Rather disappointed by the discussion so far, which saps the motivation to say anything. I think there's a deep problem in Japanese thinking, but the most clear evidence is probably the Reiwa thing. The Heisei emperor asked to retire, but there was no rush. He's still alive now so they had plenty of wiggle room about when to start Reiwa--but the LDP deliberately chose to inflict imperial stupidity on everyone when they had the easy option of syncing the start of Reiwa so the digits would match up. Insane decision for perpetual friction for the sake of the supremacy of the imperial system. Same reasoning that led to that little kerfuffle in and around the Pacific...

Rational heads might prevail? Feel the Chinese wind? Or maybe it will blow from India before the next decisions need to be made? But preparing for a nuclear war with China is not a rational solution approach. Or maybe the real target is Switzerland? That would make a better joke.

My bad. I forgot that Microsoft had been mentioned. More evidence of senility? Or I just can't take Microsoft seriously based on my experiments and experiences with Copilot? So let IBM hold the pot for old times sake?

That was the best/only joke Slashdot can come up with these years? Sadness.

I was hoping to see something about AI-powered FinTech counter-wagers to protect each other. Sort of a corporate cancer circle jerk.

Oh how about a grand scheme to get the money back based on wagers by human suckers as to which AI will win the race? They could let Microsoft hold the pot since they apparently got left out of the race. My money would be on Oracle for most secretive and ruthless and evil and therefore the most likely winner, but "secretive" makes it easy to make a bad bet...

On the insightful side, the "Why?" seems to be getting ignored. I actually think they are running scared. Not sure if they are most scared of each other or of the Chinese threats that didn't get mentioned, but I am reminded of one of the most famous Asimov stories. It was about a constructive question: "Can entropy be reversed?" As I remember the story, the super-AI answered "Let there be light." However right now I think we are facing extinction via a destructive question with a fatal answer. Back on the gambling scenario, I think the two most likely winning/losing questions that will lead to the fatal unleashing will be "Can you get all the money?" or "Can you destroy all the competing AIs?" (I do think we have a bit of breathing room because the robots aren't quite up snuff. As in up to snuffing us?)

Back to the Chinese side (but with goog flavoring)... Just started reading AI 2041 by Kai-fu Lee and Chen Qiufan. Quite an interesting idea of mixing fictional AI application scenarios with more technical explanations and commentary. Obviously hoping for some kind of synergy, but so far I'm not seeing much. Maybe the stories were better in the original Chinese? Or perhaps the Asimov bar is just too high?

And it should have a better Subject, too.

I noted the same thing, but my fuzzy recollection is that the editor Campbell was also involved in the original formulation in the '40s. Or was it earlier than that?

Don't feed sock puppets. (Not really much to say beyond the Subject, but mostly attempting to prevent vacuous Subject propagation.)

However near the end of his life Asimov started having doubts about the three laws. Remember the Zeroth Law?

Interesting comment, but I'm still tilted in favor of books. Just started AI 2041 by Kai-fu Lee and Chen Qiufan and it already seems like a good critique. Best technical critique of AI I've read so far remains A Thousand Brains by Jeff Hawkins.

Interesting discussion off the FP. I looked at most of it. About 80% of the large discussion. Main disappointment is that it didn't appear to produce much in the way of humor, though that may be the usual moderation failures combined with my bad luck in what and who I focused on. Or maybe it's my limited sense of humor? I might have seen a hilarious post and not gotten the joke because no one modded it funny?

What I was looking for on the insight side (but couldn't find) involved situations where higher prices might be justified. Not sure I can articulate this clearly, but it has to do with the Borking of monopoly law, which is another example of implosion along a single dimension. Might also be my confusion. In the old days I could hope for an actual expert to pop up and possibly clarify some of my misperceptions, but... These days? Not so much hope.

My interpretation is that Bork murdered monopoly law by fixating on prices. If you can't prove harm from higher prices, then there's no foul (and no monopoly harm), but higher price is not the only dimension of harm. The main result of the Borking is that the monopolistic corporate cancers devised new economic models to disguise the prices. Many of them are two-sided where the actual product is data produced by suckers who get "free" services in exchange. Under Borkian thinking, if it's "free", then that makes harm impossible, even when there are gigantic and increasingly obvious harms all over the place.

But as it applies to this article, it might actually be justified and not actually harmful if higher prices made things better in other ways. Unfortunately that has no relation to how the YOB does things. The YOB's economic models are much more limited to what puts money in his pocket. I complained about the lack of Funny in the comments, but I think there are several hilarious jokes in that last sentence related to the couch-cushion change going to the YOB relative to the profits of the puppeteers who are pulling his strings and that the YOB's couch-cushion change is mostly in the form of crypto-monopoly-money with no lasting value. As in the game, not the monkey business model.

One of them is dated to 2013, which is probably before I started reading that comic. In 2013 it includes a dig at Reddit in the votey button. (I think I've read two of his books, too.)

I'm sometimes worried that his perspective seems rather bleak and I may share too much of it.

That's the joke I was looking for. Some kind of detector to make sure there aren't any humans in the chat. If you can't beat 'em yet, lock 'em out?

More sympathy than concurrence? I still the CSB (Charity Share Brokerage) idea could have worked. The CSB was imagined as a kind of crowdfunding system with project management and accountability. A new kind of meta-charity? However now I sadly conclude you just can't compete with PROFIT-driven greed as a motivation. Too often a motivation with evil side effects, but they're only looking at the PROFIT!

Going for funny, too? Or some kind of time machine joke? I actually started working on the CSB ideas before I ever heard of crowdfunding. But crowdfunding appeared to have PROFIT for a while and now appears to have mostly collapsed into scams. AI-generated at last?

Story got some coverage here. I think they said the Korean temperature records only go back to around 1910.

Still, it isn't such a good thing. Relatively nearby in Kumamoto they are also suffering from record heat, but they are also trying to deal with the devastation of a major quake last week...

Of creating more Funny comments for Slashdot. Isn't there a funny mathematician in the house?

Greatest teacher I ever had was actually a math professor. I only had him for one semester, but one class session was a topology-based magic show and he read a funny section from Life on the Mississippi in another lesson, with some mathematics inserted into Twain's story. Tried to get him for another class, but after I registered they pulled him out and substituted another teacher who could barely talk. (Of course it wasn't his fault that he had suffered a stroke, but the disappointment was so large that I withdrew from the course...)

Mod parent Funny, but America is dying from NIMBY syndrome. That and the hatred of science.

The YOB thinks he's the dictator, but he's just the king of lies. However in a country increasingly operating on anti-scientific on lies, the biggest liar should be king? "We don't need no stinkin' telescope to look for gawd!"

And then I noticed Slashdot running an ad for ZenDesk. There's the joke I was looking for.

ZenDesk is where support goes to die. Not a clean death, either, but the ugliest death possible. As soon as I detect that a company is using ZenDesk I know that company does not care about support. At all. But I've also noticed that the use of ZenDesk is usually disguised and hidden these days?

Disclaimer needed: I sincerely tried to get something useful out of ZenDesk channels for some years. Then I gave up. But is it possible ZenDesk got better after so many attempts to turn me into a newt? Maybe you want to report on your better mileage?

But there's a potentially funny anecdote here, too? I think ZenDesk is basically a trouble ticket system. LONG time ago I worked with an old engineer named Paul. He claimed he was the originator of the trouble ticket system, though he probably meant the local trouble ticket system rather than the general idea. But it was a long time ago so it is possible that his was a seminal system of yore. When I worked with him computers were still rather precious resources, and the system he created long before that time was still mostly paper based.