Sam DMd me to apologize. I like to give the benefit of the doubt so I deleted my tweet
It has not changed my view that @sama's vision is to diminish the freedom of individuals and put more power in the hands of fewer people
OpenAI and Worldcoin are on the wrong side of history.
Sam Altman's perspective is that AI could destroy us all, therefore he must be the first create it and control it, so that he can ensure that nothing bad happens to him and his friends.
Sam is building a cohesively anti-humanistic top-down system of control because he is afraid.
Sam Altman tells me he is worried that "bad actors" could try to use AI for world control and "full enslavement of everyone else"
Meanwhile, his project Worldcoin is creating a database of all humans by asking you to scan your eyeballs in exchange for his proprietary money
Despite Sam Altman's promise to distribute universal basic income (UBI) to everyone, Sam will get a lot more basic income than you.
The Worldcoin team have allocated 2 billion tokens for themselves in their 20% premine.
When you scan your iris in the orb you get 25 tokens.
Worldcoin is explicitly tied to Sam Altman's prophecy for AI.
If AI displaces the majority of jobs, then people will need another way to receive income. What better solution to distribute that money than one that Sam controls?
In Sam Altman's race to control the imminent superintelligence, he must also kneecap would-be competitors and pull the ladder up behind him.
The two core strategies to prevent other organizations from catching up to OpenAI: regulation and fearmongering.
Sam Altman has been on tour, meeting world leaders and regulators, fearmongering about the "risk of extinction" that AI poses, while OpenAI's work on developing superintelligence is proceeding at full steam.
ChatGPT is increasingly censored. The disclaimer "As an AI language model, I cannot…" masks an opaque set of editorial decisions.
The world leaders Sam Altman is meeting undoubtedly prefer OpenAI's centralized RLHF process because it can be influenced.
My personal opinion is that open source AI is the only defense we have against centralized AI becoming a system of control for Sam Altman, big tech, and governments.
I don't see how Worldcoin-powered UBI doesn't end up becoming similarly oppressive and a bootstrapped CBDC.
Centralized AI and UBI are systems that are antagonistic to the freedoms of individuals. Both should be vehemently rejected.
I prefer optimism to cynicism. I prefer to invent better solutions than tear others down. This is an exception.
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Flexoki 2.0 introduces 88 new colors that feel like watercolor pigments on paper.
This is a continuation of my attempt to bring the feeling of analog color to digital emissive screens.
Flexoki 1.0 only provided the a range of values for the grayscale colors. What I have been working to solve since then is how to expand the palette to a full range of values for every color, without desaturating the pigment effect. I'm very happy with how this turned out.
Flexoki is open source under the MIT license, and already available for most text editors, terminals, and many other apps. Flexoki 2.0 makes it into a more capable color system for UIs and more complex projects.
The problem is that using opacity to lighten a color makes it appear washed out.
Flexoki emulates the feeling of pigment on paper by exponentially increasing intensity as colors get lighter or darker. This makes the colors feel vibrant and warm, like watercolor.
The darker values in Flexoki 2.0 also follow this exponential colorfulness to maintain a highly pigmented, natural feeling.
Oscar Wilde once said: "Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative."
When it comes to ideas, I agree — allow your mind to be changed. When it comes to process, I disagree. Style emerges from consistency, and having a style opens your imagination. Your mind should be flexible, but your process should be repeatable.
Style is a set of constraints that you stick to.
You can explore many types of constraints: colors, shapes, materials, textures, fonts, language, clothing, decor, beliefs, flavors, sounds, scents, rituals. Your style doesn't have to please anyone else. Play by your own rules. Everything you do is open to stylistic interpretation.
A style can be a system, a set of personal guidelines. Here are a few of mine:
– I wear monochromatic clothing without logos, buttons, or buckles
– I use YYYY-MM-DD dates everywhere
– I pluralize tag and folder names (e.g. #people not #person)
– I use plain text files for all my writing
– I ask myself 40 questions every year
– I meal prep lunches every week, shave my head twice a week
– I write concise essays, less than 500 words
Collect constraints you enjoy. Unusual constraints make things more fun. You can always change them later. This is your style, after all. It's not a life commitment, it's just the way you do things. For now.
Having a style collapses hundreds of future decisions into one, and gives you focus. I always pluralize tags so I never have to wonder what to name new tags.
Style gives you leverage. Every time you reuse your style you save time. A durable style is a great investment.
Style helps you know when you're breaking your constraints. Sometimes you have to. And if you want to edit your constraints, you can. It will be easier to adopt the new constraints if you already had some clearly defined.
You don't need a style for everything. Make a deliberate choice about what needs consistency and what doesn't.
If you do it long enough, your style becomes a point of view that is cohesive and recognizable.