logoalt Hacker News

ben_wtoday at 6:05 PM3 repliesview on HN

What's the old quote from WW2?

  I couldn't help but notice how each successive headline reporting our glorious victories seemed to draw closer to Tokyo.
Something like that.

Well. I can't help but notice how each successive headline reporting how this "scam"/stochastic parrot/"scare quotes intelligence" seems to be solving more and more things that were but a few years ago widely regarded as being indicators of high intelligence.

Being highly convinving is one of the things on that list.


Replies

moth11today at 6:56 PM

Nobody is denying that it's effective. They're denying intelligence

A programming contest has a problem where given N < 10000, do something hard like come up with the number of primes less than N

You can come up with all sorts of algorithms that do intelligent things. But the most effective solution is to use metaprogramming to make a massive switch statement that contains all the answers

show 2 replies
mopsitoday at 6:21 PM

It was Berlin and not Tokyo, I believe. Germany kept producing newsreels until the very end. Many of them are now on Youtube, a very interesting watch on how to frame things positively.

show 2 replies
datsci_est_2015today at 6:25 PM

Wow, that quote goes hard.

I’m reminded that almost no one beyond a select few knew high up in the military and around the emperor knew how badly the Japanese were defeated at Midway.

Paternalistic. Arrogant. Shameful. And deeply engrained in the Japanese cultural zeitgeist (of the early-mid 20th century).

Edit: I guess it’s commonly attributed to a German citizen, but their cultures mirrored each other. Fascism falling under the weight of its own propaganda.