jimkleiber

lol, I actually sang it (or tried to) to open my college commencement speech :-) Brutal for one sober person, probably more fun for a group of non-sober people :-D

I mean I think sometimes it reduces pain. But it can also increase pain? I've definitely stayed up later than I've wanted to, or got into a fight with someone because I paid more attention to the AI coding agent than them, or had it convince me that I had made deep scientific breakthroughs only later to tell me everything was obvious and maybe tautological.

I just think it's a very powerful and complex tool that can cause a huge range of feelings and outcomes.

It seems the author is instead arguing that we should say that AI is a destructive tool and we should not use it.

I was hoping the article would not label it purely good or bad, but 1) highlight that AI is not just a tool but a very powerful tool and 2) and therefore it very much matters how we all use it and how it uses us.

In this framing, we can see the things where it helps and hurts us and society and many levels at various intensities.

The article mostly just seemed to say how bad it was, and I don't think being critical of a new tool means to only see how it harms us but rather to see the potential full range of impacts.

Are CEOs outsourcing too much of their thinking to their employees?

I find I'm not thinking less per say, just thinking about different things. Maybe you could argue there are CEOs who get too far out of touch with the reality on the ground and should get more directly involved in the work. However, I don't know how well one could argue that the CEO should do all of the work.

I see at least the current iteration LLMs and harnesses as me managing and coordinating them and thinking differently, not less.

TBH, I wonder how much one-shotting posts are just lying about one-shotting it.

It's rare that something posted on HN brings me to tears but I feel lucky when it does.

Thank you for this.

How much of this is the dangers of the technology vs the dangers of saying no to the Trump administration?

But at least collectively pulling it :-)

Fair point, just looked it up and it seems to be illegal to do that. But in my experience, many probably still do it, or people don't trust that hospitals will follow the law...it may be more of that latter part, not knowing whether they will or won't ask you for money, or whether they will or won't take your insurance. So I think that uncertainty can mean having to be prepared for it anyway.

Fair point. I also think the same group you're talking about is probably not thinking about going back home with just government benefits to sustain them. They probably are more focused on working in countries with higher wages and building big homes back home. I think it tends to be more wage driven than government benefit driven, but I could be wrong.

Why "correctly"? Who says that a country or a group of humans or even an individual human is beyond saving?

Yes, pouring money may not be a very efficient solution and graft can certainly happen. For me it's a combination of how much graft do we allow if we take the long perspective and see it shrinking over time (maybe we dont allow any, cold turkey)? And what are ways we can help change the environments that may not be directly tied to money? From my perspective, we often need (and graft) money the most when we don't trust ourselves and others to help us. So are there ways we can help build deeper relationships so money is not the only focus or way people think they can get help?

Perhaps. I think it's more about the passport ranking so one can travel and also the salary bump. But even if more of the other government services, try living in a country where if you get into a serious car accident you have to pay cash at the ER before they treat you. Scrambling to find multiple thousands of dollars in cash at 3am sometimes. (This happened to my friend in Kenya)

Im not sure if I can blame people for wanting to have more financial or medical security.

Like Waymo meets Zipcar?

It might be. It also lets my loyalty go slowly by slowly. Monopolies work until they collapse.

If you can't tell, it frustrates me so much. I wonder how the internal culture of Uber changed when it went from almost zero interest rates to now trying to make lots of profit.

My friend said he realized Uber can just rely on a steady stream of people either growing up or getting laid off and trying to make a quick buck, so they can treat their drivers poorly as well.

I'm not sure what's happening, just know support may be a lot simpler and cheaper to address than nothing, or at least in the medium to long term, but maybe not?

Because I think we've been generous because we recognize the benefits that come to us for being so generous. Proper generosity recognizes that the other's well-being relates to our well-being.

For example, giving funding to USAID to try to stop the spread of Ebola helps people in DRC, Uganda, and other countries directly affected, but can also help the US not have Ebola spread here.

Helping Mexico improve their economy can help people in Mexico not immigrate to the US.

I believe our generosity also benefits us much more than we can see when our perspective collapses and we see life from fewer and fewer dimensions. And I think we can collapse into the "us vs them" mindset that so many others have collapsed into or we can go the other direction and realize it's "us with them" and then we look at generosity differently.

I wish they would spend some of that on the help/support function within their apps. Whenever I have a problem on Uber, it feels like a never-ending maze to figure out how to get any support, and I consider myself versed in navigating unseemly UI, I can only imagine how much it might frustrate people who struggle navigating apps.

Any idea why their help function seems to impenetrable and if AI might help with it?

I think the biggest question the US needs to ask itself is do we want to be normal like most countries or better?

Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi have adopted a three-tiered duty structure for imports from outside the East Africa Customs Union under the terms of the Protocol on the Establishment of the East Africa Customs Union, which became fully operational in January 2010. Most finished products are subject to a 25% duty, while intermediate products face a 10% levy. Raw materials (excluding foodstuffs) and capital goods may still enter duty free. Imported goods are charged a value added tax (VAT) of 18% and a 15% withholding tax, which is not reclaimable. Combined, these taxes effectively charge a 33% tax on all foreign goods and services. Imports are also charged a 1.5% infrastructure tax to finance railway infrastructure development. [0]

"Effectively charge a 33% tax on all foreign goods and services." Not just Macbooks. I don't know if this is the final definitive tally of the tariffs but I believe almost everything has a high tariff, so people effectively pay 33% more for the same goods plus shipping. Fair, can't really get rid of shipping, but a 33% or even a 15% penalty on tools means people get worse tools. Computers, mobile phones, cars, motorcycle helmets, medicines (if imported perhaps?), hammers, fans, showers, whatever tool you might use that is a finished good coming from another country, you pay 15-33% or whatever more, so you get a lower quality product for the money you have. I just would prefer my people get the best deal on the best tools (that we as a country don't think we need to make for security reasons) so people can improve faster. Less smog, better roads, fewer things that break...would be quite nice at all levels.

[0]: www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/uganda-import-tariffs

I wish governments would realize that the more barriers and friction they put between their citizens and good tools, the worse their economy will probably be.

You wrote 7 paragraphs originally. What specifically do you want me to address?

It seems that you may not want to actually have a discussion, rather just reinforce the idea that we're either screwed by employers or screwed by helplessness.

Fair, my one example on layoffs may not land with you.

But do you want us to just sink into the helplessness of us all being screwed or do you want to try to find solutions that might allow us to feel some sense of agency and hope?

Fair, I never said there wasn't risk involved with ownership. I even made sure to qualify when I said that people who own don't do labor, because often there is labor involved in ownership.

So I don't think it's a free lunch, it's more risk-for-lunch than labor-for-lunch. Maybe you could argue laborers are still risking their body or something, but I think the point might stand.

Nobody cares, either you bring something to the table someone else can exploit for money, or you lean into “I’m helpless and the government owes it to me to take care of me because I’ve been indoctrinated into learned helplessness.”

You paint the economic model as a false dichotomy, and the main point of my posting was that it is not a false dichotomy. It is not either have a job (and be exploited by someone else) or be helpless and rely on government handouts.

For example, what if people who got laid off from companies were given significant stock in the company, so that they might partake in the potential savings and gains from replacing the workers with AI or other tools?

The whole conversation seemed to be about the economic model, so I'm not sure how it is a distraction, a boogeyman, or inconsequential.

Also plastered on frat and sorority houses all over town :-) (at least at many universities in the US)

Well the essence of capitalism might be that people who own the capital receive money for owning it, not doing any labor on it necessarily.

So when we talk of people doing labor for money, we are assuming they can only own their body and receive money from that?

For so long, people, especially politicians, have said that companies want to create jobs. But I think most companies want to create profit.

And for so long, I've had people tell me to just get a job. But I tell them that I don't want a job: I want money and I want something to do. Those two things don't have to be together.

I think this is the hard part: philosophically so many of us have learned we need jobs and don't realize a job can be decomposed into money and something to do.

So I think we need to start looking more creatively at 1) how people receive money from others and 2) how people give services to others.

Maybe the problem is trying to govern a global space with sub-global governments.

I've often wanted real name policies for writing and anonymity for reading. And I don't think bans are the way to go, I think one should just shift the norms on this so that it becomes easy to verify an identity and therefore easy to see which ones are anonymous. The problem right now is that real identity and anonymous blend together, so anonymous can pretend to be real, which might seem even more so in the age of AI.

I wonder if there are different levels to this: 1) real identity/name 2) humanness 3) completely anonymous.

(definitely open to other suggested levels)

For example, if someone is posting on the internet with a real name, I want them to actually be that person. If they're posting with a username, I mostly just want them to be a human. I don't know how much I'd be open to it being hard to know whether it was a human or bot.

With regards to reading stats, public or private, I'd still like to know whether human vs bot. I think YouTube and Twitter/X and IG and all these platforms have been gamed by lots of bots pretending to be unique humans and those stats get wildly out of touch with how many humans actually interact (which I think matters for true popularity and advertising and basic understanding of social interactions).

I think the challenge is if it's real identity, often it doesn't split between real identity and simple proof of humanity. Maybe it's not that easy from a tech standpoint, and maybe it's because companies would want to track every move and people want privacy, but maybe it'd be easier if more people wanted it.

So I wonder how to balance this.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

That's the phrase i was looking for, thank you.