u/WordsAboutSomething

I've noticed a pretty alarming trend lately in the AI subreddits and across the internet as a whole. I think it is one that we are also seeing reflected in the real world when it comes to AI safety / alignment researchers being ousted left and right.

The internet seems to have broken into two camps, one of those absolutely opposed to AI, and one of those that are blindly for it.

If anyone strays from one of those two schools of though, they get ostracized by both groups.

It seems to be almost impossible for anyone to talk about both the benefits AND the detriments to the rapidly advancing pace of AI, because doing so results in both the AI crowd and the Anti-AI crowd deciding you are against both of them and tearing you apart.

From a safety perspective, this is apalling. You can be 100% for a technology while also wanting steps to be taken to ensure proper alignment and to minimize the harm to people from those technologies. Yet doing so seems to make people think you simultaneously love AI and also want to see it completely shut down.

The most publically facing example I can think of is how AI safety and alignment researchers are being sacked by major AI companies (mainly OpenAI) over what appears to be them wanting more steps to be taken to pace the frontier. These are people that have dedicated YEARS of their lives to AI research, so obviously they support the tech and want to see it succeed, yet because they aren't willing to throw safety away for the sake of progress they are getting axed.

Has anyone else noticed or felt this? I feel like I am going crazy because everywhere I see people discussing AI it is either entirely positive or entirely negative with no inbetween.

Not sure if anyone else does this, but I like to listen to background ambiance while I read to help focus on the book. My main issue lately though has been finding something good to listen to.

Half the fantasy ambiance playlists on spotify have the most depressingly eerie music. Like, i’ll see playlist with a title like “Cozy fantasy adventure music” and then i’ll play it and it sounds like i’m watching a dead wife flashback in a movie.

Does anyone have a vibrant sort of playlist to listen to so I am not stuck listening to bleakness?

I’m going to be graduating in December and i’m worried about how bad the job search is going to be. I’m going to be limited to a specific city because of where my partner has already got a job lined up.

This past year I applied for ~75 internships with a resume showing student project team leadership experience as well as 2 previous internships. I only heard back from 2 places (one of which is the place I had interned previously)

Am I looking at a similar struggle when applying for full time this fall? Or should I expect that now with 3 internships + student project team leadership experience i’ll be able to find something in a specific city?

I’ve noticed lately that the series I prefer to read all have similar traits in their main characters and was kind of curious to see what traits people prefer in the main character of the series they read.

Personally, my favorite sort of MC tends to be the morally gray, fast and loose, takes no shit kind of person. Kind of like a wild west gunslinger. I’d say a good example based on what i’m currently reading is Motoko in Ghost in the City.

But there are plenty of other tropes for characters in progression fantasy whether it be good to a fault, unredeemably evil, maniacly insane, plays everything by the book, fast and loose, avoids conflict, etc.

So what are y’all’s favorite types of characters (and maybe give some examples if you want?)

I’m playing a Martial Artist monk and a lot of the ascendancy stuff isn’t properly accounted for by PoB yet and it makes me appear as i’m doing even LESS damage than the in game tool tip.

A lot of the issue comes from the fact that Way of the Stonefist isn’t working yet but I imagine once I get Martial Master that will also not be integrated yet.

It really makes it hard to tell what changes I can make that will actually help improve the build and wasn’t sure if anyone has insight on how to make it work

Does anyone know of any books out there that are of a similar situation to The Land or Souleater or maybe even The Wandering Inn (i.e. LitRPG isekai where a bunch of people from earth all get isekai’d to a new world and there is some sort of reason they are incentivized to want to take eachother out)

I really like this sort of premise but The Land is probably never getting finished imo (and that’s without mentioning the other problematic parts of The Land) and i’m still waiting for book 2 of Axiom of Infinity (Souleater was book 1)

As the title says, i’m graduating in December (took a semester off to co-op) and have a few questions.

Is the job market rougher for December graduates? When should I start applying? Do I have good odds of getting a job as a December grad with 3 internships and student project team leadership experience (Boston area focus)?

Not really sure what to expect as everyone I know to get advice from have all been May graduates.