That just means that they'll sell the photos and videos to a third party who WILL use them for advertising and training models.

And then they'll purchase photos and videos from other tech companies that spy on their users, to fill that gap. It'll be "Sell me yours and I'll sell you mine". It's all a shell game with these creeps.

My first thought was of Huygens, and pendulum clocks syncing up. To this day physicists are investigating and trying to fully understand that. So it's a bit disappointing to read such a mundane explanation for UPS tests syncing up.

It's good to know what the mechanism is. But mystery and spookiness have their appeal too, and today I was hoping for spookiness.

No, "per capita" does exactly what it says on the tin. Let me make this simple for you. Let's say that you have one neighbouring family with two people who both drive Hummers - not because they need cargo space or hauling capacity, but because they like them. Then you have another neighbouring family with two people who drive small hybrid vehicles. Both families have similar usage patterns and overall mileage, but one of them chooses a much more carbon-intensive lifestyle. Now, substitute "countries" for "families". NOW do you get it?

That's irrelevant beyond underlining the fact that we need to reduce both our population growth and our overall population along with our carbon footprint. Also, you're being disingenuous there. You're purposely ignoring that the discussion is about "a higher percentage of people reducing their carbon footprint".

$250 for an indoor drone? The hacker community is going to be all over this, looking to jailbreak it. If they manage to free these from Bezos' grasp and enable buyers to actually OWN them, then I'd be happy to have three or four of them.

Of course, if they're too well locked down to be freed, then they're just more tech detritus in our growing dystopian hellscape.

I think the folks with the deep pockets might say that's a feature, not a bug. So subsequent versions might be even more "featureful".

Well, our society itself is powered by low-to-middle income earners whose contributions to our day-to-day well-being far outweigh those of the parasite class. Yet here we are with billionaire overlords anyway.

So just think of AI as a gift to us all by our billionaire benefactors. I do, and it helps me sleep better at night. /sarc

I'm not sure that I'd trust those summaries to be an accurate reflection of a discussion. It's too easy to form the queries in such a way that they cherry-pick comments and give favourable reviews for a price. And I'm guessing that it would be easy for bots to construct a Reddit conversation astroturfing some product or service. Also, Reddit distilling users' comments in order to make a buck strikes me as the kind of activity that immediately preceded Google's descent into full-on evil.

So maybe users should game that system by poisoning conversations. Fake anecdotes and leading questions could make monetization of users' contributions difficult or impossible. Redditors could start just makin' shit up so the resulting AI reviews would be even more hallucinatory than they might otherwise be.

Thanks - you just gave the PERFECT illustration of the major problem with the practice which you imagine constitutes "thinking".

You see only black and white. In your world there are only good guys and bad guys, so when two bad guys oppose each other, the one you judge as less bad becomes the "good guy".

You totally ignore that the ground shifts. Now, I'd be happy to argue about which actor is more evil at any given moment or in any given conflict. But your mind seems incapable of navigating the complex terrain between Good and Bad - never mind making judgments which take context and history into account.

I don't "blame Israel for everything", I only blame them for the nasty immoral shit they do over and over and over again

It's clear to me that almost no country is blameless in any of this. Even my own Prime Minister chose not to condemn Israel when he had the perfect opportunity and the ears of the world were open to his words. Having said that, surely the US is chief among both the enablers and the beneficiaries of Israel's crimes against humanity.

I had been totally aware of this behaviour; nevertheless, I killed it myself about 20 years ago when I moved to Linux.

At the time, kicking Windoze to the curb seemed like a necessity. In retrospect though, it was a luxury - one I still savour almost every day.

Sure. Because Israel knows everything there is to know about a "thriving liberal democracy". /sarc

Unless, of course, genocide, subverting America's elections and policy with bucketfuls of dark money, killing children and aid workers, and stealing homes and farms are hallmarks of a liberal democracy. If they are, then Israel is right on track. But somehow I think Israel is just about the polar opposite of what most of us understand a "liberal democracy" to be.

Cope harder MAGA troll - it might distract you from your seething.

I'm not pushing what I'm about to suggest, I merely offer it as a counterpoint: Iran could be "messing with France" on Putin's behalf, since Putin is sending drones and other military aid to Iran.

It could also be a warning to the States. The US has been unable to close the deal on taking Iran off the board; but the war has cost Iran a lot, so they may be unwilling to make the leap directly to cyberattacks on the US. Attacking France demonstrates the capability and might make the US think twice about further attacks on Iran. I know that one's a long shot - I'm just putting it out there to further the conversation.

That's an intriguing analysis and raises points I hadn't considered. I'm wondering though, how Iran might have been helpful in any meaningful way in the taking of Taiwan.

I'm also wondering if Iran really has been seriously weakened by America; although as I understand it the US has been seriously weakened, in that their arms cupboard is looking pretty bare these days.

And if there really is some 3D chess behind America's recent military moves, who's the grandmaster? It sure as hell isn't Trump, and I don't see any of the 'usual suspects' - even Rubio - as being anywhere near smart enough for that kind of planning and strategizing.