NaibofTabr

From my extensive experience in this area (true crime podcasts lol), if your hitman is either quoting a reasonable price or offering a payment plan, they’re a cop.

And the ones asking for payment up front will enjoy the free money. What, were you going to get a receipt for that?

Hmm… how does one anonymously pay an internet service provider with cash? Mail it in an unmarked envelope, with just your account name? Roll up to the front door and hand it to the receptionist?

I’m not sure what I need an AI assistant for when I’m eating breakfast, but OK.

Absolutely, a single hospital for an entire country would not work. But also, small clinics on every street corner would not work because none of them would be able to support more complex/expensive functions like surgical wards, FMRI or biochem labs. The hospital needs to be scaled so that it can support those things, but then it only makes sense for it to serve a larger community because it’s going to need a large staff and a substantial budget - so it needs to be at least locally centralized.

As you said, there’s a critical size.

Well, no, certainly there could be cooperation. But operating a complex entity like a hospital or a sewage processing plant requires proper organization and a permanent dedicated staff. I don’t see how you could do that in a decentralized way.

The problem is that when you accept the terms of service for smart devices and applications with voice interfaces, you give consent to be recorded.

If Cox is advertising this as a product, it’s because they have a market that will buy it.

If everything is completely decentralized then it essentially means that each person is providing for themselves… including basic services like water and waste processing. Centralizing these things makes sense, they’re more efficient when operated at scale, and there are significant benefits to task specialization. And frankly, you don’t want decentralized medical care - you want big, modern, well-funded hospitals with the latest technology, which means centralized locations and management.

Decentralizing services doesn’t make sense. Individual residence solar panels are substantially less productive than large-scale solar plants. Services like energy, water, medicine and waste handling should be concentrated and publicly funded - but then that means you need to collect public funds and then decide how to use them, and that means government. The larger the public project is that you want to build, the larger the government around it has to be.

Well look, not to be dismissive of what you’re saying, but the technical aspects of it really don’t matter. There is not (yet) any law in the US that would protect people from such surveillance, regardless of its current technical infeasibility. The point of getting people at large worried or upset about this is to get law established before it becomes a widespread problem, not after some company publicly admits to doing something despicable.

The fact that companies are thinking about this, trying to accomplish it, trying to buy this functionality from other companies… that should be enough to scare people and get them angry. It’s certainly enough that we should all be talking about it, and publicly shaming them for the voyeuristic creeps that they are.

There should be riots in the streets over stuff like this, because you can’t build a surveillance state without surveillance technology.

For a “robot” or other automated appliance to be able to perform tasks in the world, it must be able to perceive the world around it in some way. For it to interact with humans, it must perceive the humans (observe their actions, interpret their instructions, and understand their intentions). The direction our technology is headed in has shown us that any such device would primarily be a surveillance platform which collects data on its users. Any helpful tasks it might perform for the user would be the bait that gets them to swallow the hook, and not the device’s primary purpose.

I don’t want a smart car or a smart TV and definitely not a smart household appliance such as a refrigerator. Why would I want a self-propelled, self-aware surveillance platform under the control of a multi-billion dollar corporation in my home? or workplace? or anywhere?

Yes they do. Not enough people know.

We need everyone to talk about this until it becomes general public knowledge, and then general public outrage.

It’s cost-effective!

By Grabthar’s Hammer…

And when the company fails anyway because it’s too late to change course, the intern is an easy scapegoat!

Oh, that’s weird, that was definitely not the article I was looking at. Thanks for pointing that out, it’s fixed now.

This discussion has been going on for more than a decade.

I wouldn’t bet investment money on something that Intel is “reportedly considering”.

Not keeping a constant speed when driving on the highway. Just pick a speed and drive.

Are friends necessary, or not really?

Unless you are independently wealthy, you will need the support of other people in your life. This is not avoidable - you must learn to live and work with other humans, and hopefully also enjoy their company.

The good news is that social skills are a thing that you can learn like any other skill. There are books about it, but the trouble with that is (1) advice in the book is cultural context dependent, and therefore most applicable in the time and place where the book was written, and (2) reading a book is an inherently non-social activity, and therefore not really contributing to developing the skill.

The best way to learn social skills is through observation and practice - which means that you will have to put yourself in situations that feel uncomfortable, until you learn enough that you become comfortable. This is a lot like learning to ride a bike - you feel clumsy, unsteady and slow at first but if you keep doing it you learn to stay balanced, and eventually it feels natural. You have to push yourself past the point of discomfort.

Time to implement RFC 1149.

A single lap should be completed each time you hear this sound

Remember to run in a straight line

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