My take is that it is kind of exclusive today, because the economy is designed and limited against the ecology, but that's not a fundamental given. It comes down from the choice of humanity to extract itself from nature. That's a choice and a story we can identify, criticise, and counter with another choice. Which would take some time, but... that's all we have.
What is it actually? Is it giving status, or taste? Is it private or is it spying? Is it giving help in everyday life, that no other existing experience can replace? Is it a platform for developers to find a killer app?
At this price level?
This looks so much like an undecided mix of: 1/ a solution looking for a problem to solve, 2/ glasses that don't know how to brand for fashion, 3/ a preview platform.
I understand the website doesn't address users first, but it really feels like a missed opportunity to show a typical, simple use case in the front page (as in, "as a user, what's in it for me?").
A quickstart link is buried in there, and that's good, but the value of the product is multi-faceted and doesn't address data architecture only.
I totally get that face recognition is an issue for some. And that some tech may be of help with that.
But if said tech implies putting everyone at risk (because the privacy is not properly implemented in this tech, and because it is even obviously weaponised as it is today), it is a hard sell.
Privacy is a fundamental right, not the end of everything.
And you axiomize progress.
Although the question isn’t one against the other. It is whether progress justifies treating people as objects, as data providers without consent. That’s not a curious axiom, that’s the basis of all rights-based systems since 1948. Or 1785 (Kant). Or 1215 (Habeas Corpus). Or 1750 BCE (Hammurabi code).
Rules are all made up (as tech is) for the purpose of enabling society and lowering suffering. Who was harmed? Everyone whose private personal information have been leaked without consent. Who was harmed? Who have been manipulated into voting? How has the damage not been diffuse and probabilistically significant? (otherwise, why would Cambridge Analytica even funded and paid for? As well as the whole advertising industry?)
And, a fundamental right does not need an existing harm to be justified into existence: it is a right as first principle.
Saying ja/oui to something, is saying nein/non to something else.
If all you have is taking sides with what ought to be dismissed, or rather, discussed and controlled, rather than let alone wild at the expense of most people, that's a choice that is yours.
How can we still believe in the trust idea when 1/ accidental leaks happen every single day and 2/ corporations do not even hide any more their intent and uses of the collected data? (Pokemon Go being the « funniest » recent one)
At some point, the regulatory/legal backlash will require hard personal responsibility (that is, jail consequences) for this to be taken seriously at the corporate and technical levels and so trust to be reinstated.
Right, but PetSmart was an existing retailer that added e-commerce, not a startup burning VC money on an unproven model: the tech worked, the hype-driven bet didn't.
GenAI has its uses. That it will transform everything for everyone, and that this justifies to dump laws and people, that's the part that deserves hard-earned scrutiny.
E-commerce succeeded, but not in the form Pets and WebVan proposed, and not in the timeline their investors needed.
The question is not: is it useful, but (as any investor asks): does this bet, at this valuation, deliver what it promises, in time? That's the audit we need.
When the bet distorts global semiconductor supply chains, displaces workers, and rides on mass IP infringement... skepticism looks more like due diligence than contrarianism.
She says something more structural than that: there's a pattern, sold by the same people, with the same contempt to social consequences and democratic rules: GenAI, multiverse, NFTs, cryptos; what else next?
Incidentally, each "wave" justifies massive investment in the same technology: GPUs, for transformations that do not materialise _at scale_.
That raises the questions: why? Who captures the value? Who bears the cost? Why are we always skipping the audit? What happens when the "GPU bubble" bursts?
A ring was thematic, friends, interest.