I look forward to you refuting a single stated fact?

"It's immune to EMP."

Not quite. Well yes, obviously the COPPER doesn't give a shit about emp but as I understand, emp induces current in wires/circuits, generating voltage that fries things. Anything connected to those wires will absolutely fry to EMP unless hardened.

I believe something about the unstated part of their name being "Not Elon".

Let's remember that Trump was always a east coast Democrat who opportunistically jumped into the 2016 election as a Republican because it was an opportunity for self promotion and free press. Nobody - including him, I believe - thought he'd win.
When he did, his liberal friends turned on him with their typical viciousness, which hurt his all important ego. They spent 4 years in (essentially) permanent impeachment hearings, based on information provided by Russia, which in his simplistic view, entrenched his victim complex and obsession with revenge.

Couple this, then, with the triumphalist left who felt when they defeated the wicked witch, they could do no wrong, and so decided to spend 4 years taking a Victory Shit on everything they could, from inviting 30 million illegals into the country to having trannies flop their frankentits out at the White House on Easter.

Trump is an exponential narcissist, childish, crude, and frankly rather dumb.
Think how odious and repellent the Left have to be to lose to him TWICE?

The previous poster likes to frame it as a vast right wing conspiracy but the truth is never quite that convenient. Most organized churches & clergy in the US are now about gay priests & rainbow banners, actively spreading and refuting their remaining few hyper conservative rural congregations. Democrats have always been a majority in the US, since the Republicans were formed to get rid of slavery. The only reason any Republican ever wins is that enough Democrats get tired of their own party's bullshit and vote right. In the last election EVERY SINGLE DEMOGRAPHIC BLOCK SHIFTED RIGHT (aside from, predictably, white women). Think about that. Blacks & Hispanics - in particular black men - voted in unprecedented numbers for Trump. Or, more accurately, against a Democrat machine that has milked them for votes for 70 years. The election wasn't really (by modern margins) that close.

Don't let the ideologically captured slashdot fool you. The country, having seen Trump as president once, and offered another 4 years of Obama-Biden-Harris said "No, thanks, we'll take the nutball instead". Instead of swallowing the party line of your own European media, maybe ask yourself why. And unlike Democrats, don't just start with the assumption that anyone who disagrees with you must be stupid. That's an ideology for a child.

I don't even faintly dispute that Trump is a shitty, egotistical president. He is. And he makes some really walk decisions. But he is really what the left made him, and I suspect that only a colossal who like his would have been able to buck the malignant insider cabal of both parties. In this case the medicine is unfortunately nearly as bad as the disease.

"You think techologists have a right to torrent their work for free and profit off of it?"
To answer your specific question: Not at all. (reductio ad absurdam is one of the lazier fallacies, btw). I never even implied that. If they torrented an artists' actual work in the sense of sharing that exact work for free they absolutely should be punished to the same degree Pirate Bay or Anna's Archive is, absolutely.

Of course, that isn't what they're doing, is it?

I was merely commenting on your assertion that "The pinnacle of current technology rests on torrented media and unpaid creatives" like visual artists & musicians whinging that their art has been 'stolen' to feed AI programs ... are in fact hoisted by their own petard, which is built frankly of their own greed.

Put it this way:
- Mary draws a picture (or writes a song) that is genius. Everyone loves it.
- Mary puts that artwork online to either a) sell it or b) sell her competence so other people will buy her work. (I'd guess "a" applies more to musicians, "b" to visual artists but either way the principle is the same).
Now, as far as "stealing" in the context your post seemed to mean, two things can happen.
1) Sam sees/hears the piece, thinks, that's pretty cool and learns to copy it from 01-99% successfully. Now, he cannot copy it 100%, as would be him creating identical artwork and claiming "this was produced by Mary". I think we can agree either of those would be theft? But if he creates something similar, or something stylistically comparable - maybe even openly acknowledges 'like Mary's work' - as long as he actually did it himself, openly acknowledges the source, he's legally fine afaik. I don't even know if he HAS to acknowledge her as a source, but that's polite. As long as he clearly did it himself, I think he's probably ok.
2) an LLM comes along, does the exact same thing. Except this time, Mary insists her art is stolen and demands compensation.

The very concept of 2 is absurd. CERTAINLY she can demand attribution, but money? Are the LLMs ever claiming they are ACTUALLY reproducing Mary's work? I don't think so. Just because they can compress the learning process of decades into a few hours' churn doesn't change the principle.

The irony, to me, is that Mary bitches about the LLMs stealing her work when it never could have happened if she didn't initially digitize her product in search of audience/sales. THAT'S ultimately what provides me a chuckle. If Mary CHARGES people to look/listen at her work, and the LLMs sneak past it, it's theft. But if she's put it up to be enjoyed for free, it's ALSO there for anyone - human or algorithm - to learn from. You can't have it one way but not the other.

I know if I worked at Amazon "You don't need perfection to start." would absolutely come up in my next review.

I kid, I kid. Galley slaves never get to speak to the captain nor even the drummer for the deck you're on. Today they just get an email "Pull harder or we toss you to the sharks in an hour" - maybe that's what her 100k lines of code does?

I'm enjoying the framing of "technologists vs creatives" as if creatives didn't owe nearly all of their modem income to the technology they condemn (now).

Put it this way: if you never record anything you make, nobody can "steal" your sales by torrenting your songs. If you only earn income from live performances, nobody can sign you to an "exploitative" streaming contract. If you digitize nothing, there's no way Claude or x or anyone can churn it into their llm. Of course, not doing these things also means you forego participating in the lottery of "maybe I'll be discovered and become a big star!".

It's still your choice.

Musical performers as a class profited IMMENSELY from the invention of recording technology. Formerly they performed (and were paid) based on skill, reputation, and ultimately patronage. Are they entitled to more than that?

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.

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?

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.

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.

"why (is) the U.S. government is so invested in the issue?"

Claiming it's 'perhaps' about the US wanting power to project US culture...as a way to deflect from Canada ACTUALLY OPENLY AND CLEARLY DOING THAT is propaganda-judo at Iraqi-information-minister level.

Even *asking* the question is hilariously obvious. So Canada is entitled to use its streaming channels to promulgate Brand Canada (and their obligatory Francophone appendix, always...) but the US is quasi imperialist - not for demanding the right to do so, just interfering with Canada's 'right' to do so.

And offering some sappy Ontario postdoc as the "quoted expert" instead of, say, an actual Canadian gov't official to defend their overt policy is even funnier.

And before the nabobs come chattering into the conversation, yes, OF COURSE the US promotes itself in media and indeed that is soft-power, but let's be clear here that the US isn't asking for the right to do so, just that Canada NOT do so. And oh, when's the last time you saw the majority of US media (incl Hollywood, to look at the bastion of American cultural power) saying /nice/ things about the US?