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I worked for a company that sold b2b contact data and they had (maybe still have) a linkedIn extension. It basically enriched the linkedIn profile. I wonder if linkedIn is trying to block these, or heavily target, in some way, these types of users to push folks towards their sales navigator.


When i was first laid off during the dot com bust I was working on a sales floor. All open no cubes. We didn't know layoffs were coming. Manager walks in and taps this one guy on the shoulder, says grab your personal things and come with me. Manager came back in did the same to a few others. Then it was me. Talk about embarrassing! Also, was 2 weeks before quarter ended. If you were not working for the company at the end of the Q, no bonus. 2 weeks! I'll never forget that. That was my first taste of how nasty a company can be. Not the layoffs, hey things happen. But the timing. Feels diabolical.


Don't worry, big companies are doing similar things now.

Layoffs after the main activity period is over, laying off HR people after they held layoff meetings for other departments, etc.

Reptiles.


We really do love dirty laundry don't we? I'm sure whatever the context is, it is deeply personal. Do you also have your popcorn ready?


Thank you. Yes, I'm going to refrain from airing out my dirty laundry. I made a bad decision, now I'm living with it, and more context doesn't actually change the intent behind my message: these tools are dangerous. Getting better, but still dangerous.


> Yes, I’m going to refrain from airing out my dirty laundry. I made a bad decision, now I’m living with it, and more context doesn’t actually change the intent behind my message

That’s not entirely true, as it’s currently impossible to actually gauge the severity of what the LLM seemingly enabled you into doing. There’s a difference between “I uncritically accepted everything it told me because it lined up with what I was hoping to hear” and “it subtly nudged me towards a course of action that was going to be obviously unwise after some consideration, but managed to convince me to skip this”; and also between that and “I took a risk, which I knew to be a risk, and which I knew to potentially expect to go bad, and the LLM convinced me to take it where I otherwise wouldn’t have”, and ALSO between that and “I took a risk, which I knew to be a risk, and which I knew to potentially expect to go bad, and if I’m perfectly honest, I might’ve taken it anyway without the LLM”.

Without any indication as to how your situation maps to any of these (or more), the warning is, functionally, not particularly useful.


Exactly all of this - I didn't have my popcorn out, I was genuinely curious about the nature of the risk being discussed. I find the post basically worthless without context - a wood stove is dangerous if you place your hand on top of it while its hot, but not in the same way a grenade is dangerous if you accidentally remove the pin without understanding the consequences..

Yeah, my first thought (admittedly an absurd one) went to something along the lines of:

"I flipped a coin and the LLM called heads. I should have gone with tails..."


Was it a blatantly bad idea or was it some risk that triggered that would have been beyond your typical risk threshold otherwise?


If it’s too personal to share, maybe don’t mention it in the first place? People doing this online and IRL are attention seeking

While crazy to us, I bet we're in the minority. Average computer user might actually like it or at worse (to MSFT) not even notice it. Their web experience is bombarded with "1 weird trick" ads everywhere.


It was truly a wild time. All the books desperate for action in this new online gambling world (US). I went from book to book, took "advantage" of their promos, never collected a dime. When I was up, I bet more. Hit zero? Go to the next book. Their lines were better anyway ;)


At this point I question whether they should even be allowed to advertise.


No. A lot of the Australian ads play on the "this gimmick feature means if you lose you win!"

What it aleays means is you still win or lose a bet they just shuffled the permutations so that you win and lose in different outcomes.

But emotiionally they sell it as them giving you a chance. Pretty manipulative.

Examples would be like "money back if your horse comes second" or "bet on horse coming 3rd 4th or 5th" or "if your team is up at half time we count it as a win".

They are just offering a different wager!


It shouldn't even be allowed to exist, there are literally zero positive outcomes for anyone. On aggregate, people just lose money. And no, it's not entertainment.

And for the operator, they make money by... doing nothing? That's a huge red flag. Usually if that's the case, then the business is not legitimate.


The marketing is what bothers me the most. These books market very aggressively in app: Take Daves 5 leg parlay; Share your picks! 30% profit boost if you do a 4 leg parlay that'll never hit. Its constant engagement. Contrast this to a real bookie: Open app. Place bet. Meet once a week in parking lot. Small chatter. Pass envelope.


Reminds me of this wild story: https://www.si.com/betting/2023/09/15/fake-indian-cricket-le...

Basically, a fake "Cricket league" was setup up in rural India, complete with online streaming, play by play commentary, etc. just to fool gamblers in Russia. Worth the read.


Great article, thanks for sharing. Reminds me of here in the states during early covid. Betting on darts in some Eastern European league knowing full well the fix could be in.


Gosh - I thought I was bleeding edge with my instructions to codex, with all my .md files and such. Lots more to learn!


> However, I've seen multiple times where cops initiate a felony stop

At what point do we accept that all systems are flawed? There could be many variables as to why the perp wasn't in the car. Maybe the perp stole the car. Maybe the perp borrowed the car. Maybe these systems do not work well in fog etc etc. I don't know how we're supposed to advance technology that makes us safer without getting into these muky situations from time to time.


Technology is a means to an end, not the end itself. If you can’t make it safe then don’t deploy it.


There must be some level of acceptable failure.


Flock, like Palantir, is the Torment Nexus from the famous novel Don’t Create The Torment Nexus.

Considering the potential and demonstrated abuse there must be more robust guardrails than currently exist. The required level of safety is more like “nuclear launch codes” or “commercial airliner”, not “local used car lot landing page”.

This juice ain’t worth the squeeze.


Why do anything at all?


Why even deploy such systems? I would support less for sure.


> Code review should be mandatory and reviewers should ask big PRs to be broken up

Always, even before all this madness. It sounds more like a function of these teams CR process rather than agents writing the code. Sometimes super large prs are necessary and I've always requested a 30 minute meeting to discuss.

I don't see this as an issue, just noise. Reduce the PR footprint. If not possible meet with the engineer(s)


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