DharmaPolice

I think there's a larger problem of externalities (i.e. environmental costs) not being fairly represented in transactions. AI is just the latest and biggest symptom of this. If someone has a business process which involves generating a waste product (or utilising some resource) then that's only a problem if the cost isn't being paid by that business (and ultimately reflected in the price charged for the product/service).

Obviously that's not the whole problem - the other issue is the financial resources these companies have access to. Presumably if they wanted to, instead of pushing up the worlds prices for DRAM or electricity they could have distorted pretty much any market they wanted to given the money they have. If instead of datacentres they decided to buy the world's supply of coffee then presumably people would be paying $100 for a tin of coffee beans. You could introduce all sorts of restrictions and market controls but for me a better reform would be ensuring that they didn't have hundreds of billions of dollars to spend in the first place.

Except that perhaps this time AI is the tool which is actually going to do to the office what the assembly line did to the factory.

I think this is probably right, but for the people who worked on assembly lines they (or more realistically their kids) could go find an office job to do instead. It's not clear what the kids of todays office workers are going to do for employment (if anything).

I don't think "just a tool" is necessarily in opposition to regulation.

Slander isn't a crime in most places.

I do care about the Curiosity rover but I'll be honest that I only know JPL from The Martian.

Yes.

It's relatively "easy" to cut pollution if you just outsource most of your manufacturing.

Ironically (or not) I've seen smoking gun attributed to Arthur Conan Doyle in a Sherlock Holmes story. (It was smoking pistol in that story). Even if that's rubbish, I think that one is common across the English speaking world. The baseball/American football stuff is a bit different. In the commonwealth we might say "Hit for six" instead of hitting it out of the park. There are a bunch of other ones related to sports more common in England like snookered, own-goal, red card, etc.

I work in a non-profit sector, if they could save money by replacing me they could use the money elsewhere where they desperately need money. So lots of people would benefit. That same principle wouldn't apply if I worked for some mega corp of course.

But the discussion was about Meta employees in general. They're heavily involved in the second type of surveillance that you alude to.

I don't think the two things are comparable. While it would be inconvenient for me personally if I was replaced by AI, it would be an enormous social good as the resources saved could go somewhere else. The same could not be said about everyone under constant surveillance by some megacorp or the government.

It would actually be better if slot machines never paid out and 100% of their bets went to the house. Very very few people would use them. They're addictive exactly because they do pay out sometimes.

It doesn't matter if it's a fake name as it's a pubic record. Anyone is allowed to see the information.

Death certificates are public records (at least in the UK) so why shouldn't you be able to get one? I think the alternative, where people's deaths could be kept secret by the state is a far greater risk than the privacy rights of the dead (GDPR type laws generally apply to the living).

I don't know about elsewhere but in the UK anyone can apply for any death certificate going back to 1837.

I totally agree but you can attribute a lot of the Apple worship to Microsoft and their OEM partners making PC laptops an often miserable experience.

A speed bump might still be preferable to nothing.

I don't cringe because it's for dramatic/narrative effect. It's the same reason the crew of the Enterprise regularly beam into dangerous locations rather than sending a semi-autonomous drone. Or that despite having intelligent machines their operations are often very manual, as it is on many science fiction shows. The audience (if they think about it) realises this is not realistic and understands that the vast majority of our exploration would be done by unmanned/automated vessels. But that wouldn't be very interesting.

Other universes take it further - Warhammer 40k often features combatants fighting with melee weapons. Rule of cool and all that.

The more different the genetic material is, the less you care

This is sort of true but it misses that we don't actually have DNA sensors built into our eyes. Instead we rely on heuristics like the Westermarck effect where we will (normally) tend to not find someone we lived with as a child attractive regardless whether they're a blood relation or not.

We influence who (or what) is in our group through our behaviour, thoughts and associations. Look at the vast number of people who value their dog or cat over other human beings. It's unlikely their dog is closer to them, genetically speaking than any single human on Earth but they spend time and invest emotionally in their pet so they form a bond despite the genetic distance.

If you see a child being hurt it likely invokes a slightly stronger emotional response if the child reminds you of someone in your own life. Often this will be someone who looks like you/your family (i.e. is genetically similar to you) but it might be some other kid you've grown attached to who is not related at all.

So yes, we are driven by a calculating selfish gene mechanism but we're also burdened/gifted with a whole bunch of emotional and social instincts and rely on imperfect sensors not tricorders. It's why people can form group identities over all sorts of non-genetic characteristics (e.g. religion, nation, neighbourhood, sports team affiliation, political ideology, vi vs emacs, etc).

B would require a fairly large shift in approach since currently the primary way we interact with the cloud is via browsers which are probably the biggest single users of client memory currently.

I believe research has mixed results on dietary compliance.

I can only speak anecdotally - if I start doing something enjoyable, it's hard to stop while it's still enjoyable. One of the benefits of an IF diet is you can start eating your main meal and continue until you're full.

I don't mind people asking why I asked something, I'd just prefer they answer the question as well. In the original scenario, the chatbot could answer the question as written AND enquire if that's what they really meant. It's the StackOverflow syndrome where people answer a different question to the one posed. If someone asks "How can I do this on Windows?" - telling me that Windows sucks and here's how to do it on Linux is only slightly useful. Answer the question and feel free to mention how much easier it is in Linux by all means.

I personally love explaining to people who might want to solve the issue next time so I'm happy to bore them to tears if they want. But don't let us delay solving the problem this time.

Going back to the specific example: the question is so nonsensical on its face that the only logical conclusion is that the asker is taking the piss out of you.

I would dispute that that matters in 99.9% of scenarios.

The person you're asking doesn't understand the link between your question and the help you're trying to offer.

Sure I, get that and I do always explain why I need to know something but it does add delays to the process (either before or after I ask). When I'm on the receiving end of a support call I answer the questions I'm asked (and provide supplementary information if I think they might need it).

It probably would have the same effect, but the point is that a lot of people find it easier to stick to one meal a day (or similar) than multiple smaller meals.

Records of cases involving children are already excluded so that's not a relevant risk.

Rule of thumb for everyone (i.e. both). If I ask you a question, start by assuming I want the answer to the question as stated unless there is a good reason for you to think it's not meant literally. If you have a lot more context (e.g. you know I frequently ask you trick or rhetorical questions or this is a chit-chat scenario) then maybe you can do something differently.

I think being curious about the motivations behind a question is fine but it only really matters if it's going to affect your answer.

Certainly when dealing with technical problem solving I often find myself asking extremely simple questions and it often wastes time when people don't answer directly, instead answering some completely different other question or demanding explanations why I'm asking for certain information when I'm just trying to help them.

I think a good rule of thumb is to default to assuming a question is asked in good faith (i.e. it's not a trick question). That goes for human beings and chat/AI models.

In fact, it's particularly true for AI models because the question could have been generated by some kind of automated process. e.g. I write my schedule out and then ask the model to plan my day. The "go 50 metres to car wash" bit might just be a step in my day.

Software (that is running on hardware) isn't a great example - you'd be better off going with something like prime numbers. They don't really "exist" in the same way a toaster does. Souls also don't exist (citation needed etc) but are a similarly useful (for some people) way of thinking about the world.

Currently if someone posts here (or in similar forums elsewhere) there is a convention that they should disclose if they comment on a story related to where they work. It would be nice if the same convention existed for anyone who had more than say, ten thousand dollars directly invested in a company/technology (outside of index funds/pensions/etc).

The person was referring to gaming where most PC players are sitting closer than 3 metres from their screen.

This is speculation but generally rules like this follow some sort of incident. e.g. Someone responds to a FOI request and accidentally discloses more information than desired due to metadata. So a blanket rule is instituted not to use a particular format.

Noise insulation.

He always had dubious takes (he was anti-evolution for as long as I can remember) but that doesn't make Dilbert any less good.