This isn't helpful or realistic. It's becoming more and more difficult to keep all your personal data private and function in society, which is all by design for companies like Meta.
I was holding out hope for Q*, which OAI talked about with hushed tones to make it seem revolutionary and maybe even dangerous, but that ended up being o1. o1 is neat, but its far from a breakthrough. It's just recycling the same engine behind GPT-4 and making it talk to itself before spitting out its response to your prompt. I'm quite sure they've hit a ceiling and are now using smoke-and-mirrors techniques to keep the hype and perceived pace-of-progress up.
Waymo robotaxis, the current state of the art for real-world AI robotics, are thwarted by a simple traffic cone placed on the roof. I don't think human labor is going away any soon.
Lazy journalism is to blame here, as always. Newsrooms have been purged of any talent over the last decade and the only people left are the same "perpetually-online wannabe influencers" you talk about, trawling Twitter for easy stories and rage-clicks. Nobody would have heard or cared about this ad if formerly esteemed publications like NYT weren't running lazy stories about it.
25 years is a long, long time. He's going to spend the best years of his life in federal prison and come out the other side in a world that's moved on without him. 25 years ago the World Trade Center buildings were still standing.
IMO, if we're thinking of sentencing someone to 50 years or life in prison, we should cut to the chase and execute them instead. It's faster and cheaper for the taxpayers, and arguably less cruel.
I've seen people in the cryptography space use airquotes when referring to cryptocurrency to show their contempt for what they see as a scammy riff on their very serious and important work.
For those wondering, prosecutors asked for 50 years in prison, defense asked for 5 years. So this sentence is right down the middle. 50 years in prison would have been way too long IMO.
Obviously the issue that they're promoting is in their interests, but its the same for everyone else. Nobody would promote an issue that didn't benefit them! When Google and Facebook blacked out their sites to stop SOPA, that was because it was in their interests too, SOPA would have kneecapped the Web just as it was beginning to take off.
What frustrates me about this discussion is the way that people take anything TikTok does here and assumes that it's out of evil and malicious intent, with very little proof other than its murky links to China, which feels very Cold War 2.0.
Raising awareness about a bill in Congress and giving US citizens the tools to speak to their representatives about it isn't "manipulating democracy", it promotes democracy. That is a foundational part of how American democracy is supposed to work, the reps vote on bills but the citizens have the last word - if that's so unacceptable that lawmakers would change sides to ban TikTok in response then Americans should start making funeral preparations for their democracy, because it sounds like these lawmakers want their constituents to be docile, silent and ignorant.
> The irony with your comment is that TikTok's masters in China already have the same power that SOPA was supposed to grant the US government
Yes, the power of democracy. People spoke up and prevented a harmful law from being passed - why is TikTok exercising that right, in the same way as Google and Facebook, a problem? It sounds like you want the US to become like the CCP instead of vice versa.
>That TikTok executives are as liable to US laws and prosecution as Facebook execs?
They absolutely are - again, TikTok is an American company with American employees who can be held liable if TikTok breaks the law - e.g. Shou Chew. The problem for the government is that TikTok hasn't broken any laws.
Broadcast news and radio are able to be restricted because the the US government owns the airwaves - there is (still) no meaningful regulation of the internet in the United States and therefore communications over the internet are protected by the First Amendment.
How is it a mistake for TikTok to ask Americans to participate in their representative democracy? Do we not remember when Google and Facebook blacked out their sites to stop SOPA from passing, how is TikTok's notification any different?
TikTok is run out of the United States and adheres to the same laws as Twitter and Facebook. Its CEO, Shou Chew, was just at a hearing in front of Congress last month.
>Why does everybody feel entitled to use it if they're not using Apple products?
Because I want to talk to my friends without being locked into Apple's ecosystem. Simple as that, I don't need any other reason.
This language about "entitlement" feels like when Google complains about people using adblockers on YT - I don't care because they're both $2T corporations, and the only "entitlement" I see is the way Apple and Google think they're entitled to my money and my data.