Oh noooooo

I think he’s probably just acting

I read a pretty convincing article title and subheading implying that the best use for so called “AI” would be to replace all corporate CEOs with it.

I didn’t read the article but given how I’ve seen most CEOs behave it would probably be trivial to automate their behavior. Pursue short term profit boosts with no eye to the long term, cut workers and/or pay and/or benefits at every opportunity, attempt to deny unionization to the employees, tell the board and shareholders that everything is great, tell the employees that everything sucks, …

If Trump had allowed his lawyers to mount the best defense they could, he’d probably have a decent chance at complete acquittal or a hung jury.

Instead he forced them to perform a “defense” aimed at his base and maybe some people with “soft” dislike of him and most importantly aimed at hurting his “enemies” and puffing up his ego.

I did hear a persuasive argument that he might be acquitted on the charges related to checks he didn’t personally sign (his sons signed instead) but get convicted on the checks he did sign. From what was reported that means it’s possible the first 10 verdicts will be “not guilty” and the last 20+ will be “guilty.”

I actually sort of hope that’s what happens because 1) it will prove the jury wasn’t out to get him and 2) he’ll be feeling really good for those first verdicts then get gut punched for the last ones.

There was a part of me that held out hope that she would at a minimum just not endorse Trump. Seems like she’s decided to try to be his VP pick. Probably since Noem the dog slayer became unrealistic.

Indeed with Haley endorsing Trump now I think all the Trump cosplay idiots who’ve been showing up to court in Manhattan can hang it up.

He’s doing what all the “everybody could be rich if they just did X” jackasses do: see some people who don’t have money make bad decisions and generalize it to all people who don’t have money.

Middle aged parents with 2-3 kids and jobs in the $40k to $60k range aren’t going out all the time, buying the latest gadget, buying new cars, etc. They’re scraping by.

They could do some “personal development” if they had the time and energy after working full time and caring for children. But they don’t.

Actually I’d like to see a comparison of the number of people in different income groups who “splurge” on the stuff Buffet is accusing them of versus those who have to “splurge” on an unexpected expense like a medical condition or fixing a broken car or an unexpected home repair. I’m betting people actually end up spending money on the latter way more than the former.

And it’s just disgusting hearing him complain about people using credit cards when he and all the other economic vampires in his cohort have been purposefully restricting wage growth since the 1970s when they introduced credit cards as a trap for young people who expected their quality of life to increase with increasing productivity the way it had for decades before.

I guess on balance it’s more important to me that the Democrats reject Greene than reject Johnson. It’s clear to everyone that Johnson is “weak” (in MAGA support) and dependent completely on Democrats to get anything done.

Now that that’s out in the open and he’s slightly a MAGA pariah, he’ll probably get back to more old fashioned Republican projects like destroying the environment, fucking over workers, giving billions to billionaires, and a blank check to the military.

I mean … Freedom.

Someone should tell this guy that hot dogs exist.

Yeah it’s frustrating when people say the equivalent of “the best thing you can legally do isn’t good enough! do a thing you can’t legally do!”

Rescheduling it is the best the Biden admin can do.

I’ll let others address the “enshittification” angle but I thought I’d point out that “shareholder value uber allies” is a relatively recent … “innovation” … in economic theory, brought about by failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork and Milton Friedman in the last half of last century:

https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/what-made-chicago-school-so-influential-antitrust-policy

The rethinking of what the boards of companies are supposed to do (from maximize stakeholder value to maximize shareholder value) and how they can operate (from requiring justification to approve mergers to requiring justification to block mergers) really took off with them, and exploded when former union boss Ronald Reagan found “religion” (because Nancy’s pussy was just that good) and ruined the economy for workers.

Lots of other people contributed, including Clinton after he “won” the 1992 election with 40% of the vote due to Perot splitting the Republican vote. His campaign of fiscal conservatism but without less bigotry became the model for the Democratic Party for the next two decades.

Anyway, Biden’s FTC is finally working to help workers again, which might even release the death grip of the Chicago School from our economy. We’ll see after November I guess.

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/04/fact-sheet-ftcs-proposed-final-noncompete-rule

This genie is probably impossible to get back in the bottle.

People are going to just direct the imitative so called AI program to make the face just different enough to have plausible deniability that it’s a fake of this person or that person. Or use existing tech to age them to 18+ (or 30+ or whatever). Or darken or lighten their skin or change their eye or hair color. Or add tattoos or piercings or scars…

I’m not saying we should be happy about it, but it is here and I don’t think it’s going anywhere. Like, if you tell your so called AI to give you a completely fictional nude image or animation of someone that looks similar to Taylor Swift but isn’t Taylor Swift, what’s the privacy (or other) violation, exactly?

Does Taylor Swift own every likeness that looks somewhat like hers?

I’m sure this will come if the wrong way but if you’re genuinely concerned about discovering diversity of thought, you’re going to have to tell us what your positions are for example.

I’m all for finding diversity, but so often what people who post these are looking for is an echo chamber. Like if you’re really wanting to be challenged, and you’re a conservative, go to https://socialistworker.org/ and read up.

But if what you’re concerned about is the nerds in Lemmy seem to be left leaning, that’s just the nature of smart creative people. We value skills and creativity over hierarchy and structure.

Seems like that would be pretty easy for so called AI to do. At least as easy as all the protein folding work they do. The problem would be making them stable for incubation, replication, and transmission. Real viruses that evolved to infect humans have a hard time staying stable. Whatever bullshit these “AIs” come up with will probably not last much past initial transcription without ending up with fatal RNA mutations and protein malformations.

The Gate

The best approach to “free” things is to understand that it’s never sustainable. Eventually it will have to become a paid subscription or ad supported or both.

And regardless, you’re going to end up being the product if they can discern anything marketable about you from your use of the “free” product.

But just be ready to jump to the next free product.

(Obviously it’s possible for there to be FOSS but that comes with some challenges as well.)

I was with this article until the accusation that the Biden admin “stoked tensions” between Russia and Ukraine. It was Putin who invaded Crimea in 2014 and Putin who started backing and staffing separatists in Eastern Ukraine in 2018 and Putin who was talking about getting the USSR back together in 2020 and Putin who massed troops on the Ukrainian border in mid to late 2021, not even a year into the Biden administration.

It’s absolute bullshit to blame those tensions on Biden. Complete brain dead, clownish buffoonery.

Do you mean “behind” like responsible for or in favor of?

“Noooo it’s our algorithm we can’t be held liable for the program we made specifically to discover what people find a little interesting and keep feeding it to them!”

Don’t get to excited about 1%

https://youtu.be/F200wpEpJ4w

NdGT points out that 1% difference in DNA has within it somewhere the difference between chimps and humans. Think about that 1% between us and the post humans that come after us, or aliens that are out there already.

Is the advice something along the lines of once you have a couple years of relevant experience start looking for a new job that needs that experience?

Because that’s how you get good increases in income at least in your early career.

Later on you’ll hit a plateau of sorts where changing employers to get a raise is trickier because they’re concerned about paying too much for you to come on board, so your job search will take a bit longer. But someone will probably hire you eventually for a good sized increase.