The Economist is very much part of the establishment, whoever they are owned by. It is not surprising that they would want to play down any idea that the UK is less “democratic”. Furthermore, The Economist is one of the main mouthpieces of British capitalism, and so their definition of “democracy” is going to be very much of the liberal, capital-friendly kind, which is not completely incompatible with some authoritarian tendencies.
The ranking isn’t published by the newspaper - it’s by the research and insights B2B company of the overall group. Regardless of what assumptions you have about the newspaper (elite, yes, but I’m unclear on why you think fierce liberalism is likely to mean they don’t really value democracy), the B2B unit sells data - they’re as likely to skew this ranking as they are at which countries are better at rail infrastructure. Perhaps their definition of democracy is indeed flawed though - no need to speculate, go read their methodology.
But the parent point was that no British media could be critical of government policy. Picking an example that isn’t, on one area, doesn’t prove their point.
[Edit] Granted though, the bbc isn’t merciless - that’s more the newspapers
Are the sibling comments astroturfed? This seems like such a bizarre thing to be talking about in relation to an Anthropic model release. As someone from the UK, I don't feel like I'm living in an authoritarian country. And yet most of the sibling comments are insinuating that I am. Weird.
> If you think Britain and Russia or China are equivalent in terms of government overreach, you need to find new sources of information.
Uh... you are making his point. People from way more authoritarian countries don't necessarily feel like they are living in an authoritarian country. Therefore whether or not it "feels" like you are living in one isn't a reliable measure.
Trivially true I suppose, but it doesn’t make my point irrelevant - do you think Britain is equivalent to China and Russia? If everyone does but us then yes my goodness they’ve done a good job controlling us, but that seems far fetched.
HN is extremely pro free speech and the UK has recently decided to engage in censorship. Part of the issue users here reckon with is the recency. Unlike many authoritarian countries that seem hopeless with regards to free speech the UKs censorship is a recent development that many think can still be undone through political action. Similar to takes on why Israel is being protested when places like sudan arent.
My dear friend, please start with the online safety act, and continue with the recent developments regarding age verification and/or device scanning on all operating systems to check for nudity. No, nobody is talking about it here, but we should be.
Sounds like the people around you don't care about the things that is actually eroding free speech.
Read about Dr Aladwan - an NHS doctor - who has barred from practising because of her comments on Israel. Read the common articles about her (BBC etc), and then go actually read her tweets. Common BS of conflating criticism of a government (Israel) with antisemitism.
Also, this article may be of interest:
China soars in democratic perception ranking as US, Israel plummet: Poll
Hey man, fellow Brit here. The American view on certain aspects of British life is insane. I've lived in not one but two places that have been called Muslim no-go zones in American media. My main memory of living near the east London mosque is an elderly Muslim trying to offer my his seat on the bus (I was on crutches) while two drunk gammons looked on gormlessly.
On the other hand, it is quite alarming that I can no longer say I support all non violent protests against the genocide in Palestine because that would include the group Palestine Action. It's amazing that supporting them openly is essentially equivalent to supporting Al Qaeda.
The UK has a censorship bureau, ofcom. The example that comes up most here is 4chan, which the UK is currently trying to ban because they refuse to do age verification. If you read the threads here you will see other stories. One that sticks out to me is someone who was talking about their struggles running a forum about depression. They live in canada and were contacted by ofcom demanding the forum add age verification, cant totally remember the reason but it was something about kids being able to access talk about depression. Ofcom said that if he doesnt add age verification to his forum he will be arrested if he ever enters the UK. He even blocked uk IPs but they said that wasnt enough. We can quibble about whether age verification is a form of censorship, I think it clearly is, if only because it is a large regulatory hurdle that stops people from hosting forums because its too much regulatory work.
The UK also has a very broad definition of hate speech that many users here detest.
They’re talking about British hate speech laws. They think other countries have universal free speech and they absolutely do not, but for some reason they think Britain goes too far. Although “think” is probably too generous - they’re parroting talking points.
The UK has very recently[1] announced a new push for client side scanning by messaging providers which is both very likely to be unpopular and known here, so once one person cracks the joke, others are going to want to comment. Don’t think that requires astroturfing.
Why would you be? The fully corrupt, fear-mongering party that idolized Orban's Hungary and tried to copy his tactics, including taking over the courts (resulting in EU sanctions) and turning the state media into a propaganda machine, only recently lost the elections. And not a full term later, the polls favour them again, combined with a meteoric rise of even worse anti-EU fascists who they'll happily join forces with to take over in 2027.
I get you might not hear this stuff if you're not in EU or Poland itself, but seriously, just check the latest polling and history of PiS rule. It would take over a decade to event attempt to undo the damage that has been done to the rule of law in Poland, and the currently ruling "anti-PiS" coalition only had a short while (in which they failed to do anything) before getting neutered by the populace electing their own Trump-like buffoon that proceeds to veto everything the ruling coalition tries to pass. For added damage, the 3rd and 4th leading candidates (with combined 20% support) were the aforementioned fascists. Here's one [0]. Consider the wiki article a fraction of the cesspool he regularly produces.
It shows the irony of trolling the UK's "authoritarianism" in a thread on a release of a model by a US company, given the US is arguably _more_ authoritarian. (Poland is more of a fun tidbit, as they are indeed tied in the Economist's index.)
> In the UK you get thrown in prison for making a slightly unfriendly tweet.
Do you? The closest thing I can think about is how someone was jailed for encouraging arson attacks on asylum hotels. I'd be extremely surprised if the US had zero cases of somebody receiving a police visit after threatening to kill the President or bomb a school or something...
(FWIW I do think the UK needs stronger free speech protections, but saying that you'll be immediately jailed for writing unfriendly tweets is a huge stretch)
Yes. And also you are threatened with prison for holding in front of a court a placard with [pretty much] a quote from the plaque displayed on the most important criminal court.
You're threatened with arrest for holding empty placard.
You're jailed for years for holding a zoom meeting planning a peaceful climate-emergency related demonstration. At the same time judge threatens the defendants with contempt of court sanctions if they dare to explain to juries why they planned to protest.
You're jailed for opposing a genocide.
You're jailed and called a terrorist for painting planes helping to bomb civilians - the exact same thing the sitting PM was defending a person in court some years ago (as a human rights lawyer, the irony).
You're arrested for wearing a T-shirt "I support plasticine action" (not a typo, "Plasticine").
>the quality of discussion on HN has gone to shit, i miss when model released used to have actual informed takes from people that used them or substantive discussion about the system card
you know what they say about planting a tree. buy a domain name, set up a forward from gmail, and set a reminder to migrate 1 account per day to your new email address. 1 year later you’ll be in a much better position in case google decides to randomly ban you
so universities become trade schools? one concern is where does one get theoretical knowledge required for e.g. going to graduate school and then doing research to push the state of the art. that's one of the reasons universities emphasize theory: it's seen as the first step on the academic ladder, not as a trade school
The majority of undergrads are at university because a degree is the qualification they need to get a job. They are not there as the first step on a path to grad school and a Ph.D. and a lifetime of deep expertise, teaching, and learning in a field that they are passionate about.
So, yes. Universities are trade schools for the white collar world. Have been for quite a while. Never mind that most companies could spend 2-4 years running high school grads through an apprenticeship type of program and probably come out with better results.
I hear you, there certainly is a huge value in understanding the theory, including in computer science. I don’t mean to put words in someone else’s mouth, but I think perhaps in the future, writing code yourself, unaided by any AI, may be thought of as more of an exercise in theory than a practical skill in its own right. Kind of like doing math “by hand” is absolutely key for someone in college to study math, whereas after graduation in a job outside of academia, the same person would have every reason to avail themselves of software that automates the same thing.
First off I don’t like the tone most people use when they say “trade school”. Most cs students go to a job out of school. Of the roughly 10% who go on to grad school, 10% will pursue a PhD.
So 99/100 students in undergrad will not be pursuing higher computer science. We should acknowledge that and the new circumstances where writing code by hand is harder to do in corporations who use AI.
Universities can provide a place to do so.
I also happen to think that writing a lot of code is an excellent way to prepare yourself for computer science theory.
“education” is not the same as “job training”. there’s more to education than learning skills you can apply at your job. it’s learning how to think critically, study literature, problem solve, collaborate with others, etc. etc. skills that I believe all humans could benefit from, irrespective of their job. yes, trade schools are more immediately valuable in the strict capitalist sense, but I wish we lived in a world where everyone could spare a few years to grow as a person, not immediately start optimizing for salary. alas, could be wishful thinking
Good question! Maybe a scheme like in France: we generally separate engineering schools, which teach a mix of theory and knowledge, for getting a white collar hob; and the masters, which teach mostly pure theoretical learning, which leads to an academical career.
Both are at the same levels at +5 years after high-school, but they leads to different career paths.
It took Google a decade before they released Chrome so OpenAI has plenty of time to have a Chrome moment. Maybe it'll be something that comes from the OpenClaw acqui-hires?
During that time - as was pointed out elsewhere - Google search was simply way better than the alternatives - embarrassingly so. It also paid the Mozilla foundation lots of money to be the default.
Google wasn't bleeding money like crazy at the time. Google was operating in a post-hype cycle. We are most likely somewhere in an epsilon around the peak of the AI hype and OpenAI is more comparable to AOL or Yahoo. One striking similarity is the inability to innovate themselves, instead relying on copying others or acquiring.
The OpenClaw guy is surely a decent product person, but OpenClaw did not innovate in any real sense. He was just pushing an existing idea to the limit without any concern for quality or security. It had its hype moment, it inspired a bunch of people, and might find its own niche, but it is a flavor of the week kind of thing. I've been getting a lot more cold-calls by non-technical people in the last few weeks thanks to it. Congratulations, the quality threshold that justifies my response rose in equal measure. Nothing was gained, just a lot of tokens spent.
Um. Google has already integrated Gemini into Chrome. I'm not sure what you mean by "OpenAI has plenty of time to have a Chrome moment". If you're just referring to the browser wars, the original wars were fought (furiously) between Microsoft, Mozilla, (and to a lesser extent Apple). Microsoft thought they had won, and then Chrome came out.
Yeah but the only alternative that's actually better is paid. Google is still best ad supported search engine out there. There's no one obvious to turn to or recommend.
The best free alternative to Google right is ironically $preferred_llm_provider and ChatGPT is the obvious uncapped free option. I think free will end up being OpenAI's most if they manage to make it profitable.
> It’s not anymore (actually google is awful now) and people are still using it
if people are still using it, then it's really one of the few things, right?
* you are wrong and it's not awful
* it _is_ awful but good enough for normal people to never care about alternatives, which are anyway not even very easy to find given the absolute stranglehold google has on that slice
either way not quite the same as choice of llms today.
I am using duckduckgo for a decade. But especially, I am using Firefox Saved searches a lot. I type mdn in the bar, and it searches in the Mozilla developer network. osm is openstreetmap, so is stackoverflow, w is Wikipedia, yt is YouTube... I often know on which website I will find the info anyway, so I use less a generic search
I used Kagi for several months, I guess I'd at least recommend trying it out.
I stopped using it, though, and I can't honestly say I've missed it. It was nice not having sponsored results, I guess, but overall it didn't feel like a transformative experience.
Google was better, but I'd argue that, say after 2014 or so, for the vast majority of my searches there was no real difference with Bing, and in some areas Bing was better (e.g. some aerial imagery in maps). Bing still never made a considerable dent in Google's market. I can easily see ChatGPT being a similar story.
> It’s funny that perfect capitalism (no payroll expenses) means nobody has money to actually buy any of the goods produced by AI.
When you remember that profit is the measure of unrealized benefit, and look at how profitable capitalists have become, its not clear if, approximately speaking, anyone actually has the "money" to buy any goods now.
In other words, I am not sure this matters. Big business is already effectively working for free, with no realistic way to ever actually derive the benefit that has been promised to it. In theory those promises could be called, but what are the people going to give back in return?
The economy in the 21st century developed world is mostly about acquiring positional goods. Positional goods as "products and services valued primarily for their ability to convey status, prestige, or relative social standing rather than their absolute utility".
We have so much wealth that wealth accumulation itself has become a type of positional good as opposed to the utility of the wealth.
When people in the developed world talk about the economy they are largely talking about their prestige and social standing as opposed to their level of warmth and hunger. Unfortunately, we haven't separated these ideas philosophically so it leads to all kinds of nonsense thinking when it comes to "the economy".
Money is an IOU; debt. People trade things of value for money because you can, later, call the debt and get the exchanged value that was promised in return (food, shelter, yacht, whatever) I'm sure this is obvious.
I am sure it is equally obvious that if I take your promise to give back in kind later when I give you my sandwich, but never collect on it, that I ultimately gave you my sandwich for free.
If you keep collecting more and more IOUs from the people you trade your goods with, realistically you are never going to be able to convert those IOUs into something real. Which is something that the capitalists already contend with. Apple, for example, has umpteen billions of dollars worth of promises that they have no idea how to collect on. In theory they can, but in practice it is never going to happen. What don't they already have? Like when I offered you my sandwich, that is many billions of dollars worth of value that they have given away for free.
Given that Apple, to continue to use it as an example, have been quite happy effectively giving away many billions of dollars worth of value, why not trillions? Is it really going to matter? Money seems like something that matters to peons like us because we need to clear the debt to make sure we are well fed and kept warm, but for capitalists operating at scales that are hard for us to fathom, they are already giving stuff away for free. If they no longer have the cost of labor, they can give even more stuff away for free. Who — from their perspective — cares?
Money is less about personal consumption and more about a voting system for physical reality. When a company holds billions in IOUs, they are holding the power to decide what happens next. That capital allows them to command where the next million tons of aluminum go, which problems engineers solve, and where new infrastructure is built.
Even if they never spend that wealth on luxury, they use it to direct the flow of human effort and raw materials. Giving it away for free would mean surrendering their remote control over global resources. At this scale, it is not about wanting more stuff. It is about the ability to organize the world. Whether those most efficient at accumulating capital should hold such concentrated power remains the central tension between growth and equality.
The gap for me was mapping [continuing to hoard dollars] to [giving away free goods/services], but it makes sense now. I haven't given economics thought at this level. Thank you!
It's really simple: if you crash the market and you are liquid you can buy up all of the assets for pennies. That's pretty much the playbook right now in one part of the world, just the same happened in the former Soviet Union in the 90's.
This doesn't work in the age of AI where producing crappy results is much cheaper than verifying them. While this is the case, metadata will be important to understand if you should even bother verifying the results.
The time needed for an AI patch written with the prompt "now make it as small as possible, clean, and human coded" is as big as reviewing the patch itself.
If this were so, we wouldn’t be seeing such reactions from open source maintainers. The reality is AI makes it cheap to create large PRs with little substance.
I think you’re proving the monopoly argument yourself: if they only way to compete with Google is an innovation that generations of scientists have been working towards, it does paint a grim picture of competition in this space. Besides, are we ignoring Gemini?
Google already used AI and language models before ChatGPT came out. If you wanted a state of the art search / recommendation engine you needed that innovations from scientists already.
That's what I am saying: if you had a better search/rec engine than Google, good luck making it useful without Google's search index, acquired to a large extent thanks to their dominant market position. This doesn't sound like healthy competition. ChatGPT had to change the whole game to be able to compete.
I have a limited understanding of the value Christianity provides. That neither means that Christianity provides no value, nor does it mean that God exists.
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