There a reason that governments, including both the US and China, want to slurp data, including data that ostensibly has no value. If I'm China, I want to know who the vulnerable people are that are in financial, emotional, or social distress and have any connection with access to things of potential military, political, infrastructure, or business value. Which employees at Nvidia can I bribe for espionage. Who works at municipal water plants. Which politicians are amenable to influence.

The US gets rightfully criticized for this. It's naivete to believe that China isn't actively trying to do this data gathering for American targets.

What if you're using a VPN for security over Wi-Fi? Do you need to watch any commentary or even jokes about China if there is any chance you might visit China in the future for business or tourism?

The best way to shield a wannabe despot is with an acronym. I wish this were a joke.

Obviously $25k devices are not consumer devices. The hope is that expensive leading edge devices will find some initial corporate/government use, which will eventually allow the technology to develop over time into more affordable consumer devices. That's what happened to cell phones and webcams. The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X was released in 1984 and cost $4k (or more than $12k in today's money) for relatively primitive features. A Fairchild MV-100 CCD-based camera cost $4k in 1973. The price for the $25k videoconferencing system is in line with these devices. Hopefully, the ensuing feature development and price decrease over the next few decades will also follow the histories of the cell phone and webcam.

It's not a surprise that editors are against a computer replacing their human-written summaries with AI-generated summaries. The question might as well have been worded as "Would you prefer that a computer puts you out of a job?" So, no surprise there.

What's more interesting is how readers would consider AI-generated summaries. Instead of an AI-generated summary from a website, it would be interesting for browsers to have this summarization capability that could be enabled or disabled by the reader. My browser already gives me the option of automatically translating webpages in foreign languages. It would be annoying if it's out of my control, but if I get to control it's use, then it can be useful.

For Wikipedia, I think it would be useful for a user-controlled summary that can be customized for what I'm looking for. For example, a summary that also gives me an indication of how detailed or broad a particular page is, whether related topics exist on Wikipedia. Beyond summaries, it would be nice for me to ask an AI questions about the Wikipedia page and have the AI not only provide answers but point the browser view at the supporting parts.

This study uses survey results from one to two years ago. First, survey results are simply data the reflects personal perceptions. Second, the employment impacts of LLMs are arguably just emerging, so the old surveys are not so insightful. Third, the key result is a 3% average productivity gain, but what would be much more useful would be the top 10% of productivity gains versus the bottom 10% and why there is a difference. The average number is not as useful without an understanding of the distribution.

This seems like a valid question, along the lines of calculating the size of a giant meatball made of every human.

However, the flaw in the question is not specifying the size of the sword. For example, the sword could be the size of this violin, in which case a single human's blood could produce enough iron for a sword, or at least something that looks like a sword.

I think there is broad consensus about not trusting AI with the ultimate step of decision making. No one is suggesting this (well, maybe some lazy lawyers and college students). The hope is that the initial information gathering steps will become more efficient with AI. There is some feedback that this efficiency is not being realized, and that can be a valid criticism. However, just because this information gathering step may not necessarily be more efficient at this time doesn't mean that it will never be more efficient.

Sorry, this attitude is an example of holding the phone wrong. Only an idiot would blindly trust the output an an LLM or a Google search or a Wikipedia entry or a webpage or any computer program. The only correct way to use the output of an LLM is the same way to use the output of any computer tool, i.e., consider the output as a means to an more efficient solution that must be sanity checked and validated. How is this not obvious?

This is the new Republican/Trump modus operandi. Shout a lie loudly and repeatedly, and eventually some minority will take up those lies as the truth.

The government workers were aligned with government policy until the government policy changed.

The science has not changed. Sure, there are different opinions, but the general consensus on things like the efficacy and general safety of vaccines did not change and has been overwhelming for a long time. Claiming that the consensus is wrong doesn't make the consensus wrong.

Did this mathematician consider the impact of the breadcrumbs on the weight and volume of a meatball? Or is he doing calculations for a "bad" meatball? Hmm, meatballs made of humans. Definitely a "bad" meatball.

Among developed nations, and especially those with large militaries, the challenge is not too many people but too few people. The US, Canada, Australia, and a few European countries only have positive population growth due to immigration. That immigration is generally a positive for the economy because more workers are needed to sustain an economy with a rapidly growing older population.

Cheap or free electricity wouldn't just attract data centers and other companies. It would also incentivize households to be much less vigilant about power efficiency. If electricity is so cheap/free, then running the AC 24/7 is a no-brainer, as would be not bothering to turn off lights, not putting computers to sleep, not bothering to upgrade appliances. etc.

There is no obvious conspiracy ... yet. Give RFKjr a few more years combined with Trump kicking out and muzzling all the government scientists plus the scientists who used to receive government grants. I suppose some might require a conspiracy to be secret, but there are definitions, including legal definitions, that don't require secrecy.

You live in a country that has laws that ban certain forms of expression. Meanwhile, here in the US, we have a emperor-wannabe president that wants to outlaw the forms of expression that he doesn't like. However, instead of passing a law, he simply cancels grants, visas, jobs, etc. and sends out armed military to intimidate, all extra-judicially because emperors shouldn't be constrained by such trivialities. Given those two realities, I'd prefer the European explicit canceling of freedom instead of the vague American form that can change at any time based on the emperor's whims.