It doesn’t matter how it’s done at all, this is still 100% scumbaggery.

I blame two parties: the company, and the lack of law enforcement that goes after that company with fines large enough to end its existence and/or jail time for its executives.

Corporate veil blah blah blah. Antitrust or pierce it. Enough is enough.

It’s high time for an entirely new branch of legal theory and code in the United States: Corporate Criminal Law.

Or for that matter, where they get their air?! Oh gosh golly darn, gee, if Earth is providing air to those commie bastards…

I may not agree with their political views, but to say that the tool is the problem is equivalent to saying guns kill people instead of people that use guns. The problem isn’t the tool or their point of view, or then even speaking about it - the problem comes from humans not controlling themselves. Any actor taking any adverse or malicious action inspired by words or ideas isn’t the fault of the ideator or author, but of the actor failing in self control.

Gotta reign this insanity in.

Going internationally, particularly in today’s geopolitical climate, gets even more complicated.

It generally boils down to law, taxes, government issues when you get down to it.

With as many Ph.D.s as there are at Google, you’d think they’d be smarter than to come up with this. Which is how you know the PMs are in charge, not the smart people.

Edit: seems even this is just the summary first two paragraphs.

I mean, that’s pretty rich coming from the folks willfully engaging in human rights violating surveillance to overwhelm you with obscure useless nonsense that is literally an assault on your time, attention and mental health all for the 0.00001% chance of a vague hope you’ll click or tap their lie of an ad for snake oil that doesn’t work and is designed to steal your credit card number anyway, all just to make them rich so they won’t have to get a real job in the first place.

Moral argument. Right.

I can see how that would sound/read a bit strange to one coming from another culture. It’s just another way of stating the concept of the purpose behind the reason for a person’s request, actions, statement, or in this case, why they requested a meeting.

Getting to “the ask” here meant, for the author, “what the hell does this fool REALLY want out of me?”

I prefer Walt’s approach. When I was 19, I worked for a small business up in Colorado. They had this contractor named Walt that did all their email, website, all that stuff (very early 2000s). Every time he answered the phone, it wasn’t a polite “Hello?”, no! Walt got straight to the point with one loud, gruff word that immediately set the tone for all his conversations:

“WHAT?!”

If not, how’d a small time outfit get access to something the rest of us can’t have because we’re (apparently) not trustworthy enough?

No shade on these guys - I’m thinking it’s just another plot twist in “Hours of AI’s Lives”.

This is why I’m wondering: did the EO get blocked, paused for judicial review or something? Is it even in effect?

No intention to make this political, I’m legitimately curious about the status of the law and its actual applicability here. Supposed to be such a steep fine they literally couldn’t afford to do this - not with them already going cash flow negative to build out AI datacenters. So either it’s not applying (why?) or somehow they’re justifying one HUGE fee and somebody is floating them one astronomical loan - which again, why? Where’s the profit in taking that big a risk? Seems absolutely unhinged!

We’re missing something here. Or, at least, I am.

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-32-02-02...