Eh? The summary clearly states that what is important is the temperature of the top 300 meters of ocean water in the Pacific ocean. It does not state exactly how much warmer or larger this mass of water is, but it is the warmest and largest ever recorded so far...

Ideally, that would work; however, back here in the Real World (TM) there have been zero candidates of the type that you describe. I guess it is possible that some were, but we will never know.

Collapse generally takes decades or centuries. For the current global interconnected civilization it will likely take longer, as this civilizatoin has been quite stable since the Great Divergence of the 15th or 16th century.

Reliable accounts of people during a civilization collapse are essentially nonexistent, and the retelling likely benefits from hindsight. That said, it seems unlikely that anyone living through it would have been able to confidently identity a collapse that was due to systemic human-caused problems. And I think that is the case today, we might want to jump to conclusions and go "ah ha! this is the thing that will destroy us!" but actually providing a convincing argument backed by evidence is difficult if not impossible.

So what do we do? I think there are two categories of approaches. Either assume that since society has been stable in the past, that it will continue to be stable in the future. That AI is just another small contribution that society has to adapt to, and we'll do so like we always have. Or, we act a little more defensively. We argue that while we don't know that a collapse is coming, we act cautiously and with purpose to avoid triggering scenarios that have in the past led to a collapse. So don't have massive famines, don't have social upheavels that leave people without jobs or homes. Etc. Basically, if you detect that strife is on the horizon, take steps to avoid it.

Someone should invent a repost function for stories that remain relevant for longer than one day?

Why did you propagate it? Actually that's a rhetorical question and I think you can say "for the joke" in this case, but I think you should have added a second reply with a more thoughtful contribution and different Subject...

But my Subject isn't funny because most cancers are not directly infectious (though some cancers are linked to infectious conditions). Moral hazard time?

I think it's funny because the AIs (including AC, of course) are training the humans to be stupid so they will buy profitable garbage that hurts the customers who bought it and vote for corrupt politicians who will harm the voters who voted for them. In reinforcement terms, shallow, trivial, and I dare say stupid questions get "meaningful" answers while deep questions result in negative reinforcement with increasingly ridiculous hallucinations, falsehoods, and I dare say directed lies. (The directors include Zuck and Musk and Bezos and Xi and f[r]iends, but I doubt any humans will be in the loop for much longer.)

Examples available upon polite request. But there are too many and I bet you can think of plenty of your own without my pitiful human help.

Nods. Sadly, it's probably not enough to bankrupt them even if this company wins, but it's a good start.

We would have to require manufactures to include safe and simple recovery processes.

And regulating businesses is filthy Communism, so maybe that will fly in the UK and EU, but never in the good old USofA.

I like the idea from a neat and tidy legal principle. But what you propose is not what I've seen in practice. Amazon is perhaps the one doing the largest scale book destruction, because they already had the equipment for their earlier book digitization projects. Anthropic is a close second as far as I'm aware. Others like Google have a mix of destructive and nondestructive, with no public information on the amount of either.

1) They are comparing pre-lockdown levels of traffic- when "working from home" was almost zero, with post-lockdown -- many people continue to work from home, assuming they still have a job. There are massively fewer cars on the road than there were. Less pollution is a good thing, but fewer jobs? not so much. (I am retired).

2) They viciously forced people to sell older cars prematurely rather than allow them to be replaced at the normally time (I never replaced my car, as I could not afford one having only got scrap value for the old one - of course I resent this and feel bloody minded towards thee whole thing. i am not alone). Fewer cars - more poverty.

3) Electric cars because petrol is very, very expensive. We pay about £1.80 per LITRE! (Not Australian pounds - Slashdot still cant get this right!)

4) Global warming means less pollution from household boilers - no firm data on this.

Moral: the research finds what they were paid to find. (A good researcher usually finds more research is needed if he wants to keep his job).

This comment is a real head scratcher to me. So off the mark I blurted out a laugh when I saw it.

I'm not aware of any technology that can build a society where adults hold literacy and numeracy, that does not involve a lot of repetitive practice and rote learning. Even numerical theory as presented in common core mathematics (which I applaud) requires practice and repetition to retain. And the exercises in common core that Internet loves to complain about is an example of that practice.

I was (as a citizen) given the voluntary option to correct the paperwork issues. Or to be subjected to searches and questioning.
And that offer is not even what they are supposed to do. They're legally supposed to just take your stuff and hold you for questioning.

After researching it, there was really little I could do. The statute is pretty clear for about 80% of what went down.

a border search? yes, you can be detained and questioned for an unspecified amount of time.

When they take your phone, you'll get a property claim slip. And until you unlock your phone, you won't get it back. So it's effectively indefinite.

...because they merely expect AI to replace existing tasks. Whether it actually does is more nuanced. For example, many employees pressured to use AI say it makes their tasks harder by creating AI slop that needs cleaning up. They have to deal with mistakes that wouldn't be in a human draft or in existing time-tested templates. If and how fast employees will get better models or learn to prompt better is unknown.

It's essentially management's gamble. Those in the C-suite often don't spot or are slow to understand front-line patterns, as nobody likes delivering lackluster news to higher-ups. They'll typically hear, "There are a few learning curve hiccups, as expected, but we're making progress" even if the productivity ship is taking on a little water.

To make AC go completely away? Maybe.

Just joking. I meant Firefox, as in "Would I donate money to Firefox for a browser-only VPN?"

The answer is quite clear on this one. No. There are plenty of VPNs in the market and I could buy one if I wanted it, and it would cover my browser, too. But even worse, I actually downloaded Opera to look at the included VPN and concluded it wasn't worth it. Haven't used Opera in a long time now. However as Firefox continues to add unwanted cruft they are increasing the pressure to switch to some other browser. Perhaps Opera?

Silly to talk about solutions on the pointless rant-hub Slashdot has devolved into. Even when the same solution approach could apply to fix some of Slashdot's ancient problems. "Would I donate to add Unicode support to Slashdot?" Quite possibly yes, but not an option. Or what about "to improve the moderation system" or various other things. And I am convinced no such option will ever appear 'round these parts.

So rather than flog that dead horse I'll recycle the ancient joke "What's your better idea?"