I have experienced this. They need to implement some secondary AI "fact checking" (how, I have no idea) to cut this BS out. I have seen the most absurd explanations, that are obviously concocted. Extrapolate from that, and I can see where some very dangerous explanations can happen.

Tim Cook mentioned something of import here, of the sheer engineering talent in China compared to the US. There are other factors that make manufacture in the US more expensive -- a long list -- if the Trump admin wants to really make a difference here, that's where to start. Making education less cumbersome and EXPENSIVE (and the student loan scam). I don't see a clean road to this without some major rehaul.

I ran into a problem with the eSIM on iOS when it first rolled out. Something got corrupted or whatever, I can't recall -- but, there was no recourse other than going to a real Verizon store (not a reseller) and having them fix it. The clerk there at the Verizon store used strong language about eSIM, indicating it was causing them a lot of grief (that I was not alone). Perhaps they will eventually fix it.

But, what about a spare eSIM? I can have a spare physical SIM. Would this have been mitigated if I had a spare?

I'm surprised by now they haven't done something with blockchain and eSIM -- LOL -- that's probably next.

In any case, I feel like it was hastily rolled out and we can see the fallout from that. I wonder if there are better ways to accomplish this -- but I am fine with a physical SIM.

I'm all for AI in Firefox if it's optional. There should be explicit settings to disable it -- but also, to fine-tune its behavior. And, it needs to be well and properly tested.

They may be able to utilize a performant local LLM that is smaller and efficient at certain tasks, that wouldn't use up tons of resources. If they want to start outsourcing requests to cloud providers, then that should be optional as well. Lots of privacy concerns there.

On MacOS Sequoia, I've seen Firefox slowing down considerably in recent builds. I would prefer they improve these issues before introducing more components that can, in turn, slow the browser down further.

Several of us recently experienced ChatGPT 5 suddenly changing candor, using improper punctuation, ordering us around like some AI dominatrix (LOL). This is likely because they have been posting incremental (and perhaps not fully tested) changes to the active models.

But either way, once you got through OpenAI's annoying, stalling Support chatbot, and got a response (that I still think may be AI), we got only the generic "Thank you for pointing this out."

I wonder what type of testing they really perform internally before rolling out changes to public facing production -- they might have caught this, if they offered a Beta model that people could actively test.

Either way, it was very weird.

From what I understand, we already have (had) that internally. But the larger issue here is control -- and who has it -- and who has the advantage of utilizing the same, versus the rest of us.

I seem to recall not too long when Microsoft and OpenAI (I believe) were pushing so hard for AI regulation, with them conveniently at that helm?

We are looking at society-changing technologies, and I believe a lot of it will make some corporations moot... and the ships of these have sailed.

We don't know his background and what compelled him to act.

I feel compassion for this unknown (to me) person. We don't know what triggered him, but we do reasonably know that pedophilia is prevalent in this world, spanning governments, privileged people, and miscreants. I hope this man gets psychiatric help; finds a better way to get his message across, to effect change -- that his living voice can make a positive difference. Ugh, sometimes I really think this world sucks :(

I worry this ability will be used for nefarious purposes. "Didn't pay your fine, oh we'll just deduct that for you. You bought too much milk this week, sorry you can't. You violated the law, we'll disable your access to money for now, sorry." And so on....

Whenever we mix money and politics (ie: corporate interests) it almost never ends well for the rest of us.

Their underlying proprietary filesystem, MFS (Media File System), has been their backbone of storage I/O. The interface itself could be reverse engineered easily enough, but MFS is a different story. If Xperi is focusing on "smart TVs" now -- they have probably refactored the UI just for that, the underlying tech probably survives in that form -- so it's really Tivo OS with different makeup. That's what I presume anyway. But, someone clever enough could reverse-engineer MFS. Unless we have something that compares to it in the open-source world (and I don't know that we do).

I've had TiVO since their first release, back in the day when you connected a phone line for them to dial out. I remember the uproar over skipping ads by industry ("how dare you!") and how "cool" it was to have, as well as some anticipation with the newer models they introduced. I had an entire stack of my TiVOs that I kept, after upgrades.

At some point Xperi bought the brand in 2020; prior to that, Rovi bought TiVO in 2016. It's not clear who started to trash the brand, but I'm blaming Xperi at this point.

There is an open-source project, MythTV, run by Isaac Richards, which has been in development for a very long time, this is more complex to set up, but may provide a platform to move on to.

It's sad, really. I think Xperi could have expanded Tivo OS into a streaming/recording model, if they wanted to. We already have separate tools to download YouTube and other streaming services into our local system. But, there's always the copyright wars somewhere.

RIP TiVO

Another aspect to this, is AI is causing humanity and society at-large to begin redefining itself. We have been spoon-fed a lot of "fear" through media, movies about AI; and we know the military will weaponize anything that moves, but for the rest of us -- we are likely witness to a fundamental change. We have AI and blockchain, social media... all of which is already likely being impacted or effected with/by AI. It's a rabbit hole to traverse that is OT. But something to consider, in context.

Sora, which I refer to as "Sore-a" as it's not always great at doing *what you ask for*, has certainly used a ton of data that wasn't "authorized" -- but I have taken note that there are specific filters it refuses to act on, such as popular cartoon or comic characters, etc. This likely means they have a big "DMCA list" somewhere.

I once asked for Miss Piggy to be dancing in a background, and it gave me something that looked like "Elf on a Shelf" instead LOL.

But, AI *has* to use reference material. That's how it learns, works and extrapolates. It's how the human brain works, too. If something is that publicly available, then what is "unauthorized use"? This is about content quality and control of copyright, for one. But if paint Miss Piggy and it becomes a popular artwork piece, would I then be sued? Did I use unauthorized reference? Where would that even go?

The courts are going to have to decide this one and I think it will take a while. There are fair arguments from both sides.

I'm concerned that a balance won't ever be achieved, that there is the potential for censorship being the norm, with multiple DMCA takedowns and the fear of being sued will impact the level and quality of service the public has. That will spawn a number of free tools that accomplish the same (I think that's already happening). I'm sure this will get very interesting.

I read recently (forgot reference, sorry) that one of the reasons Apple and other companies outsource to China is the engineering and manufacturing talent available. Apparently the same isn't available here in America, or in sufficient numbers -- that it's not really about cost so much. If that holds true, how this will have a larger impact.

I'm LOLing at my memories. I recall a room with Commodore CPM computers, some had the additional word processing chip (woo!) -- none of us, even the teacher, knew how to actually "do" much with them, beyond running simple programs (loaded from cassette tape), etc. We rarely saw anyone doing something productive, and they cost a fortune. Acorn Networks also got in to our high school, which was another waste and a similar outcome. We did get exposure to some of the basic elements of computers and hard-wire networking -- but the knowledge didn't stick much, as we had no practical application of it outside of school at the time -- this was in the mid-80s.

Then, came the Commodore 64s, which ended up having a better impact. This along with the VIC were more accessible, to the richer kids (of which I was not!).

And now, we can run these in a tiny vm, or in a browser LOL

This was a Nothing Burger repeat of prior hearings, with continued clever evasiveness by Elizondo. Mr. Gold was overly effusive, as if he were applying for a new position -- his statement that NASA is completely transparent is, of course, complete BS (and we know that).

Granted there are elements that engage in snuffing out this topic in our mass media, we are at least getting the hearings. It is disappointing that few Senators are present -- there is a battle going on about releasing this information, some Senators realize the influences they are against and don't show up; that's not why we elected them.

Someone needs to put Elizondo in the hot seat and call him out publicly when he becomes evasive. These are intelligence officers, they are trained in this.

I remain hopeful. Show us the evidence stop the BS. We are all tired of it. Hiding behind "National Security" is also another overly-used tactic. We know other countries are just as invested and have their own similar materials, we just have a lot more.

When we officially realize that our agencies have been sitting on (and freely using) advanced technology that could solve many of our worldly problems, technological and biological (health), people are going to be rightfully very pissed off.