Nah, 10 years ago they still had the same definition the GP is using: AI is a machine that can do things machines cannot currently do.

That does not change the fact that as soon as one develops a self-improving AI, the world will become a very different and probably very awful place.

Why? It's funny, a bunch of people believe AI is absolutely impossible because you can't create a soul or brains are magic or hyperdimensional pineal gateways or something. The rest seem to believe it can do anything including instantly becoming so intelligent it's magic.

So the answer to the GP's question is "yes."

I don't think you need AI for that either. LinkedIn was just as douchey before.

AI that can build itself would be a major development in the history of technology -- one that could bring enormous good for the world in science, healthcare, and beyond

Indeed!

If it were possible to effectively slow the development of this technology to give ourselves more time to deal with its immense implications, we think that would likely be a good thing

No, it would not be. I want more people's lives — my own included — improved by those developments. And I want it yesterday.

Imagine Wright brothers sabotaging airplane-development, because it would allow people to travel too far too fast? Or the early automakers fretting over "implications" of using internal combustion engines for personal vehicles — because millions of grooms and coachmen would lose their jobs?.. Electric lamp? Wow, nice — but what about the candle-makers?

Disagree on this. That's like saying only shows that trek through the stars should be called Star Trek - and yet the best Star Trek series ever made was Deep Space Nine.

The Stargate is just part of the premise of the followup shows, not a required defining characteristic of them. Even for the original series, by about season 6-7 it was sharing the field with ships and other methods of travel.

As for Universe, it did stumble out of the gate (haha), for sure, but almost every show does. I think it had found its footing by the middle of the second season and season 3 was set up for some great potential. It absolutely deserved a third season.

Improving capital is where that extra capital comes from.

Capital is the means of production, minus land and labour. It's fairly comprehensive to think of it as all the tools, procedures, etc. that make up a business, whether that business is one guy in the yard of his hut or a multinational corporation. It's reasonable to think of a business itself as a machine, and the machine is capital.

Improving capital means making it work better. Designing and building better tools and procedures to produce whatever you're producing more efficiently. If you take some funny rocks, bake them in a pile of mud you carefully designed, and pound them into swords, you've improved capital. If you buy a hammer, an anvil, a forge and some iron, and learn to make horseshoes, you've improved capital. If you buy some guy's smithy and figure out you can make horseshoes cheaper by casting or stamping them, and build equipment and procedures to do that, then you've improved capital again. You started with existing capital, assembled it into a machine and/or innovated a bit and ended up with a machine (which is capital) that produces something valuable its original parts did not.

The most basic feature of capitalism is the idea that the benefit from doing those things should go to the person(s) responsible, and by doing so will encourage people to improve capital. Related ideas are that anybody who wants to should be able to engage in that process and, almost always, that a free market determines value.

That idea is opposed to, for example, feudalism, where improvements you make will primarily benefit the lord, or communism, where they benefit the group. You figure out how to make horsehoes better or make a field produce more and you maybe get a nice thanks from the boss man, but the same ration as before.

Capitalism existed long before corporations, particularly modern ones, legal liability, or anything like that. Many people identify capitalism with things that are distinctly non-capitalist because they're frustrated with aspects of "capitalism" that aren't capitalist at all. Corporations, for example, are typically very similar to fedual systems internally, and both employees and employers expect them to be.

Running on a computer provided by friendly aliens, no doubt. Just like the pyramids.

Yes, changing how the device works after being sold is a reasonable argument. Most people, including the OP, get the reasoning backwards though. It was to extend the useful life of the device, not to shorten it. They could have gone the old way and just have the battery say fuck you after a certain number of charge cycles.

The "my device, my rules" argument leads to ridiculousness. They should stop with all the constant current charging nonsense. Let the user decide how fast they want to charge. And they could charge longer. The theoretical max for a lithium cell is around 5 V but they only charge to 4.2 V!

It would certainly make it more exciting to get on a plane or anywhere you're in close quarters with people charging their phones too.

Capitalism is about people benefiting from improving capital, which is basically private property rights.

Money != capital.

For the same price you can get a much more capable machine in the Mac mini

It's rough carrying your monitor around with you.

With the Neo you are not going to be able to do much more than browse the web, use web application, play simple games, and use it as fancy typewriter.

Heavens, what ever did we do before the 2020s? Play simple games and use fancy typewriters I guess. Although I do wonder where the first web app came from, the one that let us make all the other web apps.

If they left them in place they might be used to collect data, which might in turn be used to show that climate change is a real problem. We can't have that, it gets in the way of maximizing oil companies's profits.

There is no permanent tech advantage to either side in this war. Only the potential for peace is permanent

Ukraine used Turkish Bayraktars, Russians got Iranian Shaheds
Russians invented cope cages, Ukrainians got them too.
Ukrainians got FPV drones, Russians got them too
Russians invented fiber-optic drones, Ukrainians got them too.
Now if the Ukrainians get assault robotic and evac robots, the Russians will get them too

One side has most of Europe backing it; the other side has most of Asia. Too many resources behind both parties for either to lose easily.

Stop the fighting. There are no winners here. Only worse-off losers.

Both Russian casualties and Ukrainian casualties have long passed the 'unsustainable' mark. Now both side are getting close to the point where either side can tap out. But Ukraine is closer to that point than Russia. Yes, Russia is losing, but Ukraine is losing harder and faster - it has less land, men, money, and munitions than Russia. It is getting attrited faster. Ukraine has the bigger job ahead of it after the war - blowing up unexploded ordanance, demining, rebuilding, repopulating.

Ukraine needs to:
(a) make an offer that the Russians can at least use as a fig leaf to concede peace.
(b) Ukraine also has a problem with a section of insubordinate rightwing soldiery that resists any peace concessions. Ship them straight to the fight. Want to disobey? Go fight then! Just don't take the rest of the country with you.

Why? So Ukrainian people can live. So its current leader can live. So the country is not at risk.