I'd be a very happy person if all AI companies were ruined to the point of bankruptcy and their CEOs sent to prison for life.

It would be amazing if there was a document that stated in very clear terms just how limited our federal government is and what it can't do at all no matter what.

No. I do not like having all manner of restrictions and inconveniences imposed on my legal enjoyment of the product, in an attempt to stop piracy (it doesn't). As I paying customer I expect, as I should, the same unencumbered experience that users of pirated copies enjoy. And I certainly do not want to be forced to lock down my own hardware or compromise it with some rootkit (like the infamous one from Sony) in order to enjoy content.

Like so many others, you mistake the motive of people who pirate content. For some, saving money is part of it. But in a lot of cases it is a matter of convenience. Look at what AllOfMP3 did to music: people were happy to pay just to get their music in the format they wanted, at the bitrate they wanted, with easy downloads. And now that music is easily available on legit sites and through streaming, few people still bother with piracy. In the EU, music piracy dropped by 75% in just 7 years. Simply because the experience with legit sources is now better than pirated content.

As Valve's Jason Holtman said: "Pirates are just underserved customers". It was not greed that drove Game of Thrones to become the most pirated TV show in history, it was simply the fact that HBO was not widely available outside the USA when season 1 aired. People were begging HBO to somehow make the show available to them. And here in the Netherlands, this used to be the rule: if something was not available legally and under reasonable terms, pirating it was condoned. That is a rule that serves the public's interest, as copyright was intended to. Publication (making the works available) was and should be a condition for receiving that temporary monopoly.

As for the movie industry: they were expected to release their works into the public domain, after enjoying a monopoly of reasonable duration. They haven't done that. Instead they have lobbied to increase the duration of copyright time and time again, and lobbied to have these terms foisted upon the rest of the world by treaty (that's why that Dutch rule on piracy got nixed). So they broke the deal, and I do not feel bad about not holding up my end of it. Fuck em.

Being flagged as a dangerous criminal by facial recognition might well count as reasonable suspicion. It depends on the accuracy of the software, measures to mitigate false positives (such as showing the officers a photo of the wanted person so they can do another check), and how to deal with false stops after the fact.

It's more like "Your purchased game is no longer yours to play, because we said so". Meh. If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing. And in the old days, DRM might prevent you from playing a legitimate copy because of some hardware issue, the game's copy protection might make you jump through al manner of hoops before it would even start, maybe you lost the required dongle, or whatever. Good reasons to pirate, because it would give you a far better experience. Games have gotten a lot better, but this move sounds like a step in the wrong direction, even if it is more about online cheating than piracy.

Same shit with DVDs and Blu-rays. No format shifting, ads that can't be skipped, random HDCP errors that force me to keep power cycling all devices in my media chain until it somehow starts working again. Here too, the pirated product is better. It's not that I don't want to pay for stuff, I'd love to pay in order to have companies make more enjoyable content. But as a paying customer I don't want to be treated worse than the pirates!

And it's becoming a matter of principle as well. Morally I used to feel compelled to pay, perhaps buying a Blu-ray and only then getting a pirated file (or ripping the disc when possible). But these days? Game companies still have my sympathy, but movie companies have perverted the social contract of Copyright so far beyond its original intent, that I do not feel a single shred of obligation anymore to keep my end of it.

Ì did not "go there", I described what I think will happen if we do nothing and just let the current system evolve naturally. Plenty of ideas for other systems, from a full blown planned economy, to the current system with a UBI, different ways to levy taxes to pay for that, and so on. And like you, I am pessimistic about it happening. But not because people cannot fathom another system, or even that people wouldn't be able to agree on a system. The problem is that one way or the other, the "haves" are going to have to give something up, and not just the super rich, but the upper middle class as well. That makes it very unlikely to happen.

Not sure why this is marked "troll"... it's a fair question. The main ways we have to distribute wealth is through labour, and return on venture capital. If labour is no longer a viable method because a large majority of people won't be wanted for work anymore, and we keep the system as is, then you end up with a massive welfare system that is inevitably going to collapse, while people living off return on investments will continue to do well until economic collapse follows, with no middle class to prop it up.

I've worked with consultants in a large international corporation, and almost all of them appeared to have been brought in for the second reason: to provide justification for decisions already made. But the real reason was almost always something else (though similar): they needed to sell their decision to upper management. A manager might have come up with a project beneficial to the business, but needed sign-off and sponsorship from those higher up in the chain. So he'd get a consultant to pitch the project to upper management; putting problems, solutions, impact and risks in terms that they'd understand.

And most of those consultants were good, very good... Though it does say something about your company if your middle management needs help in communicating with upper management, and if upper management is incapable of understanding the needs and want of the departments they are managing, without a specially crafted shiny slide deck.

As for the few consultants who were brought in to research and advise, some of what they produced was really valuable. If you get a good firm, you get a consultant who will activate their network in the consulting firm and/or academia, so it's never just 1 expert you're relying on.

Does this take into account the immense amount of energy demanded from AI companies?

Can one CEO, jock or movie star actually make that much of a difference? Maybe... and with the jocks it is actually measurable to a degree. So it will be with these employees.

Trump wasn't the first... The EU lowered the de minimis threshold ages ago. On a lot of imports we have to pay duty now... and worse: the shipment will languish for weeks in some warehouse, and then the carrier will charge €50 for "customs fees".

Here, that heart rate monitor is replaced by a small disposable device the size of a 1x2 LEGO brick, which you tape to your index finger before you go to bed. It connects to your phone via Bluetooth and sends the data to a clinic. I suspected sleep apnea some time ago and had the test done. Turned out I had a mild case, no medical necessity for it to be treated, but the doctor said national health care would pay for either a CPAP or MAD, if I wanted one. I opted for the latter.

Technology has made some strides there as well... Didn't have to bite down on those decidedly unpleasant metal molds filled with nasty gum. The dentist moved a small wand around in my mouth which created a 3d scan on the fly. Took 3 minutes, results mailed directly to the manufacturer, and the MAD arrived a week later.

Everyone I know who makes my equivalent AGI, except for my household, has 1+ dogs, work crazy hours, and have been told that their dogs are lonely and depressed.

Not one or two people.

EVERYONE. Dozens upon dozens of my clients, colleagues, peers, friends from grade school, etc, have a dog or two, and then they have to have someone come spend time with said dog when they're putting 10+ hours away from them.

Wag/Rover/etc is part of their crazy consumer spending. I always am shocked to hear they're spending $1000 a month on their pets.

Americans are insane about their pets. Instead of buying a dog, I invest in corporate veterinary hospitals, because it's crazy profitable.

Oh yes, some governments love the idea of censorship-by-proxy: instead of issuing unpopular laws against free speech or free commerce, they come up with rules to make companies responsible for countering money laundering, human trafficking, or what have you. Rules with vague criteria but very stiff penalties, in order to scare companies into erring on the side of caution.

But in this case, it is quite that simple. Banks and payment processors should be declared to be a Common Carrier, especially since their services should be considered essential, these days. Which means they cannot deny service to anyone, unless there is a clear indication that they are running afoul of the law.

> I think it's too miserable and unpleasant a thing for anyone around here to be willing to think about. The idea that Civilization does not progress on a line and does not always improve.

I am perfectly fine thinking about it, and I do think that after studying the topic for a long time, civilization is in a decline in the sense that life isn't really getting better for more people. I mean, it's not really a logical consequence that just because some technology has made life better, that continued innovation will always improve things. After all, the power of a tool is proportional to its potential for misuse, and the probability of misuse is proportional to the complexity of the society. So I think it's actually quite likely to experience severe decline with the invention of AI.

Personally, I think Ted Kaczynski was quite right.