Occam's razor says the sun orbits the earth, everybody dies from Sudden Unexplained Death Syndrome, and the correct way to spell Occam's razor is Okams Raza (in all languages, because lavishes other than English are difficult).

It's literally a platitude. It's like the saying 'when the going gets tough, the tough get going': it's reallyemorable and descriptive and is maybe a good guideline in many situations.

But using it to evaluate the tensile strength of various metals according to their velocity would be wild, because it had never pretended to be anything like a rule. It's not like theory of gravity or 'I before e except after c', which are based on actual analysis and results.

Legit assuming that everything is as simple as it can be, that the most obvious idea to occur to any untrained observer is the most accurate, is literally a guaranteed way to go though life without understanding anything, at all. Using it to argue with people who appear to obvious what they're talking about (and there are so, so many undisputed studies on the exact reasons scammers do what they do: it's too filter people or. There is no debate, academically) is a pretty slippery slope to 'anybody who doesn't think and act exactly like me is lying, because no reasons or facts exist unless I personally hold or after with them', and it's definitely a thought process worth challenging.

Although to be fair, its best application might be re. online arguments that you don't really care that much about. So if you just meant that the previous poster had given a reason and you were going with that because it's easier, my bad.

> Legit assuming that everything is as simple as it can be, that the most obvious idea to occur to any untrained observer is the most accurate, is literally a guaranteed way to go though life without understanding anything, at all.

That's a misunderstanding of Occam's razor. Occam's razor says that if you don't know the answer then when you have a choice between competing explanations, pick the one that requires fewer assumptions.

The explanation that they are using incorrect grammar on purpose to screen out intelligent people is logically questionable, unproven by any evidence, and relies on a bunch of assumptions: sophistication, time is worth more than leads, good enough education and experience in English to write it well, and coordination between scammers.

The 'being bad at speaking a language or dialect they are not native in and having poor access to education' explanation is logically complete and requires far fewer assumptions.

Absolutely no way are people arguing here that being targeted for one's race, religion, sexuality etc, or being the personal victim of a targeted campaign of harassment and / or violence, is 'just as stressful and distressing' as being targeted by ads.

Surely I must be misunderstanding this thread.

I do think being targeted for protected characteristics is stressful. But let’s examine two types of people: 1) a gay person with normal socioeconomic background, 2) a person with a normal socioeconomic background who becomes the target of group bullying.

Both people experience stress in their own way, only one of those people experiences distress due to a specific set of circumstances. Is the gay person’s lived experience of being discriminated against invalid? Of course not. Is it the same situation as the person who was the target of group bullying? Definitely not.

I am not trying to make any determinations about who has struggled the most, and is most deserving of sympathies. I am making a distinction between societal pressures and specific instances of harm.

...and I'm saying that it's a distinction without a difference for how it influences affected people.

You’re simply wrong, if you can’t tell the difference then you’re unqualified to even say anything on this. Not because you don’t have lived experience or something, but because you cannot use simple logic and reasoning.

No, you're simply focusing on the wrong things in the discussion's context. "There’s a difference between feeling targeted, and being targeted in actuality" - like, sure, obviously, there is a difference, they're distinct things. And it doesn't matter.

Now apply basic logic and reasoning to find out why.

Okay I did, now let’s enumerate some similarities and differences.

Here’s the setting: A is gay, and B is hetero. Both exist in a secular, democratic society where the majority religion has a damning view about being gay, but there are anti-discrimination laws in this society, and there’s a subculture that’s welcoming to gay people.

A lives a normal life, and has a mix of positive and negative experiences, but is otherwise never bullied, abused, harassed or emotionally or physically harmed on a personal level due to being gay, but has seen gay people be bullied and harmed on social media. A can move to a new town, and no one would know that A is gay, or maybe even care about that if they did find out because there are allies and other gay people. A can change jobs and not worry about being discriminated against because there are laws that protect against discrimination based on identity. A can make friends in A’s subculture or with allies.

B lives a normal life, but has an overwhelming negative experience when B starts getting bullied by C and D (two new people for this scenario). C and D take a personal interest in B, and want to make B’s life a living hell because B rubbed them the wrong way, let’s say. C and D use their network of friends to do the following: 1) they hack into B’s personal phone and computer to get private information, 2) they use that information to steal B’s secret cooking recipes and start selling a best selling chef’s book under their own names from those recipes, 3) they find out who are B’s friends or enemies, and use that information to either socially isolate B from their circle by saying socially negative things about B, or by using gossip from enemies to drive new people away from B, 4) they pretend to be “concerned citizens” and email B’s employers about B’s character, 5) every time B starts something new, they try to get into that new thing to undermine B, or somehow disadvantage B on a personal level, at the same time helping other people like B, 6) they use their network to spread gossip about B, and undermine B’s work or achievements. So B cannot make friends or relationships of any kind, and does not have a support network. B cannot find employment of the kind B likes, and cannot move to a new town because it won’t make a difference since B is being targeted on a personal level.

Now tell me, are these two circumstances the same? One is societal indifference/discrimination, and the other is targeted bullying, stalking and harassment. If you say, yes, then explain how.

If you don’t understand, then put this scenario in ChatGPT and ask who is experiencing more stress, or is it the same level of stress.

Putting the logical fallacies you just committed aside, now imagine that E is a schizophrenic who believes that everyone out there is conspired to bully, abuse, harass and emotionally or physically harm him due to being straight. E cannot make friends or relationships of any kind, does not have a support network, can't find employment, may receive some health care or not.

It really doesn't matter whether this feeling is imagined or not. Even merely a threat that never gets actualized may be enough of a stressor to cause serious issues.

I admit the scenario is contrived, but that’s to make a point. Feel free to construct your own scenario that’s not a non sequitur.

But the E scenario is also fallacious, doesn’t matter if E is schizophrenic if the conspiracy is real. Maybe E’s detractors would like others to think E is schizophrenic, or the symptoms they want to cast as schizophrenic are a stress response to the targeted harassment.

One could make a completely opposite point just by slightly editing your scenarios.

Make B be charming and charismatic enough that C and D's attempts get laughed off and backfire. Make A be so affected by having to live in secrecy that it puts a real strain on the relationship with the person they care about the most. Now surely it would be A who ends up under "more stress", right?

Except you can't even say that, because "level of stress" is not an objectively measurable quantity that exists somewhere in the environment. You can be stressed out by things I get excited about. Someone else will shrug out a risk that makes me terrified. You could be under distress because some lights have blinked too fast, yet it doesn't mean that these lights have targeted you with their harassment.

Sure, but what’s the point of these adjustments? You were making a false equivalency between two different circumstances, and saying that there’s effectively no difference between them. I presented a scenario where the difference between them is indisputable, that is person B has an objectively worse situation and potential outcome. Experiencing stress and being in distress are not the same. If you’re still having a hard time admitting this, then imagine you have a child. Which situation should that child live under, A’s or B’s?

If you still don't see the point of these adjustments, I'm afraid it may be beyond my abilities to teach you to see it. Each of the scenarios presented can lead to either experiencing stress or being in distress, ability to take it varies between individuals and there's no category of scenarios that always leads to "objectively worse situation" (whatever it means) as you're trying to present it, making it a distinction without a difference in this context as for whatever you'd try to argue, you can find an example from the other category that fulfills it too and that has potential to lead to the same outcomes when it comes to health.

I think some people fear that the political or social status of protected classes may diminish by admitting that someone could have a worse life than them despite not being of a protected class. It doesn’t diminish for me, so I have no problem saying that there could be instances where being a protected class isn’t as bad another circumstance for someone who isn’t such a person. It truly depends, everyone’s life is different, and there are indeed worse lives than others, even if it’s someone you normally wouldn’t consider as worse off.

I don't know how it is in other countries, but in the UK using LLMs for any form of paid legal services is hugely forbidden, and would also be insanely embarrassing. Like, 'turns out nobody had any qualifications and they were sending all the work to mechanical Turks in third world countries, who they refused to pay' levels of embarrassing.

I say this as someone who once had the bright idea of sending deadline reminders, complete with full names of cases, to my smart watch. It worked great and made me much more organised until my managers had to have a little chat about data protection and confidentiality and 'sorry, what the hell were you thinking?'. I am no stranger to embarrassing attempts to jump the technological gun, or the wonders of automation in time saving.

But absolutely nobody in any professional legal context in the UK, that I can imagine, would use LLMs with any more gusto and pride than an industrial pack of diarrhoea relief pills or something - if you ever saw it in an office, you'd just hope it was for personal use and still feel a bit funny about shaking their hands.

People keep comparing LLMs (and AI, I suppose) to specialised machines like the printing press or the harvester or something, and often throwing in a luddite comparison.

The glaring difference is that specialised machines, usually invented to do an existing task better, faster or more safely, do indeed revolutionise the world. As you pointed out, they perform necessary functions better, faster, and / or more safely.

Note that segues, that weird juice machine etc, we not built to fill a gap or to perform a task better, faster or more safely. Neither were pet rocks or see-through phones. Nobody was sitting around before the Metaverse going 'man, I wish Minecraft could be pre-made and corporate with my work colleagues", and when these things launched the sales pitches were all about "look at the awesome things this tech can do, isn't it great?!", rather than "look at the awesome things this tech will allow you / help you to do, aren't they great?!".

LLMs are really impressive tech. So are segues and those colour-changing t-shirts we had in the 80s. They looked awesome, the tech was awesome, and there were genuine practical applications for doomerist, somewhere.

But they do not allow the average poison to do anything awesome. They don't make arduous tasks faster, better or safer without heavily sacrificing quality, privacy, and sanity. They do not fill a gap in anybody's life.

That's the difference. Most AI is currently a really cool technology that can do a bunch of things and it's very exciting to look at, just like the Segway and the Metaverse. And, really, an ant, or a furby. They are not going to revolutionise anything, because they were more built to. They weren't built to summarise your emails or to improve your coding (there are many princes of software that were built to assist with coding, and they are pretty good) or to perform any arduous or dangerous tasks. They were built to experiment, to push boundaries, to impress, and to sell.

So yes, I 100% agree with you and take your point a little further it's not even that LLM's are too high tech and fancy for most periods. I don't even think that they're products. They are components, or add-ons, being sold as products like extension power cables 50 years before the invention of the plug socket, or flexible silicone phone cases being sold in the era of landlines and phone boxes.

And I'm legit still baffled that so many people seem to have jobs that revolve around reading and writing emails or producing boilerplate code, who are not able to confidently do those things, but aren't just looking for a new job.

Like, it's a tough market, but if you haven't learned to skim-read an email by now, do yourself a favour and find a job that doesn't involve so much skim reading of emails. I don't get it.

This is an imperfect search extension.

It's a hell of a lot better than nothing, if one is using chrome or Firefox (neither of which are my primary browsers).

I remain amazed by the lack of attention given to this.

Regardless of one's position on the 'everything online is Russian propaganda, Russian bots or misinformation - invest in sickles and hammers, comrade / wtf just use basic common sense and the internet is as safe as it ever was' continuum, such universal enthusiasm for a Russian-owned, Russian-controlled search engine should generate a little more counter-argument, at the very least.

Absolutely no mention of Google, Bing, Startpage, DDG, or even Mojeek search engines usually pass online without somebody detailing the problems, flaws, or why they're not as good as the alternatives. Usually, at least 20% of the comments will be overtly critical, with at least 1 person passionately arguing that this search engine is going to destroy life as we know it / funds genocide / is an abomination unto God.

On open forums and spaces where a variety of users and tastes are represented, that minimum level of criticism usually applies to absolutely everything from movies to toothbrushing techniques to kids' TV to low-carb breakfasts. If more than 3 people care enough about something to discuss it, at least 1 of those people will hate it and feel the need to enunciate why.

Except Kagi. Kagi must enjoy the highest praise-criticism ratio of anything I've ever seen on the web, including concepts like sunshine and heaven and the eradication of polio.

Seriously. The only 'real' criticism I ever see of Kagi is like 'I personally don't like it because I don't think a search engine is worth more than $19.99' or 'unfortunately I need x feature', and it's always followed by a reply saying 'Ah, well Kagi is now available for $19.50' or 'you'll be thrilled to know that x feature can be enabled in Kagi by following these steps'.

And the occasional 'I don't use it because it seemed a bit wierd and wasn't worth it' comment languishing on the outskirts of the discussion.

So yeah. I do not expect this comment to stir much discussion, mainly because it's like 24 hours after the main debate and is on a pretty low-impact thread on hacker news from an uninspiring new ish account. But also because Kagi critical comments are written in sand, whatever the discussion or authority or audience.

That should make people more suspicious.

> But also because Kagi critical comments are written in sand, whatever the discussion or authority or audience.

Maybe people just turn up too late and their comments generally aren't seen?

> recently the best AI models are veering into not sucking territory

I agree with your assessment.

I find it absolutely wild that 'it almost doesn't entirely suck, if you squint' is suddenly an acceptable benchmark for a technology to be unleashed upon the public.

We have standards for cars, speakers, clothing, furniture, make up, even literature. Someone can't just type up a few pages of dross and put it though 100 letterboxes without being liable for littering and nuisance. The EU and UK don't allow someone to still phones with a pre-imstalled app that almost performs a function that some users might theoretically want. The public domain has quality standards.

Or rather, it had quality standards. But it's apparently legal to put semi-functioning data-collectors in technologies where nobody asked for them, why isn't it legal to sell chairs that collapse unless you hold them a specific way, clothes that don't actually function as clothes but could be used to make actual clothes by a competent tailor, headphones that can be coaxed into sporadically producing round for minutes at a time?

Either something works too a professional standard or it doesn't. If it doesn't, it is/was not legal to include it in consumer products.

This is why people are more angry than is justified by a single unreliable program. I don't care that much whether LLM's perform the functions that are advertised (and they don't, half the time). I care that after many decades of living in a first world country with consumer protection and minimum standards, all of that seems to have been washed away in the AI wave. When it receeds, we will be left paying first world prices for third world enquiring, now the acceptable quality standard for everything seems to have dropped to 'it can almost certainly be used for its intended purpose at least some times, by some people, with a little effort'.

Just to be clear, are you asserting that every opinion in this thread that you don't agree with is due to the poster hallucinating, or only specific ones?

Do you have any evidence or well established theory to back up this rather extraordinary claim?

Because if you are honestly positing that numerous people around the world are literally hallucinating despise (statistically) not being under medical supervision, presumably continuing to drive, work, and make decisions, that would be a pretty urgent global health phenomenon that you really should be chasing up. And at some point, the authorities best placed to deal with this hitherto unseen mass incapacitation might reasonably ask: what are the chances that multiple unrelated people around the world are experiencing such localised, hugely specific breaks from reality causing them to express reasonably common opinions on an internet forum, rather than the inconsistency being on the end of this one person who doesn't agree with them?

I believe the world may contain legal and regulatory authorities that are not part of the United States. Dozens of them, so I've heard.

Awesome, a search engine with an LLM / AI!

I hadn't been sure about Kagi before, but this has really swung it for me, I'm off to sign up post haste. It's a revolutionary move that really shows how fast ahead of the competition Kagi is, how dexterous their fingers at the pulse of humanity, how bold.