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If your point is that we should regulate AI as least as strictly as industrial vehicles, I agree.


Afaik anyone can buy a bulldozer. Whether or not you are licensed to operate it is a different story, but there's nothing stopping you short of your conscience.


Licensed or not, you're fully liable for any damage you do with it. And possibly go to prison. I'd like to see crime committed by AI held to the same standards as crimes committed with any other tool.


I don't think the law makes a distinction over what tool you use to commit a crime.

The problem with AI is that the AI might do something that would constitute a crime (eg. attempting to land malicious code via a PR), but the general legal standard to convict a person of a crime is malicious intent (or sometimes negligence).

If the human user instructs the AI to do X and the AI does X by committing crimes in the process, the prosecution usually has to prove the human intended this to happen (or is somehow criminally negligent). For traditional tools, the user has much greater control over the tool so the intention can be more easily deduced from the results. For AI, at least for now, results can be wild. I don't think the legal system is prepared to put people in prison because their AI randomly ran amok after being given an innocuous prompt. This is analogous to holding a driver criminally liable for harming people due to a serious malfunction of the vehicle.

If anything, I think more liability should be imposed on AI developers.


I'd assume that after some number of news stories about AI agents committing crimes, the threshold for criminal negligence should be easy to reach for anyone who doesn't take proper precautions

A lot of negligence is of the "the last 30 times nothing went wrong" type, and the dangers are increasingly well known


I generally agree. But the field is evolving too fast for the legal system.

I'd imagine regulation and enforcement will come when things are starting to settle down.

The analogies with vehicles being inherently dangerous and require extra regulation are apt, because safety measures (eg. speed limits, seat belts, comprehensive road safety rules etc.) were implemented bit by bit, but way after the cars had been invented...


> I don't think the law makes a distinction over what tool you use to commit a crime.

The law might not, but enforcement definitely does. Crimes committed through a corporation are often ignored.


Yeah. Though, this is a broader issue of capitalism giving corporations preferential treatment...


Complaints about complainers are even more exhausting.


In a forum for tech nerds, of all places.


Even if you are not the one addicted, other people’s addiction problems are still your problems. Being blind to that fact makes you both complicit in it and vulnerable to it.


Sure, they are your problems, but to expect capitalism to solve your addiction is just magical thinking.


I see three problems here.

1) You’re misunderstanding the concept of magical thinking. It is not an umbrella term for false expectations. Magical thinking occurs when a person assumes that their thoughts, words, or actions can influence, cause, or prevent events that are not causally connected, thereby disregarding conventional rules of cause and effect. Or one could also say that a hidden causality is assumed where common sense would recognize that none exists.

2) You’re confusing the societal level with the individual level. The expectation that my own personal problem will be solved for me is different from the expectation that a society will get a handle on a widespread problem among its people. The first sounds like someone should take more personal responsibility. The second is a reasonable expectation.

3) You leave open what follows from this. If capitalism can’t deliver on this, what should be done? Should it be reformed or overcome? Should we simply accept that many people will be harmed and let things take their course? If so, I’d like to know why we don’t also turn off all traffic lights, remove all traffic signs, and abolish all traffic rules.


I agree, but being mildly offensive is kind of the point: makes it more memorable, and clearly differentiated from “popup” which is too broad and has many valid uses in an interface. Dickovers never have a valid reason to exist.


> makes it more memorable, and clearly differentiated from “popup” which is too broad and has many valid uses in an interface. Dickovers never have a valid reason to exist.

This is hardly convincing. The author even describes it as a "popup" or a "popover" which is already descriptive enough without further explanation. It is just an "unwanted popup" or "unwanted popover".

The fact he brought up a definition of that word after mentioning "popover", just made the need for "d*ckover" uneccessarily redundant.

It may work with 30 people in tech, but will not work on TV. "unwanted popup" or "unwanted popover" is better to say on TV than "d*ckover".


Unless it’s on cable.



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You seem to be under the impression that making services better or cheaper _for the consumer_ is the goal of any corporation. The goal is to make their own operations better and cheaper for them. They are laying off employees and adding features of questionable value as a pretext to raise prices. The playbook has not changed, it has only accelerated.


A little disappointed that the writer never attempts to address the title of the post, which is either a) why most people can't juggle a single ball, or b) how the author even knows this to be true, aside from some limited anecdata.

My (admittedly limited) juggling experience would indicate something closer to "Anyone can juggle", or that your average person, particularly young people, can learn to juggle one, two, or even three balls with an afternoon of practice, but I suppose that makes for a worse title.


Long, long, (long) ago I used to teach people to juggle at the local Renaissance Fair. I would say I could get almost everyone to flash 3 in less than 30 minutes. Most people walked away having at least 5-6 successful throws. The only people who really couldn't learn are those who don't like to fail and won't even try. Learning to juggle is repeated failure and you have to be willing to persist. Learning 5 clubs (very briefly) took me many years of repeated failure.


> "Anyone can juggle"

Technically this is not incompatible with the title. Just uses “can” in a different sense. The title would be using “can” in the “has the skill already”, while you use “can” in the “able to acquire the skill” sense.

It is not hard to imagine that most people when asked the question “can you juggle?” would answer in the negative. That’s what the article’s title describes. And then if those people, given sufficient motivation can learn to juggle that leads to your sentence. And they both can be true at the same time.

I agree that it would be nice to provide source for the claim though.


I would say no to currently being able to juggle, but that's because I don't consider one ball to count as juggling.

If you specifically asked if I could juggle one ball, I'd say sure. And I just checked, one ball goes fine. And I've never practiced juggling. I'm pretty skeptical about that ability being the minority.

So I also want more explanation of the title.


I am not fully certain but juggling is moving objects in a predictable path so as to repeat without dropping.

In my understanding of the OP, juggling 'one' is being able to throw an object consistently to another hand without handing it. This is an intentional throw of the ball from one hand to another without "moving" the other hand to compensate.

Throwing from one hand to another, either directly or in an arc, requires the motorskills to move an object consistently while understanding the speed, trajectory, and then moving the other hand to receive (not catch) it as expected.

There are multiple elements at play with 3 object juggling. One must throw an arc toss to the other hand, while holding an object, then throwing the object in said hand to free the hand to catch. In reality you are holding two objects with one in motion - until you get the double arc which is now technically juggling.

Three bodies in motion, two hands that are each making circular or figure eight motions, while maintaining a consistent arc and speed (XY (no Z) + T = arc) where the mind either tracks or forgets allowing the predictable movements work themselves into only tracking one object at a time - by setting it's path and then shifting focus or attention to the next.


If you're asking whether advertising works, there is plenty of science making clear that it does, without fishing for anecdata.

As to whether every company buying ads is making a good investment, mileage may vary - but the blunt answer to your question is that yes, people do purchase things because they saw ads for it, the advertising economy is well understood. Companies like Google whose fortunes rest almost entirely on the known efficacy of advertising are not full of idiots who have never thought about whether or not ads actually work.

"Is an economy based on selling attention ultimately the most beneficial and productive one for all participants" is a separate question, but it's not the question you're asking.


> there is plenty of science making clear that it does

Funded, ran, and interpreted by whom?

I can't remember the last time I bought anything just because of its ad, that I already did not know about or was going to buy anyway, nor I know anyone who did.

In fact, if I see an ad TOO often, it permanently turns me off the product or service.

The whole ads racket seems like a case of an emperor with no clothes at best, and a thin veil for mass surveillance at worst.


Say what you will about Zuck, he's made investors a trillion dollars. If they cared about his occasionally being wrong and losing a few billion here or there, it's not showing up in the stock price.


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