That there is no perfect defense. There is no protection. Being alive means being exposed; it’s the nature of life to be hazardous—it’s the stuff of living.

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Joined 9 months ago
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Cake day: June 9th, 2024

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  • Let’s say someone spends a decade plus on a small niche blog. The blog has decent readership and even modicum of commercial engagement in its niche.

    Should I be allowed to openly use all the data on the blog to develop an AI powered AIBlog 2000 service that enables people to quickly and easily make SEO-optimized spam blogs (it wouldn’t be marketed that was, but that’s what it is) on a variety of topics; including the topic of the niche blog mentioned above?

    Am I not giving the EFF enough benefit of the doubt? Is this more of a unique scenario that ignores the benefits of EFF’s approach?

    What am I missing here?


  • Can’t speak for the relative merits of the bill. To be honest it doesn’t really matter, since it’s a bad idea to use any American services, be it from big tech or from startups.

    However, I do have issues with the characterization of small startups leveraging “AI” in the article. Vast majority of startups add “AI powered” both as a consumer marketing and a fundraising method. Even if they do actually use ML powered features, it is likely these features would simply be part of their package and marketed something along the lines of “automated recommendation for configuring [X]”. Many such features cannot even leverage public works to since startups tend to focus on more niche use use cases of ML tech since it’s difficult to competing around something like LLMs.

    Something about their framing of startups just sounds off.




  • China’s biggest home appliances company, Midea, has launched a series of DeepSeek-enhanced air conditioners. The product is an “understanding friend” who can “catch your thoughts accurately,” according to the company’s product launch video.

    This doesn’t really sound like a revolutionary use case.

    Chinese media have hailed DeepSeek for saving the day in the city of Wuhan. When the police received a report that five stray horses had been wandering around at night, they asked the chatbot for information on nearby horse farms. Officials were able to locate the owner by visiting the farms DeepSeek suggested.

    Maybe an LLM query ran faster than doing a search in a map tool, but by how much?


  • Recently, she’s been tackling a new challenge at Sunshine, her AI-driven startup focused on making everyday tasks more seamless, starting with managing users’ phone contacts and reminding them about birthdays. The company’s latest AI-powered photo sharing app reflects Mayer’s broader vision for how technology can enhance personal connections and interactions.

    What a bunch of PR word salad.

    I skimmed through most of the article, it reads like an oligarch propaganda piece. But in the BBC’s defense they did ask some relevant questions.

    In particular, Mayer’s framing of “pessimists” and “optimists” is almost beautiful in an abstract kind of way.

    It is not a matter of being pessimistic or optimistic about ML powered services, it’s a matter of not trusting a bunch of vapid, corrupt, dishonest ghouls like Mayer and her ilk.

    Only a complete fool would believe the word salad about wanting to make the world a better place and leveraging technology to help develop human connections. It reads like a parody or satire.