The AI dooooooom thread

[crazy canuck]

Great, society will wallow in ignorance as Google spouts answers that cannot be sourced and are nonetheless trusted.

[Josquius]

On Google, lately I've noticed the AI working. Text appearing saying "I think he is asking about x" and the like. I'm sure it wasn't doing that before.
It's usually wrong of course.

[Tamas]

Great, society will wallow in ignorance as Google spouts answers that cannot be sourced and are nonetheless trusted.

We will just quietly regress into a cyberpunk version of feudalism.

[Jacob]

So apparently google has a thing where they're using your gmail to train their AI? You can apparently opt out, but that somehow means turning off the spam filter.

[Valmy]

So apparently google has a thing where they're using your gmail to train their AI? You can apparently opt out, but that somehow means turning off the spam filter.

There is a reason they dropped "don't be evil" from their list of company values.

Google is one of many many many poster children for why monopolies shouln't be allowed. The government should have broken up Google a decade ago.

[crazy canuck]

So apparently google has a thing where they're using your gmail to train their AI? You can apparently opt out, but that somehow means turning off the spam filter.

No, the spam filter is a separate function.  You just need to turn off the "smart" functions

[Admiral Yi]

Google is one of many many many poster children for why monopolies shouln't be allowed. The government should have broken up Google a decade ago.

What would be achieved by breaking up Google?  If you object to the way they operate search, or email, or youtube, how would breaking up the company change that?

[Josquius]

I do often play with chat gpt. I think I have a pretty good grasp of its foibles. It is genuinely useful for some things. Less for others

I randomly saw and asked last night....

I read online that crows will kill and eat rats.
A rat has entered my garden and is taking food meant for the birds. This is not appropriate. The crows seem afraid of him. He is a pretty small rat. What is going on.

And got a pretty rational and sensible seaming explanation about how yeah a crow could knack a rat but it's not going to look for trouble as there's easier food sources out there and a rat can certainly injure a crow
Fair enough.

Moved onto how to be rid of rats.... That this sounds like a young rat dispersing from its nest. Common in cold weather (yep).
Advice.
Clean up food (yep)
Block entry spaces (yep)
Create hostile terrain such as floodlights, gravel etc.... (ehh yep but money)
Predator scent (yep)

I explain I don't have a pet and installing a floodlight isn't really practical right now.

So chat gpt...suggests using human scent.
Old clothes, human pee, human hair....

There then followed something quite funny when I talked about the children refusing be sheared and chat gpt switched to joke mode but it kept reiterating I don't need the children's hair. The hair from my freshly bald head would be enough.

Though. Thing is.
Human hair doesn't deter rats! At all! Maybe it even attracts them!
And it's dangerous for birds.
As to human pee.... At least chat gpt said no to pooping on my gate but still. It wanted me to place containers of pee in the garden. Health and safety nightmare AND pointless for the rat.

Google is one of many many many poster children for why monopolies shouln't be allowed. The government should have broken up Google a decade ago.

What would be achieved by breaking up Google?  If you object to the way they operate search, or email, or youtube, how would breaking up the company change that?

It's not about how they operate. It's about the fact they're all interlinked and give very complete advertising profiles /advertising power.
It's not email or search or whatever where googles monopoly is the real problem. It's data and advertising.

[Admiral Yi]

It's not about how they operate. It's about the fact they're all interlinked and give very complete advertising profiles /advertising power.
It's not email or search or whatever where googles monopoly is the real problem. It's data and advertising.

So let me see if I've got it.  You don't mind youtube collecting data about your clip viewing habits, or google search collecting data about your search habits, it's that they share this data with each other.  Is that right?

[Josquius]

It's not about how they operate. It's about the fact they're all interlinked and give very complete advertising profiles /advertising power.
It's not email or search or whatever where googles monopoly is the real problem. It's data and advertising.

So let me see if I've got it.  You don't mind youtube collecting data about your clip viewing habits, or google search collecting data about your search habits, it's that they share this data with each other.  Is that right?

I'd rather not have any of it.
But the monopoly is in the same company controlling all this.

[Admiral Yi]

I'd rather not have any of it.
But the monopoly is in the same company controlling all this.

That's not what monopoly means.  Monopoly means they are the sole supplier in a given market and can therefore charge whatever they want.  Google as we're describing it is an example of horizontal integration.

[Josquius]

I'd rather not have any of it.
But the monopoly is in the same company controlling all this.

That's not what monopoly means.  Monopoly means they are the sole supplier in a given market and can therefore charge whatever they want.  Google as we're describing it is an example of horizontal integration.

That's a textbook definition. Regulators never apply monopoly as meaning literally the only supplier. More one that has massive dominance.
With over 90% of the search market for example Google absolutely fits the bill there.

But you seem to have missed the point of what I said here.
The horizontal integration isn't the problem. The problem is the vertical integration made possible by the horizontal integration.