Exactly. The most important part of deterrence against most people is a good show and a person visibly being there is the easiest and most reliable way to do it because people all can imagine being stopped by other people. By a toaster on wheels? Not so much. Too abstract for most people.

This number is way too high. It is clearly gamed in some way.

It can be done if there is political will. I have had 3 of these calls in the last 20 years. The thing that does the trick is that the telcos are required to block the sources within hours or _they_ get fined. Also notice that the scam calls in the US that use "local" numbers do nothing of the sort. All that is local is the caller ID. But the telco knows where the call really comes from, because otherwise it would not even connect.

Easy: Fine the telcos if they do not block the sources very fast. I have gotten 3 of total marketin/scam calls in the last 20 years with that legal situation where I live. Oh, and when a domestic call center violated all these rules, they were raided and shut down the next day. This can be done and it works.

The reason this does not work in the US is that politicians and political parties are allowed to make these calls for election .... well, fraud essentially. Those are illegal as well in most (all?) of the EU.

The important second component is that the Telcos need to be required to block aggressively as well or they pay. With that, I have had 3 (!) fraud/spam/marketing calls in the last 20 years.

That's part of what was good about ye olde Twitter. It was really hard to make an offensive dick pic in 140 characters.

Look at the comment counts on the posts today... neither will anyone else

Nobody can keep track of everything they do, which is the point of the zone-shit-flooding strategy.

You quoted the part that proves them right, coward.

Not directly intentional, no. Bureaucracies are designed to be slow and careful. The "careful" part may not always be present, but the "slow" part is always there and it is not a question of technology.

It doesn't address it well, because it wasn't clear whether that included chatting with Gemini after a search result. (Gemini claims it doesn't when asked directly)

Take microphone permission away from the Google app

Try learning to read BEFORE commenting:

"Pichai is talking only about people who are opening the Gemini app or visiting the Gemini web interface to enter a prompt or access Gemini Live. If you used Gemini only once in the past month, you are part of this cohort."

You should ask Gemini to read the summary for you next time so that you won't seem stupid.

I can believe it if and only if they are counting people who went to Google search, got a shit AI search result, and then told the AI it was shit