Rhaedas

Useful maybe. For what purposes though… getting labor costs down, pumping out stuff fast assuming it’s correct because it’s AI, being ahead of their competitors. Useful as in productive? Maybe for some cases when they know what AI can and can’t do or its limitations. I get the impression from this year’s news stories that a lot of them jumped on it because it was the new thing, following everyone else. A lot got burned, some backtracked where they could, some are quiet but aren’t pursuing it as much as they advertised.

OP is right, companies will go the direction they feel consumers will buy more from, and if that’s a “No AI” slogan, that’s what they’ll put. There’s no regulations on it, so just like before with ingredients or other labeling before rules were set, they’ll lie to get you to buy it. Hell, from a software pov there’s a big thing now on apps being sold as “FOSS” that are not, because there’s no rules to govern it. Caveat emptor.

Sometimes? I wouldn’t worry about your unease in walking out of your bank with your money, I’d worry about having your money in that back where they apparently give money out to anyone.

Seems a bit too easy if that’s all you’re doing without any verification. If they’re checking that you are who you say you are, then it’s your money.

I was in the webmaster role for a website from the early start of the internet - SEO started off as simple ways to help improve index placement by giving different methods to the web creators to aid in better categorization of content. It quickly became an arms race of how to best game the system, and the system kept changing as well because the old SEO basics like keyword and content arrangement wasn’t enough. There was one search engine I participated in (I can’t recall now which one) that did the pay for clicks, and you’d literally have to pump money in the online app to try and stay above your keyword competitors, all in real time. It got stupid. And I got frustrated with it, as I felt the original goal to find the best website for a particular search had been long lost and now it was all about mechanisms to profit from everyone trying to make that first page hit. The “best” sites that couldn’t play this game were lost.

Google became the dominant player by buying up other databases and engines, but even with this gaming they used to be able to produce results if you knew how to phrase searches beyond just a few words. It’s almost like the whole AI prompting, what you put in makes a difference. But they eventually changed things and started getting worse results, lots of duplication, and then added AI which ruined anything they still had of quality.

I miss Hotbot. That was my go-to long ago, and it was so good. It became part of Google eventually.

I have four, all in mid-grade school (7-8).

A mobile of various paper models of satellites, along with a research paper that told about them.

A cardboard model of the USS Monitor from the Civil War (for US History obviously).

Another for history was a functioning balsa wood model of a guillotine, with a (dull) metal blade. And a deheaded G.I. Joe (I didn’t have any French aristocrat dolls handy).

A video book report made by with a few friends using the library’s video camera (back before phone cameras). We did it in the style of a satirical news program/Monty Python humor with various clips from reporters of parts of the book’s story. I don’t know why I never asked for a copy… but you don’t think about that as a kid.

And that gentlemen, is why we don’t use test and push right out to production. The consumer is far better at finding flaws than we are.

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It’s a pyramid scheme!

I see your point, but that exactly was a coping mechanism for something that didn’t have a solution. Is assisted suicide a modern version as a way to deal with an unsolvable problem (and I’m all for it btw, just comparing the goals of both).

I don’t think they are the same as finding ways to avoid grief, which is what the topic of a replacement of the lost individual is about. I’m sure anyone in the therapy field has already explored this to find any benefits of prolonging.

But in regards about the claim: I don’t even know how far the cloning has gone, or how it’s been accepted. But I have heard that immediately getting another pet to replace that loss isn’t a good thing to do for similar reasons for owner and pet, and the cloning is worse because it’s pretending it’s the same animal (in most cases, I can’t say everyone). That’s how it was sold, getting your pet back. I can’t see how this can turn into a better route for grief when there isn’t any, and might turn to despair or anger when the new version of the pet doesn’t act the same as the old.

But you’re right, there’s no data, it’s just a gut feeling based on my own experiences that I’m still dealing with in some respects.

If anything, the AI acting as far as just visual is not a huge jump from watching old video of them from the past. It’s a bit odd, but I can accept that times change and some things become normal that were not. Having an AI that responds back as if they were the person crosses the line that I’ve been talking about. Some people think ChatGPT with its flaws is still a person, so they’ll fall for this being the loved one from the grave, and I still hold that living in that fantasy is not healthy for the mind.

From a science pov it makes sense that it’s something to pursue, even as just a renewable biofuel. Algae grows fast, it’s where oil comes from, it’s a biological “fix”. It’s perfect. Except it didn’t work nearly as well as hoped.

I looked into it a long time ago as a “solution” to how to best pull carbon of out the air and sequester it. Algae farms over deep water areas, grown and culled and the dead carbon sunk deep to stay out of the loop. Sounds perfect, doesn’t it?

But in both scenarios there are so many costs and variables to consider that are left out when proponents are selling it. Some are just the “forgotten” costs of running a process that pollutes on their own and take energy (that requires emissions too). Some are effects outside the process that damage the environment in other ways. And the costs and effects of feeding the algae itself, it just won’t grow in a vat of water alone. So many things that change the net result. And with the case for fuel (which doesn’t lock the carbon away so it’s not a help to existing carbon in the air) assuming the fuel percentage per weight would be high enough to justify the rest of the costs. Which Exxon figured out it was not, while selling it as a miracle.

Climate Town just did a video on that topic. Exxon is apparently still running the PR commercials they made for it, but that project is all but dead because it wasn’t going anywhere. Turns out doubling the output of not much doesn’t get much.

A source about grieving and acceptance vs. refusal to acknowledge a death? Realizing that people and things die isn’t romancing anything, it’s being realistic instead of pretending nothing happened or that they’re “back” from the dead.

The issue of giving people ways to avoid grieving and letting go of their loved ones popped up a number of years ago when places started offering clones of your deceased pet. Even that isn’t a good idea, and not fair at all to the animal. But it’s not good for the mental well being of the person. Death is part of life, and pretending someone is still here is not healthy.

Like the others have always been labeled afterwards.

There is comfortable, wealthy, and the super rich. The first ones still look at money as the rest of the population, while the ultra wealthy (the top .1% or higher) use their assets for power. They don’t have to concern themselves almost all of the time on price tags for things, it’s irrelevant. It’s what their influence can allow them to do that is far more important. So yes, the richest live an expensive lifestyle, but they don’t care.

I agree with others on the middle class falsehood. You either have enough assets and income to be able to live well, or you don’t. At this point many millionaires are not that well off either because their expenses put them in the same situation the poorer people have to deal with. Maybe it’s not only one paycheck away from disaster, but they have their own buffer zone that’s not as large as they’d like in bad times. Likewise, there are “poor” people who manage their budgets well enough that they are comfortable, but because they don’t have a lot they are at the mercy of things around them so that can disappear quickly.

The rich line is where you can lose entire businesses or a house or other large material thing and the money part doesn’t phase you.

“The Future is Now!”

also:

“We went too far.”

Windows ME wasn’t a sadist. It would have to actually work to get that far. The best thing that happened to a laptop I had which came with ME installed was to put Win98 on it. Ran great after that.

He should have gone with Colossus. There was a great 1970 scifi film named that about AI and… oh no, never mind.

I could see you not reacting well to the gift and them being upset, but then it turned into something more than that. They made the mistake of doing something that you claim is well known you don’t like. You held your line and rather than let it sit for a bit insisted it had to go. Now you’re both mad/upset over a gift. Doesn’t make sense, does it? Even more so if the value of this object isn’t that much even new. Who is hurt more by this? You’re confused about their reaction but were you hurt by the act of giving, even if it was something unwanted? The core thing you should ask yourself is why it became an argument, and was it worth it? It doesn’t even matter who was right.

It speaks a lot of today’s world when so many replies were about some type of debt or replacement of assets. My gut feeling is if the rules don’t require a tangible purchase (aka Brewster’s Million) putting the bulk into something that will grow the base amount is the best option. But it depends on any debt and its interest rate, as removing that expense is usually the best move as their rate is going to be far greater than any interest you can gain.

If anything the rest of our family has taken the lesson to heart to put into place things to protect their loved ones. And like you said, they could have done even a little to help themselves before it got too far, but for some reason they procrastinate, avoid or refuse help, and even lie and say they have everything worked out.

I hope your mom’s situation changes for the better to protect her, and you. If their relationship with each other is still good (some get toxic) I would push it hard and use some guilt and hypotheticals to get him to do something official if he cares for her at all. And if not… now might be a better time to cut loose than it being forced on her.