The genius part is that the negotiations that determine how much they can get away with charging completely excludes the consumer. Two for-profit entities, with no mandate to actually provide care, decide how much they should pay each other.
I don't think most adults can get much social value or satisfaction from an AI conversation they know is not a real person. Those who can get that satisfaction likely have so few human-to-human interactions that an AI companion may be as good a solution to chronic loneliness as any.
I'd be more worried about the inevitable robo-nannies who could end up talking more to young children than actual people.
“Obesity and diabetes could easily account for all of this,”
Wither Ozempic? I've seen several friends and family members use it to great effect and thought it might sweep the nation. But I imagine most of the same barriers that keep people from eating better or moving more are also in play when trying to engage with any new habit.
Seems like a minor issue, since most men only utilize their sperm two or three times in their entire lives, if at all. Maybe men should be freezing sperm while they're young and virile.
The list of legislation we need is getting very big very fast, but our Congress is dysfunctional and the president only cares about the SAVE act. Even when we've had a functional Congress, most protections like these are written in favor of corporations and/or weakened by the next administration.
You're suggesting a for-profit company both hobbled it's own product and is actively lying about doing so. The only way that's true is if the Trump admin has crawled all the way up Anthropic's ass. But by all accounts, this is just another 10% effort by Trump and friends.
Meanwhile, China is pushing the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO), which, in the face of internal divisions and impotent leadership among Western nations, could prove to be the first global regime that China gets to build and lead.
All of the agencies responsible for those regulations were created by and get their funding from Congress. Currently, they're asleep at the wheel. Or a better idiom might be "cowering in the corner".
Trade is being reconfigured in the midst of Trump's idiotic trade war (and even more idiotic real war) and militaries worldwide, particularly our closest allies, are seeking non-US sources of arms.
AI and microchips should probably be treated like nuclear weapons and disease research. They all have profound non-military value, but powerful nations hoard them, build elaborate systems to deter proliferation, and reap most of the benefits. It's not exactly fair, but it's worked surprisingly well with some technologies over several generations.
But I don't see it happening soon, which probably means it will be too late. There's simply not enough competent political leadership in the world.
It's also too bad our society shares in the collective delusion that sex work can be prevented. It not only makes sex work far more dangerous, but it tramples on these exact kinds of novel spaces for sex/intimacy.
At a certain point, people value reliability over improved performance. I think a lot of us have hit that point as this technology becomes indispensable to our work. I'm sure I'll use Fable... eventually. But at 2x the cost, I'll skip the inevitable learning curve for now. And thanks for your insights! Not surprising to me that any new model would, as this juncture, be more cryptic and inconsistent than the current models.
I appreciate this comment immensely - too many people seem to mindlessly assume that every other person shares their own situations, and it could not be less true.
The Trump administration has been working overtime trying to build databases of people in this country. Leaving no stone unturned, legal or otherwise. I vaguely remember a time when American conservatives were against precisely this, often as a first principle. Maybe that's just an idealized memory on my part.