Yes to both questions about people, but both are engineers. I do not think technical illiteracy is getting larger. It was always very large, with brief periods where more people had basic knowledge about some specific tech as the alternative was simply no or no meaningful access to that technology.

It is bot historically and currently true that most people are incompetent and suck at risk management.

By far not "every possible", but enough to massively increase the pool of attackers with a newly discovered vulnerability. And since most software is missing redundant security (because most software does not qualify as a product of professional engineering) this is far too easy. All engineering disciplines had to eventually accept that the thing that protects you is redundancy, because mistakes cannot be brough down enough. IT is not there at all, but it will not have a choice now.

There is. You read the standard, you implement the standard. And then you do an once-over over all time zones each year to check which standard they are following and if and when they are switching. Probably less than one competent engineer. But apparently, either MS does not have competent engineers or does not want to spend money on this. And hence they have a ton of egg on their faces. Again.

So? My comment was specifically about LLMs.

The irony is that this reveals you to be the "old internet user" who's used to "people on the internet" being different from "people I know in real life".

For younger internet users, there is little difference. Internet is where they interact with schoolmates, work colleagues, friends, teammates, etc. They see people like you and I as "these weird boomers who think internet isn't full of real people".

Meanwhile interest based groups are reasonably localized. I know something like 75-80% of people in most of those, and have met them face to face at least once. Same goes for those massive snapchat/whasapp/discord/etc groups. While some are international, for most of the young people these have in fact replaced bars, gentlemen's clubs, book reading circles, bowling alleys, etc social gatherings. They're the normal place where they socialize with friends and acquaintances now. And these old ones are slowly withering and dying as youngsters don't see a reason to go to a bar to meet up with friends any more.

What happened to "AI factories"?

Also, it would seem that they have overhired on PR people, if they're this desperate for something to do.

And that is how you do it if you have a clue. Not even expensive, just requires understanding.

It seems MS is regressing and getting worse and worse.

Is that bad?

How amusing to think that Elon Musk would be better than Lenin in the same circumstances. Not a chance.

Apparently you did not understand what I wrote. Perfect code is NOT the goal. Redundant security is.

Yes. While I am still not impressed with the actual capabilities, the kicker at this time is the financial angle, in several dimensions. One is token cost. Another is that apparently nobody finds real revenue increases from LLM use. And even another, a bit more distant, is the cost for users to be able to switch providers (which is a regulatory requirement in some industries, at least in Europe).

On the plus-side, people that attack computer systems will likely be able to run their own local models as the task is very specialized and that will (hopefully) drag the software industry (kicking and screaming) to what all well established industries do: Redundancy to ensure properties even when something goes wrong.

That is why I am currently using it for that purpose.

May I suggest a few more names?
"Breadless bakeries" - They surely generate enough heat
"Sound distribution centers" - Apparently, these are really loud
"Landscape heaters" - See above
"Silicon stress test facilities" - Nothing wrong with testing stuff, right?

Small "we focus on interest X, we retain with comment sections and we monetize through ads" websites got killed a decade ago by facebook that centralized that model to their site. If you want to do basket weaving or local HEMA re-enactment group or anything in between in your area, your state, your nation, etc, there's a facebook group for that now. That is vastly superior in connecting people and generating good articles that aforementioned websites ever were, which is why facebook won.

Then reddit killed the actual forums in the exact same way. It's both better and more convenient to have a centralized depository for everything, with common interface and rule set from perspective of 95% of users (I pulled that number out of my ass, but you know exactly what I mean).

What's left is mostly various wikis, and similar "we provide information" websites. Those are getting hammered by AI being able to answer faster and better than having to go through a wiki for a few minutes for that specific interest you're looking for. This is notably why google is losing profitability. It's bread and butter was monetizing the search that found those sites, and then monetizing their ad stream through google ads that were common on such sites. Today, google's AI search is better at answering those questions (not to mention just asking questions of other popular models), but on top of that if your AI answer to the question being asked is on point and answers the question user is searching the answer for... you don't get to monetize it nearly as well.

But the hilarity is that internet is more alive than ever. It has more actual users than ever, as older generations who don't use it are dying out, while newer generations basically live their entire lives on the internet the way older ones couldn't even imagine. But with people being more and more able to specifically select for their more and more specialized and narrow interests, those of us used to much broader communities with broader interests are left with a feeling that everyone is gone.

Meanwhile every football guy and every party girl is in fifty snapchat/whatsapp/discord/etc groups that have to be muted because otherwise the phone wouldn't stop going off with notifications from other people in those groups talking.