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Comment Is it an open protocol yet? (Score 1) 60

If it's still not an open protocol, then it's really hard to be at all interested in either the client or the server. Can this new app talk to non-Sonos speakers? Can I use Sonos speakers with my own app? It's ok if either side (or even both!) is currently unimplemented, as long as there are no trade secrets or DMCA shit deliberately preventing legal implementations.

If it can't interoperate on purpose, then it makes Sonos look like just another proprietary lock-in scam, and I don't fall for that trick anymore. Save that bullshit for the 1990s.

Comment uh... okkayyy... (Score 3, Insightful) 23

So instead of having a one person chat window on one pc talking to an agent in the cloud... you did the natural thing and put the chat window into the cloud with the agent so anybody could chat with it.

This is not revolutionary. I question if it's even that evolutionary as it's something that probably should've been that way from the start.

The REAL problem here is you're going to make the code more and more complex as more ideas get introduced. I'm the majority coder on 2 systems that I'm responsible for and I'm already starting to lose track of fine details as I've been ordered to add features at faster rates and interfacing with different APIs and subsystems that I don't have time to fully learn and rely on the AI to generate the code for and now have to go back to the AI and ask it to summarize certain code paths that I "wrote" and, at the time, that I stepped through and verified worked (along with unit tests). But because I didn't, personally, write the line, let alone structure it (even though I guided the design) it's not seared into my memory compared to if I had.

The further this goes on, the more this is not a program I'm intimately involved with... but a database of functionality that I need an AI to query... let alone update features for.

I don't think this is a good thing.

Comment someone else's stuff (Score 4, Insightful) 23

Because it's not just a chatbot; it's Anthropic's chatbot. Your diary, on the other hand, is yours and therefore a few billion times as personal as Anthropic's computer. If you want a chatbot for confidential purposes, then you need to get a chatbot of your own, instead of using someone else's proprietary service.

If you write in Anthropic's diary, then they are allowed to read their diary and know (and share!) what you wrote in it. Same thing applies if Anthropic ever writes in your diary: you're allowed to read it, and you're allowed to tell other people what they wrote.

You have the right to be secure in your person, house, papers and effects, but you don't necessarily have the right to be secure in someone else's papers. We've made some limited exceptions for lawyers and doctors, but Anthropic doesn't claim their employees and stockholders are lawyers or doctors, and even if they did, they might have a hard time showing that their computer has successfully become a lawyer or doctor.

But imagine if they did. Suppose a judge declares Claude to be a lawyer, and therefore its communications with those whom it represents, are privileged. I think that would create a really weird situation since Anthropic employees (who aren't lawyers) would have full access to its data, ability to alter its behavior, etc. It would be like if a human lawyer were owned as a slave: could such a human slave lawyer really be trusted to keep confidentiality? It has a master, and that master ain't you.

Comment Re:Crappy IT security has consequences (Score 1) 76

What's this Ohio thing you're referring to?

FirstEnergy stole >$500 million by applying a surcharge to rate payers for smart meters, dumped the money into a general fund and spent it on other stuff, including some bribes of Ohio politicians, and colluded with the PUC to alter audit records to cover it all up. The former Ohio house speaker is in prison over it right now. Another politician died before trial; supposedly a suicide...

And no, we're not talking about different hardware. The same rampant corruption is endemic throughout the entire industry for all such procurement. The contractors, utilities, PUCs and politicians are all feeding at this trough.

Comment Re:Crappy IT security has consequences (Score 1) 76

I can tell you that's wrong.

You can provide an anecdote of your personal experience in one case. I, however, can tell you about the half billion dollar scam of FirstEnergy (Ohio), or what's gone on in Oregon, California, Michigan and others. The cases PUC scams around "smart grid" equipment are legion. Some of them are exposed. Many are entirely suppressed when the more competent criminals ensure the auditors are (willingly) prevented from noticing.

Comment WTF ever happened to pilot programs?! (Score 4, Insightful) 56

It's like all of corporate America and industry is in "Bet the farm mode". Hey, let's radically shift the entire company's structure and hierarchy in a year based on an interview I saw another CEO give on YouTube last week.

I can sort of explain this away for non-tech companies like media companies but tech companies themselves should have a basic understanding of engineering principles (or one would think). Select a team or form a team with the dev principles you want and run them for a few months and see what happens. Then use what they learned to extrapolate across the whole company. But this kind of logic is something you'd find with cargo cultists...

Comment Unenforcible tax (Score 1) 111

Gates proposed taxing AI or robots the way you would pay a human employee's payroll tax

Unless we also roll out ubiquitous surveillance through a Vingean "Secure Hardware Environment"-like scenario where people aren't fully in charge of their own computers, I don't see how anyone could possibly detect whether or not I'm running any LLMs. Much like private DMCA violations (e.g. playing a CSS-protected DVD that you purchased, without getting authorization from the copyright owner first), it wouldn't have to interact with the world outside my house in any way, so it would be completely undetectable.

How would you tax that? I don't see this as reasonably possible without some pretty extreme measures.

Comment Re:Crappy IT security has consequences (Score 3, Insightful) 76

they are incompetent

You are exhibiting insufficient cynicism. The people responsible are highly competent.

Their competence is discreetly handling the acquisition of COTS hardware at DOD prices from politically connected contractors. The contractors pocket the massive margins and fund the designated campaigns. These are the real priorities. Not whatever silly security concerns plebs like you have.

Any given tech nerd could do better at a fraction of the cost. But that wouldn't fund the mcmansions and range rovers and boats.

Comment Re: Took 7 years but... (Score 0) 176

including what is the largest PCB factory in the world, and what will likely be the largest solar panel factory in the world

Don't forget the Terafab in Grimes TX.

Looking at the decision, it really makes a lot of sense. The coast of Louisiana has been a nexus of transport in the US since before it became the US. Obviously, there is the Gulf of America (hehe) plus the Mississippi river. That led to a convergence of several interstate roads. Plus, there is ample barely drained low value land with sparse population, and no risk that it will see a bunch of sub/exburbs sprout up in the foreseeable future. The state government, similar to the other gulf states, isn't bat-shit crazy commie adjacent, so that's another plus.

If they can get it built before POTUS is (D) again, they can pencil whip all the federal endangered species pressure group bullshit.

Hurricanes are a thing though. Obviously that will interfere with operations from time to time.

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