I was born at the tail end of Gen X but we were definitely getting up to some crazy stuff.

It was a normal afternoon to take our bikes off the highest jumps we could build in the middle of the road, constructed from the neighborhood wood pile. When a car came speeding through we’d yell out “car” and quickly move our stuff to the side. We used skateboards on vertical ramps built from whatever, and roller skates on shoddy pavement. Our playgrounds were made of reflective metal hotter than lava attached to towers that seemed to reach 20 ft above the ground.

We built dangerous tree houses with rusty scrap in the ravine behind the neighborhood, next to place where the neighborhood’s older kids were surely taking all the drugs and hiding from their D.A.R.E. officers.

I used to load my sisters in the back of a red radio flyer wagon and we’d all ride down the neighborhood’s steepest hill, occasionally tipping at high speed and then sliding the rest of the way down likely removing several layers of skin and rolls of gauze from my mom’s medical kit in the process.

In primary school, I don’t think there was ever a moment without at least one kid on crutches or with a limb in a cast.

While it did harden us up, and provided some amazing memories, just about everyone I know who was a kid at that time knows of some kid who died while digging a tunnel, or got hit by a car, or spent half of his early teenage years in a cast, or who always seemed to have a finger splint.

Somehow through all of this we moved from thinking this is normal childhood stuff to blaming anyone and everyone by way of lawsuits.

There was nothing “safe” about that time. The debate seems to hinge on whether a dangerous childhood results in better adapted adults, perhaps by culling a few unlucky kids who hadn’t learned their own limits, and who know how to be creative in the absence of almost any artificial or algorithmic stimuli.

Should have been Jeemail. Lost opportunity…

A lot of FOSS projects are freemium based which seems viable for larger more complex projects.

In these projects it’s common to see the developer get paid for adding features on top of the core version, for a SaaS version, for custom development, or for offering support.

Other projects with a lot of community interest - and a good “community manager” style organizer can attract contributors in the form of pulls, bug testing and reports, and widespread use which generates valuable marketing. These projects only exist because of the labor of love from the whole community.

I agree with your points. AI is a tool just like hammers and word processors. It shows a lot of promise because people can solve problems in ways that other tools cannot.

Efficiencies come later, and hating on the tool because it’s immature just means you’re probably further out on the technology adoption curve or have different use cases.

I’m not against ads in principle. The advertisers are paying the bill for stuff I consume. Great.

For that effort, they get a chance at my wallet. And to be honest, making me aware of a business or product is indeed a way to get me interested in what they sell. I do prefer the ads to be relevant instead of always useless.

That being said, it’s currently preferable to use a blocker and let the people who don’t know how to use blockers subsidize my ad-free ways.

A lot of terms are starting to blend… Now anything that does work a human could also do is AI / robots / automation / machine learning.

A lot of people buy in to the argument that authorities should be able to conveniently take down bad people, and limiting privacy expectations is a way to do that.

It’s such a short sighted perspective, outsourcing the future to men who yearn for power like that.

Not long until the boats start shooting back

AI companies believe the market will give the best rewards for a winner-take-all strategy.

They believe now is the time to accumulate customers.

Their future financing rounds very likely depend on being able to show growth.

Entrepreneurs, CEOs, investors all know it’s not everything it’s cracked up to be (yet). They hope another few billion in cash will get it there. And hope you don’t notice until they already won the market.

Thank you

I feel like this is pretty much it.

We’re busy AF trying to live and the boomers now have nothing to do except vote.

I was ready gawk at what ads on my fridge would look like, and then this. I don’t know what I expected.

I was at the Canton Fair last week which is a trade show in China where manufacturers display some of their latest technology.

There was a robotics display all where they are showing off how lots of factories, kitchens, another labor-based jobs can be automated with technology.

This doesn’t really have a lot to do with AI or LLMs, but the field of robotics is advancing fast and a lot of basic work that humans had to do in the past won’t be needed as much in the future.

If your argument attacks my credibility, that’s fine, you don’t know me. We can find cases where developers use the technology and cases where they refuse.

Do you have anything substantive to add to the discussion about whether AI LLMs are anything more than just a tool that allows workers to further abstract, advancing all of the professions it can touch towards any of: better / faster / cheaper / easier?

From the article:

“The thing about that farmer,” Altman said, is not only that they wouldn’t believe you, but “they very likely would look at what you do and I do and say, ‘that’s not real work.'”

I think he pretty much agrees with you.

I think your strategy makes sense for all workers. Being aware of your role in the final solution is more important than the steps needed to get there, and tools merely change the process, often improving it in some way.

A guy with a hammer cant automatically build a house without skills, but it sure helps those who have them. A guy with a nail gun can build a house faster and perhaps with less skill, and few argue that it’s not a worthy improvement.

Some types of photographers may no longer need to operate a camera, but instead transition into someone who can knowledgeably ask for the results from an AI that properly captures the mood and tone required for the end result.

We’re changing how it’s done, but not necessarily what is done.

And not one of them can walk down the street in any city he wants at any time.

Prisoners in their own chains.

I’m doing my own AI facial recognition. With immich. On my own server.

Interesting, I want to try some of these solutions.

I set up luks on some of my selfhosted virtualbox instances to protect against physical theft, but power issues cause all too frequent restarts that are a serious pain to physically access.

An ssh call in a script that could be remotely used to unlock and complete the boot would be so handy.

Do you remember the era of popups before popup blockers? You’d land on malicious site and have autoplay porn sounds 37 windows deep and just have to long press the power button to get away from the shame. Twas rough then, still rough now.

Unless we’re talking about the days when lynx could render the whole site. Those were days when we didn’t have too many problems like this.