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Comment ah yes... secure software development... (Score 1) 43

It's hard enough to get actual developers to properly consider security. Not surprised at all that vibe coders don't.

Plus, of course, most of the training data is insecure to begin with.

But let them learn by fire that there's a reason actual programmers take time to ship a product, and it's not that the AI can type faster.

Comment ah, the old consciousness thing... (Score 2) 393

Problem is: We don't even know what consciousness is.

So the best we can say is if something creates the impression of having one, based on whom we attribute consciousness to, i.e. other humans. Well, big surprise that a model explicitly trained on human language and texts creates that impression. It does show just how good the models are. At pretending to be human because they have a shitload of examples on what humans would say.

For all we know, the gas clouds on Jupiter could be conscious, just in a way that is completely baffling to us. We can't rule it out because we don't know what consciousness is, so we can't test for it.

Comment Re:I'd love to trash Edge, but... (Score 1) 107

If an attacker has enough control of your machine to dump the password database, they have enough control to get it to retrieve the plaintext passwords

Not true.

An attacker may have a limited window. He might exploit some other vulnerability to do some operation with privileged access rights, but not have an admin shell.

Comment Re:questionable (Score 1) 113

Tell you what, you "prove" that the religion of your choice is a "real" religion

Oh, that's trivial: a) it's made-up nonsense, b) it tells people how to live their lives and c) it's been around for so long that people forgot that it's made-up nonsense.

None of that or the rest of your answer has anything to do with the point I was making: That "accepted as a religion in the USA" isn't much of an argument. If people can get Jedi accepted as a religion, it just proves how meaningless all of that is. Other countries have correctly identified Scientology as a pyramid scheme and a scam.

The fact that other religions would qualify for that as well doesn't make it any less true.

Comment Re:Wait! What? (Score 1) 131

You consented the moment you got a cell phone or a car that had GPS built-in or installed an OS or got internet at your house...

No, I did not. These are features that exist for my convenience, not as mass surveillance tools. The government is abusing them.

You can disable GPS on your device all you want... your cell radio signal is still enough to get your location within (I think) a few meters (depending on factors).

Yes, if you have control of the cell towers. Or run an IMSI catcher. But the technological solution applied is not the question. The question is if we want someone as untrustworthy as our governments to be able to constantly track us.

So what, if a thousand other IMEIs show up on the screen...

The fact that you personally maybe don't care doesn't give you the right to opt-in all of us who might care. The problem is that once the technology exists, it will be abused. It already is. If we explicitly allow it, abuse will run rampant. We already have examples of cops using surveillance tech to spy on their spouses, or to stalk that cute girl from the bar. We have tons of examples of surveillance permissions granted for one purpose being used for another one. When the government wants these laws it's always to find child abusers and terrorists. But that is never what they actually have in mind.

Comment Re:Instability (Score 1) 82

I don't think it's the AI specifically, but the fact that they've used AI to let go of competent (and expensive) people.

I'm using AI as a coding assist and code reviewer myself. It is impressive how often it is spot on, but it is also impressive with how much conviction it tells you one thing, then after you correct it it admits that that was totally bonkers. AI or not, you need someone in the loop with a deep understanding of what it actually is you are trying to accomplish.

I can fully imagine an AI without guidance to go off the rails more and more over time. But I can imagine the same thing for a room full of junior programmers.

Comment Re:Roads cost $18.5 billion a year (Score 1) 199

Everyone wants roads near their house. If you don't have a road going to your house then your house is worthless. Once the government has a right of way for a road, expanding the road might be expensive, but it doesn't get the whole community involved in a series of lawsuits.

The only people that want to live near the train tracks, on the other hand, are the people out in the middle of the California desert that would love to have a way to easily get to the parts of California that aren't a wasteland. In the nice parts of California, every home owner within visual distance of the proposed route has hired a lawyer and vowed to fight the tracks to the death.

This means that California has built a tiny bit of tracks out in the middle of nowhere (near Bakersfield but not in Bakersfield). It also means that every single foot from this point on is likely to get even more astronomically expensive. The homeowners involved know that houses that are far enough away from the tracks so that their home value doesn't plummet are going to get a windfall as their prime real estate will become even more valuable with decent public transit. The rail system is going to be a serious amenity eventually. The homeowners near the tracks, on the other hand, are going to see a serious drop to their net worth. Everyone in California wants more light rail, but only if it doesn't go through their neighborhood.

It could easily be that California real estate is simply too expensive in this day and age for something like this to be built.

Comment Re:So security cameras = bad? (Score 1) 131

Would you rather have evidence when your kid is abducted or your wallet or car keys are stolen or someone attacks you, or not?

Leading question.

Would you want to spend your entire life in a small cell all by yourself? Because then your wallet definitely won't get stolen.

Yes, life is not risk-free. But we have done a great job at making it several orders of magnitude less risky without mass surveillance, and it is doubtful if turning a free society into a police state would do all that much on top of that.

Every time you sit in your car, you risk injury, permanent disfigurement or disability and death - because all of these happen every day as the result of traffic accidents. And yet, without even being consciously aware of it, you hope every day that today it's not you.
You seriously want to tell me that that's a risk you are willing to take, but having your car keys stolen justifies mass surveillance?

Comment Re:So security cameras = bad? (Score 1) 131

Everyone's fine with security cameras,

Absolutely not, no.

I have some on my private property, because you don't have an expectation of privacy when trespassing on private property. But in public, we all should not feel under constant surveillance. There's a reason why China et al love total surveillance of the population so much.

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