Coder here. I've worked with all sorts of sketchy operations (including datamining and browser hacking) and while I was being paid well I didn't question it. That's how it works in the real world, where pretty much everything is sketch when you come down to it. The entire Google empire is sketch. I never worried about what my employer would do with my code, because most of the sketchy stuff was still being done elsewhere already. The AI/AGI thing is on another level of being sketchy. It's more on a par with developing nuclear or biological weapons, which do notice had no trouble recruiting boffins in their time.

If Putin was right, then these coders might be sitting on the next nuclear weapon. They might even know that is what they are sitting on. Maybe one day you wake up and think to yourself, man this isn't right.

Anyway, it's all speculation. But the day will certainly come when someone finishes a code run, looks at the output, and suffers an existential crisis because they are looking at a weapon, not a codebase. What will that person think? What regrets might they have? Probably they'll shrug and go home to their nice home in a nice part of downtown, play a video game, order sushi with DoorDash, and check their bank account again to gloat over how many zeros have been tacked onto their balance since last year.

Sounds to me like 1) Google has developed something of significant value in the AI realm, 2) the coders are becoming concerned about what Google is going to do with it, and 3) Google is going to put the entire project under wraps.

My long-term concern with AI is weaponization. Putin said it best; whichever nation perfects AGI first will rule the world. I think he got that one right. We don't know what is the actual progress being seen behind closed doors, we'll know more when the hunter/killer bots show up on the battlefield.

... all that, then. Hope you all had a fun time because shit just got real.

I think it's really cute how seriously stupid most people really are. Like little toddlers, they believe and say the darndest things! Of course, stupid people suffer too, but that's fine because they don't know they are suffering. Saint Dunning-Kruger still loves them!

Still doesn't matter. Children suffer from bad parents, teachers, cops, and role models every day, nobody raises a hand to change that. It's just taken as given that life sucks, people suffer, stupid people suffer the most, and stupid people make everyone else suffer too. Six people were shot to death in Colorado Springs today, by someone who was crazy stupid. Nothing could stop that, nothing will be done about it, it will happen again and again and again. I don't see any point in pretending that will change ever in the history of forever.

People think and say all sorts of things, some of those things are self-destructive, who cares. Everyone is an adult here, given the options they can decide what to do. Someone who happens to be susceptible to misinformation probably has a lot of other personal problems as well. Nobody has to fix that.

Pretty sure they'll have stopped selling ICE by 2030. Probably sooner. That's just how all this is going to play out.

If the vehicle was anything other than a Tesla, the authorities would be asking the community for any information on a missing driver who fled the scene.

Seriously, folks.

There are no space aliens and we are alone in the universe. If there turn out to be aliens, then they will be us.

These tunnels are not at all about getting you there quickly. They are about getting you there at all and in a Tesla-brand conveyance. The future is much less about ICE cars and more about electric, and those being autonomous (entirely) and those being about car-as-a-service and not about ownership. The CaaS will use the tunnels, nobody else will be allowed. Eventually, the surface roads will close or become pedestrian malls, and the traffic goes underground. "Driving to Vegas for some fun" will be something nobody does. You will fly there in an electric Tesla-branded hoverplane, seats for 20. And you'll really love it.

... the year I expect modern civilization to have entirely imploded. I guess the autonomous drone hunter-killer bots will still use it.

of radical movements. Everything eventually loses the fire and goes mainstream, then the OG radicals who started the entire thing are deemed "unsophisticated". At least RMS is unlikely to be repudiated by the People's Software Central Committee as a counter-revolutionary and shot at dawn with an antiaircraft gun. I mean, probably not. These days there is no telling.

Humans need to find moves that break strong AI. Chess is a good place to start.

... to sales of those Guy Fawkes masks.

Microsoft looks to be about to throw this guy under the bus to keep things chill with Intel. There are likely significant strategic covenants on the table. Oh, and I could spell that "Intel" or "intel". Just say'n.