Meh, we're talking something that should in bulk be the price of a low-end car and works 24/7 without breaks. Hard to make the case that that's not "economically practical". And as for realism, I'd take a mixed stance.

The truth lies somewhere between you and the GP.

Against the GP: the plan IS to have robots do those sorts of things. And there's real progress being made.

Against you: it's not simply a matter of "being programmed to do those things". Robotics is the least advanced AI field at present - in part because there's no convenient internet-scale training datasets to work with for real-world interactions, and also because accumulating physical real-world interactions impose time and cost bottlenecks. Beyond all issues of longevity in real-world (physically taxing / complex ) environments. I think a bet that we're *not* going to get their in our lives is a very bad bet (unless you're currently on palliative care!), but talking about it like it's just "some programmer needs to code a specific job" just isn't where we are - carefully curated and parameter-defined stunts aside.

Think, for example, of automated driving as another example. Very real progress over many years. Also still not to the mass deployment stage. And that's a much more "controlled environment", with much larger datasets, than general-purpose robotics. I must stress that "general purpose" aspect, because that's what's needed for the sort of jobs in question here. It's not simply "robot arm that's bolted down, target gets inserted into the target location, series of precise actions taken on it". The real world has an endless series of "unexpected things" in it, and a robot doing real-world physical chores absolutely must be adaptive to them.

Reality: No. They're forming a wholly-owned LLC, not a 501(c)(3) charity. They're treated as a disregarded entity for tax purposes. Transferring shares from Anthropic to the new LLC is just moving money from Anthropic's left pocket to its right pocket. You don't get a tax deduction from that. To get a deduction from IRC 170, you have to make an irrevocable transfer to a qualified 501(c)(3) charity.

If Anthropic later donates from this LLC to actual charities, it could then claim a corporate charitable deduction (against up to 10% of their profits - and note that word, profits; also, there's no breaks for UBI programs targeted at individuals). But the formation of this entity and transfer of 5% of their shares to it does not give them any sort of a tax break whatsoever, and there's no difference between donating from this structure to a charity and donating directly from Anthropic. In fact, by forming this structure, they're skipping a potential tax break that they could get by forming and donating to a 501(c)(3) upfront.

(If your next question is "why not a 501(c)(3), then?", the answer is because there's all sorts of IRS restrictions on 501(c)(3)s, including distributing at least 5% of assets annually, excise taxes on investment gains, strict limits on cash transfers to individuals, etc)

I get that it's popular for mod points to be cynical, but at least focus your cynicism on factuality. Try this: "We found a PR cheat! And how to turn things our CEO wants to do anyway and might not do until many years from now into a pre-IPO press release!"

Why?

I run a Shopify store, and if anybot wants to buy from me, by all means, and please invite all your bot-friends!

I think the only merchants who should be fearing this are ones relying on brand recognition rather than low prices and good products, since bots have more time to "shop around".

BTW, this also applies to old games. Have an old game that no longer runs on modern operating systems? In Europe, you have the right to task an AI to fix it so it will run.

Adding *new features*, mind you, is trickier. You're not allowed to decompile and alter a program to add new features, but you *are* allowed to decompile for interoperability purposes. So you are within your rights to task an AI to decompile a program to figure out how to link a mod into it and then to write a mod.

In Europe, it is. Article 6 of the Software Directive grants an "interoperability exemption". The lawful licensee of software has the statutory right to strip DRM in order to achieve interoperability. Any EULA terms that prohibit reverse engineering for interoperability are automatically treated as void. Article 5(1) of Directive 2009/24/EC also grants the ability to decompile to fix bugs that impair the ability to use the software, even if the supplier prohibits it. So long as you don't then start sharing your "offline mode" version of the software, you're within your rights

People in Europe are within their rights to task an AI to decompile and tweak a game they own make an "offline mode" version of it, or to create their own servers or whatnot if the manufacturer plans to shut them down or otherwise strip features that the user paid for.

Of course, the US is less consumer-friendly in this regard.

I think they would have needed a different economic model to align the interests of employers and employees, but there is a fundamental problem because the time scales are not aligned. The employers should be paying in relation to their longer-term results while most of the employees who are eager to work have shorter time horizons... Until they start thinking at a career level?

I feel like recycling the same joke about aging...

But as regards the story, the LinkedIn joke I was looking for was something like "Too late. That war has already been lost."

Only mention of social security in the largish discussion. I should have looked for that rather than retirement before I posted my comment or wannabe joke...

(But I never got a nickel from social security, even though I heard I was qualified some years ago... Don't need it and never expected to see any money from it. Self-fulfilling prophecy strikes again? Or it should have been marketed to me as a kind of insurance against living too long?)

At least for the people who live long enough. That was my reaction to the story, but there is no mention of retired people in the large discussion, but I have a pension now and spend all of my time reading, walking, and visiting libraries to find new stuff to read.

However going for funny, I do have a related (for extremely tangential values of "related") thought of the day:

Youth = Average of changes is better.
Maturity = Changes average out to zero.
Old age = Average of changes is worse.
So have a good day until you die and get off the ride.

I feel like I must have gotten that from someone somewhere, but I cant recall the source. Did I read it or hear something? Does it ring any bells in your head? Maybe a philosopher sometime in some book?

As for Islamic countries, there's only two that ban women from driving: Afghanistan and Turkmenistan - both de facto / arbitrary / adminstrative bans rather than official bans (e.g. refusing to issue/renew licenses, requiring guardians for long-distance travel, or things of that nature). Saudi Arabia revoked their ban in 2018. And Iran has always allowed women to drive (though they have to cover their hair while driving).

*Full, nationwide bans*? No. But the Soviet Union banned women from many types of driving (as "arduous and hazardous"), such as driving subways, long-haul freight, various kinds of heavy construction machinery, etc. These were inherited and retained post-Soviet states, including Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, though the lists of jobs has dropped over time. Even today, in Belarus (where Lukaschenko talks up the nation's foundational Christian values), under Article 262, women can't drive a firetruck or operate heavy machinery with significant vibration (under the grounds of "safeguarding womens' reproductive health")

Heck, even in the US, up until 2015,, women couldn't drive a tank, an IFV, a mobile artillery piece, operate a submarine (until 2010), or a number of other military roles. And Hegseth wants to reverse the earlier decisions. And Trump also seems to have it in for women as even commercial airline pilots as well.

It's a special word for "Slashdot will always be broken so it can't check the spelling in the Subject." I did manage to catch one of those yesterday, but...

Just joking. There's actually a way to tweak my browser to prevent the Subject field from being excluded in the local spelling check, but then I run into another broken financial model where my browser may get broken at any time in some new way so they can add some new feature I'll never use...

However in relation to this story, if either setting creates a security vulnerability, we can now count on AI helping the bad guys find it. Wherever the victims are.

NAK

(The way AC should be.)

Local news has been filled with repeated incidents involving AI-empowered PII theft. It's especially nefarious in the situation where the exfiltrated data is not English. The people managing the data are not fluent in English, but the systems protecting the data are fundamentally English. The attackers have a major advantage when their English-based comprehension of the security systems is higher than the defenders' comprehension. After they have stolen the data they have plenty of time to figure out what it means and which parts are most valuable for resale or blackmail.

However this story is more about an obvious target created by policies that favor computerized testing. Side effect of the convenience is that the target became so large and ripe for theft. I'm only surprised it wasn't stolen long ago.