MalReynolds

u/MalReynolds@slrpnk.net
24 posts · 2.4k comments

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It’s been obvious for a while that scaling has hit diminishing returns (‘let’s voluntarily slow down’ like they can actually go faster) and the ‘just one more datacenter bro’ has stopped working.

Much smaller models have proven adequate for what the technology does well and the only thing stopping people moving to them wholesale is (probably illegal) market cornering. There is no moat but what they make.

At least it’s looking like there’s a good chance they won’t get to IPO and steal pension funds and crash economies as badly as they might have. SpaceX actually has worthwhile technology mixed in but xAI still managed to drag it down. Anthropic and OpenAI would go over like a lead balloon now and it’s only going to get worse as they continue to bring nothing new to the table.

on 2meirl4irl · c/2meirl4meirl · 2 pts · 10h

Or knowing (probably after thinking hard, watching others mistakes, and gaining experience allows us to winnow down what matters) what to give a fuck about. It's usually less than you think.

So a repeat of the crypto crash for graphics cards when ASICs ate their lunch. Mind you, that's only for inference (although a super fast QWEN 3.8 would meet a lot of peoples needs).

The argument for datacentres is for training the models, but then they'll need to prove that they haven't hit a diminishing returns wall, which will be hard if, as seems likely, they have. Also the Chinese have been doing it in a cave, with a box of scraps (figuratively), and gotten at least 90+% as good results.

Seems like the recent advances have been in the frameworks, which don't need no stinking (literally if fossil fueled) datacentres.

Guess you learned, but the rules of backup are 3-2-1 with at least one offline (I count offline HDD as a different media type for 2, tape one day, maybe, seems painful), it's not a real backup until you've restored from it and, RAID is not a backup.

Hey, look at that, Steam is now the service problem.

Way to go AusGov. Pretty likely my Steam account is over 18. FWIW can still play owned games (for now).

ETA: I stand corrected on the AusGov thing (sort of, rather age checking wasn't there at all personally, and the way they implemented it makes abuse likely by leaving it to the corpos, Steam's not getting my license either).

Definitely a Steam is now the service problem (a reference to Steam calling piracy a service problem, live long enough to become the villain...) given history in the UK though.

Millennia ago there was Athenian democracy. Randomly select citizens to fill roles in judiciary, executive council and assembly for a year. Pretty hard to corrupt. Worked well for centuries, they even returned to it after king making coups. Representative democracy was corrupt and serving the rich and powerful about day one. Sure, first past the post is awful, but there's higher things to aim for than Instant-runoff or whatever. Direct democracy is more viable than ever.