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Convolver

@convolver.bsky.social

1.5K followers 1.4K following 8.2K posts

What good is seeing-eye chocolate? What good is a computerized nose? What good’s Sanskrit read to a pony? Not much, I guess, not much at all.

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Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · Mar 28

Going to start a list of every program, agency, board, etc. that I can find that we know have been DOGEd out of existence. (You can also just check in with @kellylsmith.bsky.social at UCSD, where she maintains an exhaustive list of acronyms and links, including monthly data on who's been 404d).

Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · 2h

“Antifa Hellfire” is a jalapeño-dark chocolate offering from Voodoo Doughnut, I believe.

Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · 4h

I’m a layman, but they’d have to work hard to convince me that affordable and productive general-purpose humanoid robotics labor can ever affordable replace things like “automated forklift go zoom” given the tech demos I’ve seen.

Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · 4h

Keep in mind that I scribbled this up on my laptop at a keynote presentation, so it’s not like I was doing a formal market analysis, I just felt like we were being presented with an argument that couldn’t hold up under basic scrutiny for socioeconomic reasons on /both/ sides.

Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · 4h

prophecies come true. (My bet is “fails at scale,” too many roboticists I’ve spoken to argue that humanoid robotics are too prone to real-world problems when adapting processes, automation in the future will continue to look like the slow adoption we see today, which is also less dislocative.)

Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · 4h

their labor at a living wage, and how much of that income are you willing to replace via tax transfers given that non-labor price components won’t change and overall prices will only shift so much by replacing unskilled workers? It either fails at scale or you’ve just made Schumpeter’s

Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · 4h

components for the cheapest labor (again, why this is unconvincing to me). The social dislocation would be extreme, so my point at the time was, essentially, either the business model doesn’t work as promised, or, if it does, you’ll have broken the ability of tens of millions of workers to sell /

Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · 4h

whole thing seems more of a niche play that can’t sustain current valuations. BUT! If we grant the maximalists’ arguments, it quickly becomes a Pandora’s box because it’s a functional wealth transfer from the poorest ~30% of laborers to capital expenditures and corporate profits/lower labor /

Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · 4h

of a few areas already being heavily automated (mostly warehouses, which already operate 24/7 with high facility consolidation), or if robotics can sustain 18 hours of productive labor /and/ the markets can make effective use of those additional serial labor hours, which seems doubtful. So the /

Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · 4h

industries can absorb productivity impacts and lease costs (since unskilled labor industries generally don’t make big capital decisions). The upshot is that if you assume the adoption path dependency goes through unskilled labor, it’s really hard to make the business case net out outside /

Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · 4h

Back of the envelope based on a maximal case of automating warehouse/mfg/retail positions and income as reported by OES, using the somewhat-handwavy numbers for unit cost, consecutive hours of work and relative efficiency, with some spurious coefficients for how effectively labor-intensive /

Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · 5h

A fully-automated economy with a flat Gini coefficient is paradise. Applied to our current world, it’s 30% unemployment baselines with human wages < $5/hr to compete. (Not that I buy into the boosterism story, I question the technology and don’t buy the business case for the reasons above.)

Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · 5h

A caveat is that it’s possible, but requires some very specific assumptions about robot mfg cost, general capability and productivity, reliability, and the ability of unskilled labor-reliant markets to absorb increased productivity and turn it into consolidation, which in toto I find unconvincing.

Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · 5h

Yeah, it feels like a combination of investors showing a willful blindness to the implications of their thesis and then a small number of acc-pilled SVers who just want fully-automated heteronormative luxury fascism.

Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · 5h

The unpopular point that I made at this particular discussion was, “You’re trying to figure out a stable equity valuation on something that, if it works, will be taken from you by the government at gunpoint in exchange for a check /they/ will determine the value of.”

Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · 5h

Like, if the premise is, “unions are strong enough to prevent automation,” then, 1), why haven’t they? and, 2), then what will these expensive and finicky robots /do/, if not replace human labor? These people are casually talking about setting free markets on fire and then ignoring the implications.

Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · 5h

I ran the economic impact numbers on successful AI/humanoid robotics plays (I’m skeptical on both, to be clear), and if we grant their premise, the unskilled/semi-skilled mfg/retail/warehouse/logistics impact (not touching knowledge jobs) is Great Depression bad, with nowhere for those folks to go.

Reposted by Convolver

Jacqueline Sweet @jsweetli.bsky.social · 8h

NEW: A MAGA X account often shared by Senator Mike Lee and House Republicans like Nancy Mace--that often alleges Democrats encourage voting fraud-- is run by a man who not only has never stepped foot in the US, he also illegally donated to an American campaign.

www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

The Viral MAGA Accounts Run by a Man Who Has Never Been to America

Two influential MAGA social media accounts are run by Rumen Naumovski, a Macedonian who may have illegally donated to a U.S. election.

www.rollingstone.com

Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · 7h

We just need to normalize judges killing these vexatious litigations and malicious prosecutions right out of the gate, not to save taxpayer dollars, but to save defendant dollars. Even a successful defense of the obviously innocent can bankrupt folks.

Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · 8h

The media — and, let’s be honest, all of us — give Trump a pass for saying stupid extreme things because he’s always saying stupid extreme things with little thought as to consequences, but this is a serious turn deeper into tyranny, and not saying so only enables more serious tyrants in the future.

Governor JB Pritzker @govpritzker.illinois.gov · 9h

I will not back down.

Trump is now calling for the arrest of elected representatives checking his power.

What else is left on the path to full-blown authoritarianism?

Donald Trump Truth Social Post: Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers! Governor Pritzker also.

Reposted by Convolver

Sanho Tree @sanho.bsky.social · 18h

Holy crap. Trump will make the FCC crucify Jimmy Kimmel for this.

Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · 9h

Once again we see that the putative defenders of Western Culture hate everything about what they claim to defend.

Reposted by Convolver

Ann Monster Lipton @annmlipton.bsky.social · 10h

"The invitation to the 'Future of Pharmaceuticals' summit prompted consternation among some drug-company representatives, who worried that the gathering signaled that the White House wants them to work with the little-known BlinkRx because of its ties to the president’s family"

Trump Wants to Overhaul Drug Sales. A Company Tied to His Son Stands to Benefit.

The family members of President Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick are poised to benefit from efforts to remake the pharmaceutical industry.

Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · 17h

Wallace needed a political out and either he and RFK reached a deal to let it play out as a scripted sequence, or he flouted federal court orders specifically to force Kennedy’s hand so he could at least claim a symbolic stand against integration. But in either case very, very different from today.

Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · 17h

It’s also the case that the whole standoff was a bit staged on Wallace’s part; he wanted to show pro-segregation obduracy to burnish his white supremacist credentials and simultaneously defang the more violent groups like the Klan, so he created a situation where JFK /had/ to federalize the Guard./

Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · 17h

Starting to get real Enron slash Worldcom vibes from this whole shell game.