This is ridiculously well trod ground, but Prey also wasn’t at all helped by Bethesda’s marketing.

They had what is probably the truest successor to System Shock 2 that’s been made on their hands and Bethesda made Arkane use the title of a 15 year old portal based shooter that had absolutely no relation to the game and didn’t do particularly well because they owned the IP.

The entire Bethesda-Arkane relationship has been pretty thoroughly mismanaged.

I’m guessing you weren’t around in the 90s then? Because the amount of money set on fire on stupid dotcom startups was also staggering.

The scale is very different. OpenAI needs to raise capital at a valuation far higher than any other startup in history just to keep the doors open another 18-24 months. And then continue to do so.

There’s also a very large difference between far ranging bad investments and extremely concentrated ones. The current bubble is distinctly the latter. There hasn’t really been a bubble completely dependent on massive capital investments by a handful of major players like this before.

There’s OpenAI and Anthropic (and by proxy MS/Google/Amazon). Meta is a lesser player. Musk-backed companies are pretty much teetering at the edge of also rans and there’s a huge cliff for everything after that.

It’s hard for me to imagine investors that don’t understand the technology now but getting burned by it being enthusiastic about investing in a new technology they don’t understand that promises the same things, but is totally different this time, trust me. Institutional and systemic trauma is real.

(took about 15 years because 2008 happened).

I mean, that’s kind of exactly what I’m saying? Not that it’s irrecoverable, but that losing a decade plus of progress is significant. I think the disconnect is that you don’t seem to think that’s a big deal as long as things eventually bounce back. I see that as potentially losing out on a generation worth of researchers and one of the largest opportunity costs associated with the LLM craze.

Sure, but those are largely the big tech companies you’re talking about, and research tends to come from universities and private orgs.

Well, that’s because the hyperscalers are the only ones who can afford it at this point. Altman has said ChatGPT 4 training cost in the neighborhood of $100M (largely subsidized by Microsoft). The scale of capital being set on fire in the pursuit of LLMs is just staggering. That’s why I think the failure of LLMs will have serious knock-on effects with AI research generally.

To be clear: I don’t disagree with you re: the fact that AI research will continue and will eventually recover. I just think that if the LLM bubble pops, it’s going to set things back for years because it will be much more difficult for researchers to get funded for a long time going forward. It won’t be “LLMs fail and everyone else continues on as normal,” it’s going to be “LLMs fail and have significant collateral damage on the research community.”

There is real risk that the hype cycle around LLMs will smother other research in the cradle when the bubble pops.

The hyperscalers are dumping tens of billions of dollars into infrastructure investment every single quarter right now on the promise of LLMs. If LLMs don’t turn into something with a tangible ROI, the term AI will become every bit as radioactive to investors in the future as it is lucrative right now.

Viable paths of research will become much harder to fund if investors get burned because the business model they’re funding right now doesn’t solidify beyond “trust us bro.”

I’ve honestly ran out of ways to keep saying the two very basic points here

Repeating yourself does seem to be your priority here.

If you had actually read through the piece I linked instead of looking for something to immediately disagree with in the snippet I quoted, you’d see she linked to this story. The entire reason we’re hearing about this now is because Trump was briefed on the threat by US intelligence and Trump is literally incapable of not immediately repeating what he’s been told.

And if you took 20 seconds to Google after that, you’d find that the DNI has publicly confirmed that the briefing with Trump happened. Additionally, the same story has Anthony Blinken confirming that the US has been tracking Iranian threats against Trump as well as other past and current officials. It even links to multiple previous reports discussing an increased threat profile dating back months just like I said was the case.

My point is that Trump is not the only source and that there’s been corroboration from parties who really don’t care about making Trump look good. I’m not inclined to believe the story because Trump said it and, yes, Trump is absolutely a liar; I’m inclined to believe it because it’s been fairly widely reported well before Trump said anything at all.

My “misunderstanding” is having followed this story for more than a single headline.

Marcy Wheeler has written extensively about it for months now. She’s been at the center of the story to the extent that she was one of the journalists that (presumably Iran) attempted to leak hacked Trump campaign documents through. She’s very adamantly of the stance that there is a real threat because it’s been corroborated by multiple sources who don’t have any interest in propping up Trump.

https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/09/25/dont-make-the-same-mistake-with-iran-that-denialists-made-with-russia/

I fear that, because of the polarization Trump has deliberately stoked, many lefties are doing the same thing that Trump’s MAGAts did with Russia: treat credible allegations that Iran is targeting him, both for hacking and assassination, as a hoax.

Regarding the hacking, as happened in 2016, it is not just the Intelligence Community (one, two) attributing the hack in real time. Both Microsoft and Google have described the operation. As I explained repeatedly regarding the 2016 Russian attack, big American tech companies have a similar kind of global reach as the NSA, and when someone uses their infrastructure to target someone, they have both the tools and an independent incentive to get the attribution right. There’s really no reason to doubt the attribution, from three of the entities with the best global reach in the world, that Iran targeted Trump’s campaign.

Regarding Iran’s attempt to assassinate Trump, there’s also no reason to doubt that. While the case against Asif Merchant, whom DOJ accused of trying to solicit a variety of operations targeting Trump, does rely on undercover FBI employees posing as wannabe hitmen, the underlying tip — from the guy Merchant allegedly asked for help recruiting a hit team — appears to be organic, just someone calling the cops. Plus, the effort bears certain resemblance to the effort to solicit assassins for John Bolton, arising from the same motive of revenge for the Qassem Soleimani killing.

Trump’s a blowhard. He’s absolutely going to use the story as a wedge. Don’t do his work for him by dismissing the possibility of what appear to be real threats out of hand.

I’m not saying we know the exact nature of what’s going on or that any threat is particularly immediate; what I am saying is that there’s enough information available from sources that aren’t affiliated with Trump that the possibility should be taken seriously.

Court documents do not identify any of the potential targets. But U.S. officials acknowledged in July that a threat on Donald Trump’s life from Iran prompted additional security in the days before a Pennsylvania rally in which Trump was injured by a shooter’s bullet. That July 13 shooting, carried out by a 20-year-old Pennsylvania man, was unrelated to the Iran threat and Merchant’s arrest has no connection to the Trump assassination attempt, a law enforcement official said.

https://apnews.com/article/iran-pakistan-murderforhire-trump-justice-department-5a3abe0895ae7c2be14f89fc4e49bc53

This is a story that has been building for a few months. While I’m not particularly convinced that this specific threat was particularly credible, there’s been plenty of reporting that the Biden DOJ is taking this seriously.

It’s not really surprising to me that Iran would want Trump dead. I don’t think they were anywhere close to actually accomplishing that, but I can certainly believe they’d try.

Yes, Trump and the rest of the rightwing are going to blow it up into something bigger than what actually happened, but it’s important to understand the truth in the lie because the story is potentially consequential in the wider relationship between the US and Iran.

The DOJ announced the arrest of a man working on behalf of Iran attempting to recruit assassins a couple of weeks ago:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/pakistani-national-ties-iran-charged-connection-foiled-plot-assassinate-politician-or-us-0

Did the cops ever answer the question of what he was being arrested for?

They legally don’t have to. They can, and often do, but there is no requirement that they do so.

The side of the road is always the wrong place to argue your case.

Shut the fuck up and only talk to an attorney.

Beyond physical injury, Trump’s description of the event – along with Wray saying the FBI is unsure – really makes me lean toward it not being a direct wound.

Trump said he heard bullets “whizzing” by. A supersonic bullet directly next to your ear isn’t going to make a whizzing sound like on TV; there’s going to be a loud, distinct crack from the sonic boom as it passes by.

I fully believe Trump would be leaning into that hard if that’s what he’d heard. “It was like thunder next to my head. The loudest thunder. The greatest thunder you’ve ever heard. HUEG thunder.” It’s exactly the kind of thing he loves to play up.