At the end of the day isn't it all about human labour vs automation? CGI would still require someone to do the CGI work in 3DSMAX or whatever software, whereas (whether this is reality or perception) AI largely automates the whole process.

I'm not taking a position, I'm just guessing at what would motivate someone to draw the distinction.

Any reasonably sized organization relies on Microsoftâ(TM)s support. At the very least, they canâ(TM)t simply forego updates. My organization is already preparing a big surplus over this.

Star Trek as a franchise has gotten so bad in recent years that they fear that fan fiction will completely out-compete them. And they're not wrong. Literally ANYTHING is better than the garbage they have put out since 2009. They might as well sell the property to Disney at this point. It can't get any worse.

I, for one, hate Facebook because they subjected the world to React and GraphQL. Not because I have any issue with their social media service.

That is absolutely correct. No one knows what effect Meta blocking news on Facebook is having except for the news outlets. One interesting signal, however, is how loudly the news outlets are complaining about Meta blocking news on Facebook. If this is win-win, they don't have much to complain about. In this case they want their cake and to eat it too.

A little bit of context here is in order. First, if this is a problem, there are very easy remedies that don't involve passing a law forcing " digital news intermediaries"* to pay for linking to content. They could block web crawlers (remember this law applies to Google search as well). Or they could paywall their content.

And yes, the Online News Act does not require that Meta and Google pay if they are reproducing the content in part or in whole in the form of snippets, just linking without any "rendering" or crawling of the content is sufficient to incur liability according to the Online News Act.

* "digital news intermediary" is the term used in the law to describe what Meta and Facebook is. From the bill:

Consider the wording of that definition carefully ."makes news content produced by news outlets available to persons in Canada." It doesn't matter how they make that content available. It doesn't require them to reproduce any part of the content.

Here is the full bill for anyone who is interested and dedicated enough to read it in its entirety:

https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/bill/C-18/royal-assent

It's even worse than that. Something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. That includes labour. If a business was willing to pay for a particular position, but then the costs of filling that position rise above what they were willing to pay for it, then the position can disappear entirely. Examples of this type of thing are having employees on staff to bag groceries, carry groceries to cars etc. These are the types of thing that may be worth paying a teenager $5 / hour to do but at $15 / hour there's just not enough return on investment to justify providing the value-add service.

I don't know a ton about the "News Media Bargaining Code" in Australia, but I believe that one crucial difference between that law and the Online News Act here in Canada is that in Australia there is a regulatory body of the government that decides which news outlets apply and which do not. In Canada, there is no such regulatory body (we have the CRTC which has some role to play but they do not get to decide who applies and who doesn't). So basically, under the statue in Canada, various publishers and outlets could apply as long as they meet certain legal definitions (do they qualify as a news publication under the income tax act, are they a publication that publishes news of "public interest", do they employ more than two journalists etc.). Which means that the door is wide open for random companies, including some random blog that happens to employ two journalists, to come knocking on Meta and Google's door demanding money, and the law forces them to sit down and negotiate.

So it is likely not even just the licensing fees that makes this untenable for Meta and Google, but the potential arbitration and negotiation costs.

To make matters worse, there is nothing limiting in the Online News Act to local Canadian news outlets. So potentially some news outlet in India, for example, could demand arbitration in Canada for making their content available to Canadians. The door is insanely wide open.

Again IANAL and my understanding of both laws is superficial and limited to what I've read on random Internet places.

Online News Act Wiki

I'm usually not on Meta's side on any issue. But in this case, the law is absolutely absurd. It's absurd in principle (why should anyone be required to pay for giving someone else free traffic?) but what people don't understand is the insanely broad nature and scope of the law.

• -The law does not distinguish between Canadian news sources and global/foreign news sources.
• - It does not distinguish between small independent news outlets and major ones.
• - According to the strict letter of the law, and Meta's reasonable response, even a news outlet having their own page and voluntarily sharing those links to their own content requires payment from Meta.

To put this into perspective, my wife and I are planning a vacation to Walt Disney World in 6 months and even a Facebook page called "Disney World Updates" is subject to the ban. That's how broadly scoped it is.

And while I certainly wouldn't trust Facebook itself for news sources, I did follow a local independent news outlet's page as a convenient way to get updates on local events in my city. I can't see their posts or their page anymore. That wasn't "the algorithm" feeding me Global Affairs news from CNN or NBC ... that was very local stuff that I looked to find out about summer festivals and things. Do I need Facebook for that? No. But it's no one's business if that's the tool I chose, nor can I think of any justification for The Online News Act. It's one of the most ill-conceived and ill-written laws I have ever heard of.

Canadian here. I just checked. Breitbart is subject to the ban. Their FB Page shows no posts and a message saying:

I have no love for Facebook, or social media in general, but we used to suggest that people should not trust a single news source, instead should read multiple sources in order to try and find the truth that will lie somewhere in between all of the various spin and slants.

There are many means to achieving that end, but it occurs to me that social media has the potential to do that and more. Not only do people share various sources, but they are occasionally the sources themselves. I think part of the the "threat" that traditional news outlets feel from social media is that we now live in a world where everyone is carrying a video camera with them 24/7 and there is a lot of first-hand reports when things happen .. at least locally.

And yes I hear the charges that social media creates echo chambers. But if someone only has the time to check a single source in a day, is that better?

But the biggest problem with Bill C-18 here in Canada is the ridiculously broad nature of the law. It does not distinguish between local Canadian news outlets and global outlets. Nor does it distinguish between small independent news outlets and major outlets. Nor does it distinguish between individuals sharing links or the outlets THEMSELVES creating Pages and sharing links of their own accord.

So to put this into perspective with an example: my wife and I are planning a Disney World vacation in a few months. I wanted to follow a Facebook Page called "Disney World Updates" so that I could keep up with news specific to Disney World that might affect our trip. All of that page's posts are blocked in Canada.

Even in systems that have socialized / tax-funded health care, it can still be described as an "industry." Do you think that the hospital administrators, nurses, doctors, custodial staff, equipment manufacturers, cafeteria workers, suppliers, shippers, inspectors and on and on all work for free here in Canada?

What I don't understand is why critical hospital systems are not air gapped and locked down to essential functions.

I don't have a link, so this is purely anectodal, but I remember hearing about a small hospital or a school in Romania that was hit by a ransomware attack and they just reverted to doing things with pen & paper until their systems were brought back online. Modern tech makes our lives easier, and I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't embrace it. While there are scenarios where things move too slowly out of a sense of over-caution, the flip side that we see more often is a recklessly embrace of something for the sake of being "modern" or because it makes certain things easier, without evaluating the risks and with no backup plan what-so-ever if it fails. The old way may have been slower, but it worked and was relatively fail safe.

Cyberattacks are a fact of life now. None of us should tolerate our banks, electrical grids or hospitals being able to be taken out by a phishing email with a link to a malware installer.

Also, tangentially, no I don't want to have to install a proprietary app on my phone to be able to use [insert whatever arbitrary] services. Now get off my lawn.

You're right that Genius certainly does NOT own copyright to the lyrics themselves. But (and IANAL) they could try the argument that their website/service is a DATABASE of song lyrics, and databases ARE protected under copyright law.

The legal argument would be that Google has copied and redistributed part of their database without authorization. I don't know if it would hold up. But it's a much less stupid of an argument on the face of it.

Anything beyond what we have today is pure speculation. Fear based on hypotheticals and speculation is FUD by definition.

There are some serious limitations as to what ChatGPT can do today. Those limitations may be overcome, or they may not. Assuming they can be overcome, it could be in a year and it could be in 50 years.

Today's LLMs have achieved a major breakthrough, making things that were previously impossible possible. That is certainly exciting and leaves open the possibility that future breakthroughs may occur.

But assuming that those breakthroughs will occur, and will occur any time soon, is imagination. Not fact.

Agreed but even that is becoming more and more difficult because of the SEO type sites flooding the search results.

Before you can get to the relevant information you need to scan through a 5 paragraph essay that just repeats the question you were trying to get an answer for (for thinly veiled keyword stuffing purposes), in order to figure out if somewhere, buried in all of that useless text, is an actual answer.

"How to tie a hitch knot. If you want to know how to tie a hitch knot then this page will tell you how to tie a hitch knot. Below you will find lots of useful information on the various possible ways that you can tie a hitch knot. Did you that there are several different types of hitch knots available? In this page we will review all of the different types of hitch knots so that you will come out knowing how to tie all of the various types of hitch knots known to mankind through it's recorded history.

The first recorded use of a hitch knot is in 2345 BC when the philosopher Whogivesafuck invented the first ever known type of hitch knot."

And God have mercy on your soul if you are searching without an ad blocker.

Kill me. The modern web has become borderline useless.