You oligarchs aren't engineering AI to work for people. You're engineering AI to work for corporate interests. It takes far more than it gives in return. It's taking our jobs. It's taking our electricity. It's taking our wealth. It's taking our creative works. It's taking our data.

And what is it giving in return?

It's giving the executive and corporate leaders at eight companies on our planet a ridiculous amount of wealth. To hell with the dog-and-pony show going on in the foreground.

Fuck our corporate overlords.

Search in Slashdot for "COVID19". Nearly every story has hundreds of comments to it. Meanwhile, this story has all of four comments at the time of this posting.

Boys and girls, Tuberculosis has killed over a billion people. COVID19 is only in the single millions right now. The only reason why this article received four comments so far is because it's not affecting the western world where the Slashdot userbase is most prevalent. It's destroying the developing world instead, but I guess nobody here really cares about that.

The world is in desperate need of new Tuberculosis vaccines. If you don't understand why, please watch this Kurzgesagt video on the subject.

My home tablet is an A9+. Got it on a Black Friday sale for $250 last year, and we use it to cast Netflix to our Samsung TV. My son also uses it for games. Works great. Not speedy, but we don't need it to be. (If you need speedy, get the S-series, but it's at least double the price.)

Fun anecdote: I visited the Philippines in 2022. I flew Cebu Pacific Air for a few domestic flights, and they had just setup an abundance of these self-check-in kiosks at their airport check-ins. While prior visits to this particular terminal would see six to eight staff working check-in counters, this visit only had two: one assisting with the kiosks, and one checking baggage. Wait times were long, kiosks were confusing, and people were agitated, but we all got through.

I just returned from another trip now in 2025. Flew Cebu Pacific Air again for my domestic flights. This time the terminal had only three self-check-in kiosks, they were shoved up against a wall aside from the check-in counters, and nobody was using them. Everyone was waiting in line to deal with a human. (In the consideration of both sides of this human-vs-machine argument, perhaps the reason why kiosks didn't succeed in the Philippines is because human labor there is very cheap.)

Regardless, the moral of the story is that airline travel is agitating. Companies that try to nickel-and-dime passengers (even budget airlines like RyanAir) by removing mature, reliable, human & paper & analog components from that experience in place of new, untested, anxiety-inducing digital counterparts may discover that the total cost is not worth the savings.

Engagement.

Every web algorithm now is curated to maximize user engagement. When users stay engaged, the advertisements get delivered, and the website earns revenue. When you disengage from the service, they stop making money. So stay engaged, and enjoy your soma.

When they could nix novels in Nepal next?

Corporations and governments have been collecting your data and using it to facilitate their operations for at least the last twenty years. It's just recently that they've begun openly admitting it with impunity.

When I moved to my current domicile eleven years ago, I signed up for "Basic Cable", just ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CW, Fox, and the "rerun channels". $30 / month. I thought about cable, but at $80 / month, I didn't think I'd get my money's worth.

Today my basic cable's $60 / month, and regular cable is $150. Double the price and half the value in 11 years.

Don't forget, the same companies are trying to control both cable and streaming. They're all working hard to consolidate the market as much as possible to drive up the price even further. Do you really think Sinclair and Nexstar want to merge just so they can kick Kimmel off the air?

I wonder what we should do about that problem...

Seriously, editors, not even 12 hours before you repost the story?

Well, as of right now, the OG posting only got 12 comments. I'm thinking maybe the dup is to try and generate more comments than the original, even if most of them would be about the duplicate posting.

These abuses didn't start with Trump. The US Government has been mining citizen data long before Trump got his hands on the White House. Edward Snowden taught us that much. Don't tell me you've forgotten about PRISM already.

Where is it in the public interest where corporations can sue a nonprofit organization into oblivion over the attempt to preserve a public work from a historical figure that the corporation has itself abandoned? And where in Hell on Earth do these corporations think that the damages incurred are valued at $621 million dollars? Do they think they're losing out on $621 million dollars in shellac record sales?

It's in the public interest to preserve these works. If corporations aren't doing the work, then I would consider them abandoned to the public.

This is an administration that is trying to keep a convicted felon child rapist suffering from dementia in the presidency, who let the richest man on earth walk right into the White House and gang-rape every department he could get his hands on. There is no competency left in this rotting carcass that was such a powerful country.

Besides, all he cares about is wining and dining his billionaire buddies. He's doing nothing about record high ATM fees. Why would he give a damn about Pharma Advertising? I'm sure they've been also sending him and his campaign tons of money.

Now release the Epstein files.

"Hey! Look over there!"

Works every time.

msmash probably asked Google Gemini, "Has Slashdot posted this story yet?", and it hallucinated the wrong answer.

Here's to hoping that this success inspires other lawsuits to follow. I'm so sick and tired of these damned settlements; every one of them carries the line "Plaintiff alleges ... as redress for these grievances, defendant will..." meaning that no one is found guilty of wrongdoing, and it can't be used to determine guilt in any other court proceeding.

Fuck our corporate overlords.