this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
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It's just a fad. There's just a small bit that will stay after the hype is gone. You know, like blockchain, AR, metaverse, NFT and whatever it was before that. In a few years there will be another breakthrough with it and we'll hear from it again for a short while, but for now it's just a one trick pony.
I always forget Metaverse is a thing.
It was never a thing.
I should've elaborated... It's supposed to be a vast seamless network of interconnected spaces isn't it, but that doesn't exist yet. I think they jumped the gun in that everyone thought Horizons was it. It's only just starting to be built.
I actually had 'was' first then edited after Googling. It appears it is still a thing but can't really tell for what.
Is there really any utility for blockchain and NFTs?
The hilarious thing about blockchain is that the core concept is actively making the whole thing worse. The matrix protocol is sort of essentially blockchain without the decentralized ledger part, and it's so vastly superior in every single way.
NFTs just show how fundamentally dumb blockchains are, if you skip the decentralized ledger bit then you never need to invent NFT functionality in the first place..
So a [Merkle tree](http://www..com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkle_tree)?
i'm not sure whether matrix uses that, what i'm talking about is how it does the things everyone finds neat about blockchains without the inherent downsides like massive power usage and EVERYONE having to replicate the ENTIRE ledger.
i know IPFS uses merkle trees though, and hilariously blockchains largely rely on that to actually store any significantly sized data.
Well, if you stop listening to people who think it's a way to get really rich really fast (which it obviously isn't), cryptocurrencies are quite useful. International transfers are so much cheaper and easier with them.
Yes, you could, for example, use it to manage who is allowed to park in a garage, anonymously. The owner of a parking spot NFT can unlock the door from the outside. Stuff like that.
However, it's also possible to do that with a small web application. Just payments and transfer of the parking spots are less free and it's not decentralized.
The proton vpn people are either using or working on using block chain as a sort of email verification. Iirc it won't have any cost or change in usage to the consumer, just an added layer of security. I'm not smart enough to understand how but it sounds neat.
It sounds like bullshit
I may have misread, Its not clear to me if it'll be a staple of their free email service or will be added as part of their paid subscription to all their services but it still sounds neat. It very well could be bullshit but I'm interested in learning more.
https://www.tomsguide.com/news/proton-mail-to-use-blockchain-to-verify-recipients-email-addresses
I disagree, because unlike those things, ai actually has a use case. It needs a human supervisor and it isn't always faster, but chat gpt has been the best educational resource I've ever had next to YouTube. It's also decent at pumping out a lot of lazy work and writing so i don't have to, or helping me break down a task into smaller parts. As long as you're not expecting it to solve all your problems for you, it's an amazing tool.
People said the same things about 3d printing and yeah, while it can't create literally everything at industrial scale, and it's not going to see much consumer use, it has found a place in certain applications like prototyping and small scale production.
ChatGPT is OK at summarizing popular, low specificity topics that tons of people have already written a ton about, but it’s terrible at anything else. When I tested its knowledge about the process of a niche interest of mine (fabric dyeing) it skipped completely over certain important pieces of information, and when I prompted it to include them it basically just mirrored my prompt back at me.
Which has pretty much summed up my ChatGPT experience: it just regurgitates stuff I can find myself, but removes the ability to determine if the source is reliable. And if it’s something I’m already having trouble finding detailed information about it usually doesn’t help.
i'd argue that chat gpt is mostly great at taking human bullshit tasks from humans, who dontwant to dothe bullshit, like regurgitating the text from a textbook in different words, writing cover letters for job applications, that are often machine analyzed for buzzwords anyways.
So its use case only exist in the domain of bullshit tasks that only exist to occupy two people without any added value.
Yeah, that is one thing it can do, but it's not the only thing it does. I'm not sure how to get my point across well but, just because it gives you the wrong answer 25% of the time doesn't mean it's useless. In whatever you ask it to do, it often gets you most of the way there as long as you know how to correct it or check its work. The ability to ask specific or follow-up questions when learning something makes it invaluable as a learning tool (if you're teaching yourself that is (ie. If you're a university student)). It's also very useful when brainstorming ideas or helping you approach a problem from a different angle. I can also ask it questions that are far more specific than what a search engine would get me.
It really comes down to if the human operator knows how (and when) to use it properly.
i never trust that information id rather learn with a book videos or just from websites if i ever use it i always fact check it. never blindly trust a computer
That was an integral part to this whole thing, you always fact check the ai. I said this in both of my comments.
I totally get preferring textbooks or videos though. I just find that the ai saves me time since i can ask specific questions about things, and it often gives me concise information that i understand more quickly.