Last I checked the local government said so. They have indemnified waymo in every market they have launched their taxi service. I don't think that would hold up if they killed a human being, at least not one that isn't homeless, but so far it's held up for the more minor stuff that's happened.

Basically waymo cannot be cited for traffic violations and killing a pet is just a traffic violation. The most they could be held responsible for would be the value of the pet which is usually under $100.

OpenAI got out ahead but really, how do you beat google at this?

Technology-wise, they've had top researchers all along. Want more? Just hire them, not hard when you have infinite money.

And google has access to everything. They serve about 1/3 of the population on earth every day. Not just search but webmail, texts, maps, word processor, TV (youtube), transportation (Waymo) everything.

Google is on almost everybody else's webpages too, through Google Ads.

There isn't much about your digital life google doesn't know about, and almost every potentially productive use of AI can be deployed to billions through their own services.

It's that we all know this is a grift and we're all trying to figure out how the grift works.

I can think of a few possible things but I don't have enough of a finance background to really say for sure of what they are up to, but I know damn well that billionaires don't just hand out billions of dollars for the hell of it. There is a reason that Bill Gates is still one of the wealthiest people on the planet despite telling us 20 years ago he was going to give away his fortune.

Billionaires have been lying to us for as long as we've had billionaires, some of us just figured that out

But given this administration's history of corrupting everything they touch it's not something we should get behind from this administration because it's almost guaranteed to turn into some kind of scam that puts money in their pockets.

There is nothing wrong with a sovereign wealth fund per se if your government is relatively uncorrupted. Ours is not, the Trump administration is without a doubt the most corrupt and criminal administration in American history and that is saying a lot.

Simply put you cannot expect good things to come out of this administration even if the underlining ideas are fine. And I don't think that's any kind of exaggeration or partisan bickering. The Trump administration is openly murdering Venezuelan fishermen in the lead up to another war for oil without even the slightest pretexts. That alone should tell you we are in for a bad time. You don't have to be a genius to extrapolate from that data point and the dozens of other data points like the illegal tariffs or the huge bribes like the cryptocurrency or the jet Qatar gave the Trump or the fact that the taxpayer is going to be retro fitting that jet for his use...

If I had to guess, and it's just a guess, I would say that they are positioning themselves to profit from the money put aside for the kids. Probably sitting themselves up to redirect the money being invested in the companies that they own.

The one thing we can be sure of though is that this is a scam and the only question is what are the details of the scam.

You don't become a billionaire by being altruistic. People who genuinely care about society at Large stop accumulating wealth long before they become billionaires. To become a billionaire requires a certain level of sociopathy. There's a reason why the old phrase, never ask a Man how he made his first million, exists. That phrase has been around so long that a million dollars isn't a lot of money anymore but you get the idea.

The supreme Court has overruled 94% of the lower court rulings Trump has lost. It's painfully obvious they will just rubber stamp anything Trump wants. More importantly anything the heritage foundation and Peter thiel wants. Trump can't stay awake through an entire cabinet meeting so it's not so much that he wants anything but he would like to stay in power because he is making billions of corruption and bribes.

Meanwhile the Republican party does not have a viable candidate for 2028. Vance is a joke and a couch fucker and the rest of them are so mired and scandal they are completely unelectable. None of them have Trump's Teflon because they aren't perceived as outsiders.

So the Republican party is going to run Trump unless Trump is physically incapable of running. Meanwhile the news media will protect Trump and will convince the public that it is perfectly normal for Trump to run for a third term. We saw this in 2024 with sane washing. Which is the practice of crazy shit Republicans do, especially anything crazy Trump does being reported as normal and good in the news media.

This probably isn't enough for Trump to actually win a third term but the Republican party will use common voter suppression tactics to stop enough casual voters from making it to the polls in order for Trump to win.

It is possible the voters won't buy into this but at the same time they did elect a felon with 28 credible rape accusations for a second term because he promised cheap eggs and because trans people gross them out...

And of course if anyone can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory it's the Democratic party. They are on track to nominate Gavin newsom and he's fine but I could easily see them coming up with some scandal to take him out so they can put yet another unpopular woman forward. There is a contingency of the Democrat party that is obsessed with the first female president and will do anything to get it. And unfortunately they have a lot of pull in the party...

So yeah Trump cares because Trump is going to run for a third term. This is why he's backing off on some of his tariffs

Your cynicism has turned off your brain. A common occurrence these days in the USA.
THINK and you'll realize. Stop feeding into the despots; who benefit from cynicism!

I say this as one but that doesn't mean I shutdown. Sure both parties cave to powerful wealthy people but the least impacted the most resistant one gets my vote. The Rank Choice Voting proponent gets my vote no matter what scumbag they are - as long as they support that 1 issue. No other issues matter in a failing democracy than restoring the vote. We're headed towards modern despotism where fake elections appease enough slow people to be worth faking. Projection! always it seems to be projection. You know who is doing everything he accuses others of. not hard to see.

I don't know how many billions they have to trash. This is a scam.
A recent tax accounting conference to update accountants on the new laws etc. just happened in my city. People travel around the country for these things. The Trump savings account for children is complete shit. Nobody could understand the benefit to doing it; even the banks that manage it gain little and the IRS is somehow supposed to admin the things because the parents are NOT co-owners on the fund. Also, it must have Trumps NAME in the account title or it doesn't work.
What was said is that before it was amended away, it was going to allow it all to be in crypto. The general assumption by these experts was that it was a crypo lobbied scheme that failed at the last second. That doesn't mean it won't get another law to adjust it later so it becomes something.
If you are a bank running this thing and found some loophole then you could make money from it; the government itself is dumping $1000 tax payer money into each account. There are fixed returns and taxes on it - it's better to do your own IRA or something; it has zero benefit for the children other than it's a free $1000. Will they remember and get access to it in their future? maybe... some kind of management loophole could result in money being made by people like the Dells who are invested in banks who know the gimmick.

As far as taxes; they make no sense.

The future always has been in the cities. The rural folk will destroy democracy because they never really were for it; just nationalism or whatever cult they belong to...were indoctrinated into. Also, fitting that they think everybody else is "brainwashed" (they are more so.) They'd be for restoring slavery if it would help save them...maybe conditions will return; everything else has been reverting...

The masses are moving towards 90% in the cities; less than 2 centuries ago it was the opposite. Suburbs are a non sustainable hybrid and cities designed around that will suffer as wealth continues to be extracted.

The conflict with cities will only grow and we frankly need to ditch the whole land=vote concept; it's long long overdue for people to realize the inequality of it. Automation continues to eliminate rural living along with capitalism and for the majority their economy. I'd have government take all that over before we end up with a monopoly controlling all our food. It's not communism; you need labor for that and labor is what is being eliminated! The few rural jobs can be prison jobs. Furthermore, I'm sick of us subsidizing everything the rural fools get; too busy inbreeding to realize the only reason they have internet, roads, power, medicine, and don't economically collapse is their welfare coming from the cities.

lose enough.

But having known a range of Republicans; it's irrational tribalism, plus lots of fear. You are poor because you are inferior. You are successful because you are superior and most the rest is rationalizations (shifting blame is like breathing.)

Also good luck getting that check. It can take years.

Florida in particular is a mess right now and nobody is doing anything to fix it. We've got a fuck ton of retirees who can't afford to move, aren't dying any time soon and are stuck in condos we know are likely to fail without expensive retrofits they can't afford. It's a miracle there hasn't been another collapse and we're just hoping they drop dead of old age before it hits them.

Quoted against the censor trolls.

My take is that young impressionable people are especially good at learning to think like machines. I even think that is not a good thing, no matter what the generative AI tells me.

Why are you propagating the vacuous Subject? Also masks your point, though I can't really figure out what it is.

Did remind me of a twisted joke. The US basically started on a negative foot. The focus was on rejecting the king. It actually took a while to start developing positive philosophies. I think the best effort was Lincoln's "government of the people, by the people, and for the people".

There was a transitional period when it became government of the corporations, by the lawyers, for the richest 0.1%, but now we are moving to government of a few giant corporate cancers with AIs, by the Donald, for the (mostly shadowy) puppeteers. Or maybe the first and third are reversed? Too soon to figure out what sort of mess we've gotten ourselves into.

IPv4 is old. Force IPv6 and legally ban NAT which facilitates the ability to block and censor as far as the ISP is concerned. People will have to learn how to circumvent that but no longer an ISP problem unless they don't ban IPs or MAC.

SCOTUS doesn't care much about due process... it's more a process of finding out what amount is due to them $$$

My version of optimism about that thar' veep:

"He couldn't sell candy to a baby. But he might be able to steal the baby's candy if he catches it napping."