.
That said, the use of redaction to create 'nightmare fuel' is a well-recognised and appreciated trope and somewhat of a hallmark of the series. If anything, it helps presents the work itself as a more credible literary proposition - in the vein of Irvine Welsh's 'Filth' - compared with some of the other genuine contrivances present.
'Pedantique's Proposal' is a wonderful example of the SCP format grasp exceeding its reach as a piece of interactive fiction, whilst serving as the sort of love letter to the canon and ethos of SCP that qntm was clearly trying to convey.
Some books rely on plot and an interesting premise for their entire appeal. Some people like/don’t mind books that are weak in prose and lack vividness in detail, and will stay for the interesting plot.
It's possible to enjoy amateurish fiction as well right? I think we are a bit spoiled by best sellers and high production movies, but of course those cater to the general public and will have Least Common Denominator themes like checks notes love and motifs like checks again good vs evil.
When there's a topic that is very niche our expectation for quality should go down, but it's not necessarily something to stomach, but something to appreciate, it allows us to see through the media and into the author a little bit, the way you would if you see a friend doing a low budget but profoundly intimate short.
Absolutely. There are many axis with which to judge books. Some have terrible characters and a mediocre plot, but amazing world building (I'm looking at you Brandon Sanderson). Some have amazing characters and decent plot in a forgettable world. It's rare you see authors good at all the various things they could be good at. I read enough to view books like a lot of folks view TV. Some of it is just filler. It's okay to forget about it. It was just there to distract you from one point in time to another and there's nothing deeper than that.
> Overall, I think the author relies too much on a vocal fandom around the SCP Foundation to glorify the book.
The author has self-published several other short stories and novels completely unrelated to the SCP wiki long before this was released (either in SCP or this book form).
> The prose is amateur and peppered with cliches
From a literary point of view, maybe so (and probably even more so for his older works), but I guess I'm just that bothered by things like that, and/or the ideas presented more than make up for it for me.
I was just re-reading the passage from Plato's "The Phaedrus" on writing & the "art" of the letter for an essay I'm working on, and your remark is salient for this discussion on LLM-style AI and social media at large.
As a classically trained pianist, I'll say the following commentary regarding this thread: there are many ways to learn to "play the piano" and no one is going to agree on "the right way" because there's no true way.
This project is a good way to practice basic sheet music reading as well as to aurally recognize notes and phrases; teaching would require some cultivation of understanding the context and nomenclature. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks! I definitely agree. Additionally, I always recommend (depending on location, cost, etc) that it’s worth hiring a proper piano teacher, especially at the beginning.
There’s just no substitute for having someone there in person watching your hands, correcting small ergonomic issues, fingering, and so on. Build those fundamentals now so you don’t have to unlearn bad habits later!
This HN post fits into the category of "Pithy blog title with casually anecdotal content."
Software companies will never earnestly attempt to protect children because that action ("acknowledging children are in danger by using our product") acknowledges risk and introduces liability. (VCs hate that shit, especially Silicon Valley VCs.) In the United States, decades ago, laws were introduced to induce accountability of online platforms in regard to IP and child protection laws in the context of user generated content (forums, markets, chatrooms). Basically, these websites/corporations bulked at the weight of accountability ("how are we to monitor every user's action all the time?", "We'll be sued immediately by trolls.", etc.). The parties involved eventually came to a resolution that there's a "notice period" that organizations use to enforce this behavior on its communities.
If I were to write a blog titled "Parent Controls Aren't for Parents", my opening salvo would be "They are minimal-effort guardrails to protect corporations from being sued by negligent parents for post-incident harm."
I know about these but they require a lot more technical know-how to set up and getting ROMs is legally questionable. Your kid's friends are probably not playing those games either. They aren't a good option for most people.
With due respect, this comment conveys a position of privilege and surviver's bias. I, like you, eschewed online rules as a minor and I luckily benefitted from this time in my expertise. I was lucky. I didn't run into predators when using TF2, Runescape, or MySpace, but that doesn't mean the threat wasn't validated on with persons (children at the time) that fell through the cracks.
The story outlined, one of a child prodigy solo-navigating the gritty online world of pre-2000's, is old and tired. An active parent can support a child at all ages safely in these "hacker" moments that are described without giving them un-reined access to tools. A parent should be able to ask "how was your day today?" and get a truthful answer about online activity, just like the same question being asked at the end of the school day. It's out of curiosity and protection, and from a nurtured relationship.
I was one of those kids. I got a 300 baud modem the year after Wargames came out. It was a whole different world.
My wife and I disagreed about letting my son have my old desktop replacement laptop at a young age. Of course I said yes, based on my own experience, but my wife turned out to be right in the end. He got into some pretty dark places and the toxic relationships he developed with other people his age were bad enough and the trouble he got into was real and not hypothetical.
He's turned it around and is getting the support to do well relative to his Gen Z peers, but it took some harrowing experiences to get there.
My wife was right too. My kids ended up being unable to manage their device use at all, they developed seriously bad habits, lied and deceived extensively to gain access to devices, and repeatedly sacrificed relationships and trust for more screen time. There were years there where I thought surely they'd click with it and develop better habits, make better choices (with our guidance), and so on. Abstinence could be worse, right? Some exposure would be helpful and lead to useful conversations and so on.
The Internet, Internet access, and apps have changed since I was a kid. Despite their time on digital devices along with my efforts to teach them, my kids have no idea how computers work or how to use them very effectively. The skills they have developed to gain access to them were largely social engineering and lying. They exclusively waste time and brain cells when they're on screens.
One of my kids essentially can't have access to devices because he'll burn hours into the night playing really, really stupid games and watching porn. This is ALL he wants to do on phones or computers. Sometimes he will window shop.
You might think this is largely due to my failure to have insight into what my kids are doing and limiting access correctly, but that isn't the case. At first we were somewhat lenient and figured if they accessed things they shouldn't, we'd see it and have conversations. That was very early on. The conversations did nothing. I began putting severe restrictions on devices quite quickly because problems became evident quickly. I was a bit naive about it at first, my wife was not. We clashed a bit, but then device theft and social engineering started and I quickly aligned with her. Since then, many years ago, very little access has been on account of us not protecting devices properly. He is extremely good at gaining access when he's not supposed to, and extremely good at hiding it. It's like having an addict in the house.
He has no future in computers. He doesn't care about computers at all. He is incredibly compulsive, self-harming, and freely harms his relationships to get what he wants. This has been going on for about 5 years; he's 16 now, and I'm pretty scared for when he's out on his own and doesn't have anyone to protect him from himself. I think there will be some brutal lessons. Lost jobs, lost relationships, lost confidence and self esteem. I'm not looking forward to it.
I have no idea why I turned sneaking onto computers into a career rather than rotted away like they do. I wanted to learn to program. I was curious. My kids want to play NBA 2k and watch porn. That's about it.
Heroin is addictive. Physical compulsion is addiction. What you are talking about is not addiction. It shares some elements, but no one is breaking into cars so they can scroll Instagram.
I disagree with that analysis. It strikes me that a parent is denying a child access to something that the vast majority of other children have access to while that child is forced to live under a structure that prevents them from generating enough income to obtain their own device independently.
As that entire structure is illegitimate, the actions of the child are understandable.
Exactly. And what worries me is that they are essentially greasing the groove for these synapses, growing the neural network around deception and dishonesty. If they get into gambling in 5 years or so and happen to have a partner, they will already be somewhat adapted and practiced in hiding this activity quite effectively rather than seeking and accepting help. It's worrying. It's all foundational to very self-destructive habits from my perspective.
If your kid lies you might not get a truthful answer to that question in person or online.
You are actually expecting a lot from devices that you never had in the real world in the first place in order to mitigate a risk that is very scary but less likely to kill them than drugs and alcohol, swimming, bad driving, biking, getting hit by a car whilst walking, getting shot, or suicide.
People are freaking out over stranger danger not because it is by the numbers prevalent but because they feel like they can control it then find out the controls suck.
What if I started Bikesafe an always online dash cam / coach for your rider where AI would identify unsafe behaviour and coach your kid and virtually eliminate bike deaths. Would you feel more safe?
What if you read again and again that it didn't work because of how many accidents are caused by drivers or momentary mistakes.
First, I'm responding the more (politely) trivial remarks.
> drugs and alcohol, swimming, bad driving, biking, getting hit by a car whilst walking, getting shot, or suicide.
These are false equivalences-- when has a pool try to groom a child over the span of 3 years?
> What if I started Bikesafe an always online dash cam / coach for your rider where AI would identify unsafe behaviour and coach your kid and virtually eliminate bike deaths. Would you feel more safe?
This is wholesale the wrong approach. This is the parent absconding responsibility, which is my driving point of the problem.
Now to the main point:
> You are actually expecting a lot from devices that you never had in the real world in the first place ...
I'm not expecting anything from my devices because machines cannot be held accountable for human choices; a gun cannot be held accountable for being misused. The internet is a powerful tool and users should understand the ramifications of certain actions.
> If your kid lies you might not get a truthful answer to that question in person or online.
That's a parenting moment that one should relish retrospectively. To teach them good morals and values, to remind them that you love them, and that lying about safety processes can be very dangerous.
In reality, the whole "stranger danger" is way overblown and always has been. Most of the time, sexual predators are going to be either family or friends.
Sure there's 7% thats not, but a significant supermajority is family/friends. 59% were acquaintances, and 34% are family.
Edit: seriously, -1 cause I link to actual facts, rather than shitty emotional outbursts? Family and friends of family have always been the major list of suspects for child sex abuse. They're the ones who have time and access.
But somehow linking to cited facts is -1 central. Sigh.
> Weights helped me draft and proof this story.
Any HN reader here now, I encourage you to read the original ( https://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/TheyMade.s... ) in one sitting, go about your day, then read it again. Maybe make some notes on personal critical questions.
Now read the post's topic again ( https://maxleiter.com/blog/weights ) and reflect on the prior fact that weights helped [the author] draft and proof this story.
My reaction (and I'm sorry that it is harsh according to some) is that there is no intelligence found in either the author nor their tool. This is extreme navel gazing, based in science fiction, wanting (wishing) to believe those stories to be true.
I'm skeptical of AI sentience because we must do our due diligence, not because it's impossible. Skepticism is the only respectful approach because to grant sentience is a step away from granting rights.
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