The Butlerian Jihad and You There's a weird phenomenon going on with AI and LLMs right now that is very odd to live through. Usually, the non-technical "normal joe" sees technology as magic. They know it is not real magic, but it might as well be as they have no internal model and cannot conceptualize it except at very basic levels. The engineers behind this technology obviously know exactly how it works, having built every line of code and printed circuit board and component and mathematical/physical foundation over centuries of human exploration. Usually, it is the consumer who is amazed at the new technology. The engineer might initially be amazed, but they quickly build an internal model based on their experience; the magic is quickly lost. AI and LLMs seem to produce exactly the opposite response. Consumers and "normal joes" seem to have little or no reaction when presented with ChatGPT, for example. To them, it's just a fancier chatbot. It's exactly what they assumed would happen; they've seen such things in Star Trek and to them it is an obvious progression. But to an engineer who starts using and depending on them, LLMs are literally magic. The engineer has built parsers and chatbots before and knows how hard (if not impossible) it is when using formal programming logic. The engineer has a basic understanding of the underlying foundation of the LLM but cannot possibly predict the output without running it. It's like having the ability to simulate an entire universe based on some specific knowledge and then querying that universe in our shared language. Magic! I have a feeling that this chasm between consumers and engineers will grow. Unfortunately, this will mean consumers are even more blindsided by AI taking over something in their life, which will cause even more anguish for the now-jobless protestors. Entire religions and political parties have been built on less. All that to say this: never forget that if the real Butlerian Jihad happens, it probably won't be fought against the machines. It will most likely be fought against the engineers who create them.

My latest @spawn game is "Hoarding Simulator" because my wife and I have been helping my sister and brother-in-law clean out a hoarded out house that they recently purchased. The real life version isn't very fun so I made a game version that is just barely more fun. spawn.co/@joshpainter/hoardi…

This is a good idea, the OS should automatically swap RAM and storage as needed. I bet AI could figure it out

If you are a technologist, you can either vote for progress in midterms or you can vote for “progressives” who have lied about wanting progress for centuries, going all the way back to when they wouldn’t give up their slaves. Don’t be misled; they hate technology and those who wield it.

Women dress like whores at the gym and America has flying cars. Two things can be true at the same time.

Want to test drive the new @Tesla Roadster? I built this in @spawn during the event spawn.co/@joshpainter/vacuum…

I made Heavy Hills on Spawn spawn.co/@joshpainter/heavy-…