> The RxScanner is a handheld spectrometer that scans a pill with infrared light, then sends the item’s molecular profile to an AI model equipped with a pharmaceutical database. In seconds, the AI identifies the medication from its molecular profile—or reports that it’s phony.
Is every tech, including database search "AI" now?
End-to-end encryption is about protecting data at rest on the vendor's servers. TLS only secures data in transit.
The article's argument is a bit like saying TLS protects plain-text passwords in transit, so there is no need to store them in hashed form in the database.
Sure, the article makes good arguments about the trust that is still implicit in E2EE, but it goes too far in its dismissal of it.
Two problems I see with the authors argument. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can chip in to correct me if I'm wrong:
1. Aren't E2EE systems designed to prevent decryption of content already created in the past sitting on the vendor's servers? Yes, the vendor could go rogue, but, assuming they currently have implemented E2EE right, it means any change to the client can only compromise content created in the future from that point onward, no? So why is the article implying Apple could have provided a back-doored iOS to bypass the encryption for existing content?
2. I also don't find the argument that E2EE is only a legal trick fully convincing. There are several other incentives for a vendor to implement it apart from avoiding legal issues: preventing insider abuse, reducing liability, improving customer trust, and resisting mass surveillance
These are real engineering motivations. The threat model is not: "Protect you if <vendor> becomes actively malicious tomorrow." Its more like "Protect messages stored on <Vendor>'s servers from attackers, employees, hackers, routine legal requests, and passive surveillance."
I can be absolutely certain of my perception and recollection of what my consciousness is experiencing and has experienced.
Note that the truth of this statement does not depend on any certainty about external reality, nor does it depend on certainty that what I perceive or remember is happening or actually happened.
So many things to think about regarding these "benchmarks":
- Do the ever increasing scores on the mean we will soon have models that approach 100%? And what would that even mean? That there is no more room for improvement?
- Would Anthropic (or any other model vendor for that matter) ever release a newer model that scores lower? If not, does that mean they keep tweaking a new model they want to release until it shows an improvement of the prior model?
- Would it be more useful to move toward a comparative rather than absolute ranking?
I've also noticed the opposite problem: Sometimes the LLM, when asked a detailed question (probably with some lead-in), pushes back in a way that betrays that they fell back to general tropes without really considering the nuances of your specific context.
This happens many times, and I usually have to lead the LLM through a chain of reasoning to prove to it that its objection, through generally sound, do not apply to my specific situation.
Someone not as well versed in the subject matter would think the LLM found a smoking gun (which they love to do), and be led on a wild goose chase.
> Researchers took the ball and fired it through a wind tunnel to measure the effect of aerodynamic forces upon it. They did so from six angles and found a consistent outcome. Regardless of where the ball was struck, if the ball reached a certain velocity it would fly faster. This, the researchers from Seoul Women’s University and the University of Tsukuba found, was down to an effect called “drag crisis”. This occurs when an object flying through the air reaches the point where the air flow around it shifts from a smooth state (known as a laminal flow) to a turbulent one. When the flow is turbulent, it disrupts the drag behind a moving object, allowing it to move faster.
> If a ball does not slow down as expected, because of the drag crisis effect, you can understand how goalkeepers may be caught unawares. The researchers found further complicating factors. They observed that while there was a drag-crisis effect regardless of where the ball was hit, the level of the crisis would shift depending on whether the ball was struck on a seam or on a panel (hitting on the seam seemed to create the lower drag). Drag crisis was also variable according to altitude, with the higher the game, the less likely the occurrence.
His point is that if you want to be properly compensated for your writing, then you need to take the capitalist bull by the horns, so to speak. His objection is this middle place where "buy me a coffee" is only likely to make you a few bucks here and there, nothing like a proper compensation for your efforts (if you think you need that) and yet also leaves a slightly stale taste in the mouth of some readers.
Basically, cheapening the blog for nothing. Not to say I entirely agree with him, but this is his point in a nutshell.
But I am not just taking about factual information. You still don't get it. I was just using that example to show if you take out key components of what makes something what is it, it is no longer the same thing.
I am saying the an intrinsic component of art is the human context of it. You can call AI generated "art" by another name if you want, and enjoy it for what it is, but the reasons why you might enjoy it are different from the reasons you might enjoy human art.
Why do we still enjoy art in spite of the fact that we have photography? Or foot races even though we have cars?
Only someone with little appreciation of music will describe the difference between an actual performance and an AI generated one as "human-level BS". It makes a large difference in my enjoyment of the music.
Have you listened to a MIDI file before? And have you listened to (or attended, preferably in person) a piano concert before? You can't compare them, AI changes nothing at all about this.