USA sux

“Gradient descent” ≈ on a “hilly” (mathematical) surface, try to find the lowest point by finding the lowest point near an initial guess. “Gradient” is basically the steepness, or rate that the thing you’re trying to optimize changes as you move through “space”. The gradient tells you mathematically which direction you need to go to reach the bottom. “Descent” means “try to find the minimum”.

I’m glossing over a lot of details, particularly what a “surface” actually means in the high dimensional spaces that AI uses, but a lot of problems in mathematical optimization are solved like this. And one of the steps in training an AI agent is to do an optimization, which often does use a gradient descent algorithm. That being said, not every process that uses gradient descent is necessarily AI or even machine learning. I’m actually taking a course this semester where a bunch of my professor’s research is in optimization algorithms that don’t use a gradient descent!

They created a good product so people used it and there were no alternatives when it got shit.

They created an inherently centralizing implementation of a video sharing platform. Even if it was done with good intentions (which it wasn’t, it was some capitalist’s hustle, and its social importance is a side effect), we should basically always condemn centralizing implementations of a given technology because they reinforce existing power structures regardless of the intentions of their creators.

It’s their fault because they’re a corporation that does what corporations do. Even when corporations try to do right by the world (which is an extremely generous appraisal of YouTube’s existence), they still manage to create centralizing technologies that ultimately serve to reinforce their existing power, because that’s all they can do. Otherwise, they would have set themselves up as a non-profit or some other type of organization. I refuse to accept the notion of a good corporation.

There’s no lock in. They don’t force you off the platform if you post elsewhere (like twitch did).

That’s a good point, but while there isn’t a de jure lock-in for creators, there is a de facto lock-in that prevents them from migrating elsewhere. Namely, that YouTube is a centralized, proprietary service, which can’t be accessed from other services.

Or you’re just not posting trash enough content.

Literally every corporation does or attempts to do the same thing.

Exactly. Every single corporation is evil and should be dismantled 🔥🔥🔥. This is just one of a thousand reasons to do so.

“Absolute evil” is a bit of a stretch, but it’s YouTube/Google’s fault (by closing off and centralizing their video platform) that it is impossible to go elsewhere for videos.

By Betteridge’s law, the answer is no.

On a serious note, to the people who own these kinds of websites: find a more ethical way to make your money or go the fuck out of business.

deleted by creator

20 years ago, Pirate Bay’s response

Holy shit I’m so old 😭

IMO I think people are gonna have to start swearing more online since it’s kinda hard to get commercial LLMs to swear.

Yeah I know, that’s why I’m telling you now which door was picked (door #1 according to the caption on the Wikipedia page I stole borrowed this image from) 🙂

In search of a new car, the player chooses a door, say 1. The game host then opens one of the other doors, say 3, to reveal a goat and offers to let the player switch from door 1 to door 2.

I’ll show myself the door.

Do you want to pick door No. 2?

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity

Emphasis mine. Incompetence on Microsoft’s part is not an adequate explanation for this latest action matching a pattern of other actions designed to antagonize FOSS users.

Sorry I ate it

If they were from a different instance

Does SDF have a bad rep? I know that not literally everyone on SDF is a leftist, but I do think a lot of us are.

Any similar housekeeping I’m probably forgetting to do for Linux? Debian 12 on all my systems if it matters.

Honest question: Why does it matter if he’s a transphobe when choosing which Fediverse software to use?

1. Because some people have actually financially supported him. I’m not trans, but I would be devastated to know that my money went to feed someone who wants to destroy me.
2. I already have trouble convincing transgender people in my social circle that Lemmy as a software is safe for them to use even with the variety of trans-inclusive servers like yours, and will be safe and inclusive in the future.

A great example of (2) is the fate of PolyMC. Thankfully, the other developers forked it into Prism, but transphobia put that whole project in jeopardy for a bit.

The software is FOSS and anyone can make their own instance.

IMO that’s why I’m not immediately dropping my account and running for the hills, but it’s still not good. Most people don’t have the technical skills or the interest in learning them to run their own instance.

I really want to understand what I might be missing.

IMO it’s that even though he does not personally control how Lemmy instances are run, and even though we do have a good degree of robustness to transphobia because the software is FOSS, it is still both morally and technically ill-advised to have a transphobe at the helm of an open-source software project.

Hello from Lemmy!

Russian bots aren’t all that bad

Yes, in two senses:

1. I don’t lose sleep at night knowing that these bots exist (or those of any other government). They shouldn’t exist for the simple reason that public institutions shouldn’t be in the business of deceiving people, but unfortunately, deceiving the public is a bunch of what the State actually fucking does “for” “us”. I especially don’t think the Russian government cares to run bots/trolls on our little corner of the internet when bigger targets exist.
2. Vacuously, I don’t disagree with literally everything that the Russian bots say because they can be found saying just about anything.

I cannot stress enough that I do NOT approve of state-sponsored botting or trolling of public spaces in general. However, when you see Pro-Russian or Pro-whatever opinions on the Internet, you are probably reading the words of a “useful idiot” or non-State troll.

This reality is a lot scarier than if the opinions were all just from some Russian troll farm, because now we have to interrogate the reality that these people have different and complex reasons for why they ended up with those opinions. It means that the task of persuasion is a lot more complicated than just shielding people from bots and trolls.