> Is America a uniquely crime ridden failed state or something?

The funny part there is that in America most suburban houses have power outlets outside. So I'm not sure why the GP thinks there's a problem running a power cord. Maybe in a real city, but if you live in a real city chances are you don't WANT to drive to work because (1) public transport is so much nicer and (2) traffic jams make what would already be a chore into a stress inducing nightmare.

But most Americans don't live in real cities, they live in suburbs in AnyTown USA places, where running a power cord to your car parked in your driveway isn't risking anyone screwing with it in any realistic way.

> I don't know if it constitutes "shady", but Stallman's comments demonstrated such shockingly poor judgment that I wouldn't want him in a leadership role in an organization that I support.

Yeah, a lot of people here seem to think that "$RANDO is a good guy, heart is in the right place and/or is skilled at $SUBJECT therefore is qualified for a leadership position."

Leadership requires you're trusted by those you lead, that you articulate plainly, that you understand politics, and so on. Understanding the subject of the organization you lead is almost a secondary consideration. Almost. But mere understanding and articulating great ideas is orthogonal to articulating them well and being someone the group you lead looks up to.

RMS is probably a good guy. He's socially stunted, sure. And I'm sure him constantly hitting on random women with "pleasure cards" wasn't intended to be obnoxious. I'm also sure he's never meant to appear to endorse pedophilia, being techy and thus obsessed with technicalities. I genuinely believe his heart is in the right place.

But RMS has never been an ideal leader. In the early days he got into that position by creating a project that gave us results we weren't getting from anywhere else. Some, particularly on the right of the political spectrum, found his heavy philosophy to be grating even if it ultimately led to positive results, and subsequently there was a schism resulting in the Open Source Movement. That is in no way RMS's fault, but it was an early sign he wasn't politically savvy enough to lead a united free software movement.

The defenses of Marvin Minsky, the behavior that made women feel uncomfortable and unwelcome in free software circles, and so on, also showed a lack of ability to "get" what's needed to lead a movement.

And, you know, maybe that's OK. Maybe RMS never wanted to be a free software leader in the first place? Maybe he just ended up as one by default. But maybe also we need, as a community, to take care of the difference between "This person is saying some good stuff that needs to be said", and "This person would be ideal as the leader of us when we organize."

See also: Brandon Eich. Though I don't think Brandon Eich was ever a good person, and the direction of Brave as a cryptomining ad-swapping horror confirms that, just a skilled programmer.

The GP is suggesting that closed source software might also be up for grabs and explains it in terms that the specification and behavior is already written down, even if not as code.

I'd suggest though that it's up for grabs anyway. The difference between open source and closed source is that you have access to the original human-readable source code for the former. But looking at the wider picture, the code is available for both if you don't need a human-readable version, as binary code is also computer code. In theory there's no reason such a tool could not be extended functionality to refactor a machine code program.

I'd imagine Microsoft and Apple would lobby heavily to make sure that doesn't happen.

> Is that why hammer, knife, gun and ammo manufacturers are not liable for the intentional deaths facilitated by their products or is there a different reason?

I can't speak for hammer or knife manufacturers, but I can tell you gun and ammo manufacturers actually have legislation shielding them. I'll let a lawyer explain to you why hammer or knife manufacturers might not be held liable but a maker of a product that has a failure mode that encourages people to murder others would be.

> ORLY?

Do you think you're making a point here? Are you unfamiliar with the numerous liability lawsuits that are won in this country despite the intended use of the product not being to murder or injure someone?

> You are conflating unintentional failure modes of a product with intentional misuse by humans. Damn silly.

No, you are suggesting that liability fits neatly into one or the other or that something can't be an example of both.

> Oh look a Slashdot rando is making blanket assertions about whole groups of Slashdot users. Damn repetitive.

Oh look, another Slashdot rando putting words into my mouth, in the rudest way ever. Second day in a row. Have you considered logging off and never coming back to this website again?

> It is smart to be unwilling to support systems of governance and law whereby anyone can be incidentally liable for the behavior of others. This is insane and illogical.

It would be, but that's not what's under discussion here. Someone designed a product one of whose failure modes is alleged to be that it encourages and helps kill large numbers of innocent people. If that is a failure mode of ChatGPT, OpenAI is partially liable. Sorry if the idea of personal responsibility is new to you or has been explained as meaning "Only one person is responsible, and corporations can do no harm", because someone chose to make that product and not put in appropriate safeguards.

A few lost lawsuits, and they will start doing so.

Chat with a normal person:

Me: "Zuck has never been tied to any party, he only supported the Democrats when..."

Normal person: "Are you saying people shouldn't change parties?"

Me: "No, I'm saying OP was wrong about Zuck being a Democrat"

Normal person: "Oh, sorry, misunderstood. Sorry to bother you"

--

Chat with you:

Me: "Zuck has never been tied to any party, he only supported the Democrats when..."

You: Some word salad about ships that ends insulting me and suggesting that my vote is for party not principle.

Me: "That's not what I said at all and does not represent my beliefs"

You: General shit flinging and increasingly bizarre and hysterical lies

Me: "if you can't read, please don't reply to my posts. You're wasting my time and everyone else's."

You: More shit flinging and lies

--

Why are you wasting everyone's time here?

Get of Slashdot, turn off the computer, start talking to real people, and when you badly misunderstand what someone said, don't accuse them of "gaslighting" when they explain your interpretation is bullshit.

You are an intensely stupid person. GFYS.

I remember when Trump was shot a few years ago. Seems people have always shot at Presidents. Which is why I implore you not to hold me liable for my brand new book "How to shoot the President: Ten tips for assassinating an ass! The Secret Service doesn't want you to read #9!" Available at all booksellers now, buy before midnight today and we'll give you a FREE $500 off coupon for an AR-15!

(To save the SS a trip, no, this is not real, it's a joke to make a point, and while I'm not a fan of the jerk I don't want people shooting him either.)

> Section 230 says that Slashdot can't be held liable if a user posts a "how to coordinate a school shooting" guide in the comments section, as it's provided by "another" information content provider. If a Slashdot editor posted such a guide to the front page, they've provided that content themselves, and are no longer protected.

I agree with your analysis and just wanted to add:

Section 230 doesn't mean there's no liability, only that none of it befalls the owners of the Internet infrastructure used to host the comment. So if, for example, some random Slashdot poster posted a "How to coordinate a school shooting" guide, Slashdot wouldn't be held liable, but the poster would be. Slashdot might be ordered by a court to turn over the poster's details, but that's as far as it goes for /., while the poster might be held liable depending on exactly what they posted.

(This doesn't contradict anything you just said, but is a missing piece people often miss when discussing the validity of S.230, which in general is a good rule despite the recent skepticism here.)

Section 230 is about user generated content. You aren't liable for what someone else posts to your website. It has nothing to do with your program outputting algorithmicly generated text. To the best of my knowledge, there is no shield law like S.230 or the laws absolving firearm manufacturers of liability that applies to text generated by an LLM.

Like it or not, what your product does is more important than whether it was designed deliberately to do that. If your product actually injures or kills people, you will be generally found liable. This has been the case for over a century. It's why every piece of consumer electronics has a "UL" sticker on it, because the insurers want to minimize the risks before offering liability insurance.

Slashdot Lawyers like to pretend that every evil thing that happens is the result of one person and that only one person can have liability. But that's not the case, in most cases, for something horrific to occur, multiple entities fail, and are held liable to different degrees. It's not a question of whether OpenAI is liable for anything here under normal circumstances, it's whether they can point at some specific law that shields them (like an equivalent of S.230), and if not, to what degree they are held at fault.

Yeah, this isn't it, unless they're claiming that Google is just as dumb as the author is, which is entirely possible. Comments like "Businesses are just starting to realize that AI coding tools can enable anyone to build products by prompting a chatbot" (no, businesses thought that 2-3 years ago, they're just starting to realize that's bullshit and nothing substantial that will need maintenance can be done that way) makes me think the author is just a genAI shill.

My God, you really have no understanding of the English language, do you?

Again, if you can't read, please don't reply to my posts. You're wasting my time and everyone else's. My advice right now though would be to leave Slashdot and possibly the Internet and never come back, as it's clear you don't understand anything you're reading.

Fucking dumbasses like you who want to have a fight about something nobody has said are part of what makes Slashdot a hellhole these days. That, and all the open fascists.

Literally everything you just said has no basis in anything I said.

Again, if you can't read, please don't reply to my posts. You're wasting my time and everyone else's.

> Does demeaning perfectly coherent text make the egg on your face less uncomfortable?

Egg on my face? A set of stupid assertions that bear no relation to the context?

> You implied it with your negative representation of someone who dared change who they supported.

I most certainly did not. I said nothing that could be implied as negative about not being partisan. By all means point at something specific - none of the three quotes you just cut and pasted do that at all. One quote even implies the party I assume you think I'm partisan to actually sucks.

Fucking dumbasses like you who want to have a fight about something nobody has said are part of what makes Slashdot a hellhole these days. That, and all the open fascists.

If you can't read, please don't reply to my posts. You're wasting my time and everyone else's.

Why would anyone want to work for a company that does stuff like this??

What the hell does this word salad mean? "So openly partisan as you"? Huh? Where did I express any support for a particular party or suggest people should always vote for the same party?

Maybe the partisan one here is you?