SteveGoob

Pretty much. AI won’t kill all of of us because it’s smart, but because it concentrates too much power into systems that are not aligned with humanity’s best interest, and we dont have the means to resist it. Matthew Butterick argues it particularly well. Of course though, his argument is a challenge to the authority of these companies to develop these AIs, not a calling for the enlightened tech bros to guide humanity on the fragile path utopia. The folks developing AI could probably learn a thing or two from history.

Drew has posted a response in defense of these allegations.

Having read it as well the “report” on him you linked, I personally find the report lacks credibility. I take much more stock in Drew’s accounting of things, including his mature ownership of the bad decisions he’s made in the past.

As for the Stallman Report: it’s not a smear piece in my view. It’s a whistleblow that outlines an argument why RMS is unfit to lead the FSF with accompanying evidence. You may disagree with some of it, but it’s hardly malicious; I can sympathize with anyone who wishes to see better from the leaders of the major social movements of our day.

And as for why Drew initially denied his involvement, I found his response reasonable:

Myself and the other authors asserted our moral rights to publish anonymously, motivated by our wish to reduce our exposure to the exact sort of harassment I’ve been subjected to over the years.

I’m not gonna do the maths

Let me help you out there, since I need something to help me procrastinate anyways lol

being 1.43:1 ratio would leave about half the screen blanked out on the sides.

I was curious to find out what this came out to as well. Turns out though, on a 16:9 screen, scaling a full 1.43:1 frame to fit only results in side bars that each take up less than 10% of the image, (less than what I was suspecting to be honest).

While a ~20% size reduction isn’t ideal, so is watching a movie that was composed for a different aspect ratio. IMHO, people should have the choice to watch in whatever way best appeals to their needs. We used to do this on DVDs where you could opt for either the widescreen or fullscreen version of the movie, so there’s definitely precedent for it.

Unfortunately, the option for the 1.43 version of many of these movies can’t be found outside of their IMAX run in theaters. (At least not officially…)

Maybe cause its a separate issue? Look, yes it is costly to extract the resources for a battery, but once we have it, we have it for good. Batteries are incredibly recyclable at this point (90%+ recoverable, conservatively), and a new battery can be almost entirely created using previous batteries.

This is in comparison to fossil fuels, which you get to burn exactly once, after which point you have to go extract more. The environmental costs of extracting oil (not even burning it) are well documented.

Where a ICE car requires ongoing environmental devastation, an electric one does not inherently require it. As more of the materials for batteries enters circulation, there’s less need to go extract more, and as grids transition from fossil fuels to renewables the climate impact of charging can be lessened as well.

Of course this isn’t to say that an electric car is the climate endgame. More walkable places, better public transit, better regulation of corporate polluters, etc. are the real meat and potatoes. But saying that EVs are just as bad as ICE cars is just not true.