strangattractor

I think self driving cars are important for a couple of reasons:

1. Demographics - Aging population needs transportation. God knows we certainly don't need really old people driving themselves. We got a taste of the future in West Portal in that regard not long ago.

2. Human Capital - The US has pretty much demonstrated that there is little desire to import low skilled labor. Where do these theoretical Taxi drivers come from? Or welders or plumbers. Labor is going to become increasing expensive no matter how you slice the pie.

3. Younger US citizens are going to gravitate to non-manual labor jobs. It is not just that every one is being steered toward college. Physical labor (trades) take a toll on the body. I know - I have work in them - and you quickly extrapolate what that will be like when you are 50.

Interoperability is what made the Web possible. Not sure I buy that it will save it without a fundamental change in people's behavior.

Image you are a 1960s household and RCA tries to sell you a TV to only watch ABC and Zenith has a TV to only watch CBS. 60 years later linear TV is unwatchable by normal humans IMO. It's not like "let advertising pay for this" enshittifying an entire industry hasn't happened before.

Agreed - another tool in the old tool pouch. I find it fascinating in that it provides insight into the role of language in intelligence. Certainly not AGI but makes ELIZA seem neolithic;)

I am amazed at the incredible things it can do - only to turnaround and not be able to do a simple task a child can do. Just like people.

Salary does not need to be on the budget because it is the same whether you work 40hrs per week or 80.

Does anybody know his investors? I'd like an intro:)

One size never fits all. I am old enough to remember what a game changer Spreadsheets (VisiCalc) where. They made the personal computer into a SwissArmy knife for many people that could not justify investing large sums of money into software to solve a niche problem. Until that time PCs simply were not a big thing.

I believe AI will do something similar for programming. The level of complexity in modern apps is high and requires the use of many technologies that most of us cannot remotely claim to be expert in. Getting an idea and getting a prototype will definitely be easier. Production Code is another beast. Dealing with legacy systems etc will still require experts at least for the near future IMHO.

Just goes to show I'm a poor judge of what is written by AI.

This reads as an AI comment to me. Anybody else?

You can always tell when there is a problem. When things are fine the companies keep the profits to themselves. When things start to get dicey - foist it off onto retail investers.

Private equity (PE) is increasingly being introduced into 401(k) plans, driven by a 2025 executive order encouraging "democratization" of alternative assets. - Google AI

I appreciate the answer and the open minded thoughtful answer.

Maybe you can get the Bot to submit it. This video of Steve Mould yanking a Bot's chain while the Bot tries to get him to refinance his car.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/GJVSDjRXVoo

According to Citizens United corporations have free speech. LLMs are made by corporations. Are LLMs entitled to free speech?

Grok stuck in DOGE mode.

VCs have mined all the low hanging fruit of the internet. Exactly how many attention grabbing advertising companies, crypto scammers and gambling sites can the world stand. Enshittification is forcing them to seek new horizons.

Cigarette vending machines had little stickers that said it was illegal for those under 18 to purchase cigarettes. Sure stopped all my friends from buying them.

Seems exactly like the useless process fixation that Abundance advocates abhor.

Las Vegas tourism is experiencing a significant downturn in early 2026, with 2025 finishing with a 7.5% decline in visitors—the sharpest drop outside the pandemic since 1970. - Google AI

Nice

Did they have the cards?

Trickles often turn into streams and streams into rivers.

The "Backlash" he is referring to is people canceling their OpenAI accounts and going to Claude. And by "Painful" he means less money. - Professional CEO Sam Speak Interpreter

Everything you need to know about the Tech industry (or any industry for that matter) can be learned from watching the Simpsons - Season 4 Marge vs. the Monorail

I am still waiting for a donut to save us.

In the US elections cannot be canceled even when Martial Law is declared. That does not mean a certain someone will not try to simply ignore the Constitution given his track record of simply ignoring the Constitution

"Since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, unexploded ordnance (UXO)—including landmines, cluster bombs, and artillery shells—has killed over 40,000 people and injured or maimed more than 60,000 others." - Google AI Overview "How many children were maimed by landmines after the vietnam war"

Guess Flock cameras don't solve quite as many crimes as they claim. Surveillance heal they self.

Getting your foot in the door: I think that having a supposed non-profit foundation make a contribution to a local government that then purchases a product that directly benefits an investor in that company which also happens to run that same foundation seems if not illegal ethically challenged.

Yup

Coining HNs Law

Any mode of communication that depends on advertising for funding will over time t monotonically approach total BullShit Grifting as t increases.

Similarly Tesla using Teleoperators for their Optimus robots is a safety fake for robots that are not autonomous either. They are constantly trying to cover there inability to make autonomous anything. Cheap lidars or radar would have likely prevented those "hitting stationary objects" accidents. Just because the Furher says it does not make it so.

I thought the Singularity had already happened when the Monkeys used tools to kill the other Monkeys and threw the bone into the sky to become a Space Station.

Having been in this game about 10 years longer I can understand how he feels. I distinctly remember when I realized that C compilers for the ARM produced better assembly than I could code by hand. Bitter sweet but the code being written became larger and more complex because of it.

Modern coding has become more complex than I would have ever thought possible. The number of technologies an individual would have to master to actually be a expert "full stack" coder is ludicrous. It is virtually impossible for an individual to prototype a complex Web based app by themselves. I think AI will lower that barrier.

In return we will get a lot more software - probably of dubious quality in many cases - as people with "ideas" but little knowledge start making apps. Not a totally bad thing but no utopia either. I also think it will likely reduce the amount of open source software. Content producers are already hoarding info to prevent AI bots from scraping it. I see no reason to believe this will not extend to code as more programmers find themselves in a situation more akin to musicians than engineers.