How do these 3D architectures scale regarding yield? (The naïve expectation would be that adding vertical layers should have exponential impact on yield.) Is this commercially viable, near term?
I played around with one that, I think, was a type-in from Compute! Gazette. Since this was also the time of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, I remember devising a medieval handwriting font (so quite the opposite, but fun!)…
Regarding the shape of the letter "C", mind that of the 10 digits of the MICR E-18B font, the digits 2, 5, 6, 7, 0 don't have any "thickenings" at all, all thin, even strokes. That's 5 out of 10 or half of the traditional part of the set. So just "C" being similar may be actually an underrepresentation. (Maybe, a "true" MICR inspired font should have actually somewhat more modulation between characters.)
*) "emulgate", maybe better emulsify, but this is a bit lateral to this? The point being, a homogenous preparation, which is more a superficial operation than an essential one, as the establishing ingredients remain the untouched.
> AI tools are pure rationalists, and are solely capable of reasoning.
Mind that the world isn't in the language, nor our connection with the world. (We know this for about 120 years, since we expelled the referens from linguistics.) Which brings us back to the synthetic judgement a priori… You may emulate this, as a superficial trait drawn from other traces of communication, but it's not what this is all about. E.g., I wouldn't expect true "lateral thinking" from an LLM output.
> My biggest fear from AI…
I'd add to this, it's not just empirical vs rationalist epistemology, it's also about empathy, anything referring to the conditio humana, which is really what any text is about, even a scientific one (why is it that we do want to know, what are the motivations, the regulating circumstances, etc.?).
If we're talking about concepts and communication, in text, I don't know what meaning of synthesis to apply (as long as there is meaning), other than the meaning this has had for centuries. I think, aggregation, extraction and emulgating is something else.
The very purpose of text is to transfer meaning, concepts, observations and complex thoughts to human readers for them to process. And we have built a complex framework around this and for this. The fact that many feel that this framework is violated should hint at there being a problem, a conceptual discrepancy. (And be it just that there's a man-in-the middle, who hasn't authorship, standing in between me as an author and those receiving what remains of the text. In its essential lack of agency, it's less of a mediating recommendation and more of an appropriation. But, maybe, if we're talking about a slip into a new dogmatic slumber, manufactured via an unseen authority that hasn't any authority nor position as an author, the problem goes deeper than this. And, maybe, the masquerading of LLM output as human cummunication and phrasing is part of the problem.)
The general consensus used to be that questions should be either closed (i.e., all the knowledge is disclosed in the interface) or open (any in-between doesn't help to organinze and conceptionalize thought) and that UI elements should signal this appropriately. Now, with autocomplete, there's a use case for this. But there seem to be two types of users, those who make ready use of this and those who ignore it completely, maybe hinting at the question being still open.
(We may observe how the implementation of datalist reflects this: it's still a simple textbox, i.e. input element, and the list is attached as an add-on, rather than being a list type of its own. It's not a list standing on its own, but an enhancement to the input field. So, rather don't use it as a control element for lists?)
PS: The point was really that, if you were to google "worst interface element", you got loads of articles about the combobox.
I'm afraid, the essence is that is not. Re-sequencing content is not the same as synthesis and therefore not the same as a person processing information and communicating their own conception of this. There's a vital difference.
(We can even observe this in the resulting text: we immediately grasp the level of competence of the author, just by the way they take their path trough and at the matter. With LLMs, well, there's this even temperature, ready-made feeling, regulated by probability thresholds and RLHF sanctioned phrasing, also known as "slop" – even rhythmic intensifications, like "not this, not that, but…", which is actually a figure for a synthetic construct, don't help –, since the text isn't the trace or product of an actual organized thought – or, at least, an attempt at an organized thought.)
PS: "empirical a priori judgement" was meant as translation of synthetisches Urteil a priori (Kant). I.e., our ability to mentally prove concepts like congruency, which are not a priori, but can be inferred without regression to empirical knowledge. Typically, this requires both our inner sense (time, sequence, etc.) and outer senses (space, configuration, etc.)
Rather: composes (or: re-sequences). Synthesis requires reason and essential capabilities, like an empirical a priori judgement. Without concepts, meaning or imagination, there's no synthesis.
Mind that input + datalist is the HTML equivalent of the Windows combobox, once generally regarded as the worst UI element ever. (This was enjoying meme status in usability related articles and write-ups. So probably not a recommendation.)
Notably, this process of struggle is meant to go away, to make room for instant satisfaction. This is really about some kind of expression consumerism. (And what will be lost along the way is meaning.)
The issue being, it's not an expression of anything. Merely like a random sensation, maybe some readable intent, but generic in execution, which isn't about anything even corporate art should be about. Are we going to give up on art, altogether?
Edit: One of the possible outcomes may be living in a world like in "Them" with glasses on. Since no expression has any meaning anymore, the message is just there being a signal of some kind. (Generic "BUY" + associated brand name in small print, etc.)
> Can you imagine if every button on every site was the same Windows button gray color, regardless of the site's color? It'd be awful!
As it happens, this is how it was for years and years, actually, for most of the existence of the Web. The basic appearance of form elements used to be un-styleable, locked to the OS UI-appearance, for general usability concerns.
As a Viennese, I missed appropriate options, like rules and their mutual negotiability by lateral maneuvers (AKA dissimulation) and a general sense for disgruntledness. Moreover, smalltalk as the core of any negotiations (which should be understood more as mundane paperwork after the fact) isn't even mentioned! Now I do need some coffee, for real. ;-)