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In my experience, humans are at least as bad at it as GPT-4, if not far worse. In terms, specifically, of being "factually accurate" and grounded in absolute reality. Humans operate entirely in the probabilistic realm of what seems right to us based on how we were educated, the values we were raised with, our religious beliefs, etc. -- Human beings are all over the map with this.

> In my experience, humans are at least as bad at it as GPT-4, if not far worse.

I had an argument with a former friend recently, because he read some comments on YouTube and was convinced a racoon raped a cat and produced some kind of hybrid offspring that was terrorizing a neighborhood. Trying to explain that different species can't procreate like that resulted in him pointing to the fact that other people believed it in the comments as proof.

Say what you will about LLMs, but they seem to have a better basic education than an awful lot of adults, and certainly significantly better basic reasoning capabilities.


> Trying to explain that different species can't procreate like that resulted in him pointing to the fact that other people believed it in the comments as proof.

Those two species can't interbreed apparently, but considering the number of species that can [1] produce hybrid offspring, some even from different families, it is reasonable to forgive people for entertaining the possibility.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genetic_hybrids


I don't think it's remotely reasonable. The list you refer to, which I don't need to click on as I'm already familiar with it, is animals within the same family, e.g. bi cats.

Raccoons are not any type of feline, and this should be basic knowledge for any adult in any western country who grew up there and went to school.


There are at least a couple of examples in the article that you refuse to read that describe hybrids from different families. Sorry, but your purported basic knowledge is wrong.

I'm not 'refusing to read' it, I said I'm familiar with it because I've read it numerous times in the past.

Which examples are you referring to? The only real example seems to be fish.

In any case I was using 'family' in a loose sense, not in the stricter scientific biological hierarchy sense.

My basic knowledge is not wrong at all, because my point was that animals that far apart could not reproduce. That's it. The wiki page you linked doesn't really justify your idea that because some hybrids exist people might think any hybrid could exist.

The point is, it's frankly idiotic or at least extremely ignorant for anyone 40 years of age who grew up in the US or any developed country to think that.

I also very much doubt the people who believe a racoon could rape a cat and produce offspring are even aware of that wiki page or any of the examples on it. Hell, I doubt they even know a mule is a hybrid. Your hypothesis doesn't hold water.

Additionally, most of the examples on that page are the result of human intervention and artificial insemination, not wild encounters. Context matters.


Ok but humans aren't being hyped as this incredible new tech that's a going to lead to the singularity.

This is demonstrably not true. People also bullshit, a lot, but nowhere near the level of an LLM. You won't get fake citations, complete with publication year and ISBN, in a conversation with a human. StackOverflow is not full of down voted answers of people suggesting to use non-existent libraries with complete code examples.

I've been contemplating these exact same thoughts and ideas, and indeed have been very surprised how little exploration there seems to be around these nuances!

Nope. I worked with Flex and it's MXML files extensively. But the parent is talking about E4X, which was an extension to ECMAScript that allowed you to use XML elements inline with JavaScript in a manner VERY similar to how JSX is used today. It also included the ability to much more easily query and otherwise work with those XML document trees in native JavaScript.


This, imo is a solid argument for "fine then, we're just gonna pull our app and use mobile web exclusively."


Only if the users follow. If users decide they won't use the mobile web then patreon and the creators they represent lose. Nobody knows for sure, but there is a general belief that users will not follow (or at least enough won't follow).


If patreon pulls their app, and the former app users still want access to the content they patronized, they’ll go to wherever it is.


I think you'll be disappointed in little many users care once it's not 2 buton click convinient. Truly sad state of affairs for modern society.


Perhaps, although that requires experimenting the new fee model first.

It's too big of a decision to take without actual numbers, and having gone through it for a few months also helps on the communication side: on the surface Patreon at least gave it a try, and there's even a chance users are pissed off enough by the new model to campaign for that change and defend the move to their fans.


Why would that require them to do anything (except pull their app?)


Yay. More Enshittification and Chickenization due to monopsony power in a walled garden.

I hate it here.


Relatable!!


THIS IS ABSOLUTELY EPIC, AND MY FAVORITE KIND OF WEB TECH DEEP DIVE! <3 <3 <3


Kinda reminds me of QAM


Why TF is data upload so slow in a top tier country like Australia?!?


Former government sabotaged it by making national build-out with a random mix of technologies focusing on copper instead of fibre.


newish country, spread out population, undersea cables, plus Telstra + Murdoch getting the government to gut plans to improve things (e.g. the NBN).


Whoa what an incredible quote!


"Alas," said the mouse, "the world gets smaller every day. At first it was so wide that I ran along and was happy to see walls appearing to my right and left, but these high walls converged so quickly that I’m already in the last room, and there in the corner is the trap into which I must run."

"But you’ve only got to run the other way," said the cat, and ate it.

-- Kafka, “A Little Fable”


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