> What are the proof of that. It looks like he was like those usual rationalists who come up with obvious theories that a lot of people have come up with and think they are super clever, when they are not.
Anyone who identifies as a rationalist is immediately suspect. The name itself is a bad joke. "Ah yes, let me name my philosophy 'obviously correctism'."
I don't really identify with any particular movement, but it's important to note that there are plenty of people who legitimately oppose the core concept of rationalism, the idea that reason should be held above other approaches to knowledge, this being put aside from other criticisms leveled at the group of people that call themselves rationalists. Apparently, rationalism isn't obviously correct. Unfortunately, I don't really have enough of a background in philosophy to really understand how this follows, but looking at how the world actually works, I don't struggle to believe that most people (certainly many decision makers) don't actually regard rationality as highly as other things, like tradition.
Rationalism in philosophy is generally contrasted with empiricism. I would say you're a little off in characterizing anti-rationalism as holding rationality per se in low regard. To put it very briefly: the Ancient Greeks set the agenda for Western philosophy, for the most part: what is truth? What is real? What is good and virtuous? Plato and his teacher/character Socrates are the archetype rationalists, who believed that these questions were best answered through careful reasoning. Think of Plato's allegory of the cave: the world of appearances and of common sense is illusory, degenerate, ephemeral. Pure reason, as done by philosophers, was a means of transcendent insight into these questions.
"Empiricism" is a term for philosophical movements (epitomized in early modern British Empiricists like Hume) that emphasized that truths are learned not by reasoning, but by learning from experience. So the matter is not "is rationality good?" but more: what is rationality or reason operating upon? Sense experiences? Or purely _a priori_, conceptual, or formal structures? The uncharitable gloss on rationalism is that rationalists hold that every substantive philosophical question can be answered while sitting in your armchair and thinking really hard.
It's pretty unfortunate that the Yudkowsky-and-LessWrong crowd picked a term that traditionally meant something so different. This has been confusing people since at least 2011.
Well empiricists think knowledge exists in the environment and is absorbed directly through the eyes and ears without interpretation, if we're being uncharitable.
Sure. The idea of raw, uninterpreted "sense data" that the empiricists worked with (well into the 20th century) is pretty clearly bunk. Much of philosophy took a turn towards anti-foundationalism, and rationalism and empiricism are, at least classically, notions of the "foundations" of knowledge. I mean, this is philosophy, it's all pretty ridiculous.
> Apparently, rationalism isn't obviously correct. Unfortunately, I don't really have enough of a background in philosophy to really understand how this follows, but looking at how the world actually works, I don't struggle to believe that most people (certainly many decision makers) don't actually regard rationality as highly as other things, like tradition.
Other areas of human experience reveal the limits of rationality. In romantic love, for example, reason and rationality are rarely pathways to what is "obviously correct".
Rationality is one mode of human experience among many and has value in some areas more than others.
one is, "is there a rational description of the universe, the world, humanity, etc.". Some people think there isn't, but I would like to think that the universe does conform to some rational system.
the other, and important one is, "do humans have the capability to acquire and fully model this rational system in their own minds" and I don't think that's a given. the human brain is just an artifact of an evolutionary system that only implies that its owners can survive and persist on the earth as it happens to exist in the current 50K year period it occurs in. It's not clear that humans have even slight ability to be perfectly rational analytic engines, as opposed to unique animals responding to desires and fears. this is why it's so silly when "rationalists" try to appear as so above all the other lowly humans, as though escaping human nature is even an option.
Uh-huh. Rationality is open-ended, we're apparently not very good at it and room for improvement is plentiful. However, I can still try to be rational, and approve of rationality.
My apologies. But are you really saying that we're not even able to try to be rational, or to improve? "Perfect rationality" sounds like "perfect knowledge", it's a mind-boggling concept belonging to a such a far distant future that we'll probably revise the concept away before we get anywhere near it. So why present it as a goal? Being slightly more rational is a practical goal, unless you're saying human nature won't allow even that much.
> My apologies. But are you really saying that we're not even able to try to be rational, or to improve?
not at all
> "Perfect rationality" sounds like "perfect knowledge", it's a mind-boggling concept belonging to a such a far distant future that we'll probably revise the concept away before we get anywhere near it.
my statement refers to a general vibe from people who call themselves "rationalists" are going on the assumption that they are rational, while everyone else is not. Which is ridiculous. everyone "tries" to be rational. of course everyone should "try" to be rational. That's what everyone is doing most of time regardless of how poorly we judge their success.
> Being slightly more rational is a practical goal, unless you're saying human nature won't allow even that much.
Everyone should be "slightly more rational". The rationalists state that they *are* more rational, and then they go on to have fixations on such "rational" things like proving that "race" is real and determines intelligence. Totally missing what their brains are actually doing since they are so "rational".
In theory, the name is supposed to imply that they're pursuing rational thinking and philosophies, not that their decisions are the rational choice.
That said, I was surrounded by rationalists in my younger years by pure coincidence and spent some time following the blog links they sent and later reading the occasional LessWrong thread or SSC comment section that they were discussing each day in chat.
It's pretty easy to see that the movement attracts a lot of people who have made up their minds but use rationalisim as a way to build a scaffold underneath their pre-determined beliefs in a way that sounds correct. The blogs and forums celebrate writing of a certain style that feels correct and truthy. Anyone who learns how to write in that style can get their ideas accepted as fact in rationalist communities by writing that way. You can find examples throughout history where even the heroes of the rationalist movement have written illogical things, but they've done it in the correct way that makes it appear to be "first principals" thinking with a "steelmanning" of the other side along with appropriate prose to sound correct to rationalists.
You should explicitly state who those people are, what illogical things they have written, and why they are illogical.
I think it's very likely that people who can plausibly be considered "heroes of the rationalist movement" have written illogical things. But I don't know which specific people and which specific things you mean by that, so I don't know if I think you in particular are correct in your judgement or not.
Using first principles thinking and steelmanning are just rhetorical techniques for persuasive thinking and writing. Even people who are unfamiliar with those particular pieces of terminology do them.
It's stupid, but it works. There are innumerable examples of it, The People's Democratic Republic of Korea, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, National Socialism, Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Good guys, or at least people who are good in the context of your or my value systems, also do it. I've got zero beef with my local Humane Society, they're great, but clearly the name of the organization has been chosen for its strong emotional potency.
Well, I agree but think it is even worse than this. Anyone who hasn't got wind of the opposition between rationalism and empiricism is squarely placing themselves in a very ancient thought-space, more Plato than Kant, no Popper, no modernity.
They are basically outing themselves as either having little curiosity, or as having had very limited opportunity to learn... Still if they expound on it, the curiosity deficit is the most likely explanation.
Standard AI response. Similar to " production-ready", "according to industry standards" or "common practices" to justify and action or indicating it is done, without even compiling or running code, let alone understand the output. An AI can't hear, and even worse, relate this. Ask it to create a diode ladder filter, and it will boost it created a "physically correct analog representation" while output ting clean and pure signals...
For context, I'm working on a proper SPICE component-level Diode Ladder.
I tried this for laughs with Gemini 3 Pro. It spit out the same ZDF implementation that is on countless GitHub repos, originating from the 2nd Pirkle FX book (2019).
Since there is a Ursa Major project on github, made by an owner, who reimplemented this also based on observation, made into a plugin, I wonder how much was regurgitated by the AI agent.
Indeed, same questions few days ago when somebody shared a "generated" NES emulator. We have to make this answered when sharing otherwise we can't compare.
At some point the llm ingested a few open source NES emulators and many articles on their architecture. So i question the llm creativity involved with these types examples. Probably also for dsps.
Right, the amount of hallucinated response data I see at work using any of these leading models is pretty staggering. So anytime I see one of these “AI created a 100% faithful ___” type posts that does not have detailed testing information, I laugh. Without that, this is v0 and only about 5% of the effort.
> i question the llm creativity involved with these types examples.
Indeed but to be fair I'm not sure anybody claimed much "creativity" only that it worked... but that itself is still problematic. What does it mean to claim it even manage to implement an alternative if we don't have an easy way to verify?
I’m not claiming a 100% faithful physical recreation in the strict scientific sense.
If you look at my other comment in this thread, my project is about designing proprioceptive touch sensors (robot skin) using a soft-body simulator largely built with the help of an AI. At this stage, absolute physical accuracy isn’t really the point. By design, the system already includes a neural model in the loop (via EIT), so the notion of "accuracy" is ultimately evaluated through that learned representation rather than against raw physical equations alone.
What I need instead is a model that is faithful to my constraints: very cheap, easily accessible materials, with properties that are usually considered undesirable for sensing: instability, high hysteresis, low gauge factor. My bet is that these constraints can be compensated for by a more circular system design, where the geometry of the sensor is optimized to work with them.
Bridging the gap to reality is intentionally simple: 3D-print whatever geometry the simulator converges to, run the same strain/stress tests on the physical samples, and use that data to fine-tune the sensor model.
Since everything is ultimately interpreted through a neural network, some physical imprecision upstream may actually be acceptable, or even beneficial, if it makes the eventual transfer and fine-tuning on real-world data easier.
Well I'm glad you find new ways to progress on whatever you find interesting.
This honestly though does not help me to estimate if what you claim to be is what it is. I'm not necessarily the audience for either project but my point remains :
- when somebody claims to recreate something, regardless of why and how, it helps to understand how close they actually got.
It's not negative criticism by the way. I'm not implying you did not faithfully enough recreate the DSP (or the other person the NES). I'm only saying that for outlookers, people like me who could be potentially interested, who do NOT have a good understanding of the process nor the initial object recreated, it is impossible to evaluate.
Oh. just to be clear first, I’m not the OP. Sorry for the confusion.
I do understand your point, and I think it’s a fair one: when someone claims to "recreate" something, it really helps readers to know how close the result is to the original, especially for people who don’t already understand the domain.
I was mostly reacting to the idea that faithfulness always has to be the primary axis of evaluation. In practice, only a subset of users actually care about 100% fidelity. For example with DSP plugins or NES emulators, many people ultimately judge them by how they sound or feel, especially when the original artifact is aesthetic in nature.
My own case is a bit different, but related. Even though I’m working on a sensor, having a perfectly accurate physical model of the material is secondary to my actual goal. What I’m trying to produce is an end result composed of a printable geometry, a neural model to interpret it, and calibration procedures. The physics simulator is merely a tool, not a claim.
In fact, if I want the design to transfer well from simulation to reality, it probably makes more sense to intentionally train the model across multiple variations of the physics rather than betting everything on a single "accurate" simulator. That way, when confronted with the real world, adaptation becomes easier rather than harder.
So I fully agree that clarity about "how close" matters when that’s the claim. I’m just suggesting that in some projects, closeness to the original isn’t always the most informative metric.
One reason I find my case illuminating is that it makes the "what metric are we optimizing?" question very explicit.
Sure, I can report proxy metrics (e.g. prediction error between simulated vs measured deformation fields, contact localization error, force/pressure estimation error, sensitivity/resolution, robustness across hysteresis/creep and repeated cycles). Those are useful for debugging.
But the real metric is functional: can this cheap, printable sensor + model enable dexterous manipulation without vision – tasks where humans rely heavily on touch/proprioception, like closing a zipper or handling thin, finicky objects – without needing $500/sq-inch "microscope-like" tactile sensors (GelSight being the canonical example)?
If it gets anywhere close to that capability with commodity materials, then the project is a success, even if no single simulator configuration is "the" ground truth.
What could OP’s next move be? Designing and building their own circuit. Likewise, someone who built a NES emulator might eventually try designing their own console. It doesn’t feel that far-fetched.
Ah that makes more sense, I couldn't make the connection!
So on "So I fully agree that clarity about "how close" matters when that’s the claim. I’m just suggesting that in some projects, closeness to the original isn’t always the most informative metric." reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
That being said as OP titled " I used AI to recreate X" then I expect I would still argue that the audience has now expectation that whatever OP created, regardless of why and how, should be relatively close to X. If people are expert on X then they can probably figure out quite quickly if it is for them "close enough" but for others it's very hard.
Ah that makes more sense, I couldn't make the connection!
So on "So I fully agree that clarity about "how close" matters when that’s the claim. I’m just suggesting that in some projects, closeness to the original isn’t always the most informative metric." reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
That being said as OP titled " I used AI to recreate X" then I would still argue that the audience has now expectation that whatever OP created, regardless of why and how, should be relatively close to X. If people are expert on X then they can probably figure out quite quickly if it is for them "close enough" but for others it's very hard.
I had the hardware for both units and use them extensively so 100% familiar with how they sound.
And I'm not doing it based off of my ears. I know the algorithm, have the exact coefficients, and there was no guesswork except for the potentiometer curves and parts of the room algorithm that I'm still working out, which is a completely separate component of the reverb.
But when I put it up for sale, I'll make sure to go into detail about all that so people who buy it know what they're getting.
Why would I? When you buy a car part, they don't print on the box they used AutoCAD in order to build it. When you rent a movie they don't talk about using DaVinci Resolve to edit it, right? People use AI now to build software. I don't think that's going to change any time soon.
I find it really funny that so many people who vibecode software do their best to cover the AI tracks, especially when it's open-source. I think it's because you all know how negative the public sentiment about AI is, and the sentiment continues to build.
Here you are talking not just about how you've used it, but also how you're planning to sell this as a plugin to musicians – who, as a group, are overwhelmingly averse to AI. Because if they weren't averse to AI, they'd just be using Suno.
I was watching a video where Sean Costello the creator of Valhalla Reverbs was talking about the original Schroeder algorithm design for the first digital reverberator. Schroeder had to schedule time on an IBM time-sharing system days in advance. Then he'd have to write out the code in machine language. Then he had to drive 30 minutes to where the only DAC he had access to was in order to test out his algorithm. Repeat. We don't do that shit anymore.
How is this different?
I don't try to hide my AI tracks. I'll gladly tell anybody that AI helped me do it because it did such a fantastic job. I mean, that's literally what this post is about!
My plug-in sounds way better than the UM-282 which was hand-coded before AI was getting popular. That's all that matters!
Honestly I think you should re-examine your own position. I see you've written plugin software in the past and I'm sure you spent a long time on DSP algorithms and learning and understanding.
Well I did the same thing with web-based software for the last 25 years. The world doesn't give two shits man. The world is going to do what the world is going to do.
What Schroeder was doing wasn't fundamentally built on plagiarism and copyright laundering. The externalities of commercial LLMs are pretty well-documented at this point.
> I'll gladly tell anybody that AI helped me do it because it did such a fantastic job.
And yet you got defensive when I asked you about it. I stand by what I said – you're worried about how it reflects on you and your product. Justifiably so, considering the audience you're going to be selling to.
> That's all that matters!
If that's what you need to believe, I guess? Again – you want to sell vibecoded software to people who themselves are threatened by AI and you're hoping they won't notice or won't care.
> Honestly I think you should re-examine your own position. I see you've written plugin software in the past and I'm sure you spent a long time on DSP algorithms and learning and understanding.
I've spent plenty of time examining my own position and I have come to the conclusion that, no matter how good vibecoding is, it's fundamentally immoral and I judge its practitioners harshly.
> The world doesn't give two shits man. The world is going to do what the world is going to do.
And you're just along for the ride? Have a backbone, at least.
Maybe the OP has the hardware and can compare the sound both subjectively and objectively? Does it have to be 100% exact copy to be called the same? (Individual electronic components are never the same btw)
The OP didn't clarify. But if there's a claim of 100% faithful recreation, I'd expect something to back it up, like time- and frequency-domain comparisons of input and output with different test signals. Or at least something. But there isn't anything.
The video claims: "It utilizes the actual DSP characteristics of the original to bring that specific sound back to life." The author admits they have never programmed DSP. So how are they verifying this claim?
Well it's a new project so give it some time. I feel confident that I'm not lying so I can make that claim.
Also its target market is not a technical crowd but people who make music. I'm optimizing more for what they want to see (which are sound demos) rather than what a programmer would want to see.
Here's the one that kills me. Not FreeCAD, but rather Zw3d. It has a fully complete, native Linux version. But it's Chinese language only! Even though the Windows version is fully international! Come on, wtf!
> My experience from lifting now for 30+ years and seeing thousands of people lift is it is: 1. Genetics.
Also in first place: steroids.
The bodybuilding magazines loved to talk about genetics because they didn't want to say the quiet part out loud. Nowadays people are more willing to talk about it.
Steroids, the main excuse of lazy people who are searching for excuses, without realizing that the main problem is their own attitude based on the mistaken pattern of comparing yourself to unreachable elite instead of to ordinary folks and to your former self.
1. Compare only to former yourself (you can't even know your genetic potential until you start training). Did you improve? Yes? Great, continue. No? Change something.
2. Go 2-3 times a week consistently for years, hitting major muscle groups 2-4 times a week.
3. Work as hard as you can (with safe technique). Consistency and effort is the biggest problem why people don't see results. Most people in the commercial gyms are not training hard enough.
4. Progressive overload. Once you get stronger, your weights/reps/sets should also increase.
5. Eat enough protein. Eat calories according to your goal (gaining muscle or losing fat).
What are you even responding to? I go to the gym and lift and cardio for my own health, but this is this and that is that. If you want to look like the guys featured in the magazines you need steroids. If you want to make a body transformation like actors do you definitely need steroids.
Looking at the genetically elite people in a magazine, imagining that self can become just as good if only by using steroids, is beyond dumb.
Imagine thinking that the only thing stopping self of become a new Michael Jordan is lack of access to dynamite attached to feet (in order to jump higher).
The dynamite aspect is not the biggest stupidity, even deciding to compare self to elite athletes is moronic. Use celebrities as inspiration, not as a manual.
Ordinary people thinking that they need steroids to look like celebrities is wild for many reasons. For one, no amount of steroids in the world is going to help an average ordinary person to be like people in magazines, let alone compete against elite (with or without steroids).
Nobody said "if only by using steroids", everyone knows those people featured had all of steroids, hard work, and genetics. But to stick our heads in the sand about 1/3 of that does no one any favors. I'm not sure if the current climate of more acceptability around discussing it is a great endpoint, given how many young people are taking some pretty nasty steroids before even turning 20, but let's not pretend a reality doesn't exist.
Bodybuilding as a sport now is in probably the worst place it's ever been. You now have "who can take the most drugs" as part of the contest and you're competing with people who aren't afraid to die at 30.
Vital is a wave table synth; Helm is a subtractive synth.
Helm was the first synthesizer that I really excelled with. I would recommend anyone who wants to actually learn the fundamentals of synthesis, to start on it. Once you get good at to it, it's faster to dial in the exact sound you want than to reach for a preset.
It's far more straightforward and less complicated than additive (ZynAddSubFX), FM, or wave table synths.
That being said, if you just want a very advanced synth with a lot of great presets, Vital is far more advanced.
It's gratifying. I used to tilt at windmills on HN about this and people would be telling me with absolute condescension how the ship had sailed regarding the definition of Open Source, relegating my own life's work to anachronism.
People slowly waking up to how daft and hypecycle misusing a term was all along has been amazing.
I think exactly like this. If I created a tool and it were used for free by billion dollar corporations to enrich themselves, I would consider it a personal loss.
The GPL is still the answer. Corporate lawyers still avoid it at all costs. The simple requirement that any derivative works bear the same license has always been the key to sustaining the movement, and the whole push toward permissive licensing has been driven by the companies that want to leech.
Deadline and reminders? They aren't teachers and Rockchip isn't a student, they are the victims here and Rockchip is the one at fault. Let's stop literally victim blaming them for how they responded.
To be clear: Rockchip is at fault, 100%. I would sue (and obv DMCA) any company who takes my code and refuses to attribute it.
If you immediately escalate to [DMCA / court] because they refuse to fix, then that's very fair, but suddenly like 2 years after silence (if, and only if that was the case, because maybe they spoke outside of Twitter/X), then it's odd.
Maybe spend less time policing how other people are allowed to act, especially when you’re speculating wildly about the presence or content of communications
It's a call to push the devs to freely say what happened in the background, there are many hints at that "I wonder if...?" "What could have happened that it escalated?" "Why there were no public reminders, what happened in the back", etc, etc, nothing much, these questions are deliberately open.
Oh. Being rude and suggesting the devs made (in your opinion) a mistake based on your guess at their actions is not going to be an effective way to get them to elaborate on their legal strategy.
Also it’s rude, which is reason enough not to do it.
Anyone who identifies as a rationalist is immediately suspect. The name itself is a bad joke. "Ah yes, let me name my philosophy 'obviously correctism'."
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