I think it’s a good one to hand people who just vaguely has picked up something about existential threat. Short, funny, and gets to the point of the existential threat stuff being a smoke screen for crapification and redirection from climate change.

Crowdstrike offers 10 USD gift cards as apology.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/24/crowdstrike-offers-a-10-apology-gift-card-to-say-sorry-for-outage/

Those that try to use them find out that Crowdstrike can’t even buy gift cards at scale.

Ah, but checking the actual grade gives a correct answer. Who wouldn’t want to change that for a statistically likely answer?

I have noted two AI companies going belly up with earnings in a year matching costs per month. So I assumed that was around the worse case scenario, and for not yet bankrupt AI companies earnings were probably a bit better, perhaps just losing ten times their earnings.

I now see the flaw of my reasoning. Capital isn’t allocated on profits, it’s allocated on hype. Having profits draws the company down because it’s no longer pure hype, and thus doesn’t contribute to the hype bubble the same way.

So existing, not yet bankrupt, AI companies probably has significantly worse cost to income ratio than twelve.

Gerard -> Assange -> creates Wikileaks -> Wikileaks receives and publishes hacked or leaked DNC emails -> DNC emails shows Clinton cheating Sanders in the primary -> depresses turnout among potential democratic voters in the general election -> Trump wins.

On can question each step on how influential it’s for the next, but if one doesn’t Trump was all his fault.

This was so stupid.

A hijacking happens when passengers overflow into the cockpit from the cabin.

Oh no! A little kid has been invited to have a look! Passenger overflow! Hijacking!

His attempt at solution isn’t as cringe worthy, if one overlooks the reasoning. Separating the cabin from the pilots is a way of preventing hijacking that has been attempted, but it has problems. Notably if the pilots get acute medical emergency or indeed if the pilot steer the plane into the ground.

Some ten years ago a french pilot locked out his second and ran the plane into the ground. For increased safety the after 911 the door to the cabin could only be opened from the inside.

When time is precious, use AI for all your glue in pizza queries.

Of course, Google is also crapified, but at least there is still a search engine underneath.

I have so far seen two working AI applications that actually makes sense, both in a hospital setting:

1. Assisting oncologists in reading cancer images. Still the oncologists that makes the call, but it seems to be of use to them.
2. Creating a first draft when transcribing dictated notes. Listening and correcting is apparently faster for most people than listening and writing from scratch.

These two are nifty, but it doesn’t make a multi billion dollar industry.

In other words the bubble is bursting and the value / waste ratio looks extremely low.

Say what you want about the Tulip bubble, but at least tulips are pretty.

Why is it art from artists who made their last work in 1912? Modern copyright lasts life plus X, where X has been increasing and is now mostly 70, though some stopped at 50. So why 1912? Did US copyright change that year?

Repeat until a machine that can create God is built. Then it’s God’s problem.

But it must be a US God, otherwise China wins.