> There is another fallacy in play where people pushing these debates want you to think that there is only one single cause of CVD or health issues: Either sugar, carbs, fat, or something else. The game they play is to point the finger at one thing and imply that it gets the other thing off the hook. Don’t fall for this game.
Okay but right now we're talking about science getting corrupted by money. Which did happen in this instance, so that companies could hide the damage that sugar does to people.
Sugar does damage and scientists were paid to downplay that fact. It is not the first time. This is concerning when we talk about principles and public trust.
> The simple evidence for this is that everyone who has invested the same resources in AI has produced roughly the same result. OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Deepseek, etc. There's no evidence of a technological moat or a competitive advantage in any of these companies.
I think this is analysis is too surface level. We are seeing Google Gemini pull away in terms of image generation, and their access to billions of organic user images gives them a huge moat. And in terms of training data, Google also has a huge advantage there.
The moat is the training data, capital investment, and simply having a better AI that others cannot recreate.
These kinds of parternships also throw in free inference with MFN clauses, which make a mutual moat.
A moat doesn't have to be a feature, and equity stakes have been fairly successful moats (eg. Much of AWS's ML services being powered by Anthropic models due to their equity stake in Anthropic).
A moat is a permanent feature protecting a castle against attack. That’s the metaphor. If it’s not their own device intrinsically protecting them then it’s not a moat in my book.
> That is not how we use the term "moat" in this context, because competitors eventually converge on offerings within 1-2 years.
Then I guess we need a new term because that's not how I interpret the term moat either. To me, ChatGPT chat history is a moat. It allows them to differentiate their product and competitors cannot copy it. If someone switches to a new AI service they will have to build their chat history from scratch.
By comparison a business deal that can be transferred to a new partner the second it expires is much more temporary.
> I think very few people actually consider it a single condition. To the point that most people that I know, including myself, say that we are "somewhere on the spectrum" or some variant of that.
Couldn't disagree more. The "autism is my super power" movement is borderline offensive to people dealing with severe or low functioning autism.
I have never in my life used "autism is my super power" so please don't put words in my mouth. I will agree that it is offensive but that is very different from saying "somewhere on the spectrum" when I don't feel like having a more in dept conversation.
And again my point is that contrary to what the article seems to be trying to make, no one really considers Autism a single thing.
I'm not putting words in your mouth. What I'm saying is, if we had different names for different types of autism, saying "autism is my super power" wouldn't be such an issue.
And if "no one considers autism a single thing" THEN WHAT IS EACH THING? lol
> And if "no one considers autism a single thing" THEN WHAT IS EACH THING? lol
We don't have a name for every color on the light spectrum, nor can the average person tell you what's different about #FF0000 vs #FE0000. They still exist!
You obviously did not claim autism as a superpower.
Still this “everyone is a bit autistic” stuff is kind of absurd. It diminishes the condition.
> most people that I know, including myself, say that we are "somewhere on the spectrum"
No one says “everyone I know is a bit paraplegic”, because that would be insane. Yet people glibly call themselves autistic as if having geeky hobbies or a job in software is the same as being diagnosable as having an autism spectrum disorder.
> Still this “everyone is a bit autistic” stuff is kind of absurd. It diminishes the condition.
Again nowhere am I saying that.
Maybe I could have worded it much better but I never meant to imply, it happens that like myself a larger portion of the people I hang out with are diagnosed which for me works with just saying "most people" but I can see why that was not clear.
> Couldn't disagree more. The "autism is my super power" movement is borderline offensive to people dealing with severe or low functioning autism.
I doubt those types are saying much of anything. Its more likely their caregivers.
Again the old name for those of us who think its more a super power used to be called Aspergers syndrome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome . And we got folded in to Autism Spectrum Disorder, as did a whole host of other diagnostics.
And we have been found to be more truthful, better at focusing, can hyperfocus, notice more details than NT's, and plenty more. We're only a disease cause we're the minority.
As someone with a diagnosis, I would add several sensory issues (for me it's noises, multiple conversations at the same time, stickiness, physical contact, whole categories of food and several others) and several social issues to your list of superpowers.
Seeing it purely as a positive is insultingly reductive.
To be clear: I would not take a cure if it somehow got invented, but it /is/ limiting in a multitude of ways even in the best cases.
I only have so many comments before idiotic rate limiting. But I'll comment here.
So for dis-ease or dis-ability, it doesnt interfere with ease of life. Nor does it materially affect my ability.
> I would add several sensory issues (for me it's noises, multiple conversations at the same time, stickiness, physical contact, whole categories of food and several others) and several social issues to your list of superpowers.
And too true. I have some as you listed as well. However, I also figured out what causes them in me, and how to reduce their effects to nil. In a way, its self-treatment with n=1.
Noise: I dont have a problem with noise per se. However, when multiple people are talking or music with lyrics are on in the background, its incredibly hard for me to process what's spoken along with it.
Weirdly though, when I was principal clarinettist in a symphony, I could easily pick out any instrument by simple concentration. All I know is the noise issue with me is something with vocal processing of over-talking voices.
stickiness: for me, its dirt on my hands. Or chicken/turkey/beef/pork/lamb/goat blood. I do a lot of cooking. I hate those feelings on my skin. But I find that as long as I wash my hands before and after with a good degreasing soap (Dawn), the icky goes away. I can still do the task at speed.
I dont have the physical contact issues for people I'm close with. So, thats not an issue.
Food: theres only a few foods I can't eat, due to vomiting reasons. Tapioca based products are the big one. Aside from that, I eat everything from blue cheese, to cow tongue, offal from beef and birds,ghost peppers, pork brains, hakarl. I like the tastes and sensations that foods have. In a way, I'm wondering if this is also relayed to the supersensitive reject-foods type. Definitely not a disability.
And of course, theres the huge downsides with interpersonal interactions. Took me decades to really piece together and emulate and identify emotional state in others. But the psychologists dont know how to fix this either. Most of them are NTs who it comes naturally. But they want their indefinite sessions to do basically nothing but pay $200/hr.
> Seeing it purely as a positive is insultingly reductive.
Again, there are up and downsides to NT's and ND's.
Neurotypicals are more known for deception and lying. Or they use the term "little white lies". These things slowly stack up in NT conversations until they become huge problems. Sitcoms are based on this. But ND's, well, we are the weird ones. When someone asks "do I look good in this?" And you say "no, it clashes with your skin tone" - you were supposed to know they wanted a yes.
I feel sad that NTs can't properly hyperfocus, and can easily drop out of hyperfocus with low sensory input.
NTs memory is foggy and badly reorders things. Or they misremember and blame others for ill-perceived issues.
There are good and bad. I'm glad I'm ND, likely Aspergers (hence autistic). Most of these problems are ones that can be solved, at least for Aspergers side of things.
> I doubt those types are saying much of anything. Its more likely their caregivers.
It doesn't really matter whose saying it. The point is that autism is not cool or fun for many people. We need a way to distinguish the difference, besides saying high or low functioning.
> We're only a disease cause we're the minority.
WHICH WE ARE WE TALKING ABOUT THEN? IS IT NOT A DISEASE WHEN SOMEONE IS NON-VERBAL? Holy shit. Point, meet case.
I immediately started with 'Aspergers was folded into autism spectrum disorder'.
I dont think they ever should have did that.
If the doctors say that "someone is nonverbal, pisses their pants, and needs spoonfed at 17yr old" is somehow the same as "someone who is a professional engineer who can hyperfocus but misses social cues and says weird stuff" - the doctors are completely wrong.
Those are demonstrably NOT the same thing.
And yes, my Aspergers is a super power. Those abilities (many positive, some negative) have gotten me far.
The diagnostic criteria for "Aspergers" never required above average, or even average intelligence.
If you had visited the Aspergers and autism website support forum "wrong planet" 20 years ago you'd have seen many lower functioning than you people with "aspergers" complaining about aspects of their lives.
>And we have been found to be more truthful, better at focusing, can hyperfocus, notice more details than NT's, and plenty more. We're only a disease cause we're the minority.
Yeah and this is why Autism shouldn't be treated as a single condition, even if the cause is the same the outcome is meaningfully different than someone who cannot function.
If you can't find a use for AI, you probably haven't given it much of a try. Just one random example: I needed to find experts in a technical field, and gave the problem to Claude Code. Claude put together a comprehensive research plan, dug deep into industry working groups, and produced a prioritized list of experts along with their bios, rationale and LinkedIn profiles.
Completely possible for me to do, but it saved me at least a couple hours of Googling.
Okay but right now we're talking about science getting corrupted by money. Which did happen in this instance, so that companies could hide the damage that sugar does to people.
Sugar does damage and scientists were paid to downplay that fact. It is not the first time. This is concerning when we talk about principles and public trust.
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