cryptResonator

5 years agodiscuss

This is an extremely narcissistic world view. "Ethical AI is vital for every member of society to handle appropriately and I, as The Ethical AI Police Person in Charge, will tell every person how they are going to behave if they want to be on the side of Good." Most of these articles refer to the same example - What if a facial recognition machine learning algorithm is trained inadequately and has some inherent bias against some group-identity. If anything this is a quality issue and is the responsibility for the few people involved with handling training data. More importantly, what are these fictional companies doing where they are potentially causing devastation by carelessly deploying facial recognition software? This sounds like a problem with the ethics of the business model of the company, not some algorithm.

cryptResonator

5 years agodiscuss

Digital has a far greater dynamic range and precision, especially if you include high bit-width or double floating point & high sample rates. There is no limit. You could model any sort of 'analog distortion warmth' which is often what is appealing about analog sound. On the other hand, someone who is willing to put the effort and money into printing vinyl will likely have it mastered specifically for vinyl. So my feeling is that there is a lot of low-effort digital music pushed out into the world that is just shite. And maybe overall, vinyl music has good quality just because people are more careful? I'm sure it also depends what you are listening to. Soundcloud rappers don't even need quality if they've got Gucci shoes.

cryptResonator

5 years agodiscuss

From the perspective of an independent musician, Vinyl makes sense. Streaming pays artists next to zero. You can't give away CD's, CD's are obsolete. Bandcamp is a good model, if you actually have fans / supporters, they will buy your music even if they can listen to it for free and you will get a good percentage of what they pay. Many of these supporters probably also want to buy vinyl if it's available. No one thinks Vinyl is sonically superior to digital, but that is not the point. It is a cool piece of art that you can own/collect that shows your support and it is fun to play records. A lot or new records are also multi-colored splatter vinyl etc. which is even costlier to produce and doesn't effect the sound but just adds to the uniqueness. It's the same as paying extra for a hardcover copy of your favorite book. No one is going to get rich by selling vinyl, but any other alternative is a just a joke.

cryptResonator

5 years agodiscuss

I understand what you are trying to say, but I don't think it is the correct interpretation of Ayn Rand. There is no power fantasy. She is quite adamant that nobody should ever try to hold power over another individual. Again, it is the antagonists who are trying to manipulate the wills of others and hold power over other people. The group of friends helps by exchanging money for good and services. This is another theme. The protagonists ask only for fair compensation for their efforts, not favors. The antagonists try to replace this system with a group dynamic where 'who you know' and 'who can do what favor for who' replaces business. To Ayn Rand this is very unhealthy and leads to destruction. If a people have to mooch to build a social safety net, and loot to maintain infrastructure, then they are villains.

cryptResonator

5 years agodiscuss

I am very fond of her writings and her philosophies. What I get out of her writings is that one should strive in a 'selfish' manner to enact one's own will and become the best version of oneself as possible without harming others. There is enough room in the world for everyone to do the same simultaneously and in a properly organized free market economy, this is exactly how a prosperous society grows and thrives. There are some things which are out of date, and she doesn't really address, such as coal, environmental issues, and animal rights. I see these types of issues being related to 'do no harm to others'. But the basic concepts about moochers/looters denigrating competence and the destructive consequences of trying to force "public opinion", which is actually never public, but driven by a wanna-be authoritarian ideology, is as relevant today as it ever was in history. I would say that her books are explaining in the most straight forward way possible what we should be fighting against, and the primary forces on each side have hardly changed.

cryptResonator

5 years agodiscuss

Funny that throughout Her books, these are the same false allegations she describes as being cast against the protagonists by the villains. Competence and having a self serving moral code are attacked and labelled as evil behavior. "__the one__" meaning a competent talented architect or steel maker (the idealized heroes) are just people unapologetically capitalizing on their skills and the whole point is that in a fair capitalist system, competence should be rewarded, there is plenty of space for many "__the ones__" to co-exist and build a thriving economy. It is exactly the moochers/looters who feel threatened by competence and feel threatened by the success of a fellow human who try and turn these into negative behaviors and describe them as "ego-boosting" and "very broken". So thinking that a person might being exceptionally talented is a bad thing? Got it. Ayn Rand is warning of the consequences of what happens when too many people believe as you do.

cryptResonator

5 years agodiscuss

"I ask that you not have any expectations going into this. That way if nothing concrete comes of this, you will not be disappointed." Do you mind if I take a hit of this quote in my glass pipe?

cryptResonator

5 years agodiscuss

Not Radio Equipment, it was an original Buchla Modular Synth! The purpose of a Buchla synth is specifically to make psychedelic space sounds!!

cryptResonator

5 years agodiscuss

I'm very surprised that Vice magazine which I would consider part of the alt-right dark web posted this article whining about Mr. Weinstein and Mr. Rogan. Aren't they all on the same team? I'm not worried. I think once Mr. Rogan has had a chance to fully digest the recently released paper, he will work with the editors of Vice magazine to provide the world's physics community with a compelling critique of these new ideas.

cryptResonator

5 years agodiscuss

She is a character from the cartoon show 'south park'.

cryptResonator

5 years agodiscuss

The ethics is that same as it has always been. It is decisions that the people make regarding how to use or deploy the technology. This has zero to do with AI or ML. There is no bias in the math or programming languages used to do ML. Sometimes there is an attempt to say that "AI" is biased because of the "colonialization of math", or some race/tribal based arguments. I think this is very treacherous because by conflating social problems with math/engineering problems neither will be handled effectively. On the other hand, it is certainly possible to use math and/or ML technology to study and try to improve ethical behavior.

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