Tariffs may be more politically feasible moving forward, but not these extreme tariffs and sudden trade wars that are driven by Trump's temper tantrums and benefit no one.
The Trump presidency, and his absurd trade wars, are deeply unpopular in the US. I'd be shocked if most Canadians don't understand this fully and see Trumpism for the personality-driven anomaly that it is.
The difference between gambling and any other compulsion or addiction is that only gambling can leave you broke and destitute in a single day, without regard for starting wealth. Maybe findom, but going completely broke is generally not the purpose.
The difference between drugs and other addictions is that (certain) drugs greatly increase the risk of death.
So I say let's divide it in two - addictions that can kill you or leave you in financial ruin in a single evening, and those that cannot.
Big Tech has accumulated too many grievances across too many segments of society and made too much money in the process, so let's not act surprised at a backlash. And data centers are remarkably well-suited as a focal point for people to express those accumulated grievances. So I wouldn't look too hard at all the many and varied reasons that data centers are being opposed, but instead at the quickness and ferocity and consistency with which they are being opposed. It reminds of the movement in the US and Canada in the 90's to oppose unfettered globalization - though this already feels larger and more widespread (and less late to the party).
A growing segment of young men increasingly embrace violence, conspiracy theories, far-right politics and machismo in general. Women can tolerate and even embrace a lot of male-coded things, like sports and cars and video games, but do you really expect them to embrace the manosphere or Trumpism? Not to say that this is universal - but there is a clear trajectory and we see it throughout the developed world (see: South Korea).
Those 60-year-olds existed in a brief and exceptional moment of wealth creation brought about by factors that are unlikely to happen again in ours or our children's lifetime. The problem being that the American ethos decided to pretend that brief moment was normal and sustainable.
"Marriage follows the same pattern. Women now substantially outnumber men on university campuses and outpace them in degrees earned, yet the preference for husbands who match or exceed a wife’s income and education has not correspondingly relaxed. The result is a radical market mismatch."
I read a lot on this particular topic and this is a little too narrow of a reading. There is a more dominant trend - women and men are drifting apart culturally faster than they are economically. Men who keep pace culturally can get away with falling behind economically, and, to a lesser degree, vice versa. But you can't fall behind on both and expect to find a lot of women interested in dating or marrying you.
The genius part is that the negotiations that determine how much they can get away with charging completely excludes the consumer. Two for-profit entities, with no mandate to actually provide care, decide how much they should pay each other.
I don't think most adults can get much social value or satisfaction from an AI conversation they know is not a real person. Those who can get that satisfaction likely have so few human-to-human interactions that an AI companion may be as good a solution to chronic loneliness as any.
I'd be more worried about the inevitable robo-nannies who could end up talking more to young children than actual people.
“Obesity and diabetes could easily account for all of this,”
Wither Ozempic? I've seen several friends and family members use it to great effect and thought it might sweep the nation. But I imagine most of the same barriers that keep people from eating better or moving more are also in play when trying to engage with any new habit.
Seems like a minor issue, since most men only utilize their sperm two or three times in their entire lives, if at all. Maybe men should be freezing sperm while they're young and virile.
The list of legislation we need is getting very big very fast, but our Congress is dysfunctional and the president only cares about the SAVE act. Even when we've had a functional Congress, most protections like these are written in favor of corporations and/or weakened by the next administration.
You're suggesting a for-profit company both hobbled it's own product and is actively lying about doing so. The only way that's true is if the Trump admin has crawled all the way up Anthropic's ass. But by all accounts, this is just another 10% effort by Trump and friends.
Meanwhile, China is pushing the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO), which, in the face of internal divisions and impotent leadership among Western nations, could prove to be the first global regime that China gets to build and lead.
All of the agencies responsible for those regulations were created by and get their funding from Congress. Currently, they're asleep at the wheel. Or a better idiom might be "cowering in the corner".
Trade is being reconfigured in the midst of Trump's idiotic trade war (and even more idiotic real war) and militaries worldwide, particularly our closest allies, are seeking non-US sources of arms.
AI and microchips should probably be treated like nuclear weapons and disease research. They all have profound non-military value, but powerful nations hoard them, build elaborate systems to deter proliferation, and reap most of the benefits. It's not exactly fair, but it's worked surprisingly well with some technologies over several generations.
But I don't see it happening soon, which probably means it will be too late. There's simply not enough competent political leadership in the world.
It's also too bad our society shares in the collective delusion that sex work can be prevented. It not only makes sex work far more dangerous, but it tramples on these exact kinds of novel spaces for sex/intimacy.
At a certain point, people value reliability over improved performance. I think a lot of us have hit that point as this technology becomes indispensable to our work. I'm sure I'll use Fable... eventually. But at 2x the cost, I'll skip the inevitable learning curve for now. And thanks for your insights! Not surprising to me that any new model would, as this juncture, be more cryptic and inconsistent than the current models.
I appreciate this comment immensely - too many people seem to mindlessly assume that every other person shares their own situations, and it could not be less true.
The Trump administration has been working overtime trying to build databases of people in this country. Leaving no stone unturned, legal or otherwise. I vaguely remember a time when American conservatives were against precisely this, often as a first principle. Maybe that's just an idealized memory on my part.
Sometimes I wonder, if we were actually allowed to engage in the consensual drugs and sex that constitutes 95% of the activity people want to "get away with", would our societal response to infringements on our privacy be even weaker than it currently is?
I used to have an easier time ignoring the mass surveillance angle. If I'm 1 in 300,000,000, then someone would have to have a good reason to waste resources on investigating little ole' me. But with AI, safety via obfuscation no longer exists (to the degree it ever did). It doesn't matter if I'm 1 of 30 records or 1 of 30 billion records - the difference is a a few minutes of processing time.
Every technological revolution spreads more rapidly than the last, so it's novel almost by definition. The internet gradual expanded over 2-3 decades, long enough to give most people, and the economy, the chance to keep up. This is happening far more rapidly.