Watch for the AI bubble crash in 2026.

The key thing that somebody reported was a suspicious gray Nissan. Once they zeroed in on looking for a grey Nissan at the crime scene, they looked at the surveillance cameras, found one that had in the right place at the right time, and used the Flock cameras and license plate readers to discover it was also present in Brookline at the MIT professor's shooting, then used the Flock cameras to follow it to the storage facility.

Maybe "regular police work" could have followed it through the change of license plates to a facility two states away, but maybe not. You do know not all crimes are solved.

So the new AI is going to be so 'opt-in' that it needs a killswitch you can use to get rid of it?

I realize that marketing and PR flacks are subhuman enemies of communication; but that's not even pretending to be what 'opt-in' means.

The characterization of "risk of artificial intelligence overpowering humanity" as the substance of an 'AI debate' seems itself like a strategy in trying to forestall it.

Sure, there's some fun sci-fi there; but most of what actual people are actually concerned about is what specific parts of humanity are using 'AI' to do, or justifying doing in the name of 'AI'; not fretting about how skynet might kill us all. And it's exceptionally handy to pretend that that is what people are fretting about; both because it's a distant and vague enough problem that you can justify punting most action without even lying; and because it's not even false that (perhaps outside of a handful who have outright cracked and started thinking about it in religious terms) even the most psychopathic techbros are also against skynet exterminating everyone; both because that would include them; and because Judgement Day would not be a good time for social media engagement metrics.

The Epstein files are full of both Democrats and Republicans (and probably every other political party you have heard of). Nobody in power was ever going to push for their release, since it would be full of implications for themselves and their friends. The side *not* in power will push for the release, safe in knowing that it won't happen.

It seems like they are coming up with a fake release now. Purposely-obvious redaction will discredit it and even exonerate those who are shown, and foot-dragging will not be fought at all seriously.

I saw something that might work: make the districts elect 5 representatives, using proportional representation. This would keep the politicians local, which Americans appear to like. This does mean about 5 parties will be in congress, not more, but judging by what happens in Europe it would not be much different, any fringe party is forced to immediately merge with another and there seems to be about 5 already.

I think this also makes gerrymandering very difficult, though it might be best to just outlaw it. Districts are drawn by a computer with the only rule that they be as compact as possible.

Actually it would work if the electoral votes were proportionally allocated in each state according the popular vote in that state. This would actually result in the same winner as the popular vote in every presidential election in history. The problem is not that somebody in Wyoming has 4x the voting power of somebody in California or Texas. The problem is the fact that the winner in a state gets *all* the electoral votes. This means a member of the minority party in California or Texas has -1 (NEGATIVE 1) voting power, in that their existence adds to the population and thus the electoral votes that go to the candidate they are against.

I'm not sure why you think that. America does have this political belief that the government shouldn't be doing research, but should instead fund outside entities to do so, in the belief that outside entities are more efficiently run. NCAR, of course, reports to the National Science Foundation, why do you think it would somehow be different or run "more efficiently" if it were "absorbed" by the NSF?

What in the world do you find "shady" about it?

What in the world are you talking about? There are many government agencies for which the budget has no accountability-- when the military misplaces a billion dollars, their response is "Well, it hard to keep track of everything," but the NCAR budget is public and completely transparent.

Interesting link, thanks!

The war against using the word "literally" to mean "figuratively" was lost years ago. Even the dictionaries have conceded, although I'm amused that the definition 2 in the web Merriam-webster actually uses the word "literally" to mean "literally" in the text of the definition of "literally" meaning "not literally."

2 informal : in effect : VIRTUALLY —used in an exaggerated way to emphasize a statement or description that is not literally true or possible
I literally died of embarrassment.
" will literally turn the world upside down to combat cruelty or injustice."—Norman Cousins

https://www.merriam-webster.co...

Yeah, when thinking of the typical air fryer market, think "working mom with kids who wants to serve something nicer than a microwave dinner, but doesn't have the time for much prep or waiting". You can get those mailard reactions that microwaving doesn't really get you, nice crisping and browning of the surface that you normally get from an oven, without having to wait for an oven to preheat. I don't think anyone disputes that an oven will do a better job, but the air fryer does a better job than a microwave, which is what it's really competing against. They're also marketed as easy-clean, which again is a nod to their target audience.

How costs build up is really staggering. I'm getting into the business of importing 3d filament. In Iceland, it currently sells for like $35/kg minimum. The actual value of the plastic is like $1. The factory's total cost, all costs included, is like $1,50. If it's not name brand, e.g. they're not dumping money on marketing, they sell it for $3 for the cheapest stuff. Sea freight adds another dollar or two. Taxes here add 24%. But you're still at like $5/kg. The rest is all middlemen, warehousing, air freight for secondary legs from intermediary hubs, and all the markup and taxes on those things.

With me importing direct from the factory, sea freight only, I can get rid of most of those costs. Warehousing is the biggest unavoidable cost. If I want to maintain an average inventory of like 700kg, it adds something like $5/kg to the cost. Scanning in goods and dispatching user orders (not counting shipping) together adds like $2,50. And then add 24% tax (minus the taxes on the imported goods). There's still good margin, but it's amazing how quickly costs inflate.

Your "junk" is someone else's "must-have".
Your "must-have" is someone else's "junk".

This quote from the summary about two engineers with an AI assistant being more productive than ten engineers without one just doesn't add up. I have done vibe coding both on hobby projects and at work, and it doesn't make me anywhere near that productive. I spend so much time asking it to re-do what it did wrong or manually fixing its bugs myself that I wind up only a little ahead in productivity. Not even double my usual pace.
Maybe if I am starting from scratch working on a relatively simple tool, it doubles my productivity. But it nowhere near quintuples it, and most of my work isn't nearly as AI-friendly as that kind of project.

My current employer has been pushing the team to be more productive, with everyone encouraged to use AI as much as possible, and the result has been rushed-out buggy code with security holes and questionable design decisions. Despite the fact that the team's productivity has obviously not made a 5x jump, they still refuse to hire more people. At least in our case, this has nothing to do with AI making us so much more productive, and everything to do with leadership being cheap and not wanting to shell out for the talent that they obviously need in order to produce at the pace they want.

I realize that my individual lived experience is not data. Ok, fine, so I can't prove my claims. But I still stand by them, because I have used the best AI tools available and they don't come even close to what people are claiming. I still think that the recent economic mudpit caused by the high interest rates (made in response to high inflation) has much more to do with the lack of jobs than these AI tools.

Here it is https://megnut.com/2007/05/16/...