You missed some use cases. For me, I'm knowledgeable enough to eliminate ads, telemetry, etc. (with the aid of some excellent 3rd party utilities), and I use some expensive audio hardware that only has Windows drivers, as well as the extensive ecosystem of audio apps that Linux can't match.

I could go to Mac, but both hardware and software are substantially more expensive, and I don't like the Apple walled garden. For me, a properly tweaked Windows is the best alternative.

Clippy: "It looks like you're trying to deshittify Windows. Can I help?"

It's hard for me to post less, since I never post at all. Unless you call /. social media, which is a lot closer than calling it a tech discussion site.

"The place is too crowded, nobody goes there any more."

Is the originating company based in the US? Do they do business or have customers in the US? That's enough for jurisdiction.

Deere's lockdown of repair and maintenance was disgusting, and I'm glad there is at least some temporary relief. But as others have pointed out, they'll be at it again in 10 years.

The real problem is Deere's unbridled pursuit of profit, and their willingness to screw over customers in that pursuit. This settlement will only modify one aspect of their bad behavior, and only temporarily. The stockholders can rest secure in the knowledge that Deere will surely find numerous other loopholes and continue to extract maximum bucks from the American farmer.

Of course they're not the only ones, but they're unfortunately a critical link in a critical industry, and they're much worse than most.

Much more fun to make snarky comments. But I'm still super skeptical. The vast majority of expert commentary says that even though we can map neurons and identify regions of brain activity, that's a very long way from a scientific understanding of the human mind and "how we think."

"a structure that looks unsettlingly like the one we use to think."

If neuroscientists have discovered "how we think" they've certainly kept it to themselves.

I think you've got the wrong goal. It's not so much about living longer (yeah, we're all gonna go sometime) as it is about staying mobile and competent. It's no fun to be alive and alert, but unable to walk, or to take a shower without help. My sister was a couch potato all her life, and now she's bedridden in an assisted care facility, and can't even stand up from her wheelchair. My goal is to stay active until I keel over dead.

According to the article, US sales account for about 12% of global sales, so they don't depend on the US market.

I don't have the exact link, but I remember reading that more than one person wrote the column under that name

That's funny, I heard the same echo...

"the probabilities of all possible outcomes of an event add up to 100%, and that the laws of physics are consistent for observers moving at different speeds." -- I'm neither a physicist nor a mathematician, but both of these seem debatable to me. If our notion of causality and time is correct, the first one might be true, but I've heard those things being questioned. And what 'requires' the laws of physics to remain stable? Those laws were formulated by scientists to explain things they don't fully understand. What if the scientists were wrong?

Isn't that AI will develop some sort of "super-intelligence." It's that AI already is and will continue to be integrated more and more into daily life, and as it becomes more complex, there will be less and less visibility into how it's arriving at whatever response or behavior it exhibits. We'll lose control, not because AI is taking control, but because there won't be any controls.

This is going to be true in every field of knowledge work. AI is fundamentally different from human intelligence, but it's such a good imitation that most people can't tell the difference. It will displace jobs and people because it's "good enough." And beause it's permeating our education system, future generations will have less and less ability for critical thinking. If AI is better than 95% of the people in your field, that field might not be such a good choice. Lots, if all, professions wiull be impacted.