Or they've determined that micromanaging it is circuitous and increases their dependence on tech giants, so it's a bad deal given that they also need to know the work well enough to verify it anyway.
It's not really important whether it's a one-off thing with this one guy, he's not relevant in the big picture. To the extent that he deindividualizes his labor he's just one more fungible operator of AI anyway.
People are making a bigger deal about it than this one article or site warrants because of ongoing discourse about whether LLM tech will regularly and inevitably lead to these mistakes. We're all starting to get sick of hearing about it, but this keeps happening.
You're asking what's the alternative to this? A chance for real connection and healing that isn't vulnerable to the whim of a tech giant and its compulsion for profit. A chance at counsel that isn't vulnerable to a random number generator steering them one day towards self harm.
> A chance for real connection and healing that isn't vulnerable to the whim of a tech giant and its compulsion for profit.
That "chance" had years to materialize that did not. Perhaps the worst thing that happened here was that the chatbot did not steer her to resilient human connection when she was in a self-reported better state after the help of the chatbot
How many people off themselves because they can't seem to connect with anyone, and they don't feel like anyone really cares (and they might not be wrong). I don't think the expectation that these people would just magically make friends and build connections because AI wasn't available is realistic.
If the other option is suicide, a qualified therapist and other mental health resources are the right answer, not a chatbot.
Frankly I'm not sure an LLM is even better than nothing. Note the user in that thread whose "partner" told them to get a therapist because they were delusional and instead retreated to Grok.
Therapists are expensive, a lot of them are bad, and just getting therapy set up can be a pain in the ass with waiting lists and a bunch of run around. If you're so set on therapy as the answer I suggest volunteering to help set up and pay for therapists for depressed people, because it's not a great solution, or shitty chatbots wouldn't be killing it.
That's great, will you also add the category field to the text file in the repo? These projects are often heavy on tech blogs and I'd like to filter those out.
"Agenda" has become code for "ideas I don't agree with", used by people who mistakenly believe it (politics) can be compartmentalized from other everyday topics and only trotted out at election time.
I disagree. Agendas are real things. Just because they have one, doesn't mean it is inherently bad or even a disagreeable position... but some people just don't like to be "sold to", regardless of the topic.
I'm afraid both are true. And they often go hand in hand. Often, someone calling out an agenda is doing so to sell theirs. (See also "ideology", which is often treated as a synonym.)
For some people perhaps. For me personally, I find some sites purposefully interject their 'agenda', either left or right into their journalism to the detriment of the piece. You're not going to a get a truely subjective view on things anywhere but some places are skewed to the point that you can't tell if vital information is being witheld or under reported.
I use my credit and debit cards the same way today as I did before smartphones existed. I never invited the extra surveillance middleman of Google/Apple into my transactions. And the convenience of tapping or swiping a plastic card is simpler than using my phone anyway. Is this not possible in Spain?
I'm with you. Low-tech works just fine. I hate the idea of having to depend on a working phone just to pay for things.
But isn't the promise of Apple Pay that you never expose your real credit card # to the merchant? So they can't track you? I know Walmart in Canada really resisted Apple Pay for a few years because it would mean no more ability to track people by their payment methods.
> But isn't the promise of Apple Pay that you never expose your real credit card # to the merchant? So they can't track you? I know Walmart in Canada really resisted Apple Pay for a few years because it would mean no more ability to track people by their payment methods.
Yes, this is exactly what Walmart does in the US since they still don't accept Apple Pay/Google Pay. When I go in and make a purchase using my credit or debit card, they'll associate it with my Walmart account and it'll show up as a "recent order" in the Walmart app because I have the same card saved there for ordering groceries online. They use those in-store purchases to recommend things to add to my grocery orders all the time.
> since they still don't accept Apple Pay/Google Pay. When I go in and make a purchase using my credit or debit card, they'll associate it with my Walmart account
Why wouldn't they be able to do that with at least Google Pay?
I pay with my phone using Google Pay at a Swedish grocery store chain and it's connected to my loyalty account there.
(Since I don't use Apple Pay I don't know if the same works there.)
I guess I'm not familiar with how Google Pay actually works, I assumed it was the same as Apple Pay. With Apple Pay the merchant gets a randomized card number on every transaction.
Too late to edit my comment, but it looks like I didn't quite understand how Apple Pay works either. After a little more research on both of them, here's the gist of it: Apple Pay and Google Pay both create a "Device Account Number" for your card, and this number never changes. When you tap your phone to pay, it generates a one-time cryptogram for the transaction which will always be unique. I was under the impression that merchants only get the cryptogram, but that's not the case – merchants get both the cryptogram and the DAN during the purchase.
The problem is, since the DAN is a stable number that never changes per card, they can save it and use it to recognize you across visits. That's how stores can tie Apple Pay/Google Pay transactions to loyalty programs without scanning a separate card. The DAN doesn't differentiate between online/in-app purchases and physical purchases either, though the number is different between devices (i.e. use phone to pay in-store, use computer or tablet to shop for groceries). But realistically, Apple Pay/Google Pay would only marginally improve the privacy in the Walmart scenario, which is a bummer.
We used to have a "cash card" in Sweden in the 90's[0]. It flopped because nobody wants to keep manually re-filling it with value all the time. It's much more convenient to have a card that pulls from your bank account (either instantly via debit or monthly via credit). In the mass market, convenience always trumps privacy.
The places where a "cash card" have gained popularity have all been using the "backdoor" of public transit payments that are so ubiquitous they also get accepted by retail (e.g. Suica in Japan, Octopus in HK, EasyCard in Taiwan, etc)
Ah, yes, we had those in The Netherlands as well (Chipknip), everybody hated those cards (though if I remember correctly most debit cards also doubled as a Chipknip card), but many parking meters used them for some time.
Governments frown upon KYC-less digital purse cards. Gotta force everyone to share their national ID number to just open a bank account to keep out drug dealers, terrorists, or NSFW game peddlers.
Banks generally don't like disposable digital purse cards. They make money off fees and interest. If a product doesn't rope you into a customer "relationship" where you link your pay deposits or later might get a mortgage or car loan they can only make money off fees. Enjoy paying $5 to activate a $100 prepaid debit card!
Credit cards provide convenience and cash back benefits. Some might prefer to pay cash for everything for ultimate privacy, and that's fine. But credit cards are the compromise I make. I can still pay cash when I think it's appropriate for a given transaction.
Using Google or Apple Pay so I can tap my phone instead of my card gives me no extra benefit that I care about and complicates my ecosystem with another party.
Yep. In Germany credit cards are a nuisance for banks. If you want one with cash backs and easy chargeback functionality, you are free to pay 60€ a month for an American Express Platinum card that works exactly nowhere in EU.
How dare Europe force card companies to distribute the cost of being poor on all customers. Cashback is effectively a special fee levied exclusively on those who don't qualify.
I was told the other day that the people most likely to choose to avoid the extra 2.5% fees are the wealthier.
In New Zealand, most low margin business (like cafes) ask you to accept an ~2.5% transaction fee (if you use a credit card or paywave). You can avoid the fee by using a debit card with a chip.
I'm unsure what choice the poorer make. If you're actually low income, maybe you don't go to cafes.
I did notice that a thrift store didn't charge the extra 2.5%: so perhaps poorer people have more pressure to use cards with fees?
Amex is noted for its high fees - so perhaps it is a bathtub where only the middleclass care.
When you have to care for money, visibility doing so feels like exposing weakness. But when you care for the little amounts while it's clear that this is unrelated to need, it turns into showing off a quality.
Yes, but in Spain all of our cards are Visa or Mastercard, afaik, so you can't really avoid using American tech in your daily payments (unless you use cash, which remains a very convenient method, by the way).
The fact you have the visa or mastercard logo doesn't mean you can't avoit to use their tech for your daily payments.
Example, in France most debit and credit cards are called "carte bleue" (literally blue card) but all of them either have a visa/mastercard logo. However when you pay with them you can decide with the merchant to use the CB system or the visa/mastercard. Sadly very few people know that and do the selection.
Interesting. I don't think there's anything similar here in Spain, though. On the other hand, in this same thread, somebody said Visa acquired that "Carte Bleue" system, and Wikipedia states it was discontinued in 2010. So maybe it's not possible to use anything other than visa/mc in France anymore
You mention an interesting thing I didn't realize before. Carte Bleues, the brand, seems to have been sold to Visa but CB, the payment system would still be a separate thing and now mean Carte Bancaire. It is not helped by the fact that french people literally adopted carte bleue as a generic name for payment cards.
Thanks for the info. By the way, is there any difference, apart from not having to rely on foreign parties, for the buyer between selecting CB or Visa/MC for his payment? And I suppose it's the shop owner who decides the default when the buyer doesn't choose.
> I use my credit and debit cards the same way today as I did before smartphones existed.
How exactly are you doing that? with 3D Secure online credit card transactions now require confirmation in the mobile app (or via OTP sent by SMS, but this is being phased out, as it is insecure)
And when your local model generated video gets uploaded, YouTube will just remove it then.
Local models will always be disadvantaged on compute power anyway. Hobbyists can do what they want locally but the culture will be dominated by what the tech and media giants permit. They'll now have the power centralized at time of creation and not just upon publication on their own platforms.
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