These execs are the people who previously cared about literally nothing except not looking bad to their bosses. Now they're getting all fired up about something and taking a stand and... it's this? Lol. Lmao. Etc.
The market is losing its shit over this because people are operating on the thesis that "AI will be able to ..." rather than "AI can demonstrably do ...". At some point they're all gonna get margin called on their futurisms. It would be a lot better if, before getting excited, we ask to see experimental results. So you say you have a world-beating security tool? Show me something it can do that all the other ones can't. That would be worth getting excited about, not a vague blog post about vibes and dreams.
Quote from a VP at a big tech megacorp a few months back:
> "If we don't start using this technology every day in every aspect of our jobs we will be left behind and never catch up."
I'm gonna get that one embroidered and framed on the wall above my toilet so for the rest of my life every day I can look at it and chuckle at the memory of how broken people were before the bubble popped.
This is a failure of regulation, not personal responsibility. Consumers should not have to threat-model their vacuum cleaner. That should be on the manufacturer, and when they fail like this they should be punished severely.
You are correct that a sane government would protect their customers from being secretly surveilled by companies who will do whatever they want with their customer's most private data including selling it to others. Americans should also know that we don't have a government that protects consumers from products that harm them even when that harm is well known. It's unfortunate, but until that changes people do have to threat-model their internet connected devices, just like they have to threat-model their food, their children's toys, their cosmetics, their health supplements, their cookware, their clothing, and just about everything else we buy.
Despite my comments I cannot agree more. When it comes to IT, computers and the internet governments have failed abysmally to protect consumers from exploitation, both online and otherwise.
I've been in tech since the IBM-360 and the 4004 uP days and I am still staggered by what's happened—how governments have deserted their citizens and sided with Big Tech. To me, what has happened is the biggest failure of democracy in my lifetime.
It would take a book for me to expand that further. Suffice to say when governments abrogate their primary responsibility of protecting their citizens then it's everyone for themselves—there is no other practical option.
By now, the evidence is clear that people have to protect themselves as they're not going to be helped by governments.
The bitterness in my original post comes from the fact that it is now 49 years since the launch of the first truly consumer IT products such as Tandy's TRS-80 and Apple's Apple-II in 1977—that's one year shy of half century and there's still stuff-all regulation to protect consumers.
We perhaps can forgive the fact that regulation is a 'cuss' word—a profanity—in the US but when it comes to computer tech the 'regulations' deficit is worldwide. Up until 2000—nearly a quarter century after computers had become popular—govermnents could be forgiven for not regulating tech but by then it was already abundantly clear regulations were needed.
For instance, the three-year long US antitrust proceedings† against Microsoft which commenced in 1998 resulted in little more than a slap over the wrists with a feather for Microsoft. The world watched this case with interest and essentially nothing happened to protect consumers. Despite at the time it being patently obvious consumer protection was needed over a quarter century later they're still not forthcoming (except at the very margins).
That said, the rich and powerful had no trouble getting laws to protect themselves—witness the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That tells you who is in charge and actually running the country.
The Citizenry isn't doing itself any favors by sitting on its hands doing SFA. We need citizens in the streets demanding that governments enact laws to protect consumers' privacy, and from exploitation, etc.—laws that not only effectively penalize corporations and their shareholders but also target those within the corporations who set corporate policy (we will never get to the root of these problems whilst those responsible are able to hide behind corporate walls).
Those who are not old enough to remember the anti-Vietnam war rallies of the late 1960s ought to take note. When millions take to the streets legislators move very quickly to change things (check YouTube for videos from those times/1968-72).
The Microsoft antitrust case, DMCA, and other conversations in government and the media at the time (in particular the notion that video game violence was somehow poisoning the minds of the youths) made a strong impression on me as an 11-13yo interested in computers. And that impression was that people in government and the press have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to technology. And broadly speaking, with some exceptions, it's still the case now. I don't know what it will take for people to start demanding they educate themselves--whether it'll be a gradual tipping point or some abrupt catalyst--but something must give way because the way this is headed won't work.
In high school I was really interested in the antiwar and civil rights movements of the 1960s. Bush invaded Iraq during the spring semester of my freshman year. There were marches and protests, but it didn't really change anything. I remember being really interested in trying to understand why. In any case, none of that got anywhere near the intensity of '68 which is a shame. If it had it might have made a difference.
They also attract grifters, frauds, conmen, snake oil peddlers, and every stripe of bullshit artist. I'm someone you probably would view as a hater, but I truly don't hate LLMs. I hate the lies. Projects like this are interesting, I wish there was a lot more of this and a lot less of the "trust me bro" stuff.
There are no crumple zones in a truck really.. You have straight frame rails. I guess the cast iron engine block gets a little crumply if you hit it hard enough..
Any space becomes a crumple zone - rails are great at that, but it is still something. Though as I said - I have never seen a study of relative safety.
Another development in trucking efficiency that seems really interesting is the Achates opposed piston two stroke. If their materials are accurate, through fluid modeling they've achieved a massive efficiency boost and emissions exceeding regulatory targets without urea injection. In a piston ported two stroke.
This kind of reputational damage is just adding fuel to the fire. If my business depended in any way on google--GCP, GSuite, whatever--it would right now be a very urgent task to fire them and find replacements. They've been pretty sketchy for a while, but this kind of thing is over the top.
Terminating accounts that tried to cheat on pricing by having a third party application pretend to be Antigravity is entirely expected and does not damage Google's reputation in my view.
Not sure if this is sarcasm, but I'll respond as if it isn't. Having worked my entire career to date in the SaaS business, it is well known in some verticals that a large portion of revenue comes from companies that literally do not know they have purchased your product. And when you have a large customer like that, people are very careful to walk quietly and not do anything to notify them. I've seen it happen quite a few times.
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