MajorArana

Thank you FSF!

The hero we need, but not the hero we deserve..

The issue is that every CS masters student & AI researcher knows how to build a SOTA LLM.. But, only a few companies have the resources.

The process:

(1) steal as much data from the internet as possible (data is everything) (2) raise incomprehensible amounts of money (3) find a location where you can take over the energy grid for training (4) put a black box around it so nobody can see the weights (5) charge users $$$ to use (6) retrain models with user session data (opt in by default) (7) peek around at how users are using, (maybe) change policies to stop them from using that way, and (maybe) rapidly develop features for that use case.

(Sorry that last one is jaded and not fair - just included to give you a picture of what could be happening with this sort of tech) …

The entire premise of the product is “built on the backs of any & everyone who has ever published a work”

This was not a 'glitch'.

A well functioning marketplace will have step-changes in 'fair value' when there are step-changes in the underlying fundamentals (i.e. 'uncertainty' becomes 'certainty').

Don't blame the woman. Booking.com has a free cancelation policy. In the financial markets, options cost money. There is an intrinsic underlying value. In this case, the woman was given a free option and she took it. She did the smart thing.

Don't blame the hotel. Booking.com also offers a similar policy to the room providers - if the rate is clearly in error, they can cancel. The hotel likely operated in the same manner as the woman (i.e. they said "hey there's no penalty for requesting a refund... lets try it and see if we get away with it" or more sinister "hey Booking.com uses an automated system for these requests and any price discrepancy >50% is auto-approved by the system!"). While this feels adversarial, the hotel also did 'the smart thing' (... something about the "fiduciary duty to maximize value for the shareholders" ...)

The issue: Booking.com approved the hotel's cancellation request for a room with a rate that was (likely) correct at the time it was booked. (Given the well established dynamics around market pricing around events)

The policies of Booking.com led to this mess - ultimately Booking.com did the right thing by upholding the reservation and covering the difference.