EpeeGnome

As much as I hate these assholes coopting Tolkien’s works, it is a really apt name for this company. In the story, the Palantir were wonderous tools for communication until they were corrupted and taken over by literal evil, turned into tools of surveillance and control.

I dislike that the article refers to Thiel as a Libertarian without putting quote marks around it. While he is firmly opposed to governments regulating businesses, he makes and sells the tools to help governments exercise more authority over private citizens. I know the term has also been largely coopted by fascists, but it still annoys me.

Some of the services supposedly built on AI have turned out to be exactly that. The AIs themselves aren’t though. They’re dumb in a way that is very distinct from the way we humans are dumb.

A TV doctor snake oil marketer turned MAGA official.

We do understand exactly how LLMs work though, and it no way fits with any theories of consciousness. It’s just a word extruder with a really good pattern matcher.

I like the comparison but LLMs can’t go insane as they just word pattern engines. It’s why I refuse to go along with the AI industry’s insistance in calling it a “hallucination” when it spits out the wrong words. It literally can not have a false perception of reality because it does not perceive anything in the first place.

This feels to me like a common folk saying from somewhere translated into English. It’s also a very apt and appropriately vulgar metaphor for the situation.