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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • https://openai.com/index/how-openai-is-approaching-2024-worldwide-elections/

    Here is a direct quote from openai:

    “In addition to our efforts to direct people to reliable sources of information, we also worked to ensure ChatGPT did not express political preferences or recommend candidates even when asked explicitly.”

    It’s not a conspiracy. It was explicitly thier policy not to have the ai discuss these subjects in meaningful detail leading up to the election, even when the facts were not up for debate. Everyone using gpt during that period of time was unlikely to receive meaningful information on anything Trump related, such as the legitimacy of Biden’s election. I know because I tried.

    This is ostentatiously there to protect voters from fake news. I’m sure it does in some cases, but I’m sure China would say the same thing.

    I’m not pro China, I’m suggesting that every country engages in these shenanigans.

    Edit it is obvious that a 100 billion dollar company like openai with it’s multude of partnerships with news companies could have made gpt communicate accurate and genuinely critical news regarding Trump, but that would be bad for business.







  • Many ancient practitioners of stoicism were wealthy statesmen, including emperors. And, the literate elite were certainly enamored with it. I’m not a historian, but stoicism was shaped by wealthy and powerful people, as was every popular philosophy.

    I’m not opposed to it. I like aspects of Stoicism. But, When it comes to wealth, it always rubbed me the wrong way. It seemed so often to me that wealthy stoics make a virtue out of possessing, but not coveting wealth, and in doing so make a vice of dissatisfaction with one’s wealth. For a rich man, this is reasonable. However, a poor man is correct to be dissatisfied. Poor men need to be angry, and to rise up and demand wealth (in my opinion), their pain and anguish is meant to be felt and to stoke action.

    Stoicism is not often presented as compatible with this mindset of mine. I’m sure there are types of stoicism which address this, but most influencers seem to present Stoicism though a relatively uncritical lense.


  • My caveat to this is that many of the foundational individuals to stoicism, as well as present influencers, are members of the upper class, and while there are a lot of great ideas in there, stoicism can often be distilled into a philosophy of rugged individualism which is more easily achieved with wealth, power, and privilege.

    I am of the opinion that stoicism is good, but a disproportional number of those who practice it are often out of touch.





  • Something which clarified Zuck’s behavior in my mind was an interview where he said something along the lines of, “I could sell meta for x amount of dollars, but then I’d just start another company anyways, so I might as well not.”

    The guy isn’t doing what financially makes sense. He’s Uber rich and working on whatever projects he thinks are cool. I wish Zuck would stop sucking in all his other ways, but he just doesn’t care about whether his ideas are going to succeed or not.