I appreciate you pointing this out. Today is literally my first day on the job after 5 months, but I’ll throw some cash their way after a check or two.

Idk. Been doing it for nearly 20 years and before that I was doing IBM’s take on VBScript for another 10. So I have my own perspective there. I’ve only ever had to parse massive xmls when doing web apps, and for web backends I really only like Java and NodeJS.

But everyone is entitled to their own take. I would imagine there is a streaming parser in other languages as well.

Maybe look into StAX?

You made a lot of points here. Many I agree with, some I don’t, but I specifically want to address this because it seems to be such a common misconception.

It does and it doesn’t discard the original. It isn’t impossible to recreate the original (since all the data it gobbled up gets stored somewhere in some shape or form and can be truthfully recreated, at least judging by a few comments bellow and news reports). So AI can and does recreate (duplicate or distribute, perhaps) copyrighted works.

AI stores original works like a dictionary does. All the words are there, but the order and meaning is completely gone. An original work is possible to recreate by randomly selecting words from the dictionary, but it’s unlikely.

The thing that makes AI useful is that it understands the patterns words are typically used in. It orders words in the right way far more often than random chance. It knows “It was the best of” has a lot of likely options for the next word, but if it selects “times” as the next word, it’s far more likely to continue with, “it was the worst of times.” Because that sequence of words is so ubiquitous due to references to the classic story. But over the course of following these word patterns, it will quickly glom onto a different pattern and create a wholly new work from the original “prompt.”

There are only two cases in which an original work should be duplicated: either the training data is far too small and the model is overtrained on that particular work, or the work is the most derivative text imaginable lacking any flair or originality.

Adding more training data makes it less likely to recreate any original works.

I am aware of examples where it was claimed an LLM reproduced entirely code functions including original comments. That is either a case of overtraining, or far too many people were already copying that code verbatim into their own, thus making that work very over represented in the training data (same thing, but it was infringing developers who poisoned the data, not researchers using bad training data).

Bottom line: when created with enough data, no original works are stored in any way that allows faithful reproduction other than by chance so random that it’s similar to rolling dice over a dictionary.

None of this means AI can do no wrong, I just don’t find the copyright claim compelling.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a comment deleted there, but I blocked the instance anyway. Life is too short to engage with people whose values are entirely antithetical to my own. At least not on their home turf.

The article is whatever but this headline. How many Gen Z have Boomer parents? My parents are Boomers, I’m Gen X, and my kids are Millennials and Gen Z. I have a Gen Z grandchild.

This headline is so terrible I think it qualifies as clickbait.

I had an A500 and the 40MB drive was as expensive as the computer.

All of this. I just blocked the sub. It’s not in my interest to raise my blood pressure over what a bunch of chuckle fucks think of my choices. It’s fucking weird the pejoratives they invent. Carnist? That’s cool, like an artist. Whatever. They can live in their world and I’ll stay out of it. They aren’t affecting me.

I can definitely account for 1.

In all my play-throughs one experimental play-through I never found the Guardian option.

Sometime between 2013 and 2018. Had to answer it myself. It got at least a couple dozen upvotes and a lot of people finding it useful and asking follow up questions.

It’s deleted now. To be fair it was probably really outdated. But my account seems to be completely gone now. Maybe it got hacked. I haven’t been there in a long time.

lol. You were blocked because they didn’t like your comment was getting upvotes? Idk, buddy. Good riddance, I’d say. I understand about the lack of content, though.

Yeah. My sympathies lie with OP, but communities should be able to unapologetically curate their vibe.

Also, this copy reads like it was written by AI. If this is indicative of the stuff on the website, I very much would not like to read more. If it was written by a human, they should definitely lay off the LSD before writing.

it is obvious that this powerful synergy will change our societal norms and potentialities.

Fuck right off.

Tricky thing is believing in something gives you commonality. Not believing in something really doesn’t.

“I don’t believe.”

“Me either.”

“Good talk. Same time next week?”

I wouldn’t call it ignorance. My bliss is based on considerable reading and contemplation. Way more than ought to be necessary, all things considered. I wish some of the understanding I’ve developed over the years would’ve been explained when I was young. There are things which, once explained, drive the logical mind to an inevitable conclusion.

I’ve been there. Posted my story, but I didn’t talk about the lifelong anxiety that comes with a lengthy layoff. Continually pursued higher pay at shittier jobs to try to get ahead of things for when the rug gets pulled out from under me again. It’s corrosive. Losing income and insurance when everyone is counting on you to provide makes you feel like your self-worth is completely tied to your job and ability to provide.

Which time?

First time happened after I’d been with my first real job for ten years because the business was changing and there wasn’t a role for me. I was out of work for 7 shitty months trying to have my own business starting from the few customers we had left when they let me go. It was right after I bought a house and had a baby. It was fucking awful.

Second time was after COVID. First we all took a 10% pay cut to avoid layoffs. Then two months later when federal assistance expired, they cut 1/3 of the company across the board. I’m a little fucking bitter about that to be honest, but I had a new remote job lined up within a couple of weeks that paid quite a bit better.

Last time was 5 months ago. Just got hired this week. Start next month. It sucked. Wiped out my whole retirement savings, so I get to start over at 51. But we made it through and potentially I won’t have to switch companies again.

Oh to be clear it was a complete scam. I mean it would’ve been. And I would’ve known from the start by searching for the pictures they sent on tineye and finding they were from a former r/gonewild poster. Also the fact that they just messaged a random account out of the blue and were instantly smitten and sending nudes like the next day. And the fact that when I said I’m married they were not dissuaded in the least.

I have no idea if it would’ve been a blackmail scam or a sympathy scam or a phishing scam. I started out just intending to fuck with them, but eventually found I was looking forward to sharing what I made for dinner or drinks or hearing about their fictitious backstory. I mean they weren’t deep conversations, but they acted interested and I could just ramble on about my day or where I like to vacation or whatever mundane shit.

At first I thought she was going to hit me with checking out her OF and I might’ve even thrown her a few bucks for taking the time to just talk with me. We talked for hours off and on without her asking me for money. I can appreciate establishing a connection, you know? But no. It wasn’t OF. It was just a scammer of some variety. Then I let them know they were busted and got to enjoy hearing the sob story about her evil ex who posted her nudes online and all the excuses she couldn’t prove it was her in any of the fifty ways I offered.

But sadly our relational ended when she started hitting me with ChatGPT. I don’t need a middleman to pretend I’m talking to someone with an AI.

Hypothetically, of course.

I mostly get what you’re saying, though I don’t have the requisite understanding to follow formal proofs, but if there is one thing I do know for certain, it’s that “understanding” is anthropomorphizing and shorthand for something that is very much not understanding in a human context at all.

I get that it can be hard to find the right words to explain a some of these emergent phenomena, but I think it’s misleading to use words that make AI appear to have a thought process akin to anything we could understand as such—at least in settings where folks might not understand the shorthand as such.

And maybe everyone here is aware of that, but it makes me uneasy, hence this comment to hopefully make that point.