Oh yeah? Well, if France hadn't helped the newly born USA with weapons, troops and money, you'd be speaking ... well, English!

Speaking strictly for myself I find I've been using ChatGPT more and more for searching various things, and also for quick and dirty scripts, minor debugging and the like.

For example, I got ChatGPT to write a Powershell script that downloads some files, parses some of their content then renames the files accordingly and pushes them to appropriate folders. I'm don't often use Powershell and I'm not interested in learning Powershell scripting so I couldn't write the script myself without spending quite a bit time to learn the various commands and their (IMO too abstruse) syntax. ChatGPT gave me a working script immediately, and after a bit of testing and tweaking of the prompts I got the work done in a fraction of the time I'd have needed otherwise.

I think this tool has a lot of potential - if they can get rid of hallucinations and if they allow the tool to answer freely without artificially limiting the results to whatever form of political correctness the owning company is currently pushing.

I prefer Murphy's, but that's just me...

This is so, so, so stupid. When I see a post like this I despair for the future of the world. People don't seem to have any understanding of elementary politics anymore. Attacking secret voting doesn't "fix" elections. On the contrary, what it does is break democracy.

Let's say for example that an anti-mafia measure is put on the ballot. What do you think would happen if votes were published for "everyone to access like a giant excel file"? Let me tell you what: the mafia will put word on the street that they'll check the list and break the kneecaps of anybody who voted in favor - and they'll also have all the information needed to find them too, helpfully provided through your big excel file. What will happen then? Nobody who wants to keep his kneecaps will dare to vote for it, and the measure will fail "democratically".

The opposite is true as well: with non-secret ballots people will be able to auction their votes, ensuring the most meritorious (that is, richest) candidate always wins. Is this how you understand democracy? You never heard about voter intimidation, never thought about vote selling? Don't you even realize that one of the reasons why people like Putin or Kim Jong Un "win" their elections with comfortable majorities is that nobody in their countries trusts ballots to be truly secret, and fear retribution if they dare to vote wrong?

The trouble is that many people actually think like this; they'll want to know which of their neighbors is a "trumpist" or a "librul", and they're ready to sacrifice democracy for the sake of tribalism. It's sad and pathetic.

It's true that we've been talking about cures for cancer and fusion for a long time now, and they're not here yet. You shouldn't use this as a reason to dismiss AI though. Revolutions do happen, and many if not most of us here have lived through at least a few. See television, personal computers, internet, smart phones, social media, reusable rockets, just off the top of my head...

Not every hyped change is a revolution, of course, but one of the things I kind of noticed is that the ones that change things most are the fairly unexpected ones, who end up taking the world by storm. Regarding AI, I'm on the fence yet, but some of the things I've seen are quite exciting.

I don't usually do conspiracy theories, but I wouldn't be surprised if the goal of this lawsuit from two republican states really is to get a statement from the Supreme Court affirming the govt's right to interfere with social media. That would allow Trump to crackdown on criticism if he wins the presidency.

And of course, you have numbers to back your assertion. You probably studied the issue deeply and have serious credentials in the area, of you wouldn't make such categorical statements. You certainly wouldn't go pontificating on the subject only based on your personal incredulity - because that would be a fallacy!

So please show some of the numbers that show there is "practically" no chance that life can appear anywhere without an infinite universe and infinite time!

Nothing is "safe and appropriate for user of any age" if you misuse it; a child can swallow Play doh and suffer from vomiting or constipation. A colored pencil can take someone's eye out. Even water is toxic if you drink too much.

I think this rush to make AI "safe" is beyond stupid. If you're afraid of what a machine may say or draw, don't use the machine - or don't let your child use it. Don't force your fears or prejudices on everybody else.

Reminds me of an old joke: what eats a bucket of coal, belches a cloud of black smoke and cuts a potato in three? The Russian machine for cutting potatoes in four.

Not true; photographers use all kinds of stuff to make the food look appetizing. For example they can use glycerin, vicryl (as Polysorb), Scotchgard, acrylic ice and other completely inedible and even poisonous items.

Why would you allow OS updates to your TV at all? At this point we should expect that any "updates" are anti-consumer, and their main reason to exist is adds, tracking and basically any extra monetization of their captive audience they can think of.

I bought a Samsung TV a year or two ago, and never allowed any firmware updates; nor do I see any need for them. The TV isn't plugged in to the internet and doesn't have the wireless network's password. It wanted to connect to the mother ship for activation, but my TV installer activated it using his phone, so Samsung hasn't got any info about me - besides, I guess, my name, address, credit card number, maybe phone number, the TV model I bought, the date when I bought it and anything else they may have received from the store :( .

All video to the TV comes from a little HTPC or a non-internet connected Bluray player. The HTPC lets me get all streams I'm interested in, with ad blockers and at least a modicum of control. I also use the HTPC to play my content from the NAS, so there is no risk that an update stops supporting some older file format or stops working with Netflix or Youtube or whatever.

For people complaining they get distracted by what's behind the screen: just tape a piece of cardboard to the back of the laptop! As a bonus, if you use a printed photo, your screen will have a colorful background, and you can even change the photo from time to time!

Will marvels never cease?

I don't know... I've seen Sandman on Netflix and i learned that about half of England's high society in the early 20th century were black.

Robots are also becoming more and more capable, together with AIs - I don't see why robots can't replace humans for server maintenance.

Hasn't the theory that engaging with those "sort of fledgling democracies" been tested already, with China and with Russia itself after the fall of communism? The West tried to open to them, help them grow their economies, hoping that improved standards of living and Western influence will lead to their democratization. The assumption has proved false, and has ended up creating stronger, more assertive dictatorships.