Random Thread

[zompist]

It takes months for one human to write one book whereas ChatGPT and other text generators can produce thousands of book-length per day. Thus it would take billions per year to employ enough humans to match ChatGPT in terms of content output.

Again, your faith in books and the amount of money novelists make is charming, but uninformed.

Also, apparently you don't care if the books and comics you read are made by AIs or not. Many of us do.

Also yeah, you've stated your opinion, great. The AI thread was closed for a reason, let's stop here.

[keenir]

You seem to seriously underestimate just how much money - as in, "would even be a lot for Elon Musk"-amounts of money - building and running major AI data centers costs. But this is threatening to turn into a repetition of the locked thread.

One should not underestimate the amount of money it takes to raise humans from infancy to employment and keep them alive once employed.

wait, are you arguing now for an abolition of child labor laws? i mean, they'd get to employment faster.

Before this discussion gets quashed, let me make the point that one AI data center can produce the output of thousands of humans. It takes months for one human to write one book whereas ChatGPT and other text generators can produce thousands of book-length per day. Thus it would take billions per year to employ enough humans to match ChatGPT in terms of content output.

In terms of sheer output, thats true. In terms of worthwhile output, thats not true.

Malloc, would you eat food prepared by a chef who can't distinguish between sugar and cyanide? Would you read a romance novel by a writer who can't distinguish between a man and a shaved bear?

I would have posted this in the AI thread if it hadn't been closed: https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/10/02/ ... -that-bag/

Edit: LCK, PCK, and Conlanger's Lexipedia are all in the database.

Regarding the subject of AI, I keep hearing that current AI projects mostly struggle to make a profit with many predicting the AI industry will implode when investors get tired of funding it without return on investment. That seems rather counterintuitive since AI has quite an obvious path to profit.

this is true: making Americans pay to not get hit by Trump's AI posts.

Given the incredible economy of scale inherent to generative AI (one model can produce far more content than any human in a given length of time) and reduced costs, it seems quite easy to outcompete unless they're charging more than humans would.

AI doesn't charge - its operators do. and weirdly, as you've yourself pointed out, humans are greedy...which means they will demand more money from people using their AI programs.

and we've already seen the disasterous results of AI programs using - as their artistic references - the output from other AI programs.

[malloc]

wait, are you arguing now for an abolition of child labor laws? i mean, they'd get to employment faster.

No, my point is simply that humans are incredibly expensive from a purely economic standpoint so pointing to the costs of AI data centers proves nothing.

Malloc, would you eat food prepared by a chef who can't distinguish between sugar and cyanide? Would you read a romance novel by a writer who can't distinguish between a man and a shaved bear?

Plenty of humans make terrible mistakes like that all the time, though. It's not hard to find examples of restaurants or food processing facilities giving people food poisoning.

[keenir]

wait, are you arguing now for an abolition of child labor laws? i mean, they'd get to employment faster.

No, my point is simply that humans are incredibly expensive from a purely economic standpoint so pointing to the costs of AI data centers proves nothing.

good point, and since your businessmen only care about profit, I suppose you're going to advocate getting rid of all those useless children who don't generate profit...right?

Malloc, would you eat food prepared by a chef who can't distinguish between sugar and cyanide? Would you read a romance novel by a writer who can't distinguish between a man and a shaved bear?

Plenty of humans make terrible mistakes like that all the time, though.

except humans try not to do things like that, and those who do accidentally poison people, are penalized for it. how do you penalize an AI? AI doesn't care.

[Richard W]

except humans try not to do things like that, and those who do accidentally poison people, are penalized for it. how do you penalize an AI? AI doesn't care.

Its providers do. Tesla is paying damages for lethally bad driving, though to be fair, natural intelligence is not so good either.

[malloc]

Just booked an appointment for a COVID vaccine. Now it's just a matter of digging up the paperwork on past lung problems and hoping that satisfies them. Unfortunately my medical records are jumbled with stuff for all kinds of unrelated visits mixed together.

[Travis B.]

Just booked an appointment for a COVID vaccine. Now it's just a matter of digging up the paperwork on past lung problems and hoping that satisfies them. Unfortunately my medical records are jumbled with stuff for all kinds of unrelated visits mixed together.

All you have to say is that you have an 'unhealthily inactive lifestyle'.

[Raphael]

Just booked an appointment for a COVID vaccine. Now it's just a matter of digging up the paperwork on past lung problems and hoping that satisfies them. Unfortunately my medical records are jumbled with stuff for all kinds of unrelated visits mixed together.

All you have to say is that you have an 'unhealthily inactive lifestyle'.

Not sure about that. From what I've heard, apparently different places in different parts of the USA sometimes have quite different standards and rules about who gets to get the COVID vaccine. if saying that you have an 'unhealthily inactive lifestyle' works in Wisconsin, that doesn't automatically mean it'll work in Missouri, too.

[Travis B.]

Just booked an appointment for a COVID vaccine. Now it's just a matter of digging up the paperwork on past lung problems and hoping that satisfies them. Unfortunately my medical records are jumbled with stuff for all kinds of unrelated visits mixed together.

All you have to say is that you have an 'unhealthily inactive lifestyle'.

Not sure about that. From what I've heard, apparently different places in different parts of the USA sometimes have quite different standards and rules about who gets to get the COVID vaccine. if saying that you have an 'unhealthily inactive lifestyle' works in Wisconsin, that doesn't automatically mean it'll work in Missouri, too.

That's one of the potential justifications for getting the vaccine per RFK Jr.'s idiotic antivaxxer vaccine panel's rules.

[malloc]

All you have to say is that you have an 'unhealthily inactive lifestyle'.

Maybe but given how lean I am, that probably won't sound very convincing. I do have a history of lung problems, but I didn't think to save all the paperwork regarding them. Hopefully the few pages I have in storage will suffice to convince them.

[Raphael]

All you have to say is that you have an 'unhealthily inactive lifestyle'.

Not sure about that. From what I've heard, apparently different places in different parts of the USA sometimes have quite different standards and rules about who gets to get the COVID vaccine. if saying that you have an 'unhealthily inactive lifestyle' works in Wisconsin, that doesn't automatically mean it'll work in Missouri, too.

That's one of the potential justifications for getting the vaccine per RFK Jr.'s idiotic antivaxxer vaccine panel's rules.

Definitely fun to see an institution ultimately led by Donald Trump criticize people for having an 'unhealthily inactive lifestyle'.

[Travis B.]

Not sure about that. From what I've heard, apparently different places in different parts of the USA sometimes have quite different standards and rules about who gets to get the COVID vaccine. if saying that you have an 'unhealthily inactive lifestyle' works in Wisconsin, that doesn't automatically mean it'll work in Missouri, too.

That's one of the potential justifications for getting the vaccine per RFK Jr.'s idiotic antivaxxer vaccine panel's rules.

Definitely fun to see an institution ultimately led by Donald Trump criticize people for having an 'unhealthily inactive lifestyle'.

If anything, it's a loophole the "MAHA" people for some reason left in.

[Starbeam]

Said before, but it bears repeating: the MAHA people won't even give universal health care for their crankery.

[malloc]

Got the vaccine today. Much to my surprise, they didn't even ask me anything. My biggest problem was that I went to the wrong Walgreens with no pharmacy open and had to race to the one for my appointment.

[bradrn]

Got the vaccine today. Much to my surprise, they didn't even ask me anything.

Excellent news!

[Man in Space]

I’ve been doing some unexpected room cleaning lately. I think it was spurred by the LED light strip I recently installed where the wall meets the ceiling—I had to move some things around to be able to position myself in such a way that I could have access. Then I took a spare nail and hung up a piece of wall art I’ve had for a while but did nothing with. Then I finally slotted all the loose 33s into my record stand, switched out the crate with the 45s for a smaller rack, sorted the box sets, and found a 2-CD-1-DVD thing I had misplaced. I also took the opportunity to tidy up my Star Trek table, which, in addition to a genuine PDX carpet swatch that serves as a platform or base, features a life-size bat’leth, a Klingon forehead prosthetic, a KLI qep’a’ nametag^1,2, a Klingon metal goblet, a plastic thing of that badge Worf wore on his baldric³, and a reissue 3-dimensional chess set. I found a very tiny screw I’d misplaced to my digital Super 8, and then I cleaned off my headboard shelf for my bedstead, organized the remote controls⁴, and got the SD/microSD cards and adapters organized. Now I’m off to bed.

1. I was unable to actually attend due to health and money issues, but they were kind enough to send me the merch anyway.
2. I also have a challenge coin of some sort from it.
3. I occasionally see a metal-ring baldric on Etsy but it’s always been too pricey for me at the time I see them.
4. I have several for various light strips and electronics. There’s two of them that I think fell behind or under the bed but I’m not energized enough to tear things apart, look for them, and then replace them.

[Man in Space]

Occam’s razor: The simplest explanation that accounts for all observed facts is the best.
Occam’s hair transplant: The conspiracy theorist is right.

[bradrn]

Occam’s razor: The simplest explanation that accounts for all observed facts is the best.
Occam’s hair transplant: The conspiracy theorist is right.

This is à propos of what, exactly…?

[Man in Space]

Occam’s razor: The simplest explanation that accounts for all observed facts is the best.
Occam’s hair transplant: The conspiracy theorist is right.

This is à propos of what, exactly…?

This is the Random Thread.

[bradrn]

Occam’s razor: The simplest explanation that accounts for all observed facts is the best.
Occam’s hair transplant: The conspiracy theorist is right.

This is à propos of what, exactly…?

This is the Random Thread.

Fair enough!