In which alternate reality?

Iran is not "a", but "the" supporter and financier behind Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis and a bunch of other militias and trouble sources in the region. So no, they were absolutely not playing nice, even if you ignore all the atrocities inside Iran.

Yes, but Trump's will go in 3 years by itself. The IRGC regime will not.

You start out doing it to others; but the empire always comes home in the end.

Fortunately, that's highly unlikely. There has never been a confirmed case of airborne transmission between humans. Most transmission is due to insufficient and unsanitary health care facilities, due to lack of funds.

I had already received three Pfizer shots when I came down with the virus (confirmed, with a test that came up positive in less than a minute). However, I am absolutely convinced that the severity of my case was so minimal (sleeping under a blanket on the couch in my clothes for 3-4 days) because of the enhanced response of my immune system, due to the vaccine.

Correct. It's like a governor declaring a state of emergency ... for a flood that only affects one region of their state. These alerts are a call to action for officials, not the general public.

AI, huh? And here I thought the, uh, government might seize the opportunity to declare these companies illegal gambling that's rife with insider trading and other criminality, and shut them down.

The problem is always the relative ease of modern travel. This outbreak would be a regional issue if there were no jet planes.

So far, the outbreak is reasonably confined. But it might not stay that way. Raising that alarm is one of the key functions of the WHO.

I assume that this would have been too banal, or he's about a generation too old to remember it immediately; but it really sounds like he could have 'solved' the same problem to the same degree with milkdrop or one of the other popular music visualization options from the glory days of winamp; but thought 'AI' would make a more interesting 'making of' story.

Yes, I saw that. And when combined with the quote towards the end, explains why his position is so fucking insulting.

This basically means that if your part of the movie making process can be performed by this tech, now or in the future, then your job doesn't really matter. Which is a wild take considering that he felt like he could not release the video without the parts AI provided, and which would have been handed to a person to do before AI exists, or if he'd had the budget for it.

Fact is the job DOES matter. He just does not want to have to address the difficult question of what is lost by using AI to do creative work that would previously have gone to a human profession, or what it means that he is willing to make that substitution without any apparent concern for the folks that decision harms. He is yet-another rich-fuck who does not care about the human consequences of technology, so long as they do not impact him personally. Fuck him, and fuck anyone who agrees with him.

The idea that 'philosophical' means 'vaguely trippy visuals' seems weirdly common. In fairness to the people doing the visuals sometimes it's because what is being passed of as 'philosophical' is stupid; rather than because they are; but the latter case is also pretty likely. No idea what Lennon said in this case so can't comment on the likely cause.

Heâ(TM)s saying that Visual effects designers are not important. Because heâ(TM)s replacing somebodies work with AI output.

if I were someone who worked in that field, making the kind of content he used AI to create, and then dismissed my work as unimportant, Iâ(TM)d be salty as fuck.

their work is important enough that the film could not be considered complete without it, but not important enough to have a person do it. There is a clear double standard being promulgated here, that amounts to victim bling. Essentially that if AI can do your job, then by definition, your job is not important. Easy for the guy deciding where and when to us AI to decide in a way that does not put his own contributions to the process at risk of being replaced by AI. Fuck this guy and anyone who accepts this BS justification.

He seems weirdly untroubled by the fact that he, voluntarily, turned his project into a tech demo for facebook in exchange for some imagery deemed abstract enough to accompany 'philosophical' parts of an interview.

There's definitely potential for it to have been installed because it was stupid cheap and promised possible benefits with no downsides; but I'm less clear that you attempt to override a city council decision by invoking a 'public safety emergency' without any apparent basis in either fact or law to keep them up just because they are stupid cheap and have no apparent downsides.

This whole sordid story is the one shaking down after someone became concerned enough to get the city council concerned enough to get them taken down; not during the initial justification process where they were just cheap and quick and seemed all upsides. The level of initial enthusiasm requires no special explanation; but at this point dude is actively sticking his neck out to save them; which seems like it does require correspondingly more explanation.

Even if you actually like "AI" Schmidt is sort of a dismal option. This is the "my plan would be to use AI to clone tiktok" guy with a career that's genuinely impressively uninteresting for someone of his educational qualifications. Who gets a PhD from a real school just to turn in 40+ years of pure suit?