Pretty sure I tried that but failed. I actually suspect it is some kind of manual problem related to minimizing FP abuse?

In my list of dimensions of evaluating generating AIs, I forgot three of the most negative ones. Criminal profitability is pretty obvious, though the crooks don't show their profits so you'd have to steer backwards by assessing their efforts, presumably correlated with the most profitable scams. Another negative dimension is related to "best for generating AI slop". The third that comes to mind is "best support for self harm". And I'll probably think of a couple more as soon as I click the Submit button...

I think you mean "effective opposition", but that's along story.

In solution terms, perhaps each YOB supporter should be obliged to talk to a couple of "nice" foreigners long enough to learn how much disgust the YOB is producing everywhere in the world. I think three minutes should suffice.

And in the process of feeding a troll and propagating a vacuous Subject, too.

Funny story time. I knew one of the seminal trolls many years ago. Perhaps he thought he was a flame warrior? When I first encountered him he was actually a master's student in the same department where I got my CS degree. He just loved being a nasty offensive and trollish person, apparently for the sake of being nasty.

Later on I heard that he was working in a fast food place, perhaps flipping burgers. Hard to imagine a person with his personality at the counter. Later I heard he had died. At that time I actually wanted to discuss his history in terms of "lessons to be learned", but the reaction was "We mustn't speak ill of the dead." (Which may remind you of one of the YOB's latest gaffes.)

Yeah, I'm going for Funny again. And failing. As usual.

But if I had been asked which feature I WANTED to pay for, then disabling the AI is much more likely the feature I would donate for than the feature to add "AI" to Firefox in the first place. If I WANT AI, then I know where to go looking for it. I've "played" with lots of the so-called generative AIs--and so far I hate them all and I am currently unable to imagine the "project pitch" that would persuade me to donate for that feature.

But maybe they could ask the AI to write such a persuasive proposal that I would donate to pay for adding AI. However my counterproposal is that you don't hold your breath while waiting for my donation.

I'm still looking for a useful comparison of the AIs. For example, on the dimension of best apologies, I think Copilot is first with Google's Gemini running second. On the dimension of most sycophantic, I think DeepSeek is the leader but it's a close race for second among several candidates. Then there's the dimension of programming support, where I actually like ChapGPT. Has anyone tried to assess the various AIs on their hallucinations? I'm inclined to give that prize to Gemini, but perhaps only because it's always in my face when I visit the formerly nice Google search. But on the dimension of utility so far it seems to be an aggressive race for last place.

[And what's with the graying out on Slashdot? When I first saw the story it had only three comments but was unclickable. I'd think I should know after so many years, but...]

I don't see how this is sustainable, and I was a dues-paying member of the IEEE Computer Society for about 20 years and of the ACM for about 10 years. I even attended meetings and donated quite a bit of time to the CS. Minor writing and enough refereeing to become a "senior referee" at the end. I think they are doing some important stuff, but there are costs... And eventually I stopped paying dues. (But now I'm also remembering a database conference that may have been paid for by my employer.)

By the way, I used to read the magazines I received cover to cover. That time actually became a significant negative factor. Lots of good stuff, but too much time required. On that front I think the main effect of paperless publishing will be to significantly reduce the incentive to read all of an entire issue... Why not just ask an AI to summarize the parts that are most relevant to my work?

So if you're going to push me for an overall assessment, I think it's a net negative and will make the ACM less relevant. Perhaps even imperil it's survival.

But I also have a solution approach to ignore: What if the ACM supported books with special webpages to address the time problem? Each computer-related book would have some QR codes pointing to the errata, a bibliography, a searchable and dynamic index, and even forward links to later work on related topics. Kind of a post-publishing future bibliography? In this fantasy, at least the publishers would be providing some funding to sustain the relevance of the books they are selling.

I think you have lost track of the current priorities of the DoJ. But perhaps time for the old joke? Unfortunately I can't remember the exact form of the quote that underlies the joke. A Russian guy? Something about "Behind every great fortune there is a crime"?

I actually think there are two ways to become excessively rich, and crime is only one of them. The second way is to be lucky, though the luck can take various forms. Most common form is inheriting the profits from a parent's crimes.

So the joke is that the old saying is obsolete because these days you use some of the loot to bribe the cheapest politicians to fix the law so that it's no longer a crime. Investing in politicians has had an obscene RoI for a long time now.

It's not the same thing, maybe it has something to do with the nature of the hot air convection inside. Things like fries come out way better in the air fryer than in a convection oven. Also, I find them very easy to clean. Just a quick go with the brush and some washing up liquid, done. The racks go into the dishwasher.

Ignoring the problem has yet to make it go away.

And I strongly disagree that today's google sincerely cares about anything except getting more money.

Why did you quote "not simple". You made me think I had written that, and I certainly don't think so. Maybe you should have used bold for emphasis?

Now I think you're mostly referring to the publishers. Funny business that, even before Amazon tipped over the table. Most of the books they publish are failures that don't even recover the cost of the first print run. I've heard numbers from 80% to above 90%, but that was a while ago, and largely from a delivery driver who delivered fresh books while picking up the unsold ones. The profits were entirely from the bestsellers, and of course the publishers love opium-like books for that reason.

I acknowledge that things have probably changed now. I've already mentioned the Amazon problem, but I also think AI is offering new ways to assess which books might become bestsellers (resulting in fewer books making the first cut).

I'm trusting Michael Lewis on this, but I don't think that applies to the members of the exchanges, and the high speed traders are members. The fees for trades are limited to the little suckers like you and me.

Well, also I've read some of the proposals for transaction fees, and none of them seem to make sense unless the current transactions are without fees.

Thank it for its cooperation?

How is this company worth a trillion $? I don't see many assets, significant IP, a strong competitive edge, or a model for monetization other than becoming an "AI AWS" The latter has some merit, if 1) a strong market for AI Cloud services emerges (and that means corporate clients, not generic chatbots), and 2) they manage to secure a corner on scarce supplies like memory and AI-capable chips.

It might well be the 'partners' themselves that wanted to give up. If they saw no market, then yep - cut the investment. It's been a long long time since the CEO magazines hyped the 'metaverse' every flaming day.

You're kidding, right? The way things work in China is highly conducive to innovation, from small startups and even individuals to factories. From electronics to vehicles and even space flight. They are not afraid to blatantly copy ideas, which gives them a leg up...they don't stop there, the copy is just the starting point of their development. Meanwhile, the government doesn't micro-manage innovation, they provide focus... and that comes with resources. Some advantages they have:
- Companies, even large ones, seem to do very well at scaling up as well as scaling down production runs.
- Extremely short iterations. Want to try something new, with new materials, new shapes? Takes weeks or months in the West, but the Chinese will overnight it. Something that Apple commented on: they did not shift a lot of R&D to China because of cost, but because of speed.
- Lots of cross-pollination between innovators, especially the smaller ones. So-called innovation hubs work in China.

They do go from prototype to production a little fast sometimes, cutting crucial corners. But the speed is impressive. Remember that ridiculous idea of putting a bus on stilts so it could drive over traffic jams? They actually built one. Didn't take more than a few weeks either. I don't think they can get their Starship clone in orbit and back down in one piece before SpaceX will... but if they do, it would not surprise me greatly either.