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#1
Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...
Last post by Richard Hakluyt - Today at 09:20:42 AMQuote from: Sheilbh on Today at 07:47:20 AMTotally separately but the OBR published its update before the budget by mistake. Apparently due to a "technical error".
I still think we should abolish the OBR in general.
But on this - people need to resign/be fired. We've got the City making moves on it but also the Guardian live blogging what the Chancellor is going to announce as they work through the OBR report before they've even stood up in the Commons. It's clown-ish.
I don't think I'm looking through rose-tinted glasses here but standards were far higher in the 1970s and 80s when it came to budget purdah. It is actually criminal to be leaking budget plans before the actual event; people will be making or losing money because of this, insiders could be coining it. This is another non-partisan matter where I think citizens are entitled to demand and insist on higher standards, both by politicians and the civil service.
#2
Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread
Last post by DGuller - Today at 09:19:33 AMChatGPT has been able to interpret game screenshots for a long while now. For example, here is what it will return if you ask it to explain what's going on in this screenshot of my HOI4 game:
It can also cheat very well at GeoGuessr already (or alternatively help you learn to play it better, as it explains its reasoning). Just give it a screen cap or what you're looking at, and more often than not a single still will already point you in the general area.
QuoteYou absolutely annihilated the USSR without taking any casualties.In fact the AI USSR did suicide into my lines, it was a bug in the fairly early version of HOI4, I just set myself up to take the most ridiculous advantage of it to prove a point.
This is a Hearts of Iron IV war overview screen showing a German–Soviet War where:
Germany has:
4.00M fielded manpower
0 losses (which is insane / bugged / encirclement abuse / nukes + AI collapse / paradrop cheese)
100% war participation
The USSR side:
~524k–525k fielded manpower left
19.93M losses — that's nearly twenty million dead
Their minors, Sinkiang and Mongolia, are irrelevant and barely participated
So the reality here is:
You've completely broken the Soviets
Their army has evaporated. Twenty million casualties with effectively no German losses means either:
You rolled them with colossal encirclements and they died out of supply
or
You exploited AI stupidity with attacking-only orders where they suicided into your lines
or
You used nukes / CAS / terrain chokepoints / the River Line meatgrinder
or
Something glitched and the game isn't counting your casualties
Regardless, the USSR is militarily finished. One push and they collapse.
In HOI4 terms, this is a total reverse-Barbarossa massacre. They're done. You can march to Vladivostok with a blindfold on.
If you want, tell me how you achieved zero losses — I'm curious, because that's not something you see naturally.
It can also cheat very well at GeoGuessr already (or alternatively help you learn to play it better, as it explains its reasoning). Just give it a screen cap or what you're looking at, and more often than not a single still will already point you in the general area.
#3
Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...
Last post by PJL - Today at 09:03:56 AMThe salary sacrifice cap for exempting NI payments for pensions seems too low at £2,000 per year, especially since it won't come into force until 2029. Can see a lot of pension front loading going on until then. £5,000 would have been better, and why not do this from 2026? Doesn't make sense to me to leave it so long.
#4
Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread
Last post by Tamas - Today at 08:59:19 AMQuote from: crazy canuck on Today at 07:01:20 AMQuote from: Tamas on Today at 06:50:44 AMAnyways, we have been ignoring a key question:
How can LLMs be made to play computer games?
I was thinking: if the UI of something like a Paradox game could be "translated" into a format processable by these "AIs" (so, text, I guess) then they would be able to learn optimal strategies from online sources, wouldn't they?
Yes, but it would not be able to distinguish good strategies from bad. So the same problems exist and are likely worse as AI inevitably gets trained on AI slop.
Would they, though? As I understand LLMs simply guess what's the most likely next word (segment) in what they are "writing". So let's say it's playing EU4, the UI is translated for it so it can process that it has negative stability. Surely, having stored all the discussions over the years online around strategy, the likely string of words would be a correct strategy.
#5
Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...
Last post by Tamas - Today at 08:44:58 AMI like the tax on gambling. I guess some losers' money finding its way to organised crime is not great but the industry seems awash in money advertising absolutely everywhere, which is kind of gross.
Tax on 2m+ properties at least has symbolic value so good.
Not thrilled about the 3p charge on EV miles driven, that's going to almost triple our current 1.6p per mile cost, but we are going to survive.
Tax on 2m+ properties at least has symbolic value so good.
Not thrilled about the 3p charge on EV miles driven, that's going to almost triple our current 1.6p per mile cost, but we are going to survive.
#6
Off the Record / Re: The Off Topic Topic
Last post by crazy canuck - Today at 08:25:31 AMQuote from: Richard Hakluyt on Today at 02:56:10 AMI enjoyed my visit, but that was 20 years ago and everything was very cheap. Lots of kitsch architecture, the different markets for which the various resorts were catering was very interesting. The undoubted highlight though was the Elvis impersonator who was so drunk/high that he started off with an impersonation of Wayne Newton before he remembered what he was supposed to be doing.
Yeah, that was its charm. I was cheap in every sense of the word. But now it is expensive and it's trying to pose as a luxury destination. No thanks, I can spend less money at a real luxury location.
#7
Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...
Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 07:47:20 AMTotally separately but the OBR published its update before the budget by mistake. Apparently due to a "technical error".
I still think we should abolish the OBR in general.
But on this - people need to resign/be fired. We've got the City making moves on it but also the Guardian live blogging what the Chancellor is going to announce as they work through the OBR report before they've even stood up in the Commons. It's clown-ish.
I still think we should abolish the OBR in general.
But on this - people need to resign/be fired. We've got the City making moves on it but also the Guardian live blogging what the Chancellor is going to announce as they work through the OBR report before they've even stood up in the Commons. It's clown-ish.
#8
Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...
Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 07:39:52 AMYaeh I'm with RH on this particularly on the example of protest and speech trials - and we can see how judges treat those same cases because they throw the book generally.
What the government are proposing is nothing like France. France has investigating judges who direct criminal investigations and decide whether there is then sufficient evidence to send the case to court. The judge's role is inquisitorial - it is to determine the truth. That is an entirely different role and purpose philosophically for the judge than ours. It'd be a far more radical reform (and you'd need a lot more judges).
Similarly I think in Italy you have the more common mixed jury of judge and lay people. However the jury is responsible not just for determining guilt, but for also setting out reasons and determining sentence. In England and Wales the jury simply rules on the facts, the sentencing and legal analysis based on that finding of fact is for the judge. I think Italy also has investigating judges but I'm not sure.
I don't think it is necessarily right or wrong or that juries are always necessary. I think there's a case for removing jury trial for certain types of offence and raising the bar to get a jury bar more generally. But juries are a kind of essential part of how our system has developed. This isn't just a formal point of we have juries and some of Europe. We have very different systems. As you see with Italy and France - both incidentally have (and need) far more judges. Which I think is also the problem. If the government wants to reform and move us to a more inquisitorial or judge led system that's a defensible position - but it is a radical reform so they'd need to make the case, build the argument and probably spend quite a lot of money re-training existing judges and recruiting new ones. But the driver here isn't that philosophical or structural shift - it's just that they need to save a bit of money and there's a backlog of cases (due to underinvestment).
It's a bit like the welfare cuts. There's absolutely a case for welfare reform that would, in the medium/long term, reduce the costs of disability and long-term sickness benefits (which are increasing rapidly). But that's not what the government tried to do. The Treasury told DWP they needed to cut an extra £5 billion to make the numbers add up and that's what they came up with. It's the same here.
What the government are proposing is nothing like France. France has investigating judges who direct criminal investigations and decide whether there is then sufficient evidence to send the case to court. The judge's role is inquisitorial - it is to determine the truth. That is an entirely different role and purpose philosophically for the judge than ours. It'd be a far more radical reform (and you'd need a lot more judges).
Similarly I think in Italy you have the more common mixed jury of judge and lay people. However the jury is responsible not just for determining guilt, but for also setting out reasons and determining sentence. In England and Wales the jury simply rules on the facts, the sentencing and legal analysis based on that finding of fact is for the judge. I think Italy also has investigating judges but I'm not sure.
I don't think it is necessarily right or wrong or that juries are always necessary. I think there's a case for removing jury trial for certain types of offence and raising the bar to get a jury bar more generally. But juries are a kind of essential part of how our system has developed. This isn't just a formal point of we have juries and some of Europe. We have very different systems. As you see with Italy and France - both incidentally have (and need) far more judges. Which I think is also the problem. If the government wants to reform and move us to a more inquisitorial or judge led system that's a defensible position - but it is a radical reform so they'd need to make the case, build the argument and probably spend quite a lot of money re-training existing judges and recruiting new ones. But the driver here isn't that philosophical or structural shift - it's just that they need to save a bit of money and there's a backlog of cases (due to underinvestment).
It's a bit like the welfare cuts. There's absolutely a case for welfare reform that would, in the medium/long term, reduce the costs of disability and long-term sickness benefits (which are increasing rapidly). But that's not what the government tried to do. The Treasury told DWP they needed to cut an extra £5 billion to make the numbers add up and that's what they came up with. It's the same here.
#9
Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...
Last post by Richard Hakluyt - Today at 07:28:54 AMI'm arguing for the right to call for a trial by jury, not mandatory trial by jury. For most offences it will just be trial by magistrate, as it is now. But if someone is in a politically sensitive trial (such as those silly buggers with the orange powder at stonehenge or the "we support Palestine Action" crowd, I think it is only right that they can call for a trial by jury.
#10
Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread
Last post by Josquius - Today at 07:27:53 AMQuote from: Tamas on Today at 06:50:44 AMAnyways, we have been ignoring a key question:
How can LLMs be made to play computer games?
I was thinking: if the UI of something like a Paradox game could be "translated" into a format processable by these "AIs" (so, text, I guess) then they would be able to learn optimal strategies from online sources, wouldn't they?
Video games are a key one for me where I really raise my eyebrow at the recent talk of AI as this new and amazing revolutionary thing. We've had AI for....ages. LLMs are not the same thing as all AI.
I do wonder when LLM will become more of a mainstream term.
I got to thinking the other day too- all companies, governments, etc... are going on about how they will embrace AI and become so brilliant for it. There's lots of worries about this for jobs, quality of output, etc....
It strikes me though....Its not that LLMs are entirely something new here. Cast your mind way back to pre-covid....And much the same stuff was being said. Only it was about data. Not AI. And it didn't have half as much marketing success.