so you know how deep learning & neural network “AI training” is like, “here’s a task, and by trying billions of times the computer will eventually find the best way to achieve that task” ?
Someone is compiling a document of every time an AI ended up achieving the programmed goal in unintended ways, instead of what was actually meant, and it’s an amazing read. (you can also submit your own examples)
Creatures bred for speed grow really tall and generate high velocities by falling over
When repairing a sorting program, genetic debugging algorithm GenProg made it output an empty list, which was considered a sorted list by the evaluation metric.
Evaluation metric: “the output of sort is in sorted order” Solution: “always output the empty set”
Evolved player makes invalid moves far away in the board, causing opponent players to run out of memory and crash
Reward-shaping a soccer robot for touching the ball caused it to learn to get to the ball and vibrate touching it as fast as possible
RL agent that is allowed to modify its own body learns to have extremely long legs that allow it to fall forward and reach the goal.
Just want to come back to this post and add this amazing example as well
Heres an AI that was supposed to learn how to walk using six legs.
After many failed attempts. It decided it was easier to walk upside down
istg, there’s a generation of up-and-coming cartoon creators who are gonna draw all their inspiration from White House Xmas decorations anytime they need a supervillain lair.
the athiesm of women/people of color/lgbt people is absolutely different than the athiesm of cishet white men and i feel like people forget that a lot
how?
Don’t have spoons for long explanation - also this is only speaking for christianity - but religion has been a force of oppression for women, people of color, and lgbt+ people and the rejection of the religion is often coupled with the rejection of how religion treats them.
I’ll also say that abuse survivors are included in this because it is a reaction to and an attempt to reconcile how (christian) god would allow abuse to happen.
For straight white men atheism is usually rooted in intellectual and rational superiority complexes. It’s a “i am more rational and intelligent than you, how can you believe in something so obviously fake” thing as opposed to a reaction to a societal institution that upholds their oppression and abuse.
Women, PoC, Queer people, immigrants, trauma survivors, etc: How can I believe in something that teaches you to be cruel? How can I trust the books that tell me of peace and love, when you use your faith to hurt me? How can a loving god allow [insert injustice of the day]?
White Men: I, as an Intellectual, eschew silly superstitions that say I might, someday, after my death, face one (1) single consequence.
One of JRR Tolkien’s ideas for Aragorn’s backstory in The Lord of the Rings was that he was actually just three or four generations removed from Isildur himself.
Then how did he survive for the thousands of years between the Second and Third Ages?
The story goes something like this:
Many hundreds of years ago, young Aragorn fell in love with an Elven woman, who exactly resembled Lúthien Tinúviel in shape and outward form.
She called herself Arwen Undómiel, the Evenstar.
He fell for her, and romanced her, and gave himself to her; together they lived in her kingdom, where her magic and her power slowed Time to a crawl for them, while hundreds and hundreds of years passed in the world outside.
At first, the Elven-maid seemed every inch a queen: beautiful, graceful, soft-spoken, meek, and with the manners befitting an upbringing in Valimar long ago.
But over time, Aragorn came to realize that his beloved had a hard, greedy, grasping side, even a cruel streak, which more and more showed itself in unexpected flashes.
Worse, she was not who she seemed to be.
Eventually Aragorn pieced together the secret.
His bride was Sauron, divested of her usual male disguise.
Greatly weakened by the loss of the Ring, Sauron yet maintained strength enough to craft a prison for the heir of Isildur: a false realm of hollow bliss and sterile delights, where the one she thought was the greatest threat to her power could languish in eternity.
A part of herself, wearing a female aspect – the gender she had hidden long ago in the deeps of time, to gain entrance as an apprentice to the smithies of Aule – remained in this pocket world, as Aragorn’s bride: a plaything to keep his attention from the bars of his gilded cage.
But eventually, Aragorn figured it out.
Eventually, Aragorn escaped.
Thousands of years had gone by in the world outside since Aragorn had been ensnared by Sauron.
Now, emerging from long captivity in a magical sub-realm, he studied the world around him, and learned what had changed and what had endured.
He met Gandalf, and learned much from the Grey Pilgrim, and taught him some things of his own; and, in search of information, he pursued and captured Gollum, who had possessed, and been possessed by, the One Ring for so many centuries.
And, shortly before his ascent to the throne of the reunited Kingdom of Gondor and Arnor, he met his future bride: Eowyn Elfsheen, sister-daughter of Théoden, King of Rohan.
(PS: Christopher Tolkien or another amanuensis may have written this story down as part of the Secret Library Archive Project.)
I ship this now.
My reaction:
“Aragorn’s backstory“ Oh, ok, is this gonna be what the whole Amazon thing is going to be about?
“He meets Arwen“ Yeah ok
“She seemed evil” um, ok…that’s new.
“She was Sauron“
so you’re telling me Sauron was getting ploughed by Aragorn for thousands of years “as part of a fiendish plan to waylay the heir of Isildur”, no other reason, Sauron just lying back and thinking of Mordor, hating every second of it, is that what you’re telling me
i am a japanese person here to confirm that yes she is trans if you watch the episode and know everything being said there is literally no question that she is trans. the fact that she is trans is also relevant to the plot/her death. any “trans jokes” made in the episode only further emphasized how “Masao” was not a fitting name for her at all, and how she truly is Lily, always will be, and tbh, always has been. there’s no “liberty with the subtitles” japan has an LGBTQ community and I won’t stand for these ignorant westerners erasing that.
People going around saying that Crunchyroll made up the fact she was trans to push an agenda just further justifies my thinking that the anime community is shit.
