I suspect that Microsoft, not unreasonably, thinks that the value of their AI slop will be enhanced if they can use an existing property to get people to classify particularly grating AI slop so that they can tune their copilot-related stuff to produce less grating or less obvious slop in the future.

Maybe someone in the org actually cares about linkedin's reputation as a hellscape for aura-farming lunatics; but I'd be shocked if the incentive that MS is actually motivated by is anything but the chance to get a dataset of text ranked by how unpleasantly bot-like it is to try to make their bots less visible.

Looks like Microsoft is trying to convince people to classify more and less distasteful bot slop for them so they can tune copilot outputs in the future.

The winning move is not to play.

IMO, we shouldn't be banning unless there are real, verifiable security concerns.

Instead, we should be using a combination of tariffs on Chinese robotics, subsidies and R&D investment at home, partnerships with emerging robotic makers like Vietnam, or partnerships with Mexico where there's a robust and growing deployment and software development industry for robotics and automation.

We cannot be an isolated autarky, so we need to treat this as an onion: Strengthen our position at home first, collaborate with markets we are already integrated (Mexico), partner with existing markets (Germany, Japan) or emerging ones (Vietnam) where IP laws are respected, and then seek protections against competitors with unfair advantages or that violate IP laws.

And all of that while luring talent from abroad while cultivating talent at home.

A ban by itself doesn't do anything to prevent competitive stagnation.

And I hope the plaintiff wins. When I used to work in retail and fast food, I ran into similar primitive managers, for whom humilitation was, apparently, a good management strategy.

But I never saw anything like this, going into the physical.

And that's the problem with many sales positions - no shade to the industry or its workers, but we tend to see the most uneducated savages climbing to management positions. Not just bad managers, but really horrible, abusive types.

Nah, I never buy the inferior and overpriced products. :P

Bah. I just want to leave this crazy sinful world. :P

Once the supply of customers flush enough to buy under more standard arrangements is saturated you are basically left between ignoring the demand for growth forever or deciding between handling...subprime...customers yourself or keeping the arrangement at arm's length.

This 'restricted mode' that Apple is vigorously denying will be used for lease enforcement suggests that the metaphorical arm is not that long and that Apple seems to be doing more than merely being willing to sell devices to whatever resellers; but it's not a huge surprise that they'd want the risk related to the debt and any shaking down handled by someone who isn't them.

It's entirely possible that they didn't actually care that much. It seems at least as plausible that the sort of people who would risk this sort of legal exposure over a non-issue were more motivated by an excuse to throw weight around and talk like a mob boss than actual concern. Nice to be able to put a hobby project on the company card.

I find it difficult to believe that 'influencers' are a good sign at a society level; but I'm a little puzzled by the degree of hostility to what is basically a degree for self-employed PR/marketing people.

As much as I'm not happy about it, PR and marketing are absolutely entire fields; and I'd assume that people doing those things whose client is themselves would also benefit from a dash of entertainment related law; contracts and accounting related to dealing with sponsor agreements; and the same sort of low-to-intermediate business stuff that routinely trips up musicians, artists, athletes, etc. who suddenly have some worthwhile amount of money/valuable copyrights/etc. but are either wholly dependent on 'agents' of variable quality and honesty or just end up getting screwed.

With the amount of whining I heard about how this version of the Odyssey was woke race treason engineered to poison western civilization I would have expected Elon to move faster than the copy cops when it showed up on his precious everything app. Is he developing a tolerance to the stimulants? Renting out datacenter space making grok sluggish?

Today I learned that 50k/year, in New York, is what Bloomberg considers "middle class".

Were they just hard up for anecdotes or is some sort of expectation management in effect?

Yes, it's for me. All for me! MINE!

Same here after I signed up like over a decade ago. They didn't like my fake name and wanted proofs. Oh well.

And ant people like me! :(