Ya, at the end of the day, parts availability eventually renders most cars to the bin.

I've wondered if I could justify an non-obnoxious classic car, like an old Beetle or Porsche. Maybe a small block Chevy. Parts for restoration should be more accessible. Plus classic car.

The EEOC and NLRB were impotent prior to Jan. 2025 and are even worse now (the NLRB can't even rule because they lack a quorum).

Amazon is following the letter of the law, which means they can grind this down until people quit. Accommodation is suppose to be a "good faith" effort between employer and employee. It seems neither is approaching this in that spirit.

Uh-huh.

Take something like music. There are specific licenses for specific uses. We've already have a legal framework with regards to sampling. Imagine my dismay how none of these people spoke up then, but now cost of sampling and the morass of licensing is an issue.

But tell me, is any of the software copyrighted?

Oh...

AI firms won't pay to respect copyright

On they one hand, I can only hope this leads to revisiting the insanity of copyright law.

On the other, fuck them for double dealing with regards to what ownership actually means ("I'm alright, Jack.").

Maybe...

One of the benefits of "top" talent is influence that rubs off in other domains. 80/20 rule and all that.

On the other hand, overt specialization is suicide (which also seems to come with top talent).

The difficulty is (always) what excels in a particular environment varies dramatically. One persons' genius is anothers' prima donna.

for me is you need a coherent framework not only for current circumstances but a future technologies. And that is not just limited to corporations. Your local busybody with a swarm of drones eyeing the neighborhood is just as bad.

As we have now, regulation cannot hope to keep pace with technological development. And government contracting the private sector (or foreign countries) as an end-around the law will not be put back in the bottle.

The best I think you can do is HEAVY penalties for database breaches and the like (including full financial liability/prison). Make data collection a costly liability instead of a cash-cow. Use the same incentives that fuel the current boom to crush it.

Hmm...

Folding@home has already a list of accomplishments for nominal costs.

Further, picking specifically a Nobel prize winning AI as demonstrative of cost, when Forbes places the total spending for AI next year alone at a quarter trillion is suspect to say the least.

That's a lot of research dollars, but hey you accomplished what was already being done for free and with no restriction on copyright. I'm positive Alphabet spent that money strictly out of benevolence and will do the same.

But as we aren't discussing them but LabGenius LabGenius (mind who those investors are).

The difficulty here is the amount spent on AI and the like vs. other research- which will have the most efficacy?

The promises of AI are far and wide, as if to justify spending even more at the expense of other things.

Yes, new tools are helpful in many disciplines, but that's not what is being sold here.

More an indictment of law enforcement "intelligence".

There is a boogie-man around every corner to justify stricter and stricter laws, and always more farcical threats that somehow omit very present threats (such as foreign policy).

I've seen police task force materials on everything from Dungeons & Dragons to Insane Clown Posse to Satanism, and seeming secret societies form within law enforcement (Vampire Hunter 2000 was just wild. And now we have the thin blue line.).

It's brand of cultural enforcement dressed as benevolent concern, and making stuff up and fearmongering is far easier than proper investigation.

Nope. I just the contrast when discussing microsoft.

I'd add (exceptions for tariffs as a portion of industrial policy) broad-range tariffs would make the whole of the US a company town in all but name, especially given the amount of consolidation in the US. Add in speculations as to the effects of wealth concentration and you have the makings of something ugly.

Similarly how H1Bs only apply to certain kinds of labor; I cannot countenance that employment is even on the radar with current trade policy. This seems more about control.

Don't worry.

By the time we have transformed to planet-wide power station, we will have AI corporations to sort all of this out.

The problem literally solves itself with every power station we build.

Someone makes the claim they were charged more because they are a minority, this will go up in a ball of flames.

I am amused that the business class hasn't thought this through as to blowback.

People like the concept of equal treatment in the marketplace. Give that up and it will get ugly in ways unseen since labor riots.

The irony of pointing out the quality; to have someone conflate it with quantity.

And then omitting the evolution of the web to conflate it with people have changed (which they have, or has your entire thought process ossified?).

Yeah.

Disagree.

While there is something to be said about the preponderance of evidence, you cannot in the same breath point out the rise of fringe conspiracy theories while also point to majority opinion holding sway.

Prior to social media we had mass media, whispering campaigns, and gossip galore. Same problems and eventually people get wise to who is lying to them and excise them from their attention, especially with mass repetition (see cable tv).

Truth of the matter is the quality of discourse has plummeted (especially from the early days of the web) with attention whores to monetary gains and censorship and gamification. The signal to noise ratio isn't worth the effort, so even more people with wise observations check-out and leave the banal to dominate the discussion.

"Social media" is just a boogeyman, much like comic books, pinball, and telephones before. The problem isn't so much as described (Mcluhan would have something to say about that), but the gatekeepers tut-tutting the unvarnished public and the commercialization of the web.