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you can't use LLMs to extract information from text

???

That's a very confusing claim, because I do this all the time. Throw URL at LLM, get useful summary.

If important, check article to make sure LLM didn't hallucinate the good bits - I mostly only use this when it seems like an article is overly verbose but might have a few gems buried in it.

When was the last time you actually spent a couple hours using a model like Claude Sonnet 4 or GPT 4o?

ARC-AGI-v2 is a pretty good summary of the missing pieces and where we're currently at: https://arcprize.org/blog/announcing-arc-agi-2-and-arc-prize-2025

But the short version is, vision, embodiment, and long-term planning/feedback loops are the three (3) missing pieces.

LLMs can already do basically any other task better than a human, with the twin limitations that they are (by design) only acting on human prompts, and (as a fundamental limitation) really bad at actually doing the sort of planning/feedback loop that would let them do true unsupervised learning.

you can't use LLMs to take non-text information and write something cogent based on that

Throw a random meme at an LLM and ask it to explain the meme?

This is the famous "For the better, right?" meme template from Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, featuring Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala in a meadow scene. Panel 1: Anakin (looking serious and determined) makes a bold, confident statement: "I'm going to change the world." Panel 2: Padmé (smiling optimistically) responds with hopeful enthusiasm: "For the better, right?" - assuming his intentions are good. Panel 3: Shows Anakin's face with an uncomfortable, slightly ominous expression - he's not answering her question, just staring silently. Panel 4: Padmé's expression shifts from happy to concerned/worried as she repeats: "For the better, right?" - now realizing his silence might mean something troubling. The meme format is used to highlight situations where someone announces ambitious plans but conspicuously avoids confirming whether those plans are actually beneficial. The awkward silence in panel 3 is the key comedic/concerning element - suggesting the person's intentions might not be as positive as initially assumed. It's become a popular template for joking about everything from questionable personal decisions to controversial technological developments or political promises.

Again, maybe I just don't understand the claim? But that seems like a pretty cogent explanation of all the non-textual elements of the meme.

(Keep in mind: vision is one of the UN-solved problems, and it can still do all that)

Like... what exactly are you doing that's failing??

as LLMs slowly inch closer to being better than most human beings at a variety of textual tasks it seems noteworthy that the speed of their improvement still seems to rule out achieving significantly post-human results with this approach.

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Apples Oranges Bananas Pears Peaches Mango I feel like grapes are getting undersold, here - you can easily snap off a branch that's a convenient snack size even if it's not technically "a single unit". Or get a small snack bowl of basically any sort of berries? Melon technically requires prep but over here it's trivial to find a pre-sliced melon bowl at most any grocery store.

Suffice to say I snack on fruits a lot! Uhm. Like. In a culinary sense >.>

We need to invent more snacking fruits.

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part of the reason i love how bell hooks talks about masculinity is that she shows real compassion towards men suffering from the effects of toxic masculinity. she was conscious of how we need to unlearn the ways we talk about men + masculinity just as much as we need to unlearn the same for women + femininity. so many times ill see someone talking about toxic masculinity like (hyperbolizing here but only slightly) "these FUCKING STUPID BABY BITCHES won't MAN UP and go to a therapist!!!" and like. i get the anger. but you see feminists recreating patriarchal manhood by only promoting good behaviors through patriarchal frameworks. any use of the term "real men" is bad because it reifies the idea that manhood is a special title you must earn, and it is something possible to fail and fake. & as important as it is to promote sexual equality + the pleasure of non-cis-men, lots of people are essentially still working with the idea that men need sexual prowess to have worth but just shifting it slightly so there is more emphasis on women's pleasure. but I want cis men to think about their partners' pleasure because they care about their partners, not because they need to check a box in order to keep their man card. and don't get me started on small dick jokes– and the absolutely pitiful excuse people will use that "well, I don't believe it, but misogynistic men get upset when I say it, so it's okay!"

basically bell hooks is so fucking right. in order to create loving men we need to love men, simply for being alive, whether or not they are performing. as much as we need to actively unlearn misogyny (and we do), it's equally vital we unlearn patriarchal ways of seeing manhood. we can't just assume that taking a feminist perspective automatically means there is no work to be done there.

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"you can't pick and choose what you like from canon" common misconception! yes you can

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"You can debate benchmark trend lines, public sentiment, and corporate strategy, but Manifold users found the release of GPT-5 to be a slight negative update on AI capabilities progress." (...) "If you squint at the graph below (and use your log-scale-removing mental powers), the curve is starting to look ever so slightly more like a sigmoid than an exponential, if I may be so brave to suggest."

Looks like Manifold Markets agrees that GPT-5 might be a sign we're finally exiting the exponential curve. Obviously one data point does not a solid conclusion make, but it's nice to finally get a release that doesn't shorten my internal expectations about timelines :P

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Real

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My very unpopular opinion apparently:

Straight cis perisex able-bodied neurotypical people using aids designed for disabled people (I.e weighted blankets, grabby claw, sock holder, etc), going to therapists occasionally to keep up their mental health, using fidget toys, choosing to call their bf/gf their partner, using pronouns besides the ones associated with their gender just because they like it, and doing a million other small things that make us fitting in and being accepted a little bit easier is in fact exactly the type of support these communities need, and will ultimately help us so much more than gatekeeping ever fuckin will

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i insert a small DNA sample into IBM's largest and most powerful supercomputer and after doing an utterly incomprehensible amount of calculations it prints out a little piece of ticker tape with a full list of every slur i can reclaim

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The problem is, some people mean "women have it worse" (true!) and some people mean "it's totally okay to bully men just for being men." (false)

Plus it's just... genuinely hard to measure these things? 81% of homicide victims are male, ~2/3rds of rape victims are female. Which one is worse?

At the top of the power structures, the differences are often a lot clearer, but down at the bottom? 70% of congress is male, but so are 60% of homeless people. Which is worse?

So... I mean... are women actually worse off in modern society? I'd say the pay gap is pretty clear evidence the answer is yes, but even there we're making progress:

And that's the thing about Oppression Olympics: it comes down to orthogonal types of oppression and what you value. If you want to be a stay at home parent, being male sucks. If you want to be rich and powerful, being male helps quite a lot.

Equally, you can probably sort out whether women or black people "have it worse", but... at the end of the day, how is that actually useful information? Doesn't it just drive a wedge in a movement that could have been "we're all in this together"?

it's so like, stupidly obvious to me. when faced with basic feminist ideas of how women are hurt more in a misogynist society than men, we cry "oppression olympics" do discredit the basic act of analyzing who has it worse and why as being folly. just say what you mean and tell me to shut up about women

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the world needs more dykes

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This looks like a fun game

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Vampire and werewolf dating

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