So the jobs people actually enjoy have to go away so that a few companies can make more money and generate more heat, while we subsidize their power usage. That's some garbage right there.

I hate that right now I'm reluctant to support new authors because there's a good chance they're not the actual artist, and I'd rather pay a person to create than a machine.

A word processor is an implement - you use it the same as a pen or pencil.

AI is thought-replacement. You use it so you don't have to actually do the work. (some people who use AI have failed so far as to forget to remove the prompts from their writing, which is hilarious to me).

If someone was able to write 200 novels in one year, you can bet that they didn't do any editing, or any real work - they just threw prompts at the machine and published it unedited. That's not writing. That's hiring someone to write for you.

So far, I haven't had an eSIM fail on me - Since around 2000 I've had at least a couple traditional SIMs fail though. While that's anecdotal, so is the original topic here. TBF, I don't swap SIMs often - I suspect if I did, I'd have had even more traditional SIMs fail, and possibly some eSIMs too. Carrier technology is garbage all around.

I think we're on the same side of this discussion?

AI slop is exactly that. We, as consumers of that media, need to start saying no. We need to start flocking to content that expressly states it was not AI generated, otherwise these companies hocking a garbage product will continue to think it's the wave of the future. It doesn't have to be. And it shouldn't be. What AI generates isn't art. Art requires intention on the part of its creator. These tools are creating the slop. Just like the patron who commissions an art piece isn't an artist themselves. They are a client. The machine has no intention.

"True uniqueness of image, likeness, and creativity will be the only viable path for human-created content."

And he thinks AI will win *that* fight? It's incapable of uniqueness or creativity. We need to say no to a world where humans don't interact with human generated content, otherwise, what's the point?

Or they'll just offshore those jobs.

You can believe this if you want, but as others have stated... it's not accurate. I work in support roles - I'm pretty confident that most of the time, the only reason they have US teams is that they want someone who is usually awake during US hours, can be managed by US leadership, and because people don't like swing shifts... but, honestly, there's no need to be *in* the time zone you're working through. I expect that we'll see a decrease in US based jobs, unless policies come into play that provide *incentives* rather than punishments. Corporations *love* incentives. They skirt punishments.

For about a decade, I've been a proponent of raising the base corporate tax rate, then providing incentives to hire American employees and buy American made parts. Roll the effects in slowly, so people have a chance to adjust.

The companies will just offshore more work. They won't bother with visas. They'll just move jobs overseas. Reagan made it far too easy to do and it's been encouraged ever since.

The only effect will be people offshoring more work. They won't bother with visas. They'll just move jobs overseas.

Why? Unions can negotiate contracts together, and those contracts can expressly call for slow or no adoption of AI agents. A corporation can try to replace them, but then their entire staff walks. The amount of tribal knowledge at most major companies is astounding. Without the development team available, there's no chance AI can catch up and replace the dev team. No chance they can replace the SRE teams. The companies can choose to negotiate their AI initiatives down, or they can choose to lose everyone.

We should be pushing hard to unionize the tech sector and then using those unions to collectively act against attempts to replace workers with AI.

Per item costs on shipping vary, and they can change while you shop based on what you add to your cart. If you buy 30 different items in a single order will be significantly less than if you buy 30 separate orders. It might even transition to free* shipping. I’d like to know the final cost of the item itself, shipping can stay a separate line item, though it would be real nice if it showed up on the cart before checkout time,

*I’m not convinced free shipping exists. Someone pays for it, and even if it’s free to you, it’s being paid for by higher overall prices or by lower volume shoppers. See “Amazon prime” for examples. Go look at the cost of prime products vs other products and you may find that your prime shopping cart comes out to a higher price even after shipping costs are accounted for because they do include shipping in the price.

This is playing havoc on smaller businesses and producers who have commitments in place already. A large number of Kickstarter or other crowd funded projects produce goods in China, and can’t afford to just eat a more than doubling in cost. Large vendors might see little impact, but small producers are getting destroyed already.

I'm of the opinion that sudden tariffs used as a blunt instrument against the rest of the world is a bad solution. It always has been. It's not like companies can open new US factories overnight and have them fully staffed and fully stocked. The right way to do this is through corporate taxes, but also through corporate tax discounts. It also requires a consistent approach over 5-10 years, not 5 minutes because someone said something mean to the President.

By law, increase corporate taxes by (for example) 20% over the next 10 years, at a rate of 2% per year. At the same time, apply a production discount based on the percentage of labor performed in the United States in the production of each product. (or in general to the practice of the labor being done, such as in the case of services, not products); This places the burden on the corporation, which Republicans are absolutely against, but does so with a way out. Move your tech support to the United States in years 1-3 while you build your factories to return your initial labor costs to the United States. While you're doing that, start scaling up production in the United States.

Note, I did say in production of the product, or services performed. I didn't say "by employees of the company." This includes contractors, and companies materials/products are bought from.

I'd love to see a similar solution to automation and AI as well, possibly with a minimum in place so that some automation is allowed to handle tasks that employees find completely inane.

Is it a perfect solution? No. No system under capitalism will ever be perfect. It's a system that applies pressure, and it may need to be scaled up or down, based on the costs of non-US labor and raw materials. It does apply broadly, and much more fairly than these tariffs do. It also gives time to ramp up production and handle changes to systems already in place. Would any Republican find it even remotely acceptable? Nope. It's a tax. No matter if it can be completely avoided by taking simple actions.

Can you name fees, other than taxes, collected by the government currently? If your purchase is taxed in an online store, those taxes are listed. Things like employee reimbursement and payroll taxes aren't listed because they don't apply to the product. Tariffs expressly apply to the product.

Inflation isn't a tax. Biden wasn't "applying inflation." These tariffs are being applied directly every product that enters the US from overseas.