like twitch recently giving themself the right to train on all streams, with an opt-out (at least in the EU), but only an opt-out

like seriously since when is it reasonable to allow "opt-out" for AI training which main purpose is _literally_ to replace you, this is sooo far beyond fair use and in "platform power abuse" territory that it's absurd (naturally same for so many other case, just twitch is a "this week" case)

this is a bit misleading

at-will deployment and "can basically make up whatever rules" aren't necessary required to go hand in hand, you can have at-will deployment and still proper enforce labor laws by giving appropriate penalties and protection to employees in case of violations which make it non profitable use the "break law if complain fire" route.

But seriously it's more then just bad.

Adding hidden cost to "working" is a hidden pay cut not showing up in payment statistic, that alone should make it illegal.

And it is in combination with "cost traps" a common recipe of modern slavery. While this case isn't modern slavery just a economic collapse (e.g. huge economic collapse where no one can afford to lose the job they have, AI stays expensive but inflation makes salaries go away) to ending up very close to it...

Sure there are reasonable edge cases, like causal personal clothes if there is no dress code or similar. As well as some limited expected private payments for high paying jobs (which you often still can write off from taxes, but(!) for this you need to have to pay enough taxes or it won't work and you have to have enough tax write-off potential left for all the common write-offs etc. Hence why this is only true for high paying jobs or very very small mostly one-off expenses.).

> coding agents count as “hand tools”

they are tools you use (in general) "by hand", to mostly do the non engineering/non creative parts of the job. So even if they don't count as it now, they might very well end up counting as something similar. Just because something is digital doesn't mean you can (or at least should be able to) circumvent regulations. That he EU had to pass a "digital products are products, laws for products apply to them" because lobbyist managed to make digital products non products for many laws is already quite absurd. Similar digital "tools" should count as much as "tools" as physical tools...

or else you wouldn't be able to know what you will (excluding overtime etc.) earn, which would be absurd to be legal (but might be, US isn't exactly known for grate labor laws)

It's like telling someone they have to drive none stop for their job but neither giving them a company car or nor a budget for it.

(To be clear done and companies get away with it != legal. I know companies sometimes get away with exactly the example I named in some cases.)

the central bank is semi part of the state, AI Labs are not, AI Labs are fully under directly control of a extremely small number of people in a way which has nothing to do with democracy

founding a Organisation like the FCC but for AI oversight is a completely different topic, but that isn't what he is proposing

> Italy hand over the Vatican to the Church?

because it always had been a nano country under Church control, this is not comparable at all

> Church or Religious institutions.

most democracies have a separation of state and religion where religion has little to no governing power. When this isn't the case it's a failure of the state (often for historic reason). This isn't desirable at all.

at least in a democracy, even if flawed, power comes from the people, that is the fundamental raison d'être for people allowing a government to exist

this isn't the case of "AI Labs"

what he is proposing is nothing less then establishing at least partial oligarchy, or in other words while indirectly he is relatively openly saying he wants to overthrow not just the US constitution but more or all every democracies constitution (at least in spirit)

EDIT: Assuming AI Labs == existing private AI Labs like OpenAI. Something analog to the FCC for AI or similar is a completely different topic. But this wouldn't be called AI Labs as it wouldn't be a AI Lab. But a faster moving, less bureaucratic, commission (or similar group) which works in tight communication with AI Labs. So I'm pretty sure he means giving OpenAI and co. power officially comparable to the government in some sectors. Which means practical including corruption etc. it might be above that of the government.

and if we look on some of the more extreme cases: France Nuclear doctrine is not "we could decide to use nukes if our country is invaded" but roughly more like "we use them by default in such a case and you would need to overrule this to not use them"

Through this is for a "full on invasion in the classical sense". This is unlikely to bee seen as triggered for e.g. colonies or some back and force on border disputes (including e.g. attack on supply lines behind the border).

nukes only work as a deterrent if you are willing to use them if a (deep) bottom line is crossed, like foreign tanks heading to your capital

I'm not saying this is good, just that you really shouldn't rely on people not using nukes.

no but even with evolution it still is way worse then literally every other (practical used/usable) alternative

e.g. the quality of German brown coal is so bad that there is a saying that burning plastic wast gives you both more and cleaner energy

> approximately nowhere

you mean no where except everywhere where you have decent sized hills or mountains (and even in flat land under some circumstances) and is already build and in use in Germany in multiple case (and also not just Germany)

and it's not China being hadwaving "special" but the measurement you are applying really not working well for a country which is only half capitalist and half planed economy. Which is a separate argument from dark factories which is about (non low end) production in China getting increasingly decoupled from human worker and in turn is way less affected from a population collapse then it would be in other countries. This has nothing to do with robot armies, an argument you just made up, even if China would lose half their population they still had more people and in turn can theoretically man a larger army _even if they have a by % much larger population collapse_, they don't need any Robot army. Similar no one said their system is superior. Or do you mean the US, as a two party system with an extremely powerful president is something some would call semi authoritarian. Either way China having done some pretty effective decisions in recent years in some areas doesn't in any way mean it's the better system. Like a Monarch can do grate decisions, but Monarchy is still is a very bad system.

Either way I also can't follow you how you jump from a listing of rough facts to there supposedly being a fact free zone.

What there isn't is a single simpel conclusion.

I mean it's a discussion where a single bad decision of a larger power can easily cause a unpredictable chain reaction which completely changes what are and aren't likely outcomes.

The world is inherently complex and not everything has a simple black/white conclusion, actually most things don't have one. You can only look at all available metrics and do a guess what the future will bring.

like

- electric trains

- electric cars

outside of the US most trains try to run electric when they can as it's just plain better (cheaper, more convenient too). Yes bunch of fright trains still run diesel, but that is mostly due to historic reasons and them often going to niche side tracks which have not been electrified. Fun fact a supper heavy mining fright train in Austrailia doesn't just run electric but basically 0-cost. It gets loaded in the mountains uses mostly gravity to run to the sea charging batteries while breaking and then when empty goes back up using the charges gained from breaking.

And electric trucks exist and work, too.

You don't even need latest battery tech as e.g. Swiss/Zürich hybrid bus/trams have been showing since some decades.

As another fun fact Beelitz-Heilstätten only allowed electric car around 1900!! (because it was healing lung issues and even way over 100 years ago it was well understood that air pollution from cars makes that worse).

Like, this was never about weather it's technical doable. But all about gigantic well established industries doing everything in their power to sabotage forced changes as such changes would make them obsolete. So a technical working solution isn't sufficient it must be noticeable cheaper or better so that it can disrupt the industry in a more "capitalist" way.

cheap, dirty, loud "tbh. shouldn't exist" kind fo gas generators are far more available and what is widely used

but also huge part of the solar supply bottleneck is artificial due to import regulations from china and both the US and EU having failed to secure meaningful domestic solar supply chains.

They are to run AI, so that the 100th app can force an AI agent down your throat weather your want or not /s. (Or in more optimistic words, so that the AI adoption can spread as fast as their is demand.)

A well build gas power plane can be one of the cleanest fossile fuel power plants with neither huge issues of air nor sound pollution (compared to other fossile fuel, it still isn't perfect by far)

Same btw. for data center cooling, my office was for 3 years above a data center of a super computer in the mittle of a city and there where no sound issues at all (through yes it was a special case in many ways).

I mean yes, it costs more and many well established companies for high quality gas turbines are booked out.

Still using the kind of gas turbines which can bring back literal acid rain shouldn't be an option at all.

Lets also not speak about the environmental/health damage the production of the natural gas through fracking does.

Which bring us to a common nonsense argument, people going on and on about hoe economically expensive/harmful climate protection is, but totally missing that many oft he circumvented laws are not for climate protection but are for environmental protection for the sake of humans health.

To make thinks worse most of this data centers seems to be more about making money, then being in any way relevant for winning any AI race...

which is very much possible

50 years once just a blink in human history is today enough to have 2 major industrial revolutions

nukes are not an argument for anything but main land defense from invasions

Look Russia, it was considered on of the most powerful countries military wise and cleanly in the top 10 economically. Many treated it as a 3rd place behind USA/China. It probably will be neither military nor economically overly relevant in 10 years. Through comparing a war economy with peace economies by most normal usable standards (e.g. GDP) isn't very meaningful. Yes it has nukes, no one will invade it (in a traditional large scale sense out side of some border conflict). But it's economy looks like the kind of war economy which leads to a complete economical collapse once the war ends (i.e. burning core substance) end while it's military could be very experienced now, by treating soldiers as highly disposable its unclear how much that actually is true.

Now look at the US, it has lost the majority of soft power thanks to incompetence (and it was maybe the nation with the most effective soft power). It has alienated most of it's allies, especially it's closest allies. Both from a military and economical POV. It's highly dependent on China, and tries to change that have shown very mid to bad outcomes. On the other hand China is increasingly less dependent on it (and the EU) and increasingly less attackable by sea blockades and other non-hot war counter measures the US had. It's behind on automated production. Countries are increasingly less willing to tolerate US bases on their ground which are essential for it being able to project power. The economy is increasingly dependent on a few pillars, which are strong but can crack anyway. The might claim AI leadership, but practically it looks like the price they payed to get there is one which not only will not pay of but can not pay off, it's just way to high. War is also increasingly going back to ways where even if you have superiority the cost of waging it is still severely high, in such a situation you can't force leadership by military force, if you try it likely will end similar to Germany in WW1. Lastly the internal instability Trump has brought by dismantling checks and balances and arbitrary gutting of programs which turned out pretty essential for stability is bad enough to argue things like a putsch series or civil war being _realistic possibilities_ (not guaranteed at all, but possible where it wasn't realistically possible before).

If you put everything together the US dropping temporary out of the top 10 of overall most powerful countries is, not very likely but, very much possible.

It does have absurd geographical advantages, and nukes to make sure it keeps them basically for ever (as long as it doesn't splinter which isn't very likely tbh.). So the drop would be most likely be temporary at most.

Still it is possible, it's the price to pay for first squandering all trust/goodwill gained from WW2 over a few decades of greedy, egoistic, egocentric, ethical catastrophic politics. And then going complete "unpredictable, untrustable, instabile, high risk, publicly considering to start war with NATO or at least half of the EU (JEF+some others)" in recent years.

A "in general" correlates with geopolitical power doesn't necessary mean you can point at a specific case look at their GDP and come to a good conclusion. Especially not if it's as much of a special case as China.

> wouldn't that imply India, and then later Africa are going to be superpowers?

which might actually happen. If the US falls further from grace and the situations stays like that for a few decades, or the US and another huge power (e.g. China) fall into some costly conflict then India or a union of African countries have a serious chance to become a world super power.

---

=> But more relevantly this discussion is going into red hering argument direction:

- No one argued that you should go _only_ by population, the argument is, that if a country with a gigantic population shrinks hugely they still have enough people left to wage large scale wars.

- Similar no one (should) argue that GDP is by itself meaningful for such an assessment, it's one imperfect not supper reliable statistical point. Especially given how things move wrt. dark factories (i.e. fully automated => no light one as no human there), AI and similar. Yes, if GDP is supper low or high that says a lot, but a lot is not everything and a average GDP for decade long trends in a word looking to face a major time of change means not much in any direction.

- Similar we are speaking about decade long developments, current military strength ist also just another non fully reliable indicator. E.g. Germany post WW1 had close to actual 0/no military strength, and then there was WW2 just a few years later...

I'm not sure if I'm mis-reading your comment, but:

The idea that you "need a single extremely powerful country to replace it or the US will stay in its position" just doesn't add up. I'm not fully sure if that is what you meant but I have seen that argument a few times.

_There doesn't need to be a replacement._

For most of the worlds history there wasn't a single leading world supper power, just regional super powers, or supper powers in specific sectors.

And if we speak about who could become a supper power _after the US stops being one and there isn't one for some decades_. Then there are a bunch of candidates.

E.g. China has a population collapse issues, but due to it's cut throat ruthless government and total population number and lead in factory automation might be from all countries with similar problems by margin the most likely to overcome it without power collapse.

E.g. the EU might have many issues (as it's members has many issues) but the general concept has proven hugely successful. And what people forget is EU is the cherry on top of a huge stack of treaties which can be extended to 3rd parties independent of full EU membership. Like e.g. Canada, which doesn't plan to become an EU member, but might join some of this treaties as result of the non stop hostility from the US. Same for military treaties between NATO members which are independent of NATO like e.g. JEF, which would likely be open for letting Canada join. Anyway way to many words. But the end result may be a world supper power which is not one entity but a complex lossy coupled network of countries.

Then there have been some other cross country unions and countries, which want to gain super power relevance but have so far been too irrelevant due to a combination of corruption, bad luck and sabotage by existing powers etc. But if we speak about going for a few decades without any leading super power and maybe prime canidates harming each other (e.g. a US <-> Chineese war) then they do actually have a chance.

Another problem is that the actual impact on bats for _offshore_ wind seems unclear. Yes it happens, bats do migrate across sea areas in some places. But we have very little knowledge about bat migration routes and amounts in such cases AFIK.