The articles I've read on this have said it's murky because of obfuscation of reported data by self-driving companies.
The target article even notes that "while Waymo leads the industry in transparency, and robotaxi operators are required to report even the tiniest scrape to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), not every company voluntarily reports their total miles driven."
My sense is that there's a lot of massaging the data by autonomous car companies to make their data look good. The article and a linked article describes the comparisons as "human drivers in the same driving conditions" which is kind of vague to me and isn't the same as, say, taxi drivers to robotaxis. It's also robotaxis and not general driving conditions etc.
I always feel like these comparisons become murky in other ways. For example, if autonomous vehicles have lower accident rates in general, but fail in catastrophically bad ways when they do fail — ways that would never happen with a human driver (for example, by inexplicably driving into an avoidable semi trailer for no reason, killing the occupants) — is that better? What if you eliminate cases where the driver is intoxicated? Aren't those cases cases of malfeasance at some level, that could apply to autonomous vehicle use? Do you hold autonomous vehicle companies accountable for deaths, charging executives with manslaughter? How should we think about accountability versus safety?
I'm not trying to argue against autonomous vehicles. I just feel like these types of published discussions get oversimplified often in a way that seems to parallel similar discussions of AI in general, and seems sympathetic to their adoption rather than a rigorously skeptical appraisal.
That's sort of what bothered me the most at the time. It seemed like the argument was that it was "emotional" or something to keep Pluto a planet when there might be so many of them. But I never understood why it was less "emotional" to insist that a planet be a certain size or that there should be a certain number of planets.
It is emotional reasoning to want Pluto to be an exception to an otherwise universal definition, because the reason for the exception are the emotions of some people.
Picking any arbitrary generic definition and applying it universally is less emotional, because there is no emotional reasoning necessary to explain why any object is or isn't a planet.
One of the parts that makes people emotional is that they’re plainly being lied to about the premise of needing a universal definition.
Scientists just ignore the rule about neighborhoods at times for convenience — how else would you claim to have found an “exoplanet” if you cannot also rule out “exo-dwarf-planets” in its neighborhood?
People can tell when a rule was added for a specific reason that the authors don’t want to say outright. It’s a sort of appeal to authority rather than a scientific claim. That’s dishonest, and people push back when authorities are dishonest with them.
We don’t make the rules, this is just what a planet is now. Wait, did you say we do make the rules? No, of course we didn’t vote on what our scientific result should be… that would be unscientific. We ARE science.
> One of the parts that makes people emotional is that they’re plainly being lied to about the premise of needing a universal definition.
This makes no sense to me, can you explain WHY a universal definition is not needed?
> Scientists just ignore the rule about neighborhoods at times for convenience — how else would you claim to have found an “exoplanet” if you cannot also rule out “exo-dwarf-planets” in its neighborhood?
I might be missing a more specific critique, but IIUC, this question only makes sense to me if you presuppose that classifications must never be updated. Because otherwise, the solution is that you do the best you can with the data you have, and accept that better data might come along later and prove you missed something? The same way e.g. classifications in biology are frequently updated?
> People can tell when a rule was added for a specific reason that the authors don’t want to say outright. It’s a sort of appeal to authority rather than a scientific claim. That’s dishonest, and people push back when authorities are dishonest with them.
See, this is where you've totally lost me. I can't tell what people apparently can tell. So what is that specific reason? Do you have to wrap your allegations in so many indirect and allusions? This kind of conspiratorial-cryptic writing genuinely reminds me of flat earthers and qanon followers.
> We don’t make the rules, this is just what a planet is now. Wait, did you say we do make the rules? No, of course we didn’t vote on what our scientific result should be… that would be unscientific. We ARE science.
Did such a vote happen when Pluto got added? I genuinely don't know, but otherwise this objection makes no sense to me.
If you read Plato, you will see that defining words that already exist in some universal way is pretty much impossible. This is a humanities question, not a scientific one.
It was a fool’s errand or an act of deception to try to coerce “planet” to be a specialized word. The cracks are evident. The 2006 IAU definition doesn’t work.
Specialized words are great. They are important in science. “Planet” is not a specialized word and it has not been a specialized word for hundreds of years. Scientists did not need to somehow coerce “planet” into a specialized term to continue doing science—and if they did, there was still no reason to bother non-specialists about it, since science is its own domain where terms can be used in specialized ways.
Yes, update classifications whenever it’s useful to you. No, don’t expect other people to regard your classification system as the final word. You yourself are planning to change it anyway when it stops being useful to you, and other people have a right to categorize things differently for their own purposes — your system will be neither definitive nor universal, so it shows a lack of self-awareness to say that it is.
You mention that I make cryptic allusions. “See, this is where you've totally lost me. … So what is that specific reason? Do you have to wrap your allegations in so many indirect and allusions?” To help you to read more carefully and to apply context clues, the following is a quote from the article that this thread is about.
> To its detractors, the IAU definition seemed crafted with a specific intent. “A reason was invented to exclude Pluto,” says Kornfeld.
> If you read Plato, you will see that defining words that already exist in some universal way is pretty much impossible. This is a humanities question, not a scientific one.
Nope. Just like it is okay for scientists in the field of biology to change the definition of "species" as used in their field, it is okay for the same to happen for the word "planet", even if the general public then argues everyone should use the updated definition in everyday language. That's how language happens and evolves, and that's how we got these words! If this were not the case, Pluto would never have been added as a planet. You were okay with every change until that point - yeah, of course you agree with the changes up to what you were taught, even if there's no argument for what makes them different!
You have to understand: there's no conspiracy behind the IAU that's making people argue against you! It's literally just individual people disagreeing with your disagreement.
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Regarding your edit:
> To help you to read more carefully and to apply context clues, the following is a quote from the article that this thread is about.
> > To its detractors, the IAU definition seemed crafted with a specific intent. “A reason was invented to exclude Pluto,” says Kornfeld.
In the article, I see literally no reason given by Kornfeld to assume anything but an honest disagreement. Okay, great, they think the definition should fulfill a requirement that the majority apparently doesn't see as necessary. How do they get from this to people inventing a reason to specifically exclude Pluto? There's no reason given to assume bad faith?
Species means different things in different contexts. Have you heard of species counterpoint?
Nobody is saying biologists can’t use that word the way they see fit. It would however be ridiculous for them to ask me to stop referring to species counterpoint.
> as used in their field
Now you’re talking sense. I don’t care what they call Pluto at IAU meetings. You shouldn’t care what I call Pluto in my own home.
Yes, very good, words can mean different things in different contexts!
Now consider: the public still slowly but surely follows along with changes to the classification of species, so when e.g. a species is divided into two or more species, the general population that often encounters them will most likely refer to them separately too given enough time, and the same in the other direction.
It's a simple concept: language changes, and the public likes to follow along with "mainstream" scientific use, even if often lagging behind.
I’m the person who has been explaining that the meaning of words comes from how they are used, not from how committees define them. The committees might influence people but ultimately words’ meanings come from how they are used. If you require a scientific expression of this concept, you might find distributional semantics of interest[1]. When people change how they use a word, its meaning changes. Far from having a single, universal meaning, the word “planet” means a number of different things today depending on whom you ask[2].
I have been defending the right for myself and for others to continue using their own language, without harassment from others in the names of scientific bodies. There was a time when linguists would prescribe that words like “y’all” are incorrect to use, and people would be shamed and discriminated against for doing so. Armchair scientists are behind the linguists on this one. We have lost cultural heritage and seen beautiful dialects gradually shrink or disappear due to prescriptive linguistics, and we now understand the harms, and it’s time that it ended.
Yes, people are free to use words in the ways that make sense and come naturally to them. No, it is not appropriate for people to treat others with disrespect for doing so. Harassment is harassment, bullying people into changing how they speak is bullying. This is not a philosophical point, it’s about being a decent person.
Again, when you receive multiple comments disagreeing with yours and feel harassed, the likely reason is not a conspiracy to harass you until you change your mind. Of course everyone should be respectful, but as long as they're not deliberately piling on and just respond to your comment at a similar time, you have to respect their right to express disagreement just like you want the right to express yours.
What's being referenced here is maybe the tip of the iceberg in terms of inadequacies of current recommendation systems.
I suspect there's a range of indices related to content interaction that companies use poorly or even maybe nefariously — for example, are they motivated to present what you want, or what will keep you engaged with the site? Are their assumptions about why, say, you're spending a lot of time on a video correct? This post is focused sort of on options to communicate with the recommendation system, but there's a lot that could be said in terms of mismatched system-user goals in the system, and poor assumptions being made by the system in general.
I wondered too as I was reading it whether it's worth making the distinction between "different features of user experience with the content" and "metaresponse". That is, I can feel positively and negatively about the same video, or like it for one reason but not another; at the same time I can want to provide a response explaining a response. There's a difference between providing information about how I feel about some content, and information about how I want that information to be used.
I think that's part of what is frustrating to so many people? Google isn't a small business, and has the legal resources to at least fight back if they were challenged by the administration. Any such challenge would likely fall apart in trial, but even if it didn't Google would have at least challenged the absurdity of it.
Public institutions shouldn't be posting on bsky.app or mastodon.social either. The primary source of public communications should be fully hosted on public infrastructure and only then syndicated and/or federated elsewhere.
I agree with the sentiment, but nowadays people don't even know that is even possible, or they just decide it's not worth it because it doesn't get a lot of views, or they think hiring someone technical to manage it is expensive so they just have the secretary of the day do it and that person is very often not technical at all so they only know how to post it on social media
Some people avoid those because they tend to consist entirely of people that support banning non-approved ideas that the real world considers non-controversial. That's why X hasn't disappeared like some of the HN crowd predicted.
I thought HN predicted it would fold due to mismanagement, and arguably it would've if it hadn't been delayed by being rolled into the larger Katamari ball of securities fraud that is SpaceTeslaXAI.
And while it hasn't disappeared, it's losing ground to Pinterest.
If you're not hanging out with a lot of Gen Z women it would explain why it's not on your radar, that's their key demo and they're on a very solid growth trajectory[1].
It's no secret, meanwhile, that twitter has seen steady declines both in daily active users as well as plummeting engagement levels from those that haven't left yet.
Given the fact the comment you replied to is flagged and dead? Apparently even mentioning that some ideas online may not have widespread support offline.
It's a network of social media sites aka servers that are independently run, and have no algorithm so posts are in chronological order usually. There's several types of sites, each replacing one conventional alternative like mastodon for x/Twitter and Lemmy for reddit.
It works because the sites belonging to one type can all see the content of other sites of the same type. To the user, each individual site is as convenient as a conventional social media site such as x/twitter. It aims to combine the advantages of decentralization such as independence, with the advantages of centralization such as a large amount of content
One roadblock is marketing, because the first thing the fediverse sites like mastodon or Lemmy try to do when you search for them on Google is get you into a server. That sounds too technical and is not how the average person uses social media at all. Bluesky fixes this and has an entirely new idea for how the fediverse works.
One downside to the concept of servers is that besides feeling fragmented to the average user compared to bluesky or Instagram, most tend to cater to a specific audience so they filter content for you. It's not like bluesky or Instagram where the user does it entirely from scratch by following accounts (which Instagram ignores anyways)
> It works because the sites belonging to one type can all see the content of other sites of the same type.
That's how it should work but its not how it works in practice because some admin can't stand the idea of opinions contrary to their own existing on the same network. So they deferedate from instances they don't like as well as those instances that don't do the same.
Yes, and? That's how it should work. That's the very point of it, you control your environment as you want. If you don't like someone, remove them. There is no single instance, that's the very point, its conceptually completely absurd to say a set of protocols is "block happy". Why do you feel entitled to other peoples computing real estate? There is no single "Mastodon", go and make your own and connect or don't connect to who you want.
You don't control the environment, some admin does who you cannot get away from without giving up your identity. And even if you self-host its pretty rich to say you control your environment without addressing that the community thinks its acceptable into bullying other instance operators into compliance with their witch hunts.
How is it the protocol's fault if people dislike you? You have literally no right to other peoples computing resources. Nothing in the protocol is stopping you from self hosting an instance. Its not like making another Twitter or Facebook, the software is readymade for you to install. So its frankly absurd to say a technical protocol is block-happy.
I know what this is, I was seeing if whatthesmack understands the concept. He clearly has some deep confusions where he lists Fediverse as among the list of services that are block happy. It does not conceptually make sense to call Fediverse as being block happy anymore than saying http or ssl is block happy.
Why should public institutions be trying to get views for political purposes? Isn't that directly contrary to the intended role of public institutions in a democracy?
Go ask your mom why she never posts on her own website, but does on closed platform social media. Her answer will be the same as all the people outside of the tech bubble you're in.
I obviously don't know about that person's mom, but a lot of hosting platforms and blog providers will do that for you if you don't want to do it yourself.
> My tolerance for people posting to X without also posting to an open platform is over.
> Public institutions especially.
> There's zero excuse, none.
Maybe it wasn't their intent, but they clearly wrote it as a more general statement, with an additional and specific intolerance to public institutions, which is also how others interpreted it.
If it's not the case currently, it should be, that public institutions MUST make their public statements widely available. The old POSSE way seems correct. Blocked, or EULA'd or Paywalled on third-party platforms doesn't do that.
If nothing else news agencies publish articles that are nothing but copies of tweets. Sometimes just one sentence long, other times there's no text at all and just a link to the original post. It's basically the same experience, especially since the news media isn't always bothering to fact check or verify anything either in the rush to get views/ad serves.
I'm honestly not sure if those types of events (and their less consequential but more common variants) support the claims of the article or refute them.
I feel like the article correctly identifies the problems with offloading cognition onto technology, but maybe mischaracterizes the scope of the risks, as well as how much this happens with or without modern technology.
> I feel like the article correctly identifies the problems with offloading cognition onto technology
I also observed this with my friends as well. Like we are going by car and a friend is driving 50km/h though there was a 100km/h sign few hundred metres ago. When asking him he responds: "nah google maps says its 50 and I'd rather trust google maps than signs"
Modern police radar is mostly automated and probably gets speed information from the same place Google Maps does. Cops simply don't care, it's just "speed gun says ticket" and while your friend would have beaten it in court, they still would have been forced go to court in the first place.
It can be hard to be simultaneously situationally aware of the "ground truth" and following instructions whether from a machine or a person. Not impossible of course--nor should it be. But dealing with conflicting instructions in real-time is a distraction. Which can be dealt with on foot but is hard when you're driving.
Self-driving cars are going to make this worse through no fault of the passenger.
My Tesla gets confused at an area where there are three intersections in very close proximity. It needs to turn at the third one. It tries to turn at the first one. The second one is a railroad crossing, and turning there would be very dangerous.
It means funneling public funds to AI and AI-adjacent companies that grease the wheels enough with the administration. It's like everything else: the administration decides it can control funds however it wants, regardless of what was legislated, and leverages those funds for quid pro quo transactions.
Say what you will about how to improve academics and scientific research, but the current administration's modus operandi is not the way.
The target article even notes that "while Waymo leads the industry in transparency, and robotaxi operators are required to report even the tiniest scrape to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), not every company voluntarily reports their total miles driven."
My sense is that there's a lot of massaging the data by autonomous car companies to make their data look good. The article and a linked article describes the comparisons as "human drivers in the same driving conditions" which is kind of vague to me and isn't the same as, say, taxi drivers to robotaxis. It's also robotaxis and not general driving conditions etc.
I always feel like these comparisons become murky in other ways. For example, if autonomous vehicles have lower accident rates in general, but fail in catastrophically bad ways when they do fail — ways that would never happen with a human driver (for example, by inexplicably driving into an avoidable semi trailer for no reason, killing the occupants) — is that better? What if you eliminate cases where the driver is intoxicated? Aren't those cases cases of malfeasance at some level, that could apply to autonomous vehicle use? Do you hold autonomous vehicle companies accountable for deaths, charging executives with manslaughter? How should we think about accountability versus safety?
I'm not trying to argue against autonomous vehicles. I just feel like these types of published discussions get oversimplified often in a way that seems to parallel similar discussions of AI in general, and seems sympathetic to their adoption rather than a rigorously skeptical appraisal.
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