The OS isn't the problem. The problem is all the CIOs who think that ChatGPT can replace all their SysAdmins.

They're too busy renegotiating their parking space, or choosing a colour for their business cards to think about security or redundancy or risk management.

The sales rep with the shiny new Beemer told them that everything would be fine, so they just signed a cheque and went back to the board with a glowing quarter report.

Anyone who uses Sharepoint is getting exactly what they deserve. And the buck should stop on the CIO's desk... but we know it won't. Some poor ass middle manager will be hung out to dry for it... again.

Thre are links on the AtCoder website for the challenge that take you to the exact problem to be solved. Its an interesting puzzle to read. At first, I was like 'there's no UI involved, of course that's why the AI did well', but then I read some more and realized that this was exactly the same kind of real world problem I worked on in the 90s to do with hard drive optimisation.

The problem they offered was not a common problem, but it was definitely mappable to some real world problems.

It demonstrates that AI can outperform the majority of humans at extremely rigidly defined tasks.

Now, apply Moore's law (or perhaps, more accurately, the modern bastardisation of it), and ask what the AI will be doing in 18 months.

I, for one, welcome our new bubble-sort algorithm optimisation overlords... mostly so that I don't ever have to code that kind of crap again.

Our websites take more Ddos style hits from anti-virus scans than anything else on some days.

Capitalism doesn't work that way.

So, we've moved on from Denial to Anger? I was wondering when that would happen.

I use ChatGPT almost daily. I use it to write short scripts that have very well defined behaviours. Sure, it makes mistakes, and I have to check its code, but it saves me a heap of time looking up obscure functions. And it comments its code quite nicely. Sometimes, the comments are a bit inane, but I've seen so much uncommented code in my life, seeing any comments at all is a breath of fresh air.

I think that the mistake people make is that they assume that if ChatGPT can write a good 10 line function, then it can write a good 1000 line suite of functions. It cannot.

Its a tool, and it does very well when it is used in the context in which it performs. The wrong tool will do poorly at any task.

I would estimate that ChatGPT saves me about 5-6 hours a week. Time that I can spend on my higher skills rather than my grunt code-monkey skills.

We completely dumped M$ Office in favour of LibreOffice a couple of years ago. The transition was relatively painless... certainly easier than upgrading to the next iteration of Office.

As October approaches, I'm starting to feel that maybe this is the time to switch the bulk of our gear to Linux. In the past, the hesitancy to upgrade to the next M$OS was mostly about defects and transition costs, but this year, there is an insidious feeling of anxiety that to continue with Microsoft will be a mistake. We have a few skills with Linux, and are using it for some rudimentary systems (eg soft routers, phone systems, etc).

Perhaps the time has come to bite the bullet and put it on the desktop.

I'm too old for this sh!t.

If your business model relies on traffic sent to you by an advertising company, your income stream is pretty fragile.

The bigger concern is the consolidation of human knowledge into a capitalist organisation (eg Alphabet).

When websites collapse due to loss of revenue from ad traffic, the training resources for AI will evaporate too.

The tension between the two is palpable. I expect that the balance point between the two will be completely unfit to service either.

AI simulates an intelligent response to any question. Much like most of humanity.

What's the problem?

I don't think that its won yet. The problem needs to become sufficiently serious/painful before society will get serious about a solution. This is why the world is so slow to tackle climate change.

UBIs are being tested in several of the more liberal democracies around the world, and some are showing some successes. Not the silver bullet to overthrow capitalism yet, but social revolution takes time.

I have three kids, all post grads in various technology fields. None of them have jobs in their field of qualification, but all three are excelling in their careers (though, for one of them, I'm not sure if crypto-trading can be called a career even if it is exceptionally lucrative).

There is still time, and positive outcomes are not out of reach yet. Have a little faith in the next generation.

Humanoid robots are flashy and stylish, and with the right shape, they'll trigger biological approval impulses in humans. They might be functionally inferior, but they'll still sell well... companies like Apple will sell them.

You can be certain that the Zuck has an angle here.

Open source it to avoid any copyright litigation, and then insource it when it takes control of the market.

He's such a prick.

I get the occasional email from a customer saying 'hay... I'm in country X and I can't access the service', and I say 'yeah, we geoblocked that country because its full of scammers and hacker', and they say 'yeah... fair call'.

And yet, strangely, you still know exactly which countries I'm talking about...

We've been geoblocking the worst countries for several years when the CIA wouldn't leave our servers alone.

The US, most of the soviet block and the middle east are out. We even geoblocked a fair part of South America.

They still try to get to us via local proxies, but its down from millions of hits to thousands, and our usual defenses can handle that.