zifnab25 [he/him, any]

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Joined 4 years ago
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Cake day: July 27th, 2020

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  • This is cool, from a digital visuals perspective, because it is building out a very detailed library of human behaviors to model after. A richer catalog provides a lot more potential for engines that want to render more complex human behaviors.

    But its also kinda… illustrative of the soft upper limits of generative AI, as this is still ultimately a discrete (and presumably fairly limited) library of motions that will result in visually distinct characters all falling into the same set of physical behaviors. Both a small rambunctious boy and an elderly infirm woman crossing a gap in the pavement in the same way isn’t realistic. And while you can solve this by adding more data points, you’re still having all small rambunctious boys and all elderly infirm women crossing the gap in the pavement in the same way. And while you can solve this by adding variations… how much modeling are you really willing to do for sufficient variance? Idk.

    We get generative in the sense that we can reskin a stick-figure model very quickly using a catalog of behaviors. But we don’t get generative in the sense that the computer understands the biomechanics of a human body and can create these stick-figure models in believable states.










  • Fu Linghui, a spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), said the release of data would be suspended while authorities look to “optimise” collection methods.

    “In recent years, the number of university students has continued to expand,” Fu said. “The main responsibility of current students is studying. Society has different views on whether students looking for jobs before graduation should be included in labour force surveys and statistics.”

    This issue, as well as the definition of the age range currently set at 16-24, “needs further research,” Fu said.

    Isn’t this basically consistent with the… I want to say U6 unemployment metric within the US? Basically, if you’re in school then you aren’t an active member of the labor force and don’t count as “unemployed” for the purpose of government statistics?

    I remember back during the '07/'08 US downturn, lots of young people re-entered academia in pursuit of MBAs / Law Degrees / etc, because the job market sucked and pay in professional fields was worth the time/cost of a higher caliber of degree. When they fell out of the labor market as a result, the US unemployment rate adjusted in response.



  • “What is the return on investment?”

    In the case of 3Body,

    spoiler

    it wasn’t about profit but the about the survival of the entire ecology. The planet was doomed to fall into one of the stars and so the race was picking up and moving as much as it could to the next-most-habitable region.

    That’s only very loosely a “profitable” enterprise. Certainly, the initial generations won’t see any kind of profit simply due to the length of the journey.

    The same principle applies to other planets – if it’s profitable, it will be pursued.

    But a practical ROI can only really be measured within a single lifetime. And extraplanetary travel will always have a return of $0, as anyone deciding to perform extra-planetary exploration today will not see the benefits for generations. One might argue a more Ursula LeGuin-esque view of interstellar colonization - as a struggle for survival that simply expands beyond the frontiers of a single planet. But then, what we’re really talking about with Martian colonization or extra-Solar travel is some kind of politically or ecologically motivated Exodus. Because the economic exploitation of the New World was mostly just hit-and-run raids early on. The Virginia Company was an abject failure as an economic exercise. It cost far more to maintain than it yielded.

    The real motivating force behind early colonization was the 30 Years War and the flight of the Protestants. What you’re ultimately going to need are some Huguenots with space ships. Even then, the real labor force in colonization were indentured servants and slaves. And there’s not going to be a Trans-Atlantic Triangle to move people from Earth to the spacial frontier, because… Its space. There’s nothing out there.


  • Cynical take: To kill us. Dark forest style.

    As a sci-fi explanation for the Fermi Paradox, I found Dark Forest Theory compelling and thrilling.

    As an actual IRL explanation for a lack of First Contact, I’m totally underwhelmed. Space is big. The speed of light heavily truncates both travel and communication. Extraterrestrial life certainly isn’t common, as evidenced by all of the planets in our own Solar System that are lifeless.

    It should be noted that

    spoiler

    across three different books, the humans and tri-solarians never actually meet. The whole build-up is ultimately a bust, as both humans and aliens end up fleeing Dark Forest attacks by other alien races who have only just barely noticed their presence and attack on reflex. Fun dramatic twist, but it really banks on everyone being invested in outcomes that are hundreds of generations into the future.

    That strikes me as highly implausible.

    Other thoughts: If aliens showed up it we wouldn’t detect them in atmo, not as a quick fly by. We’d detect something huge like engines or something going real fast way out in space. Like on the edge of the system. If they were in our atmosphere they would make themselves known one way or another at that point.

    The sheer amount of energy for super-luminal travel would suggest we either can’t see them or can’t miss them.

    But one posits a degree of technological advancement so beyond our current scope that we can barely conceive of it. And the other posits a kind-of soft ceiling to scientific advancement, such that alien life just can’t be an issue even in another thousand lifetimes.

    If first contact is anything, it will more likely be communicative than a literal fly by. Humans tuning into the extraterrestrial equivalent of AM radio will be the first to discover an advanced off-world civilization.

    Going back to 3Body, one of the most compelling plot beats for me was

    spoiler

    when the Tri-solarians started producing daytime drama TV shows about star-crossed lovers communing across a great distance, in order to influence humans into sympathizing with the refugee colony ships they intended to send Earthward.

    Like, that’s what I imagine a real human/alien interaction would look like for… centuries. Long before either saw the other one face-to-face.