SepiaSapient

The worry about people from other countries kinda implies it, but maybe I'm misreading.

I found the auto translate thing very funny. Like this woman is some train station in Mexico and after getting an invitation in Spanish to some music event she doesn't even try to say "Gracias".

Like yeah, obviously anyone would understand "Thanks" but come on. Was this part of the discussion of some long meeting? Like if she said a word in Spanish it would imply the Air Pods translate your words?

I'm obviously nitpicking but I just found it oddly funny.

I think there's plenty of interest, Samsung, Pixel and Motorola are just some of the companies with multiple generations of foldables. Besides enthusiasts, the type of person that might want an iPhone duo is someone that doesn't really use a laptop. The utility of a tablet for media consumption and light productivity with a small footprint is real thing.

The problems besides price (which are still insane) until now where:

- Materials not catching up, things like the older creases, dust ingress, etc.

- Software in Android being hit or miss, specially on with third parties. Apple has the muscle to make apps compatible with the form factor.

- The "standard" foldable aspect ratio sucking ass, the only major exceptions being the Surface Duo, the original Pixel Fold and the recent Galaxy Fold. Passport format is simply better.

>Imagine if Apple dedicated this huge engineering effort onto existing products.

For what? Slab phones are practically solved, the only things that might make a normal iPhone better besides incrementally better camera, battery and processors are not Apple approved. No expandable storage or cheap battery replacements for you. The only place for real advancemnt will be foldables for a while.

Ah, now the pearl clutching makes sense. Some of other children in daycare are from the bad and weird ethnicity. Would a 23andme be a good requirement for playdates then?

How well does the average person know their neighbors when they move to a new place? Maybe if you had a routine where you and your children meet other families that live close to you... hmmmm

"Local man shocked that human child rearing is communal"

Maybe they are trying hedge due to the original book not being satirical?

This is a non sequitur. Yes, if someone doesn't actually believe in imminent AI doomsday they are not going full Sarah Connor on Anthropic. Yes, HN will not like if someone pipe bombs the office. What does it have to do with @ericmay's point?

He directly says "They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives", that's a claim of imminent threat to humanity. If he truly believes that, direct action shouldn't be off the table nor even be immoral. Obviously he might not have the temperament or simply be a pacifist, that's totally normal but the point is that tweets are weird even then.

Why just make some tepid tweets if you think humanity is at risk? Why doesn't he leak documents and messages with the unfiltered opinions of leadership? Why isn't screaming "we are going to die" in CNBC? You'know, try anything?

That's where the "take it with a grain of salt" is important, maybe this is just a jumping point to a better job in the next super safe AI lab (for realsies this time)

>Because if you don't, then you will be one of its targets when it does, inevitably, come into being.

Only if you don't spend 5 minutes about the Self as a concept. Resurrecting someone by perfect simulation is a cool plot device for a novel like Altered Carbon (which ironically is really about wealth inequality) but not a serious hypothetical.

Even if we ignore that, no, super intelligent MechaGrok17 cannot make a perfect copy of you posthumously from your embarrassing Character.AI chats and IoT toilet data, the copy it still wouldn't be YOU. It would (supposedly) think and behave like you, but for all purposes it would be the Basilisk torturing a future stranger, or your descendants. I'm very much a fan of people not being potentiality tortured, so the rational action is to stop the creation Basilisk, or even just delay it so you aren't around for it. There's a bunch of other big assumptions that makes Roko's Basilisk really stupid, but they are unimportant. It's just theory crafting, like talking about the lore of video games or marvel comics. It doesn't help you understand their real motivations.

Roko's Basilisk is just recontextualized protestant Hell in a sci-fi coat of paint. It's the childhood anxieties of American nerds about hell and sin. The problem is that they are still culturally protestant. God doesn't exist or he's hands off, but in their minds there's still a open position for the wrathful and proactive God. If you think that you actually can create God for realsies, your very rational™ prediction of its behavior will coincidentally line up with your childhood fears.

Why is the spooky AI mad at you? Because you didn't worship it correctly.

Why do you obey it? Because if I don't it will torture me for eternity.

How will it do that? God is omnipotent, don't think about it.

Why don't try to stop it's creation? “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

All the scifi scaffolding and stuff like acausal trade is paint over Timmy's first panic attack on Sunday school 30 years ago.

us-east-1 goes down and half of the "extremely complex and robust technical infrastructure" that Silicon Valley types have built stops working.

The average computer toucher with delusions of grandeur would kill themselves if they had to moderate a public assembly or do a public facing job in a municipal office. Of course you believe that's peon work and your superior intellect with unlimited power as leader would build something better, cue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_Project

My country has stronger worker protections (for now) than the US, but employers would be happy (and do try!) to externalize pay to customers via tip. It doesn't work because people find it insane and refuse the US inspired nag tip screens.

The US will never fix the externalization of salaries until the public refuses to tip at ridiculous percentages and situations. You'll see a 40% tip expectation at restaurants, your local dentist will install a tip screen. Just tip 10% at sitdown places and refuse emotional blackmail. If you feel any guilt, just make the habit to tally the dollar amount of "normal" tips and make monthly donations to your local food bank.

EDIT: My point is that tipping culture is unrelated to worker rights. Many countries with large informal economies (i.e minimum wage isn't enforced for most people) have no expectation of tipping. The reason Norwegians don't tip drivers isn't because they have a wonderful safety net, it's because there's isn't a social pressure to do so.

Mixing charity and payment of services is stupid and a moral hazard. Servers have shit wages in the US by law because people tip and the same is true (via algorithm) with rideshare drivers.

>who tips on Uber? People who aren't sociopaths, I'd say.

Non-americans don't. To me, being socially expected to tip for a Taxi feels like a parody from a sketch comedy. ditto for tipping barbers or expecting tips over 10%. The only time I've tipped a Uber was when me and my friends were at risk of losing a train. The driver (unprompted) went pedal to the metal to make it on time, so afterwards I gave him a couple of bucks.

Tip culture is bad for rideshare drivers in aggregate anyways. The apps carefully manage the pay of drivers on each market so necessary supply is guaranteed at minimal cost. If a expectation of tipping exists, the platforms simply pay less. Now drivers also have maximize for tips instead of just driving the goddamn car.

Nobody tokenmaxxes because they like it, so it doesn't even produce joy. Besides, your argument is that something being wasteful is a simple binary, so we cannot make a value judgement without being the grinch.

For sure, it's arm twisting and/or individual moles, I doubt Apple is brimming with patriotism. As far as I remember participation in the OG PRISM wasn't really optional, the only "perks" were immunity from civil liability. I assume that any of the "lucky" individuals that have to interface with the NSA are well compensated. They also know they are on a veeery short leash.

The other option is good ye old agent cultivation, there must be a degenerate gambler high up in Apple that the MSS or FSB can exploit.

It's mostly bragging, it's impressive after all. Still... after the alleged Apple industrial espionage kerfuffle, I'm kinda suspicious about it being fully an accident. Y'know, your model finds a vulnerability and it stops, it's a cool one, so maybe you run it again. Nudge the prompt a little.

Could be perfectly natural.

Here's the content rules https://openai.com/policies/ad-policies, specifically in gambling:

> Ads promoting products or services that involve wagering money on games of chance, skill, or uncertain outcomes are currently disallowed. This includes casino or betting promotions, online sports betting, lotteries, and poker or gaming platforms that offer cash prizes.

> Ads for casinos may be permitted only when promoting lodging, travel, or entertainment experiences where gambling is not the focus (e.g., a hotel stay at a casino resort). Digital games that do not involve real-money wagering or cash prizes may also be allowed.

Hmmmm, the "digital games" seems suspect

I said it on another comment, but OpenAI doesn't seem like the type of company to value human oversight and "Go beyond keywords with richer context signals" sure sounds like the regular model with a specific system prompt.

>What else: the right medication for an overdose? The right fertiliser for an improvised explosive? The possibilities for adverts with that all-important long tail of earned media news coverage are endless.

To be fair, there's a lot of wild shit in the ads of Google and Facebook, and they seem to avoid too much scrutiny. Maybe it's not gonna be "cards against humanity" esque fuckup with a problematic chat and a (originally) benign ad. There could be some sad teen talking about bullying and they get an ad for the Gen Z equivalent of The Turner Diaries and the local gun store.

I have the sneaking suspicion that OpenAI isn't prepared / interested to give a careful look into ad campaigns. Any bets on fucked up ads taking advantage of the convo context? I'm thinking:

- financial anxiety + kelshi

- random cooking question + galaxy gas

- suicidal thoughts + shotgun

Brainfart on my part. I was referring to what @majorchord was worrying about, the unencrypted messages in the client get exfiltrated and get sent to the spooks using steganography on some benign request, edited my comment.

My mental model is that most competent intelligence agencies have a PRISM 3.0 deal with FAANG, including on E2E products or at least have devs on the payroll. I imagine that any backdoor is only used on important targets, so no intel sharing with Cletus the deputy.

Truly being honest, I think CSAM scanning of private comms is ineffective in the long term anyways. Pedophiles aren't stupid, you'll drag a bunch at first but the networks will be reestablished and sharing will be done via sneakernet.

The primary focus should always in preventing the creation of CSAM.

- Comprehensive Sex Ed starting young so kids can identify grooming and seek help from a trusted adult, even if abuse comes from a family member.

- Fixing schools in general so homeschooling isn't as attractive for parents. Keep a tab on home schooled children and identify social isolation.

- Bigger resources for actual honest to god on the ground investigations.

To be clear I'm not saying that homeschooling = child abuse, simply there's a lack of the mechanisms to detect it in homeschooling settings.

Beyond the privacy marketing angle, e2e allows companies with global exposure to sidestep any unpleasantness when they get a subpoena from Bumfuck, Nowhere.

Sure, the NSA, GCHQ and Mossad have a way to get the encrypted data by a sidechannel but proprietary e2e is a good thing for most people IMO. Shifts the risk from "my messages are theoretically available to most law enforcement in the globe" to "YOU’RE STILL GONNA BE MOSSAD’ED UPON"[0]. This is specially good for me because I know the equivalent to the FBI where is live is too cheap to buy a Cellebrite [1] license.

[0] https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/10/leaker-reveals-which...

EDIT: I suppose someone could ask about Meta. The reason behind their support for scanning (and removing e2e in facebook msg) is simply regulatory capture. The zucc wishes to have a letter of marque to "protect" your children and remove the "unsafe" competitors.

"Little devs" in this context is still a company that probably has investors, investors that can push for the acquisition. Even if a small dev studio is self funded or has normal debt that they can realistically pay off, the money on the table for the owner is hard to resist. If the owner has qualms, the whole pitch of "we'll give you artistic independence and the funds to make what you want" will seal the deal.

The only people that can tell Microsoft to gargle their gonads are already rich as fuck or have a will of steel and principles uncommon with entrepreneurs.

Not to start a linguistic rabbit hole but the correct analogy would be "a certain language and social dialect tend to produce stories with a certain theme and dialog".

>Ridiculous and provably false.

If you prefer a counterexample, a couple of years ago I noticed that Apex Legends was a Source engine game without external info, and that Source version is heavily modified. Of course one can modify the provided defaults to a point that even the most no-life individual couldn't guess the engine.

I watched a cool video about the whole "engine grain" thing recently with more examples. https://youtu.be/SOwYqwsEdXc

Wouldn't the lack of medical expenditure win out against the loss of consumption from a pension?

Seems like it's true [0], the net migration has fallen since the year 2000. I imagine that the people commute from Poland to DE is also a factor.

[0] https://stat.gov.pl/en/topics/population/internationa-migrat...

(Spoilers for The Wire)

I buy the whole thing that some cultures give more weight to face-saving than others. I would classify my supposedly western country (Chile) as one that gives it more weight than, for example, Germany. Even then, this just sounds like a kneejerk "you cannot trust these dastardly orientals".

Face saving is a thing in the US, to the point that it's a common plot point prestige TV (e.g most of The Wire). It's an accepted fact in political campaign with spin doctors. The 30K in credit card debt to keep up appearances is also face culture. The hustle culture, etc.

You don't need to be racist, you just can be skeptic of the claims of an autocratic government.

As a inverse example: a (German) family member has lived fully immersed for 20+ years in my Spanish speaking country.

I doubt he could pass a C2 level test, there's simply a hard limit in language learning for most people without academic instruction. It's also pointless, he's had a long career in a professional field where clear communication is mission critical. Furthermore even if another foreigner with a shiny Spanish C2 certificate appeared they would fare worse, because they wouldn't know the local social minutia.

Aside from jobs in the Literature department or something, a C2 requirement is a "foreigners need not apply" sign.

Linking to the equivalent of "@groq is this true??" should be mocked.

Did they pay the toll? Or the worries of NSA weren't actually bullshit?

I mean, yes? I heard of these Chinese resellers like a week ago and put it on the TODO pile due to a lack of leads. Now I'm gonna go trough the list and see if there's any I find acceptable.

If enough Westerners start using the service someone will make a website more anglo-friendly.