Fascinating. I think it's likely incorrect to blame most of the victims here. We are all products of our environment and everyone has their own weakness or specific trigger -no matter how much we like to think we are in control.
In a way, ChatGpt is the perfect "cult member" and so those who just need a sycophant to become a "cult leader" are triggered.
Will be interesting to watch this and see if it becomes a bigger trend.
Interesting. The way I interpreted the article, ChatGPT was being described as the perfect cult leader, as opposed to follower.
A person at the end of their rope, grasping for answers to their existential questions, hears about an all-knowing oracle. The oracle listens to all manner of questions and thoughts, no matter how incoherent, and provides truthful-sounding “wisdom” on demand 24/7. The oracle even fits in your pocket, they can go with you everywhere, so leader and follower are never apart. And because these conversations are taking place privately, it feels like the oracle is revealing the truth to them and them alone, like Moses receiving the 10 Commandments.
For someone with the right mix of psychological issues, that could be a potent cocktail.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that someone could make money by building a cult following of a live streamed AI spouting spiritual nuttery with a synced avatar and voice, even if it is one obsessed follower per million impressions. Already, the only fans type industries depend on just gaining a few "whales" hooked.
I wouldn't really call this a "shape" since the highly manipulated center of mass is what is actually doing the work here. I would call this an object or rigid body.
It’s both. To work you need a polyhedron constructed of a series of polygons, here triangles, and one of those triangles has to have its center of mass outside the base of the object in all orientations. Otherwise the weight will pin it down instead of tilt it over.
That’s why in the one orientation it tips back before tipping sideways: the center of mass is inside the footprint of right edge of the tetrahedron but not the back edge. So it tips back, which then narrows the base enough for it to tip over to the right and settle.
The article does a good job of explaining that it's still a non-trivial problem even if you are allowed to distribute the weight unevenly, but I do agree that what is happening here is much more specific than a "shape," which is simply geometry without any density information.
Put another way, most things precisely constructed with that same exact shape (of the outer hull, which is usually what is meant by shape) would not exhibit this property.
Correct - we knew we could do that with balls, but can you do it with a pyramid? It initially seems like there would always be at least two stable surfaces for a pyramid, but this group managed to figure out how to do it with only one stable surface.
My uncle built his home from hardwood. No insulation. In sub freezing temps, you can put your hand in the wood and it isn't cold. Compared to my (poorly) insulated home, it b is significantly better.
That isn't a good way to measure because the inside of the house is warming up the walls. Hardwood is a poor insulator, but it is an insulator. If you touch wood it will feel warm, but it still loses a lot of heat compared to a properly insulated wall.
Yes, but if it's a much worse insulator, the extra heat transfer through studs might be more significant?
I'm not sure if it's been measured, but I imagine this densified wood would probably have at least twice the thermal conductivity of typical construction lumber, since naturally dense hardwoods already approach that.
So it seems like we'd basically need to replace 2x studs with 1x studs, assuming the same stud spacing, in order to match the thermal performance of a traditional wall.
I don't think this would be a dealbreaker at all though, one could always use continuous insulation instead of cavity insulation, which has a lot of benefits anyway. Maybe it can end up being a competitor to metal studs for commercial builds, at least.
If this just replaces steel beams or allows more post frame construction, the walls wouldn't change. Actually, if used in post frame style construction, it would allow for more space for insulation with less thermal bridging.
In modern construction we already put continuous insulation outside the 2x4 so that we don't have to deal with the studs and how much worse insulation they are.
I think that's the best practice, also for avoiding condensation, but isn't it pretty uncommon at least for residential builds in the US? Here in Washington, codes were recently changed to require continuous insulation, but I believe that's only with the prescriptive method. From what I've seen most builders seem to continue working around it and doing cavity insulation only.
Air has very low thermal conductivity, so for a lot of materials, thermal conductivity is primarily a function of how much air they contain and how it's structured (ideally in tiny pockets to minimize heat transfer through convection). Like spray foams, fiberglass insulation, etc are basically designed to hold air while minimizing convection.
I believe that's somewhat true of woods as well - different woods seem to range from 0.12-0.25 W/(mK) or so, which is somewhat less conductive than the underlying compounds like cellulose (0.4), thanks to the trapped air in wood.
It seems like densifying wood would mitigate the insulation contribution of trapped air, causing thermal conductivity to approache that of the underlying compounds like cellulose, though I'm not sure exactly what those compounds are with their process and how close they get to that air-free extreme.
if you dont make any other changes, it will have some detectable impact, but conductivity is linear with all of conductivity, depth, and area; and the other dimensions can also be changed like the screw diameter/pitch or the dimensions of the stud.
its very unlikely that this change will be an important consideration for house building or shopping though. theres simpler spots to reduce heat loss, like double paning your windows
"poor insulator", seems like an odd statement, but it's all relative I suppose. It's certainly better than the masonry or steel that this will replace. But if you take the air pockets out of it, then it's not going to be as good, but likely better than steel.
Right, like should we also blame the people who paid the money to these billionaires by using their services? Anyone who used facebook is responsible for funding 1/X global warming.
Why is this unreasonable? I know a lot of people personally who choose the companies they interact with based on the investments those companies are making.
