Fair insight, unfortunately.

Unfortunately that makes my point theoretical instead of actual in this instance - ultimately, they (we) can't be so short-sighted to believe that the 'accidental' damage will always be limited to a 'friendly' target. If they CAN escape boundaries (esp if they are testing in the wild) eventually they're going to hit a 3M or P&G who doesn't give a fuck, or who suffers major political/consumer fallout that isn't so easily firewalled within 'interested actors'.

But my original point persists: if we legally set '10x damages' as the precedent, even the wild valuations of these shareholders would have to be tempered (I guess I'm assuming SOME sense of reality in the process) to recognize the catastrophic/explosive liabilities & maybe invest with a little more trepidation?

I realize as I'm typing this it even sounds naive to me.

Then again, there is the little-remembered bit of Eisenhower's farewell address.
https://www.archives.gov/miles...

Immediately after his (much repeated) warning about the dangers of the military-industrial complex, he them went on:

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been over shadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

Funny few people remember that one. It sure looks like these scholars are chasing the money.

I'm sure you'd be welcome if you ever wanted to - you're already ideologically highly aligned (and never really were with the US...) :) Honestly, economically and geopolitically it'd be a very strong alliance for both parties, as what Canada offers vs. what it needs is a good match for what the EU offers vs. what it needs. Though admittedly both parties need to rearm fast - but the EU has a lot more resources to do that than Canada has on its own. Canada has raw materials, EU needs them. Canadian automakers/parts suppliers need an alternative market, EU can provide it, etc.

Shifting eastward wouldn't be frictionless - for example, your oil infrastructure is designed to send it south, not to ports that can export it to the east, and European refineries would need to set up to process it, for example. But it's pretty clear that the current status quo can no longer be relied on, as the US is intent on extortion.

They're certainly trying. I was listening to an exoplanets researcher the other day (in response to "How are scientists adjusting the way they work during the Trump administration?") grumble about how they're afraid to use the phrase "diversity of exoplanets" in their work because of a (well-grounded) fear that having the word "diversity" will get their paper flagged for rejection. This sort of environment is toxic.

(My favourite response was "Spell it 'divers' and throw in the occasional 'thou art' and 'exeunt' " ;) )

"another human - like me"

Serious Zalgon 26 McGee vibes there ;)

Yes, I'm sure children in poor countries who may or may not read English are desperate to get ahold of, say, an obscure 1993 book on VCR repair.

These are books that are unsold for a reason.

It's a testament to the interplay of words that forms the tapestry we call language!

But leaving out a comma can certainly make sentences more fun ;)

Anyway, let's eat Grandma.

A few points:
1) maybe you didn't follow my argument: that's why it's farcical to believe that these companies are wasting money buying/destroying them when they are digitally available. Why would they waste $$ they don't have to?

2) FWIW, that's the 1901 edition, the 1915 3rd ed was (as the author says) largely rewritten with updated information not available for the 1901.

3) Do you realize your comment is literally justifying scanning and preserving books that aren't yet available?

Gates proposed taxing AI or robots the way you would pay a human employee's payroll tax

Unless we also roll out ubiquitous surveillance through a Vingean "Secure Hardware Environment"-like scenario where people aren't fully in charge of their own computers, I don't see how anyone could possibly detect whether or not I'm running any LLMs. Much like private DMCA violations (e.g. playing a CSS-protected DVD that you purchased, without getting authorization from the copyright owner first), it wouldn't have to interact with the world outside my house in any way, so it would be completely undetectable.

How would you tax that? I don't see this as reasonably possible without some pretty extreme measures.

Isn't there a clear bright line of liability here?
If the hugging face event cost hugging face (hypothetically) $250,000 to fix, how is the ai creator not instantly on the hook for a multiple of those damages?

It feels like we should quickly establish say a 10x multiplier as standard penalty for ai caused damages.

I know it's a shitty post facto tool and yes, it has failed plenty of times, but product liability is a well-precedented path (ie no new law approach has to be created) to compelling corporate responsibility. If this were the case, even a trillion dollar market value would feel shallow compared to potential liabilities.

Someone please name one rare, valuable book that has been destroyed. I'm still waiting.

Nobody has answered my criticisms of this particular Frankenstein story:
1) there's essentially nothing IN rare books that LLMs benefit from
2) rare old books are difficult to ocr in the first place, when reprints are both easier to scan AND cheaper.

This entire contrived hysteria is even more amusing as people basically don't read anymore, not generally. Oh heavens! They're destroying the books NOBODY READS? Really? That's what you're weeping about?

The only remaining meaningful contemporary book sales are women reading their own particular flavor of smut.
https://www.pensandpoison.org/...

Less than half of adults say they've read ONE BOOK in the last year.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ma...

I love old books. I'm currently reading Rogers 3rd ed (1915) of A History of Babylonia and Assyria and it's delightful. An absolute pleasure to read from the skill of the author, the comprehensiveness of the information (without a tedious agenda to flog, imagine!), to the very tactile experience of leather bound, deckle-edged paper. A joy every minute I'm reading it.

I would genuinely join you if there truly was a threat against old books.
But this? This is a manipulated hysteria contrived for some reason, maybe an experiment to see if they could spur nearly-illiterate sheeple to rise up to 'save' something they absolutely care nothing about.

....are books that they can buy by the meter, for pennies on the dollar, if that much. These are surplus books that publishers - the world's leading destroyers of books - would have to destroy anyway.

Trainers can't afford to buy actually rare, desirable books.

It's a shame that all of this data is locked up on private servers, but that's really more of a problem of the copyright system than anything else. Anyone who scanned these books would be banned from making it public.

That's literally what I said, you dumb pillock.

The fact that Canada is insisting on their right to propagandize their own populace doesn't change that it's propaganda.
Of COURSE it's still 'soft power', even if the target is their own disaffected population.

Duh?

You mean the site whose water discharge processes were indeed certified shortly after that article in 2025?

https://www.faa.gov/media/9434...

Water discharge is covered in section 3.2.7, fyi.