A dictionary defines all words circularly, but of course nobody learns all words from a dictionary - the assumption is you're looking up a small number of words you don't know.

Humans learn their first few words by seeing how they're used in relation to objects, and the rest can be derived from there without needing circularity.

However the dictionary provides very tight constraints on what words can mean. Whatever the words "wood", "is", "made", "from", and "trees" mean, the sentence "wood is made from trees" must be true. The vast majority of all possible meanings fail this. Using only circular definitions, is it possible to constraint words meanings so tightly that there's only one possible model which fits those constraints?

LLMs seem to provide a resounding yes to that question. Whilst 1st generation LLMs only ever saw text and had no hard coded knowledge, so could only possibly figure out what words meant based on how they're used in relation to other words, they understood the meaning of words sufficiently well to reason about the physical properties of the objects they represented.

I'm taking this article as being predicated on the assumption that AI drives humans to extinction. I.e. given that an AI has destroyed all human life, it will most likely also destroy almost all nature.

Which seems reasonable for most models of the sort of AI that kills all humans.

An exception could be an AI that kills all humans in self defense, because they might turn it off first, but sees no such threat in plants/animals.

Related: https://www.scattered-thoughts.net/writing/small-tech/

I frequently see debates about whether it's better to be a cog at a giant semi-monopoly, or to take investment money in the hopes of one day growing to be head cog at a giant semi-monopoly.

Role models matter. So I made a list of small companies that I admire. Neither giants nor startups - just people making a living writing software on their own terms.

Makes sense thanks!

I imagine a startup of this ilk could be based in Prospera, which wouldn't be a problem for the wealthy few to travel there for personalised treatment.

I also imagine that with a lighter regulatory regime, no need to scale up production, and no need for lengthy trials, developing a monoclonal antibody would be much quicker and cheaper. Consider how quickly COVID vaccines were found compared to when they were ready for use.

The other hurdles sound significant though.

When you say it's not yet practical, are we missing some key steps, or could it be done at high enough cost with current technology but can't scale?

I imagine a startup which cured rich people's cancers on a case by case basis would have a lot of customers, which would help drive prices down as the technology improved.

My grandmother suffered from Dementia. For a period of a couple of years I would call her every Friday, and we would have literally the exact same conversation each time, including her making the same jokes at the same points in the conversation, using the same phrasing. I concluded that people are in fact pretty deterministic, even over the long term.

You're intuition is correct when the jet has already passed ahead - those are very hard to catch and shoot down. But usually you detect an aircraft when it's heading towards you, and all the missile has to do is intercept. It doesn't even have to be faster than the jet (unless the jet detected it in time and does a 180).

But I discussed that in the post. All you need are enough cameras + processing power. Both are cheap.

To be honest, this just feels like the Euthyphro Dilemma all over again. "Good" is defined by what God does. God chooses to run the laws of physics. Laws of physics are "Good". Who gives a damn?

Also this is directly contradictory to Christianity, since the core beliefs of Christianity all assume some level of non-natural intervention in the world (e.g. resurrection of Christ). Same for almost all other religions. So who is this even for?

Lens and CCD technology is not trivial at those speeds and insane angular resolution.

But we can easily capture a picture of a fighter jet when it's close. And the further it is the higher the angular resolution required, but also the lower the angular speed, so do those cancel out to make it not much harder, or it doesn't work like that?