SnotFlickerman

Do they think the hands-off treatment that giant corporations that basically print money get is going to somehow "trickle down" to them, too?

Because last I checked, the guys who ran Jetflicks are facing jail time. Like, potentially longer jail time than most murder sentences.

...but letting OpenAI essentially do the same without consequences will mean Open Source AI people will somehow get the same hands-off treatment? That just reeks of bullshit to me.

I just don't fucking buy it and letting massive corporations just skirt IP laws while everyone else gets fucked hard by those same IP laws just doesn't seem like the best hill to die on, yet plenty of people who are anti-copyright/anti-IP laws are dying on this fucking hill.

What gives?

I am personally of the opinion that current IP/copyright laws are draconian, but that IP/copyright isn't inherently a bad thing. I just know, based on previous history in the US, that letting the Big Guys skirt laws almost never leads to Little Guys getting similar treatment.

Also, I hope this is an okay place for this rant. Thanks for keeping this space awesome. Please remove if this is inappropriate for this forum, please and thank you.

EDIT: Thanks so much everyone. Great answers. This has been fun. Keep it going as long as you want!

DISCLAIMER: Silly Thought Exercise: NOT AN ENDORSEMENT OF REPLACING BIDEN. I personally do not think replacing Biden is a good idea at this stage in the election. I think that's more dangerous than keeping him, sadly, but he's who we've got. I'm just looking for shitposty thoughts on this question, please and thank you.

What-over-the-top absurd person would you choose to replace Biden who you think could actually body Trump, and why?

For an example, my choice would be based on the idea that the only thing that makes a bully like Trump wilt is a bigger bully. Secondly, US citizens love trash talking and sports and absolutely will vote for someone who is already famous, they certainly love their celebrities. Finally, what better sport for trash talk than basketball?

In that, my choice would be basketball legend Larry Bird. (he's famously apolitical, so it's hard to know if he would actually be politically aligned against Trump.)

...but, the thing is, Larry Bird is a masterclass trash talker.

And that is really what throws Trump off and throws him into obscene tantrums where his composure is lost and he comes off like a whining loser: when he's been taken down a peg by someone else. Nothing sticks deeper in his craw. I don't think he could handle Larry Bird's level of shit-talk, Bird is like god-tier.

I can imagine Bird calling Trump out and saying he can smell his shit-filled diaper from across the auditorium, obviously Bird would describe more colorfully than I. The thing is, I can also see that absolutely throwing Trump into hysterics.

Also, at 67 Bird's a fucking spring chicken compared to Biden or Trump.

So, I'm hoping for answers that are a bit silly, like this. Larry Bird is obviously not actually a good choice for this. I just like chuckling at the idea, because real life has gotten so absurd I need to hide in even deeper absurdity.

What's your absurd Biden replacement? Please, I think we could use some laughs.

I'm bored and making Hundreds of Beavers gifs.

If this is the wrong place for this, I apologize in advance and it's okay if it gets removed.

First, it was bad enough for Elon Musk references, but now...

The real life Paul Stamets, for which the character is named, hired union busters at his business, Fungi Perfecti.

https://www.thestand.org/2024/05/fungi-perfecti-workers-joining-together-with-liuna-252/

But rather than recognizing and respecting these workers’ right to join together free from management interference, the union reports that Fungi Perfecti has responded by hiring the union-busting firms of Littler Mendelson P.C. and the American Labor Group. These firms represent clients such as Amazon, Apple, Google, and Starbucks, all of which have faced multiple Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charges with the National Labor Relations Board for illegally interfering in their employees’ freedom to unionize.

These firms have attempted to slow the momentum of Fungi Perfecti workers’ organizing drive with typical union-busting tactics like “unrequired” meetings that are heavily encouraged.

“ALG has been distributing anti-union propaganda that, in some cases, are outright lies,” said Derek Sewell, a warehouse worker for Fungi Perfecti. “But we will not be discouraged. It’s just unfortunate that they are spending thousands of dollars on union-busting to try to discourage us rather than investing in making Fungi Perfecti and better and more sustainable place to work.”

Anyway, my opinion is firmly that if they're going to make references, it needs to be about people who are already dead, whose negatives are known, and who can't come back and fuck your reference up by becoming a horrible person as your life goes on.

Because these living people keep revealing how Un-Star-Trek they are, imho.

We're heading to New Vegas in Season 2, and this is the only character I really would like to see resurface, mostly because Yes Man saved me from never finishing New Vegas. I was starting to get bored with the plot and Yes Man brought me back in.

Dave Foley killed as it Yes Man, and I would love to see him back in the role. I was a big fan of Foley from Kids in the Hall/News Radio days, and I was overjoyed when I ran into Yes Man and recognized his voice. Dave Foley has exactly the kind of absurd cheery demeanor a character like Yes Man needs.

Further, I'm going to assume the Courier/Yes Man taking over the Strip ending of New Vegas probably isn't canon, it means there's ample opportunity potentially for Yes Man to continue being the best Yes Man that he is.

Hell, I'd love to see any of the Kids in the Hall in Season 2, honestly. Kevin McDonald keeps looking weirder every fucking year, he would fit in with wastelanders. Hell, the new Kids in the Hall season was an Amazon Prime show, and both Kevin and Dave went full frontal nudity with their weird old bodies. They're the right kind of fit for the wasteland.

I would also think Foley's "Doomsday DJ" sketch is a great example of why they need him in Season 2 of Fallout.

https://youtu.be/qVGq3dU_LNM

First time playing an "evil" campaign, with a friend running a Durge.

We're failing so miserably in so many comic ways.

We killed most of the origin companions because they're mostly good two-shoes. When we were done only Lae'zel and Astarion were left.

In Act 2, because we murdered Shadowheart in Act 1, we were locked out of killing the Nightsong because we didn't have Shar's Chosen with us. Even after killing Isobel, somehow we ended up with both Jaheira and the Nightsong at our camp, through bad decisions and forgetting to save frequently.

Further, Minthara was glitched and missing in Act 2 after our Durge romanced her in Act 1 but chose not to give in to her urge and kill Minthara because we wanted to recruit her Overly Attached Girlfriend self to our party.

By Act 3, our Monk said "I feel like we're bad at being evil."

I sort of do, too. Being a goody-two-shoes in real life can make it hard to know how to be a sinister mustache twirling villain.

Money wins, every time. They're not concerned with accidentally destroying humanity with an out-of-control and dangerous AI who has decided "humans are the problem." (I mean, that's a little sci-fi anyway, an AGI couldn't "infect" the entire internet as it currently exists.)

However, it's very clear that the OpenAI board was correct about Sam Altman, with how quickly him and many employees bailed to join Microsoft directly. If he was so concerned with safeguarding AGI, why not spin up a new non-profit.

Oh, right, because that was just Public Relations horseshit to get his company a head-start in the AI space while fear-mongering about what is an unlikely doomsday scenario.

So, let's review:

1. The fear-mongering about AGI was always just that. How could an intelligence that requires massive amounts of CPU, RAM, and database storage even concievably able to leave the confines of its own computing environment? It's not like it can "hop" onto a consumer computer with a fraction of the same CPU power and somehow still be able to compute at the same level. AI doesn't have a "body" and even if it did, it could only affect the world as much as a single body could. All these fears about rogue AGI are total misunderstandings of how computing works.

2. Sam Altman went for fear mongering to temper expectations and to make others fear pursuing AGI themselves. He always knew his end-goal was profit, but like all good modern CEOs, they have to position themselves as somehow caring about humanity when it is clear they could give a living flying fuck about anyone but themselves and how much money they make.

3. Sam Altman talks shit about Elon Musk and how he "wants to save the world, but only if he's the one who can save it." I mean, he's not wrong, but he's also projecting a lot here. He's exactly the fucking same, he claimed only he and his non-profit could "safeguard" AGI and here he's going to work for a private company because hot damn he never actually gave a shit about safeguarding AGI to begin with. He's a fucking shit slinging hypocrite of the highest order.

4. Last, but certainly not least. Annie Altman, Sam Altman's younger, lesser-known sister, has held for a long time that she was sexually abused by her brother. All of these rich people are all Jeffrey Epstein levels of fucked up, which is probably part of why the Epstein investigation got shoved under the rug. You'd think a company like Microsoft would already know this or vet this. They do know, they don't care, and they'll only give a shit if the news ends up making a stink about it. That's how corporations work.

So do other Lemmings agree, or have other thoughts on this?

And one final point for the right-wing cranks: Not being able to make an LLM say fucked up racist things isn't the kind of safeguarding they were ever talking about with AGI, so please stop conflating "safeguarding AGI" with "preventing abusive racist assholes from abusing our service." They aren't safeguarding AGI when they prevent you from making GPT-4 spit out racial slurs or other horrible nonsense. They're safeguarding their service from loser ass chucklefucks like you.

A pair of brothers muse on mortality.