And society is so shit that everybody's looking for some form of escape, and most are too unimaginative to come up with a non-drug escape, which drives demand for those drugs that are only available on the black market. Somehow, I'm sure this is the Throat Goat's fault. (Reagan, not Madonna.)

Better ways to kill people that only differ from us in placement on this muddy rock we inhabit? HELL TO THE YEAH!

What a fucked up set of priorities we have.

I'm old enough to remember when it was D&D and Ozzy Osbourne.

Bullshit. Bin Laden and your hypothetical engineer know exactly what they're doing. ChatGPT is a tool, no more culpable than a car used to hit someone, or those who made the car.

It would be a problematic precedent if there were criminal liability

Here is a list of examples from the pre-AI era kindly put together for me by Claude... With the prosecuting attorneys' party-affiliations, because BeauHD felt it is important:

United States v. Google Inc. — Non-Prosecution Agreement (D.R.I. 2011)

Platform: Google (search/advertising)

Allegation: The DOJ's Office of Criminal Investigations (working with the FDA) investigated Google for knowingly allowing unlicensed Canadian online pharmacies to advertise prescription drugs and controlled substances to US consumers via its AdWords program since at least 2003. Google reportedly helped these advertisers optimize their illegal ads. The investigation was triggered when a cooperating fugitive revealed his use of AdWords to run illegal pharmaceutical sales.

Outcome: Google entered a Non-Prosecution Agreement and forfeited $500 million — one of the largest such forfeitures in US history. The lead prosecutor stated publicly that "Larry Page knew what was going on." No criminal charges were filed against individuals. Google was treated as an aider and abettor of illegal drug importation.

Prosecuting attorney: Peter F. Neronha, US Attorney, District of Rhode Island — Democrat (Obama appointee).

State of South Carolina — Criminal Threat Against Craigslist (2009)

Platform: Craigslist

Allegation: South Carolina AG Henry McMaster sent a formal letter to Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster threatening criminal prosecution under state law for knowingly allowing the site to be used to solicit prostitution, following a series of high-profile crimes linked to Craigslist's Erotic Services section (including the "Craigslist Killer" murders).

Outcome: Craigslist sued McMaster preemptively; a South Carolina federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the threatened prosecution on Section 230 grounds. No criminal charges were filed. Craigslist eventually shut down its Erotic Services section nationally in September 2010.

Prosecuting attorney: Henry McMaster, Attorney General of South Carolina — Republican.

Multistate AG Coalition Criminal Pressure Campaign Against Craigslist (2009–2010)

Platform: Craigslist

Allegation: Following McMaster's lead, attorneys general from over 40 states issued coordinated demands threatening criminal prosecution of Craigslist executives for facilitating prostitution and sex trafficking through the Erotic Services section. The pressure intensified after the "Craigslist Killer" murders of Philip Markoff.

Outcome: No criminal charges were filed against Craigslist or its executives. Craigslist closed the Adult Services section in 2010 under sustained pressure, and in 2012 Illinois AG Lisa Madigan's office and Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart continued applying pressure. The campaign showed the limits of criminal threats constrained by Section 230.

Prosecuting attorneys: Multiple state AGs of both parties — notably McMaster (Republican, SC); Richard Blumenthal (Democrat, CT); Tom Miller (Democrat, IA); Roy Cooper (Democrat, NC); Lisa Madigan (Democrat, IL). Mixed partisan coalition.

People of California v. Carl Ferrer / Backpage (California, 2016)

Platform: Backpage

Allegation: California AG Kamala Harris obtained a criminal arrest warrant for Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer on three counts of pimping and conspiracy to commit pimping, alleging the platform knowingly profited from sex trafficking.

Outcome: Ferrer was arrested in Texas. The California pimping charges were twice dismissed by a Sacramento judge who ruled Section 230 barred the state prosecution. The case was later superseded by the federal Backpage indictment.

Prosecuting attorney: Kamala Harris, Attorney General of California — Democrat.

United States v. Michael Lacey et al. / Backpage (D. Ariz. 2018)

Platform: Backpage

Allegation: Federal grand jury indicted seven Backpage executives on 93 counts including conspiracy to facilitate prostitution using an interstate facility, and multiple money laundering charges. The indictment alleged Backpage knowingly hosted and edited sex trafficking ads and stripped identifying information ("Lolita," "new to town") from ads to obscure their illegal nature.

Outcome: The FBI seized Backpage.com. CEO Carl Ferrer pleaded guilty, acknowledging most adult ads were for prostitution. The trial of remaining defendants ended in a 2021 mistrial after prosecutorial misconduct. Retrial proceedings are ongoing. This is the most fully realized criminal prosecution of a major internet platform for facilitating crime in US history.

Prosecuting attorneys: Elizabeth A. Strange, Acting US Attorney, District of Arizona — Republican (Trump appointee). Jeff Sessions, AG — Republican.

State v. Drew — Missouri State Investigation and Lori Drew (2008)

Platform: MySpace (secondary target)

Allegation: After the Megan Meier suicide, Missouri authorities investigated whether to bring criminal charges under Missouri statutes. The local DA's office in St. Charles County declined to charge Drew, finding no applicable Missouri law. The case exposed a statutory gap that prompted new cyberbullying laws nationwide. MySpace was subpoenaed and cooperated.

Outcome: No Missouri state charges filed against Drew or MySpace. Led directly to federal prosecution (see above) and to Missouri and over 40 other states enacting criminal cyberbullying statutes.

Prosecuting attorney: Jack Banas, St. Charles County Prosecuting Attorney — Republican. Declined to prosecute.

After claude found the issues, humans could check and fix them

Claude can do the fixing too, just as easily, in most cases. Maybe, Mythos cannot — never tried it — but Opus or even Sonnet certainly can.

If they are doing age check verification, does that mean they will disable "adult games" from being played by the juvenile accounts? I guess those rates systems (do they still use those?) were just "suggestions" anyway. Merely guidelines.

San Diego recently passed a city ordinance (so glad they can't dictate to the whole county) that stipulates if you offer a digital coupon for an in-store item (not online ordering) you must also have this coupon printed in a flyer. They did this because some people that can't use a cellphone were being deprived of the coupon price.

I don't doubt there is a 1% (entirely comprised of very old seniors) portion of the population that cannot use a smart phone or otherwise chooses not to have one. So to protect that 1%, the other 99% also get to suffer as well.

The end result of this city ordinance was the loss of about 60% of all digital coupons offered. A few clever customers will set their app to La Mesa, Santee, El Cajon, Chula Vista, National City, etc, basically any city that's just outside the city of San Diego. They then get ALL the coupons that the rest of the entire country gets.

So please daddy government, protect me from those big scary companies that are offering me digital coupons. I hate saving money on items I already buy!

P.s. But my privacy...right...given government already buys all the information that corporate America generates for it, I think that ship has sailed. If you are on Slashdot, you have already given up a lot of privacy just to post here.

The planet doesn't care where the sources of the co2 are coming from or what is causing those sources to produce co2. That's why the poster drnb mentions we should measure co2 output as a function of GDP and not per capita.

The fact that China is choosing to not only use coal but actually is increasing year on year it's coal consumption is very concerning. It's wonderful they are increasing their solar sector but we need them to stop using coal.

Now of course, we can talk about why China has such a high co2 output and of course it's because they make a lot of stuff for the world. If the world was REALLY serious about climate change, we would be insisting China clean up it's act. Yes, that would increase prices. When you pay for your pollution instead of treating it like an externality, things cost more. Doing the right thing usually does.

I imagine things the world wide would look a lot different if every country had to play by the same labor, safety and environmental laws.

The change that will need to take place will not happen until we see a world where company profits are decimated by the fact that no company employs enough humans to continue to drive consumerism. We decided a long time ago, at least here in the United States, that corporations are more important than people. We won't care when people are hurt. We'll care when companies are hurt. And the only hurt those entities understand is loss of profit.

Of course, the usual government reaction to loss of profits is to hand over tax dollars to the corporations to help them tide themselves over until the next wave of consumerism. If we end up in a world where there aren't enough people working to provide the government with income tax on a regular basis, and there aren't enough consumers to provide sales tax or a regular basis, and enough people are rendered homeless to start cutting into property taxes outside the larger corporate entities, then the government will have to come up with a new plan other than, "hand over money we can no longer provide." As much fun as it's been for them to pretend continually creating money from nothing is somehow providing it, that cycle is about to hit an end-point nobody's really ready for.

It's gonna get real interesting as automation continues to impact the workforce. What's really sad is we've seen signs it could happen coming for a while now, and no one with the power to do anything about it, or prepare for it, is willing to do anything more than preach about how glorious the future will be when no one can work a steady job and no one has the money from work to be able to consume as the entire economy requires to keep lubricated and running.

So does communism. It's all authoritarianism at the end of the day. How you get there isn't really all that important. Turns out, all the way left and all the way right end up in authoritarian government. It's almost like we need compromise at all levels of government. Someone really ought to let the Democrats and Republicans know about this stuff ;)

We've spent well over forty years prioritizing greed over all other possible virtues. We're in one of the inflection points at this particular moment. We can either decide that we have some value other than greed, or we can let society steer itself into oblivion through that greed.

Based on the way things are looking? All our big decision makers have decided to just let greed continue to play its game. Human health and life itself doesn't matter in the face of profit potential for the few.

No. This is not a simple either/or despite the framing. It could be that they actually believe what they're putting out there, but that they absolutely *DO NOT*, under any circumstances, want to share the profits they make while decimating the workforce with those who are being affected by the massive job disruptions. And, I'm sorry to have to point this out to anyone supposedly familiar with the situation, but we already have forty plus years of proof that corporations are not well intentioned actors in the public sphere. They have one goal, and one goal only: profit. And they will absolutely behave in completely, belligerently, over-the-top sociopathic ways to achieve that goal. Thinking of them as well-intentioned enough to think the only two possibilities are they either don't believe they'll make money by decimating the workforce, or they'll get onboard with giving away a portion of the money they make decimating the workforce to help those disrupted demonstrates a complete and utter disconnect from reality.

Then again, we are talking about politics, which seems to require a complete and utter disconnect from reality these days.

In the end, there will be no attempt to force the corporations to repay the consumers. We gave up on treating humans as important in the face of corporations at some point in the 1980s. From that point forward, corporations and the ultra-wealthy who found them, have been deemed far more important than consumer class individuals. The government being forced to hand money back to the corporations will most likely be fine and dandy. Anything beyond that? No go. Consumers are fodder, cattle for the collective to harvest. There is no need for concern. The system is working precisely as designed.

Drain the middle class and down. Feed the upper class and the government.

They shouldn't be allowed to play gods, but right now they're not only allowed, they're being encouraged. They've sold themselves to the government movers and shakers as indispensable, and in some cases as the most important, most vital parts of all of society. And this particular manifesto seems to be yet another summation of how technologists must be allowed full reign over every aspect of society, or the society is ultimately a failure. Or at least it appears to be advertising itself as just that, and being that it is a product of Palantir's, I wouldn't doubt that this may actually be truth in advertising, something I didn't know marketing was capable of anymore. Small miracles wrapped in evil dressing I suppose.