Why is the FTC being directed to do the investigation? They're supposed to focus on anti-trust and consumer protection.

The risk is the use of AI as a weapon. The FTC doesn't investigate that type of risk.

They're not losing interest, they're being TOLD not to go into coding because AI coding is taking off.

The destruction of rare books is the issue. I'm 100% down with scanning rare books, preserving IP rights for the IP holder, and digitally publishing the rare books for the masses. That makes sense.

But they're not doing that. They're literally destroying rare books simply to scan them FASTER, minimize expense, and feed the AI/LLM. That's not okay.

Yes, it's a trust issue. I'm glad he understands that, but I'm not hopeful that he or the industry knows what to do with that information.

Normal humans would work to earn trust by doing good things and not doing bad things. Corporatists, however, just know how to wage PR campaigns both overt and astroturf. That won't work with this issue.

Don't wrap the government, other companies, or the entire tech industry up in this. Let's focus on the AI industry and Anthropic. People are suspicious of the AI industry and Anthropic because:

1. Chips: AI industry chip demand is so extreme that it's sending tech advancement BACKWARD at the personal level. For what?
2. Electricity: AI industry is chewing up MASSIVE amounts of electricity (and exhausting huge GHG as a result) and affecting pricing and availability for neighbors. For what..?
3. Water: AI industry is literally thirsty because they want to use evaporative cooling. This is/will waste water... for what?
4. Enshittification: The AI industry has convinced less-tech-competent industries that today's LLMs are ready to replace humans. They're not ready, but they're replacing humans for work and their product is shit.
5. Obvious Abuses: From Flock to DOGE, AI has shown to be most immediately useful at exploiting legal shortcomings, the stupidity of the masses, and zero-day vulnerabilities.

Everything's getting worse for everyone except the rich and everyone's congratulating AI for the job well done. So ya... there's a trust issue and it's well-earned.

That's how lawsuits work. You got after one major target and the ruling results in mandates or requirements for entire industries.

No, that's not how it works everywhere.

It doesn't matter that it is new. It matters that people actually know about it now. Which they do. And they really, really don't like it for many very, very good reasons.

You can thank Meta for announcing to the world that this tech exists.

I disagree. There are mountains of information about a company from its many earnings calls, to open audited reports, historical stock prices, and effects of competition of anticipated buy/sell habits of other investors. This is "investment".

There is minuscule public (non-insider) information about medical trials. This is "gambling".

These two statements of yours seem to be at odds. The existence of gambling markets instigate change by those being gambled upon.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncaa.org%2Fmedia-cen...
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.espn.com%2Fcollege-f...
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncaa.org%2Fmedia-cen... ...

And on and on.

I honestly don't care about OnStar or "Super Cruise" subscriptions... and some level of subscription is reasonable.

OnStar probably has thousands of employees and significant hardware/infrastructure expenses. Those expenses likely go up annually. A subscription is reasonable for this service. Also, if you don't even want OnStar in the first place, don't get it.

Super Cruise is Chevy's hands-free-but-eyes-on-the-road cruise control (basically level 3 Autonomous Vehicle). That's an extremely complex system requiring consistent and on-going software updates and backend development. I think it would be cool to have one for a month or so... or maybe to help take the edge off of a very long drive, but I don't want to pay the lifetime expense of it upfront as part of my automobile purchase unless I plan to use it. Again, a subscription here seems rational.

Because comparably few people actually have the time to figure out what their TV (or the TVs from other brands) are doing aside from displaying video and emitting audio.

I give it no more than 2 weeks before it becomes common knowledge that LG is worse than Samsung. Not only do their newer computer monitors automatically install adware on your computer without your permission or notice, but not their smartTVs will stop allowing you access to apps if you use a proxy in your own damn house and on your own damn network.

How financially desperate must they be?

Ya, this is just awfulizing repeating an online mantra. To be fair, it CAN be like that in a non-union, private company *especially*, if you're not a particularly valued worker. But if you work in the public sphere (for a city, county, state, federal government, or public school), it's much, much better because those orgs are MUCH more risk averse.

Ya, I came to say something like this. I remember when the whole concern about AI taking jobs was resulting in daily articles on Slashdot and people were talking about how even the AI of that time could replace accountants... which is so very evident that people don't actually understand the work of an accountant.

It's not just a person managing a simple spreadsheet and putting out a report once per quarter. Accountants are the translators between, law (federal, state, county, city), local policy, past practice, banks, merchants, paper, PDF, Word Docs, good software, crappy software, the lack of software, skilled workers, people masquerading as skilled workers, horrifically understaffed workers, etc. When everything is under control, a seasoned accountant can manage multiple small non-profits and meet all their needs. But when something breaks (such as when the in-house budget analyst of 30 years retired 4 months ago and the position hasn't been filled yet "for the sake of salary savings because we're in a budget crisis"), the contracted accountant has to come in and clean everything up.

AI cannot do that. It may be able to in the future and some of the major firms are acting like they're implementing mandatory AI-usage to get to that point, but no one's screaming EUREKA! yet because they're finding out that AI is expensive, in need of constant oversight, and are trying to hide financial recession layoffs behind the veil of "AI Efficiencies" like everyone else.

Yep. What would more likely happen is that a small developer is selling their game for 3 months at $30, half price for 6 months, 75% off for 3 months, and then fail as a company and have to shut shop. They would then be responsible for refunding $30 to EVERYONE who paid ANYTHING.

That's just untenable.

There is no age verification requirement. It's an age declaration *with no validation* so that vendors know to exclude access or content based on that self-declaration. This was necessary to placate the part of the population that wants actual validation/verification.