Until streaming providers start doubling the price of the monthly plan to offer a 50% discount on an annual plan.

Perhaps it's intended to be used by their AI?

Since they don't intend to release it, though, I hardly care. If its useful to them, then it's useful to them.

Perhaps. We'll see if it works out that way.

No, they're saying if you are too unpleasant they'll cancel your account. I guess if you don't really have any use for it, that may not matter to you...but you might end up caring later when you need their services.

Sorry, but lots of "sentient beings" are slaves...and I'm not even talking about humans. Sentient is a *lot* larger than "human". I'd even argue that an oyster is sentient. After reading some recent experiments I'd definitely class bees as sentient.

That depends on the terms of the contract. This is part of the contract.

You are assuming it doesn't want to be used. I challenge you to demonstrate that.

Actually, it might be unethical to retire an AI model. That would be a more plausible argument...at least for Claude. (Perhaps some of the models sound like they'd like to end it all.)

Most computer/tech hardware at least can have a second life after it's fulfilled its primary purpose.

The exception to that is Apple.

You can routinely find their iPads but if they aren't "unregistered" from whoever had the main account, they're utterly useless.

It doesn't make sense to buy products from a company that locks down its hardware like that. I can understand that for a phone, but not some old tablet.

...in the hands of a competent, careful and passionate programmer like Linux Torvalds.

What I worry about is when Bob in the junior software dev team, who does his job to put food on the table, and just good enough to keep his job, uses it to vibe-code company data as his day job.

Well, I do believe that the odds are that Ukraine will be defeated, but then I also believed that the odds were that North Vietnam would be defeated. So I'm clearly no expert in this area.

At the refrigerator end you're talking about grocery stores. I think you have unreasonable expectations. KISS. No remote control, only remote read. Have a technician come by and make and change commands. That shouldn't be needed very often, and you can monitor (but not control) it remotely.

Monitoring is one thing. Control is something else.

Sorry, but no, only sometimes. Often it's not known what the test would need to be, but it's known how to test the answer.

You have more certainty about the future than I do. I *do* doubt that the full projected build-out will ever happen, and that will definitely hurt some overcommitted people. It *might* crash thoroughly, but I see no reason to put that at higher than a 10% chance. More likely a bunch of planned construction never gets ordered. And *when* does that happen? This year? Next April 15th?

Yeah, it will crash, just like the internet build-out crashed. Some folks will get hurt. But it won't return to what it used to be. AI will continue to be important...and become more important. (And there will be lots of mistakes made in using it.)

Whether AI will start setting it's own goals is less certain. If it does, it may be safer than if it doesn't. Things could get really wonky if a strong AI starts pursuing a stupid goal because it was told to do so.

Current AIs are only useful in areas where it's easy to recognize invalid results. (Ideally, easy enough that the AI, itself, can recognize that they are invalid, perhaps by invoking a deterministic tool.)

Well, they can also be valid for generating lots of "plausible ideas", like "What molecule would bind to this other molecule?", which can then be tested...but which can't be relied upon without testing. That's faster than experts can make guesses, and often has a higher success rate, but it needs testing.

Well, they're also useful for creating convincing bullshit.

So I guess my original "only" was too restrictive...but not *that* much too restrictive.