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Comment How's the general prosperity? (Score 5, Interesting) 144

Don't talk about productivity or innovation, talk about the general, widespread, median prosperity? Can Germany afford good schools, are kids going hungry in France? These are the measures I care about.

You're talking about measures that INVESTORS care about, and I'm not one.

I just read a dissertation by Terry Chu, a doctoral candidate in Toronto; it was about how different the COVID infection rates were in districts that read mainly Chinese media, and our media. Far worse for us. It turns out the Chinese media mainly wrote about COVID as a public health problem, a risk to life. The main Toronto papers mostly wrote about the *economic* problem, the risk to money-making.

This is another case of writing about "risks to money", not "risks to the population".

Comment Re:Enforcement? (Score 0) 23

You can ask Iraq about that. The ultimate UN Treaty is the Charter itself, whose main provision is "no war", i.e. Article II.4, no use of force against fellow members.

This would all be a bit overwrought and off-topic, except Trump has broadened the exception from international law from "if I have a story about a nuclear threat", to "If I feel that we signed a bad trade deal and I want to throw it in the garbage on a whim"...even for trade deals HE signed a few years ago.

"International Law" now means just about nothing. What's Canada going to do with that lawbreaking? Take it to a US court?
Iraq could theoretically have done that over the Iraq War, too ... hah. Americans are just finding out now how that feels, to have no appeal to justice.

Comment What about white-collar crime? (Score 2) 72

I remember the fanciful suggestion, months back, where AI was going to scan millions of CCTV images just looking for crime in the real world.

But, very obviously, that's hard, and scanning the cyber world of bank and corporate transactions, and numbered corporations and real-estate flips, is much, much easier: it's just scanning a flow of bits for patterns found to be related to frauds and other white-collar crimes, in the past. Could AI scanning of all bank loans and Credit Default Swaps, and leveraging, have spotted the Global Financial Crash before it happened?

Oddly enough, the Masters of the AI Universe have never suggested watching their own economic class for crime, to my knowledge.

Comment Understanding Graft, and why it's bad (Score 4, Interesting) 125

Graft, at least in the US parlance, is when a government official provides government funding to enhance the viability of a private enterprise, while simultaneously investing in that enterprise themselves, and making a killing on the return from that investment, through leveraging the stability and exclusivity of the government's financial contributions to the success of that enterprise.

Why it is bad:

Investing in companies in this manner creates necessary exclusivities which gives unfair market advantages to the recipient of the graft's financial capital. It also creates a quid pro quo relationship between the government official that created the deal, and the enterprise that accepted it, which can be exploited in any number of truly devious and heinous ways.

Now--

If the government wants to support struggling American chip foundries, they can universally invest across the board, while simultaneously imposing a hard rule against *ANY AND ALL* public servants privately investing at the same time.

This, at least in theory, removes the majority of the reasons why the dealmaking is *BAD*. (not all, just most).

Since our legislators balk at the idea of ANY AND ALL forms of *restriction* to their investment activities while in office, and since Pres Trump seems *incapable* of understanding that Quid Pro Quo is *BAD*, I have to come out very much against the government *INVESTING* in companies in this manner.

Comment OH BOY! I just LOVE blatant graft! (Score 1) 101

Picking winners in a such a shockingly open way is the pinnacle of open governance!

Using the office of the presidency to support a company, while heavily investing in them, so that it succeeds and you make lots of money is certainly not illegal!

No, not at all! Certainly not GRAFT, No, THAT'S A CRIME!"

This is PROTECTING AMERICAN INTERESTS, Yeah-- that's it!

Surely!

Comment Re:How does youtube benefit from this scam? (Score 1) 98

The problem is youtube/google is claiming they practice moderation but they don't. Even after content is reported for being illegal like in this case it gets to stay. Instead google is using moderation as an excuse for practicing editorializing instead which wasn't the intent of 230.

I'm curious what you think "unaffiliated" means, since whatever nefarious party is stealing Steve's likeness is definitely posting content on youtube.

Comment Re:Wasn't an offensive joke (Score 2) 162

The AP article added the context of the joke, which didn't make it funny but subjectively I would agree that it was non-serious. One does not passively say "kill all x" after accused of being one of x in a group chat with friends because she is serious.

A manual review and some minor counseling would have solved this problem, but apparently nobody in a position of leadership understood the point of this software.

Comment Re:Forget the AI! (Score 1) 162

Better yet throw them in jail without an opportunity to speak to their lawyer or friends/family. It's too optimistic to think that these cockroaches will be removed from positions of authority, but we can at least give them a dose of their own medicine so they can see how harmful it is.

Comment Re:bully comeuppance AI software (Score 3, Interesting) 162

Just as likely that she was the one being bullied. IDK why you would assume that an incompetent software package being implemented wrongly by a public district would have been correct. This claim that it was all done automatically without any human intervention is also just wrong. There's no way to perform an arrest without the officers involved making a determination of probable cause.

"Hurr durr, computer said you're guilty" isn't a defense.

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