u/Sacredless

I think that a lot of the conversation has gotten confused. Instead, I want to make note how Ben Affleck shows he's thinking ahead about how AI will be used for the benefit of rent seekers, with clear close examination of how it works in detail.

If you think that knowledge should be free, he is the end boss.

If you think that AI is more than just weights, he is the end boss.

It's not enough to have a competing take from Affleck, you have to be able to actually be convincing to a third person.

Frequently, I see people balk at the idea of stochastic parrots on both pro-ist and anti-ist sides. I want to present an adopter idea.

What's actually wrong with a stochastic parrot? Ultimately, stochastic parrots, even if they don't fundamentally understand particulars like weight and size, or non-linguistic concepts, are still very impressive. If we say that LLMs are only stochastic parrots, the thing that's surprising is that a stochastic parrot can still manage to accomplish so much. In fact, it shows how much of society is stochastic.

The thing that I've noticed is that people employ this phrase in that I call 'respectability politics'. A stochastic parrot is seen as disrespectable because of how moored we are to the idea of work ethics, whether it is working harder or working smarter. A stochastic parrot isn't working either smart or hard, it's just working and guessing. Is that so bad?

We're often so busy with the AI debate that we don't think about what AI implies about how we're currently doing things. The reality is—most of society and most of work is stochastic and unjust, and that's what's wrong with society. So a stochastic parrot is only bad where it perpetuates that injustice.

By my estimate, it is inevitable that manufacturing will reorient to point-of-need manufacturing world wide by 2045 and it's important to understand what that means and why. AI will likely play a great role in this.

Manufacturing currently depends greatly on tool-and-die experts creating the tools for machinery to manufacture our goods. Right now, 2% of tool-and-die experts are under 35 years in the U.S. In China, there's a similar cultural stigma against this type of work as a dead-end job.

Because of that, around 2040, the United States tool-and-die workforce will begin falling drastically.

At the same time, rapid tooling techniques are currently being developed, using new high precision metal printing technologies to make dies and molds. New AI models are automating parts is the mold and die design process. Because of these developments, it's likely that the worldwide industry will see a shift towards this type of rapid tooling.

What this also means is that it becomes feasible for molds and dies to be made locally rather than shipped in. Not only that, but small batches of parts could be manufactured within a local warehouse rather than a dedicated factory half a continent way. This is point-of-need manufacturing.

This means that the repair economy may see a drastic boost around this time, since parts wouldn't need to be justified by the enormous scales we see now.

What this means for us:

* Where possible, support your local repair economy.

* Encourage unionizing tool-and-die experts, so that they hold bargaining power for longer.

* Back right-to-repair legislation where possible.

* Encourage politicians to make knowledge freely available wherever possible.

* Encourage politicians to invest in tool-and-die education now so that manufacturing knowledge can be retained by workers (ideally while unionized).

Jevons' Paradox is an economic phenomenon that was first pointed out by the economist William Stanley Jevons in response to the belief that more efficient steam engines would reduce demand for coal. He pointed out that more efficient steam engines would be more in demand if they were cheap to run and that this would lead to a spiral where the demand for coal would rise exponentially.

This is exactly what happened.

Often, Jevons' Paradox is brought up to point out how this will increase demand for electricity as AI gets more efficient and how this will increase demand for AI as tasks it performs get cheaper.

One dimension I want to discuss here is how Jevon's Paradox applies to humans.

In 1911, The Principles of Scientific Management was published by Frederick Winslow Taylor, inventing a model for managing human labor we still follow to this day. This was itself long after the introduction of clocks and workbells after roughly 1750, where factories conspired with governments to make it punishable to arrive after the bell, which has been normal since time immemorial.

The pattern that we see is that as human labor is made more efficient by machines, the more demand there is for the labor, but that demand for efficient human labor is accompanied with the invention of the middle management class, the upper management class and the executive class. Meanwhile, sanctions for being unemployed and even minor infractions have made cruel on purpose, because cruelty is the point if you want to motivate labor through fear. Which is to say nothing of actual slavery, which was actually free past the purchase cost and maximally cruel.

This pattern is relatively easy to explain. As a society, we are sensitive to both loss aversion and opportunity costs. When we can produce more per minute, each minute wasted is a heavy cost. This opportunity cost is converted into real cost and redistributed down. Efficiency leads to demand, demand leads to lost opportunity, opportunity cost is democratized.

So, this too is a Jevons' Paradox. Paradoxically, as human labor became more efficient, human labor came into greater demand and as human labor came into greater demand, infractions were punished more cruelly, in a bid to keep human labor as efficient as possible.

This pattern was only briefly broken by unions following the World Wars. Labor shortages became so high that unions had real leverage. It was the New Deal and unionization that ensured that people could work humane hours.

Those protections have increasingly been stripped away. AI stands to make us even more efficient than ever before, while likely not outright replacing us short-term, so the question is—who protects us from draconian measures to extract more value from us now that humans are poised to become one of the most efficient, i.e. most exploitable resource once again?

Which is not to say that technology is bad. Just that history tells us that when human labor is seen as becoming more efficient thanks to machines, humans are also exploited more cruelly, since even small lapses are seen as incurring great opportunity costs.

I'm writing fiction about a post-capitalist society that has deployed robotic intelligences as part of their governance strategy. The robotic intelligences are accident and by design highly receptive to analogy, making them fundamentally prone to hallucination.

As a patch, these intelligences defer to social proof from the humans around them, sometimes to the point of parody. Yet, it's because of how important proof is to these robotic intelligences that societies tend to treat robotic intelligences as impartial. The fiction would explore how such societies might get into conflict, showing that this world would be different rather than inherently dystopian or utopian.

You can read more in the original post.

I am in need of a name for them, though, so I would appreciate anyone who could go to the original post and help me decide on a name.

I'm making a world I'm tentatively calling Project: Xote. In the setting, limited robot intelligence has sufficiently developed to the point of becoming part of a mostly pastoral.

These robotic intelligences didn't initially work as expected, being highly receptive to analogical thinking that made them prone to hallucination. As a result, they had to be patched to instead seek social proof as much as possible. Over the centuries, humanity progressively uses these robotic intelligences at the center of their decision-making.

Some of these intelligences are so skeptical that they never take humans at their word. Some of these intelligences are more responsive to human performance, but require humans to perform the song-and-dance of, say, a baker to be seen as a baker.

Sometimes these robotic intelligences come into conflict. They engage in both physical and poetic combat called 'metonymics', where they try to get their opponent to hallucinate new ways of thinking that might end the conflict peacefully or slow them down enough to be disabled. Humans are especially capable of metonymics, since they can use metaphor casually in a way the robot intelligences cannot.

I need a name for these robot intelligences. I'd be thankful to anyone who can help me choose between them.

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I highly recommend watching DystopianChimp's video about the life of Astartes Aspirants.

https://youtu.be/s\_DOPRl3O2U

I've included a summary of the most frequent trials mentioned in the video below.

• The Exposure Trial, the single most common. The aspirant is cast into a hostile environment (jungle, glacial tundra, toxic swamp, irradiated desert, underhive) with primitive tools and must either survive a set period or trek to a distant extraction point. Often the environment is deliberately alien to the recruit's homeworld.

• The Blood Duel, a straightforward contest of strength and skill, often to the death between fellow aspirants. Varies by chapter in weapons and rules (armed, unarmed, single bout, or a multi-round tournament). Described as likely the oldest way to measure a warrior's worth.

• Hunting the Hunter, a live hunt where the aspirant must track, outwit, and capture or kill a deadly predator (an apex beast, a feral ork, or human prey like gangers or pirates). Can be done solo or in groups, though often only one may claim the kill, which then turns such alliances temporary.

• The Challenge, an aspirant is pitted directly against a full battle-brother, or must perform tests of strength, speed, endurance, or intellect (weightlifting, foot races, poison-drinking, puzzles, moral dilemmas). It mainly measures attitude, resolve, and the manner of failure rather than victory.

The Children of Typhon have infiltrated refugees from the Tyrannic Wars as a militia organized by the noblewoman Erytheia of House Geryon. This militia supposedly operates with extreme discretion to ensure that any infiltrated gene-stealer cults won't prepare for their arrival, but in truth are competing with cults of Hive Fleet Leviathan to allow the kleptoparasitic Hive Fleet Typhon to consume a world before Leviathan does.

The cult already has lots of names. The Eyes of Erytheia are her inner circle, ensuring the loyalty of her other retainers. The Geryon Grooms are the Primii who seek to win the favor of the Lady Erytheia. Officially, her organization is known as the R.R.I., but unofficially, they might be referred to as a crusade.

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I have a kitbash idea for an brood brothers auxilia army I'd ideally like to actually play locally. The idea is to use make tyranid-horse hybrids using kavalos death riders from AOS.

Is there anyway to have riders do anything fun for as long as they're on the board?

I'm renaming the Lateralist Creed. I'm making them ultrapuritans, who have been battling an illegal aid network of masterless menials. That means the "Lateralists" is not a great name anymore.

##Ages of Myth The Baxtris Subsector has risen and fallen countless times. In its ruins, humble mechanicus outposts subsisted on small, efficient means. Bound together by Navis House Saeta and Knight House Rabolion, these outposts eventually rebuilt in the ashes of empires and formed a trade-circuit known as the Baxtris Gyre, forming around a wild space of the Baxtris Interior.

It was when the circuit was completed that the Moirae Schism broke out across the Galaxy. The Gyrean Forge-Worlds first fought each other and, at the encouragement of House Saeta, refocused on suppressing an underground network of dispossessed independents, who had the appearance of Moirae sympathizers. Billions of lives were lost to centuries of wars of reformation, and many of the sacred strains of flora and fauna were lost in the Month of Devastation, when a locust of green-clad Eldar descended upon the Gyre to sunder it once again.

##Recent History

In M39, the [insert cult name here] had formed around mystical texts retelling of the Golden Age of the Gyreans, detailing associations between the sacraments provided by the lost strains, the functions of human flesh and of the STC, as well as the disasters wrought by the legendary Moirae-sympathizing heretek Masterless Menial Network. When an explorator fleet returned in middle M41 from exodite worlds in the Baxtris Interior, bearing samples of strains long-thought lost, the [insert cult name here] was catapulted to being the dominant creed in the subsector.

Immediately, manufacturae were scuttled in favor of unearthing ancient facilities. In the wake of such dramatic reforms, the Masterless Menial Network, thought to be mere legend, was revealed to still smuggle the disaffected between worlds. Menials were rounded up enmasse for servitorization or else driven deeper into the forge-worlds. When fleets of refugees from the T'au Empire's aggression arrived, the refugees saw the influence of The Greater Good in the Masterless Menial Network and, granted sanction by the forge-worlds, committed themselves to rooting out these hereteks. The new manufacturae produced products and sacraments in high demand in the Imperium, causing a new influx of traders from across the galaxy.

##Present

Emboldened by their seemingly unstoppable progress, and bolstered by fanatical and vengeful refugees, the [insert cult name here] now look out from their forge-worlds, seeking to recover more strains of xenobiology to dissect and cultivate for the good of His Imperium.

Unbeknownst to the [insert cult name here], a Haemonculus used the fervor and confusion to infiltrate the servitorization facilities and eventually the xenobiology genetorea, influencing the forge-worlds to crack down even harsher upon the Masterless Menials, and to revise their ever more torturous servitorization protocols.

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Liraglutide is kicking my ass right now at 1.8mg for the past week. I feel floaty and light, as if I've just run a marathon. That's really surprising to me, since I'm 6'6" and not exactly a lightweight.

I kept a relatively long period between steps, and I want to see if I can step up to 1.8 through some other strategy. Anyone have any tips for me?

I'm working on my combat doctrine and, I have to admit, I am really stuck on something. I don't think that my combat doctrine is bad neccesarily, but I think that it could be even sharper. Here's what I have now:

Background; the Storm Tigers are a marine force that operates in a backwater and was forgotten during a brief moment of their history that has kneecapped them ever since. They've been limping along ever since. They have their own variant of the Codex Astartes, called The Master Calculus, which definitely descends from the Emperor's hand rather than Guilliman. It's definitely not that they're non-codex compliant, they've just temporarily fallen off the wagon and will definitely get back on the wagon soon.

>The Storm Tigers (White Scar Successors)
>
>Tactics: Guerilla Warfare, Harassment & Interdiction (H&I)
>
>Combat Doctrine: What defines a marine, but a hunter's wit and pioneer's ingenuity? Is there a greater glory than a demolisher cannon fired point-blank from the cover of one meter thick ice? What greater killing field is there than one with civilians as live bait bogging down unsuspecting foes? For the right-minded marine, there is only callous asymmetry, for His foes are many, and His chosen are few. There is no collateral, only His Master Calculus. > > >Yet, any ingenuity of mankind flows down from the Omnissiah alone, even among His Great Angels. The humble wrench has no say in whether it should loosen or tighten the squeaky cog, just because it can. The logic of the battlefield is the logic of treated steel, heated, quenched, then heated again. Those who cannot adapt, can only be raw salvage to maintain His Great Vehicle. Indeed, this is the logic of all things, and anti-logic is the only hubris.

Aims: I'm trying to convey that 'shit rolls down hill', but that this is systematically inverted by the chapter as the Omnissiah's ingenuity. Not only that, but the 'callous asymmetry' of the Master Calculus is related to the chapter's own internal hierarchy. I am not sure if it sells that right now, since I don't want to just outright say 'by the way, if other brothers have a reason to suspect their gene-seed is purer than yours, they will hold it over your head at every opportunity', since that belongs to a different section.

I also want to allude to the idea that the Storm Tigers are insecure about their standing, and they make it the problem of the civilian population by doubling down on their self-styled wisdom, which then actually affects their standing. I'm fine with them simply reading as callous, but I wonder if it has the effect that they do feel the need to explain themselves as opposed to the Iron Hands.

EDIT: Revision below:

> Tactics: Harassment & Interdiction, Deep Terrain Shaping, Area Denial > > > ## Combat Doctrine > There is only hierarchy and asymmetry, for the poachers of the Omnissiah's work are too many, and His Handpicked Angels are too few. Those below are given shape by those above, and this is the way of things, even among brothers. This is the logic of all things, and anti-logic is the only hubris. This was the lesson the Storm Tigers learned on penitent crusade. The Imperium is a managed but feral landscape; It is His Royal Forest of Cogs, holding His Herds of Human Flesh. Only Astartes with a pioneer's wit and the callous handwork of huntsmen can shape and guard it. > > War is a cycle ordained by the Omnissiah: the firing of pistons; initiative and control; the bite of chainswords followed by pouncing whirlwind battery; hot and cold. What greater glory is there for a demolisher cannon, than firing through a meter of ice upon the unsuspecting enemy? What more convenient killing field for bolterfire, than a panicked village bogging down the foe? The flesh is simply more terrain before The Machine God. There is nothing collateral in His Master Calculus. Those who cannot obey it can only be raw salvage, repurposed to maintain the Machine God's Great Vehicle.

The Children of Typhon are a distributed cult specializing in terror tactics and kleptoparasitism, targeting not only other factions, but also hunting competing tyranid and genestealers.

Once, the cult had been a mundane hive gang, eking out an existence in Hive Acrion on the planet Rhodon Alpha. One day, they came into contact with an entity called Geryon, who warned them of a cult infiltrating the high society of the hive city, called The Feast Unending. In truth, Geryon was a gene-stealer Patriarch of Hive Fleet Typhon, attempting to usurp the cult of a competing Patriarch of Hive Fleet Kronos.

Giving themselves over to Geryon, the Children of Typhon initiated a terror campaign against the Feast Unending. Once the world realized they'd been invaded, the two weakened cults were crushed and their Patriarchs slain, scattering the survivors and pure-strain gene-stealers across the planet.

Once the spell was broken, one of the former members of the Children of Typhon felt a profound loss of kinship. She had once been a psyker on the run and she had been welcomed with open arms by the cult and given her life meaning. The fact they had all become monsters was not only secondary, her spite for the Imperium ran so deep that she reveled in the horror of it all.

She sacrificed and ate her genestealer familiar, and she welcomed the voice of Geryon into her mind with open n arms. She sought out the pure-strain gene-stealers of the Children of Typhon, who were fragmented across Rhodon Alpha. Each one she visited was eventually assassinated by the regrouped Feast Unending, causing Erytheia to take the survivors to the next splinter cell. From each purestrain corpse, Erytheia crafted a boon for her personal bodyguard.

By the end of the journey, when there were no more Purestrains left, Erytheia settled herself in Hive City Bion. Erytheia had developed a sophisticated intelligence network as Matriarch Erytheia of House Geryon. Having long since become the hulking monster Geryon Redivivus and shed her humanity, she channeled the Erytheia persona to female maguses to act in her place.

The Children of Typhon settled underneath Hive Bion. For generations that followed, the cult was beset with assassins from The Feast Unending. The cult was always on the edge of extinction, surviving only by seeding splinter cells to act as buffer. Meanwhile, the Feast Unending prepared the world for the coming of Hive Fleet Kronos. When the Day of Ascension came, however, it was Hive Fleet Typhon that hovered over the world.

Under the name of House Geryon, the Children of Typhon secured an evacuation port, funneling refugees indiscriminately into voidships. Within the void, the refugees were made to believe that they had been chosen to hunt down gene-stealer cults using their own weapons against them. Only those in the inner most circle may meet the true face of Lady Erytheia, as Geryon Redivivus.

Combat Doctrine

The Children of Typhon have a genetically encoded hatred for other gene-stealers. From the gene-stealers they manage to slay, the cult's psykers fleshcraft into exoskeletons and bio-weaponry for their exalted.

Generations of being under siege by their own kind has made the generic quirks so pronounced that cells of the cult are known to spontaneously auto-cannibalize themselves, though the cult claims this is a curse from the Feast Unending. This requires constant vigilance from the Matriarch. This proves difficult when another leader becomes impatient, such as when the Kelermorph Nemesyne lead her group of assassins to a premature assault on a rival cult, and her cell succumbed to infighting.

Culture

During their flight from Rhodon Alpha, the cult received a boon of Tyranid bioforms to assist their infiltration in other worlds. These bioforms have no means of reproduction or reclamation by the hive, meaning that they are incredibly old by tyranid standards. The cult lovingly dresses their senescent allies in flower wreathes made from roses native to Rhodon Alpha, as a symbol of their salvation from the Feast Unending. They pray feverishly to Hive Fleet Typhon to grant them new guardians, but it's difficult to say who will answer their prayers and how.

What do you guys think? Too edgy?

The Children of Typhon are a distributed cult specializing in terror tactics and kleptoparasitism.

Once, the cult rebelled against the Imperium and the galaxy, lashing out to satisfy their bloodlust. It was then that they were joined by their Patriarch, Geryon, who warned them of a second, competing gene-stealer cult from a different hive fleet. The cult initiated a campaign of terror against the competing gene-stealers, which eventually saw both cults crushed by the Imperium and their Patriarchs slain.

The spell was broken and it's members scattered across the underhives. A magus eventually rose to reconstitute the cult, Erytheia the Matriarch. She is said to have been gifted the flesh of Geryon, and she battled rival purestrain gene-stealers in his name as his true heir. Over the course of each battle, her psychic abilities grew and her body was gifted with great stature and extra limbs. Eventually, all purestrain gene-stealers answered to her or lay dead before her, allowing her to build the cult anew with the purpose of inflicting as much terror upon the galaxy as possible.

Not only that, but as the cult disperses over the Ultima Segmentum, they've taken to battling other gene-stealer cults and hunting tyranid bioforms on behalf of Hive Fleet Typhon. From their own members and from the flesh of other tyranid bioforms, their magi use psyker flesh-craft to craft living exoskeletons for their hunters.

So, what do you guys think?