The other thing that he doesn’t understand (and most “AI” advocates don’t either) is that LLMs have nothing to do with facts or information. They’re just probabilistic models that pick the next word(s) based on context.

That’s a massive oversimplification, it’s like saying humans don’t remember things, we just have neurons that fire based on context

LLMs do actually “know” things. They work based on tokens and weights, which are the nodes and edges of a high dimensional graph. The llm traverses this graph as it processes inputs and generates new tokens

You can do brain surgery on an llm and change what it knows, we have a very good understanding of how this works. You can change a single link and the model will believe the Eiffel tower is in Rome, and it’ll describe how you have a great view of the colosseum from the top

The problem is that it’s very complicated and complex, researchers are currently developing new math to let us do this in a useful way

Hey, friend, take a breath. Listen… This isn’t how we all die. Unless you live in Iran I guess, and then maybe, depending how it plays out - but even that is not at all a sure thing. I know this is pretty bad, but you can’t burn yourself out on this one

This isn’t world war III. It’s just another bad thing. China has signaled nothing on this and Russia is in no position to do anything. Europe has been quiet, the other Gulf states have been quiet… This could turn into another forever war, but this isn’t going to spark a powder keg.

But yeah, Iran has clearly been trying to return to the fold for years now, and netanyahu has started a second conflict to hold into power. It’s very obvious who the aggressors are

And yes, if you use targeted means to hit civilians and their family, obviously that’s a war crime.

But war crimes don’t cancel out. There’s no place for whataboutism when real human lives are being snuffed out in their homes. We make a list, and hopefully soon the fascists will fall and all the war criminals will stand trial

But that’s it exactly - cluster bombs just fling granades all over a city block at random. It’s basically just collateral damage in the hopes of hitting a soft target

I mean, fuck palantir and I really don’t like this tech in general, but blowing up a room or a house is way more precise. You’re hitting just what you mean to hit

And that’s what a lot of war crimes come down to - certain weapons are unacceptably imprecise. Which gets into the first rule of war crimes - you’re not supposed to attack noncombatants

Let’s not defend cluster bombs just because Israel is going to use this for justification…

Because of course they will, this whole thing started by blowing up the Iranian negotiator, they’re obviously not going to start acting in good faith now

The argument being cluster bombs are a dirty move, but using simultaneous AI powered assassin drones to strike while people are sleeping makes you the good guys?

I mean… That is how this works. Cluster bombs are bad because they’re less precise and cause more collateral damage. So weapons that target individuals with high precision are better

But like… Presumably, you’re not just individually killing a bunch of civilians precisely