FWIW, the contract-for-hire charges were never prosecuted probably because the agents who cajoled Ulbricht into setting it up were eventually convicted of stealing bitcoin from the operation. See: https://reason.com/2016/08/02/ross-ulbrichts-conviction-sent...
As an alternative approach, I tested whether large language models (LLMs) could provide more realistic estimates by simulating compliance scenarios in the final section of this post. I prompted ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok to act as compliance officers at companies subject to new CCPA provisions and a Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) rule, asking each to estimate hours needed for first-year implementation and ongoing compliance.
The big takeaways:
* For California's risk assessment regulation, Claude and Grok project 400-580 hours will be needed for the first-year of compliance (vs. the official 120 hours) and 150-240 hours thereafter (vs. the official 18-36 hours annually). ChatGPT estimates the time at 90-250 hours initially and 40-150 hours for each additional year.
* For the automated decision-making provision of the CCPA, Claude and Grok project 450-730 hours for first-year compliance, far exceeding the official 360-hour estimate. While ChatGPT suggests lower initial costs (80-300 hours), all three LLMs predict significantly higher ongoing annual costs than official projections.
* For the BIS reporting rule, Claude projects 1,140 hours for first-year compliance (3x the official estimate of 333 hours), while ChatGPT estimates 280 hours and Grok projects 380 hours. All three LLMs agree ongoing compliance will require substantial resources.
In short, the LLMs consistently predicted much higher compliance costs than the official sources, suggesting a systematic underestimation.
EU/EC officials aren't secret that they make as much as possible illegal to get companies to come in and talk with them before they launch products. I have heard this at least twice from the source and more than a couple times from other people I know.
Do you think the three part distinction made in The Chip War still basically makes sense?
> By the 2000s, it was common to split the semiconductor industry into three categories. “Logic” refers to the processors that run smartphones, computers, and servers. “Memory” refers to DRAM, which provides the short-term memory com puters need to operate, and flash, also called NAND, which remembers data over time. The third category of chips is more diffuse, including analog chips like sensors that convert visual or audio signals into digital data, radio frequency chips that communicate with cell phone networks, and semiconductors that manage how devices use e lectricity.
That first citation was partly written by Hal Singer. Singer was one of the key witnesses (ie economists) in the recent Within case and the courts basically rejected his theories outright. When I’ve got more time tomorrow I’ll post some of the other material that this piece doesn’t cite. The data isn’t as clean as this piece would suggest. In short, there is a big debate in economics about all of the items that they cite.
[F]ar from a public square, social media is largely a spectator sport when it comes to sharing political views. When politics does come up, people come to watch others duke it out, while working hard to avoid participating.
Public squares have always been styled as places where the general public would gather to share and exchange ideas, discuss politics, and engage in debate. This is not what is happening online. The Pew Research Center's survey of social media users found that only 9 percent of those online say they often discuss, comment, or post about politics. Most people are uncomfortable discussing politics, including in online arenas.
Both these polls add depth to a well-understood trend: People live a lot of their lives online—yet they still rarely engage in politics there. Only the politically active are going online to talk politics. The rest of us are going there to watch, like spectators at a coliseum.