chaosCruiser

@chaosCruiser@futurology.today

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⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Apple sued by shareholders for allegedly overstating AI progress⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:
Advertise more and sell harder. Who cares what kind of trash the customers end up buying, bevcause only profits matter.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mudita Kompakt⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
Recently, I watched a YouTube video about phones designed to minimize distractions. While they aim to solve the problem of smartphone overuse, their utility in today’s world is questionable. Essential tasks like using banking apps, navigation, communication, and parking apps often require a smartphone, making these distraction-free phones less practical.

The video mentioned some “smart” distraction-free phones, but if you need those features, why not just adjust the settings on your regular smartphone to achieve a similar minimalist setup? Ultimately, traditional dumb phones seem too limited for modern needs, while the smarter minimalist phones are essentially just smartphones with minimalist settings. It’s hard to see who the target audience for these phones really is.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Reddit will help advertisers turn ‘positive’ posts into ads⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
All of this spying and data hoarding has resulted in a finely tuned advertising machine that directs car ads to people who specifically hate cars with a burning passion. Peak of targeted advertising.

And people still wonder why I use every means within my disposal to block ads. Even if I allowed ads, they aren’t targeted enough to be much more than an annoyance. Even when they somehow manage to show me something I care about, I’m seeing an interesting product from the highest paying company. It’s not the best product in that category, nor is the one that would serve me best. It’s the one from the company that was willing to pay more than any other. Advertising is just so broken in every way you can think of.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I Tried Pre-Ordering the Trump Phone. The Page Failed and It Charged My Credit Card the Wrong Amount⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
!vibecoders@lemmy.ca
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I Tried Pre-Ordering the Trump Phone. The Page Failed and It Charged My Credit Card the Wrong Amount⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
Only if the value goes so far below zero that you get an integer overflow.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Firefox is dead to me – and I'm not the only one who is fed up⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
It won’t disappear, but the version number will be frozen. I kinda prefer to have security updates on a regular basis.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I Tried Pre-Ordering the Trump Phone. The Page Failed and It Charged My Credit Card the Wrong Amount⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
That’s an impressive amount of optimism you have there. My guess is, you can kiss that money goodbye, but I hope everything somehow works out anyway.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Welcome to Campus. Here’s Your ChatGPT.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Wow, those are some pretty big numbers! About 10x bigger than what I was thinking. I knew these things can get pretty weird, but this is just absolutely wild. When expectations fly that high, the crash can be all the more spectacular.

When you notice that your free account can’t do much, that’s a sign that OpenAI is beginning to run out of money. When that happens, the competitors will be ready to welcome all the users who didn’t feel like paying OpenAI.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Welcome to Campus. Here’s Your ChatGPT.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
That’s a very good point. Actually, video hosting services also suffer from a similar problem, and that’s one of the main reasons why it’s so hard to compete with YouTube. Since there are so many LLM services out there at the moment, it makes me think that there must be a completely ridiculous amount of investor money floating around there. Doesn’t sound like a sustainable situation to me.

Apparently, the companies are hoping that everyone gets so hooked on LLMs that they have no choice but to pay up when the inevitable tsunami of enshittification hits us.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Welcome to Campus. Here’s Your ChatGPT.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
As long as they can convince investors of potential future revenue, they will be just fine. In the growth stage, companies don’t have to be profitable because the investors will cover the expenses. Being profitable becomes a high priority only when you run out of series F money, and you the next investors can’t borrow another 700 million. It’s a combination of having low interest rates and convincing arguments.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Welcome to Campus. Here’s Your ChatGPT.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Probably not going to go belly-up, in a while, but the enshittification cycle still applies. At the moment, investors are pouring billions into the AI business, and as a result, companies can offer services for free while only gently nudging users towards the paid tiers.

When the interest rates rise during the next recession, investors won’t have access to money any more. Then, the previously constant stream of money dries up, AI companies start cutting what the free tier has, and people start complaining about enshittification. During that period, the paid tiers also get restructured to squeeze more money out of the paying customers. That hasn’t happened yet, but eventually it will. Just keep an eye on those interest rates.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google confirms more ads on your paid YouTube Premium Lite soon⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Problem solved! I don’t need to think about this premium stuff any more. Recently, I’ve been playing with the idea of paying for premium, but that’s no longer the case. Specifically, the family pack is the one that kinda made some limited sense in the past. I can see the kind of game Google is playing, and I’m not planning to participate.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Pro-AI Subreddit Bans 'Uptick' of Users Who Suffer from AI Delusions⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
And that’s exactly why we have flat-earthers, antivaxxers and “truthers” of various kinds. Although, due to the same phenomenon, we also have communities like !WhatsThisRock@lemmy.world, !capybara@lemmy.smeargle.fans, !NatureIsMetal@kbin.social, !captionthis@hilariouschaos.com, !HandmadeMarketplace and so many other interesting and quirky places.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Pro-AI Subreddit Bans 'Uptick' of Users Who Suffer from AI Delusions⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
The Internet is a pretty big place. There’s no such thing as an idea that is too stupid. There’s always at least a few people who will turn that idea into a central tenet of their life. It could be too stupid for 99.999% of the population, but that still leaves about 5 000 people who are totally into it.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨public services of an entire german state switches from Microsoft to open source (Libreoffice, Linux, Nextcloud, Thunderbird)⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
The best thing about R is that it’s written by statisticians. The worst thing about R is that it’s written by statisticians.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google Shared My Phone Number!⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
People should really start demanding more sensible terms. Currently, people just don’t care, and companies are taking full advantage of the situation.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google Shared My Phone Number!⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
“Some years ago, I provided my phone number to Google as part of an identity verification process, but didn’t consent to it being shared publicly.”

That may have been the case at the time, but Google has a bad habit of updating legal documents and settings from time to time. Even if you didn’t consent to it directly, you may have agreed to a contract you didn’t read, which resulted in Google doing everything permitted in that contract. Chances are, the contract says that Google can legally screw around as much as they like, and you’re powerless to do anything about it.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Trump says a 25% tariff "must be paid by Apple" on iPhones not made in the US, says he told Tim Cook long ago that iPhones sold in the US must be made in the US⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Based on the numbers from Purism, it could be a lot more than 25% more expensive to manufacture everything in USA. Purims Librem 5 costs 799 $, while the made-in-America version costs 1999 $. That’s roughly a 2.5x difference. Obviously, economies of scale play a role too but let’s assume that the same factor applies to iPhones too. If so, the fanciest iPhone would cost about 4000 $.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Saudi Arabia has big AI ambitions. They could come at the cost of human rights⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:
This is KSA we’re talking about here. Human rights violations are always part of the deal. You could say it’s the currency they trade in.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Netflix will show generative AI ads midway through streams in 2026⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:
Youtube is also trying to be more like TV. Apparently, TV wasn’t bad enough.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Klarna Hiring Back Human Help After Going All-In on AI⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

Klarna claimed that AI chatbots were handling two-thirds of customer service conversations within their first month of deployment and went on to claim that AI was doing the work of 700 customer service agents. The problem is that it’s really doing the work of 700 really bad agents, and that quality took a toll.

I think the problem here was in correctly identifying which tasks are simple enough for a bad customer service AI to handle. Anything more complicated than that should be given to a human.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨One US politician wants to add trackers to Nvidia's GPUs so they can be bricked if they go to China⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:
Once every GPU hacker in the world starts dumping their free time on a challenge like this, you can expect that a vulnerability will be discovered and exploited. Imagine, there’s a virus just waiting for the order to brick your GPU? How about you use that virus to attack a specific country, city or even an individual politician whose proposals you don’t agree with. The possibilities are endless!

Everything is hackable. It’s just a matter of knowing how to do it.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YouTube Tests AI Overviews in Search Results⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:
It’s basically just an alternate home feed with the first 2 videos mildly related to what you were looking for. The rest are there to distract you from getting stuff done. The whole point is to boost engagement, watch time and all the other social media cancer terms.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨This Concentrating Solar Power Plant Makes Fuel From Sunlight⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
TL;DR they’re using solar power to run a CCU plant.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Uncle Sam abruptly turns off funding for CVE program. Yes, that CVE program⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
Cannelloni-Vermicelli Exploration program? You know, to find out what happens if you mix both on the same plate? Will the Italians assassinate you before you can take the first bite? Will the pasta annihilate as soon as they touch? Will it be delicious? Who knows, and now we will never know.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ChatGPT spends 'tens of millions of dollars' on people saying 'please' and 'thank you', but Sam Altman says it's worth it⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
I would argue that being polite also does good to the person writing that line.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨LG TVs’ integrated ads get more personal with tech that analyzes viewer emotions⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
Kit cars have been around for ages, and Framework offers DIY laptops. I think we should have kit displays as well. Surely, someone has already made something like that with a raspberry.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨LG TVs’ integrated ads get more personal with tech that analyzes viewer emotions⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
As long as my 1080p plasma tv works, there’s no need to upgrade. Going 4K would also mean I would have to upgrade my HTPC hardware, because that old APU probably can’t handle resolutions like that.

In the meantime though, I’ll just keep on watching online videos in my living room without ads or interruptions. It’s been great even though all of this hardware is cheap and ancient.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨China has stopped exporting rare earths to everyone, not just the U.S., cutting off critical materials for tech, autos, aerospace, and defense⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
Well what if you need to keep on producing more common metals in the meantime, and REEs are a byproduct. You would need to keep the REE factories running too.

If you end up with 100 tons of terbium and yttrium oxide sitting in bags out in the rain, it’s going to lead to some serious quality issues further down the line. Well, just shove them in a warehouse then?

You’ll need a big warehouse, and you need to keep building more of them every year as the stockpiles grow. Needless to say, there are some serious logistical problems with a total export ban. A partial restriction is more viable, because it gives China some time to figure out how to adapt.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨China has stopped exporting rare earths to everyone, not just the U.S., cutting off critical materials for tech, autos, aerospace, and defense⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
The REE business is big, and China can’t keep stockpiling these metals for long. Also, REE production is integrated to the rest of the industry, so you can’t just switch those factories off and expect everything else to keep on chugging along as usual.

This sort of export ban won’t last long unless China restructures large parts of their metal production. Oh, and they’re also leaving a lot of money on the table, which is going to hurt. In calling their bluff.