Aladdin Kumar

Years ago I participated in "fight apathy" on the delusion we would all sit in a bar discussing nerdy things like corporate integration. Now no ones apathetic and everyone is discussing stupider things. I regret my participation.

Watching OpenAI agent have this extreme internal monologue of “click the shopping cart button. This is critical to add to the shopping cart” which is insane behavior has caused me to discount the relation between internal monologues and consciousness

Funnily enough I did get a ticket to the Colbert Late Night, despite my politics being not that, just cause I thought hey I’m in NY now might as well. This was before the cancellation notice and it’s tonight so uh … we’ll see!

It is kinda sad, late night filled this small niche of, I got to a hotel at 11 pm I’m tired and I want something silly as I drift off … and you can’t really get that with streaming, too much intentionality required. But it became too political and … c’est la vie

Guys, if the going rate is getting an ML PhD instantly entitles you to tens of millions if the universities I’m applying to increasing the stipend to a $1 m I can promise a portion of my earnings and it’s an excellent investment opportunity …

One can argue that Congress had, at the founding, both created a national bank and delegated power to private individuals. Unitary executive theory says that it can’t be “executive power”, is setting rates executive power? motivated reasoning? Oh of course. That’s all law

I love how Google Maps makes the assumption that buses, which travel on the same roads that cars to, is somehow immune from the traffic those cars face.

Notably absent from this list is AWS. Now any takers as to why?

Metas getting dangerously close to passing the second apron. Gotta let go of LeCun or someone to free up some cap space.

It’s a nice spa, don’t get me wrong, but it was nice 15 years ago that’s why I went back. So nothings changed except it’s gotten somewhat more pricey and slightly worse. Which is true of too many things now.

Same thing when I paid $500 a night for a hotel room and the room admonished me about room service with a sign like oh for environmental reasons you don’t need to get your stuff cleaned. No actually, I’m not being in the wrong for asking you fulfill the contract we made

So went back to a gym I used to go to in my hometown, fairly upscale, and it’s mostly the same it’s just … they no longer offer towels. A fact that is … irritating me to no end. Why is everything like this? When did it become gauche to ask for a basic level of service?

The original justification for the chip ban was incredibly moralistic, about the US dictating how much technological progress a separate sovereign is allowed to have, and targeting things like military and surveillance when … they’ve released open source models we benefit from?

Maybe this is motivated reasoning but I do wonder if one thinks AI is basically the next Industrial Revolution, Trumps vastly better policies towards chip sales compared to Biden overweights *waves at all of the stuff that’s happening re trade*

It’s confirmed that right wing techno optimism is a higher order pattern of thinking that is beyond RL and replicating training data. The path to AGI must form from studying such patterns of thought. Luckily for all the AI labs, I am happy to explain mine for a *small price!

So there is a fire in the Lincoln Tunnel, buses are down. Ok, but: How come no app, anywhere, seems to understand buses are down? How come no one can suggest an alternative route? Why is the densest commute path in the country such a cluster****?

The one anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that I do engage in is that it is awfully suspicious that Teaneck is so well served by NJ Transit and for every other town it’s some complicated route that … goes through Teaneck. Half in jest. Half.

Always a good time to remind oneself about how poor NJ Transit routes are, and how they keep raising rates without having fixed anything in 50 years.