That's so 80s. Browsers got a lot more functionality in the 90s. You were there, right?

The complaint is, at its right, AI replacing people. That's not a new fear. And I expect it to play out much like past technological changes. Not without pain. SMH not without advantages.

Here's the trick...

RISC-V is ostensibly an open source ISA. So as designers build new implementations, they may be advancing the capabilities of the ISA and contributing to the RISC-V universe.

But history teaches us that despise licensing and such, open source advances often get locked behind commercial license forks, and it is a fight to get these outfits to obey the true license. ARM suffered from this occasionally, but not like I expect RISC-V to. This chip ISA has the potential to upend the whole business.

Unless the big stuff gets locked away.

Combine Qualcomm's IP and expertise with the RISC-V platform, a nearly blank slate, and we could see cool stuff. Giving back to the RISC-V community? Not Qualcomm's strength from experience.

But RISC-V could win, if the innovators aren't locked out or patent-trolled into oblivion.

The one guy concept has been around for a while. Sometimes they use consultants, sometimes it's the gig economy that gets them work that can be done on demand. The AI is going to be another one of those tools. But you don't need two people to have a corporation. I think that describing AI as" replacing the corporation" is really just scare talk. The AI is going to replace jobs, it's also going to make new jobs possible or attractive. As with most all technology that we've seen over the past century, we can't predict all of the effects. I don't think it's the end of anything, though. Monolithic tools that operate in virtually every facet of life bring with them the risk of singular failures. That'll be interesting to watch

I think the promotion of a Lunar mission is more to give NASA some $ to spread around to their long term partners.

And the NASA-derived mission is just flailing in the dark, what a mess.

Your landscaper having a degree in botany makes a little bit of sense. At least in Europe where they value quality. Not that you don't get good landscaping in America, but the equation is slightly different

'replace' with what?

Definitions. AI will take the place of non-AI in much of the corporate world. Already begun. Film at 11.

First, university education is not a monolith. Technical degrees from institutions that actually teach the subject matter have value - engineers still engineer, theoreticians still work out theory, these sorts of degrees and others have real value, even in the AI future.

Second, universities that teach 'soft' subjects, liberal arts, etc., have a more difficult value proposition. And it has been, at least at prestigious institutions, connection. That is, connection to the influential, the gatekeepers to profitable employment. In fact, it is more dependent on the prestige of the institution than the quality or caliber of education. Without choosing moral or political sides, influence, connection, prestige, access to the higher-paid careers.

Only that isn't working as well as it is sold. Certainly the institutions in next tier down have less and less to sell, and placement statistics show this. Much of this is the reality of corporate employment today, if you're not an NGO, government agency or affiliate, or political influencing entity, you got very little work to offer. The starting pay is lower, the career prospects dimmer, it's not good for the English Lit major unless they present something unique.

Connection to employment was always the driver. And connection to classmates used to be rungs on the career ladder. For the most recent generations, that is failing because they are not connecting to classmates. And this fellow classmate connection always was expected to become the future career connection, even if it was merely a reference.

This all points out a deeper problem. Recent generations of entry-level employees are too often socially inept. They have a hard time fitting in, and while it is popular sport on /. to rail about corporate ineptitude, immorality, and unethical existence, you should fit in before you go about remaking the corporation. Or, put more bluntly, you need to be in there to change from the inside. But the incoming generations are so inept that they are stalling their development, or worse, risking the process skipping them entirely. Just as we get reports of teaching degree programs that fail to teach how to teach, many business administration programs fail to teach how to get along. And you get bull in a china shop entry-level recruits that take a while to figure out what the game is, much less how to play it.

Connection? Well, a final note. University campuses have become battlegrounds, where the most innocent remark becomes a microaggression, the transgressor is expelled, and he perception of justice is the purpose of the institution. I don't advocate eliminating codes of conduct , but if universities cannot even employ due process and fair play, they are defective. No wonder they are making their student bodies into islands.

"If AI could replace humans, it also replaces corporations.'

AI will not replace corporations, it will become the corporation.

'In my entire life, I've never paid for something by check and been told I couldn't take my purchase until the check cleared'

Your life experience does not match mine. Vehicle purchases especially, unless I used a cashier's check, I would wait for delivery and title. I've mailed checks for merchandise and been told I will not see shipment until the check clears.

And a classic check purchase fraud is to overpay, request a refund, on a bad check. You left holding the bag for a bad check, out the refund money you made good.

In fact, look for online car dealer experiences, and you find this exact fraud is common. Most dealers know better.

Just not my experience. You are fortunate.

I buy CDs I want (and do not already have) anywhere, yard sales, Goodwill, etc., because I prefer to *own* the music I want. I use streaming services for convenience, since Google mangled my online libraries, but if I wanted to I could stream off of a self-hosted gadget.

I've kept a portable CD player just in case, and my portable Minidisc recorder is still important to me, along with a stock of blanks.

Owning is underrated.

If you buy a car with a credit card( and I know someone who did and they used their Amex and it works) you're probably going to walk out to the parking lot. Put your key in the car and go. If you buy a car with a check, I just suspect you're coming back tomorrow and maybe even 3 days later, as ACH does not clear instantly. It's all it's worth to you. If it's convenient to just walk out the door, you use a card. If you can wait just a couple of days and let the check clear. Obviously you saved yourself 800 bucks. You pay for convenience. That's one of the features of payment processing.

"The 2.5% processing fees more than cover their losses."

Are you implying this is the only real cost for payment processors?

MasterCard and Visa both employ an internetwork that links banks (issuers) and merchants (acquirers) so that data is exchanged and payments are processed.

Issuers maintain the data necessary to identify their account holders, keep records, pay out the transactions presented by acquirers, and arrange to be paid for the transactions they facilitate. The float between payment to acquirers and receiving payment from their account holders binds capital, which sometimes is actually borrowed from sources, at interest. Even if it is held as working capital, it is not earing interest elsewhere. Along with all this, issuers have a fiduciary responsibility to protect their account holders from fraud and misuse, as much as is practically possible. All this I mention not to excuse fees, just to point out the reasons. And all of this requires complex information systems, which must be sufficiently accurate to avoid penalties for failure, even from regulatory agencies that are predicated on nothing more than a desire to impose their judgement on the process.

Acquirers also have a responsibility to eliminate fraud as much as practical. They also have a responsibility to ensure their customers, merchants, receive payment for goods and services provided on the promise of payment, and within reasonable time frames. And since the agencies purporting to protect consumers from bad behavior demand reporting, acquirers maintain these records. Not to mention tax receipts, etc.

Payment processing is not cheap. It most certainly is not free. Is 2.5% fair? I dunno. But it is a competitive business, despite the outsider not discerning that, but competitive in two directions. First, under the hood, processors do compete on fees or services. Stripe used to charge a LOT more than others, for the convenience of an easy signup. Amex used to charge more for the convenience of lesser fraud and customer loyalty (It was factual, look it up, or ask CVS and Walgreens). MasterCard and Visa discounted fees to attract the business that other brands enjoyed. Now convenience is a feature that has value. Loyalty programs increase fees because, well, if you're getting 2% cashback on your card, that came from somewhere. The equation should be obvious, but go look that up also.

Whining about processing fees can be about the absolute value, but if you don't understand the process, you will not believe that fees are fair, ever. You're wrong.

As we consider the premise that ACH checking is 'free'...

Most banks charge business customers for cash deposits. That includes checks.

Which sort of challenges the concept that payment processing fees are somehow excessive, when these fees are levied even for aper.

ACH can be used entirely electronically, but there are fees. Inconvenient, because ACH has rules.

Many payment processors charge fees almost invisibly.

And business customers find that depositing cash is a unique nuisance, so they might very much like this.

Eliminating paper checking is the gateway drug to eliminating cash. And that is the stepping stone to eliminating personal privacy.

(Off-topic rant here, eliminate the 702 provision. Please.)

Yes, this.

The unbanked in the US suffer many insults and damages. Eliminating paper checks will add to that, forcing them to use some service to convert cash into a form acceptable to the banking industry,

As it is, unbanked often pay to cash the checks they get for payroll etc. They convert direct deposit debit cards into cash, often with a fee. And then they enjoy the scorn of others who wait impatiently as they pay in cash, wait for the cashier to miscount change, and further complain.

SO eliminating paper checks will slap the unbanked twice - their sources of funds will be forced into some method, and they will be denied even the paper checking some use to avoid electronics.

And we should enjoy the discussion on the topic of 'We should eliminate cash'. Right in with 'We should eliminate printed material'.

Eliminating paper checks is not so good an idea as it might appear at first glance. As it is, those paper checks are negotiated and virtually immediately converted to electronic image data. From there, it's conventional for today.

I'll leave the discussion of personal privacy, freedom, and the Surveillance State to others. But you have been prompted.