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Accountability and responsibility is necessary for any society to function. When corporations get all the profit while they externalize all the cost the result is a dystopia.

The rich should be forced to suffer the consequences of their actions, otherwise they have no incentive to respect the health or even life of the rest of citizens.


> When I started working, more than 25 years ago, we had one team meeting per week (1 hour), very few other meetings.

When I worked 25 years ago, I had the same experience. But software was way simpler than today. The scale and complexity of current software requires a level of organization and communication that was not needed with simpler needs.

Most software run on a PC with probably no internet connection. Updating the software required to send discs by mail. Everything was slower, and probably more robust. Maybe banking was closer to what we have now, but it was still slower and there were way less transactions.

In contrast, my last 3 jobs required backend services available 24/7 to serve millions of users worldwide. We had many data providers, and we provided services to dozens of big corporations. We had teams dedicated to just integrate to all the partners, wallets, data providers, etc.

Increased complexity requires more communication and more meetings, and more time dedicated to synch all that development. If anyone wants old-style ways of working, with more time coding and less meetings I would recommend to go to small companies with limited reach. Their problems are going to be easier managed by a few developers that can focus on creating new things instead of getting up to date with all the complexity that a big corporation requires.


25 years ago internet was as good as everywhere at work and schools in the civilized world and was starting to ramp up in homes. CDs or DVDs were indeed still used for large sets of software and documentation, like stacks of MSDN discs. We even had distibuted source code version control, though it was often only synchronized accross the ocean (e.g. using SERI) overnight.

Personally i like the fact that there are interruptions at work. Working is often a social business and activities like rubber ducking, whiteboarding or live code explanation with living people works wonders for me. It should happen even more.

The people who were coding 8 hours a day, very often were writing yet another framework that they personally came up with to solve a problem, but without duscussing its requirements. More often than not they were making the wrong thing, making too clever things or over engineering.


Fraud is a crime. When a crime is committed citizens inform the police to investigate.

If someone punches you in the street or steals your wallet will you file a lawsuit or call the police? Maybe in America is different, but the normal thing to do is to go to the police. Fraud is not different, the police will investigate.


> If someone punches you in the street or steals your wallet will you file a lawsuit or call the police?

In the USA, probably both. You (or your insurance company) might sue them to recover your financial losses, the police would investigate the crime of assault and/or robbery and pass any evidence along to the prosecutor.

Of course if they have no money or other assets, suing them is a bit pointless.


In the US, you might wait for criminal action if it was progressing to initiate civil action because (1) a criminal conviction can be used as evidence (and it is asymmetrical, because an actual doesn't have the same weight), and (2) criminal process can result in a restitution order which makes civil action unnecessary (and in some jurisdictions may allow recovery from a dedicated fund for victims of crime even if no recovery is possible from the perpetrator, and in that sense may be better than winning a civil action), and (3) criminal prosecution doesn't cost the victim money, civil prosecution generally does.


Yeah point 3 is why you generally don’t bother with civil claims unless they actually have the means to pay.


In the US you can do both (and often that's what happens - parallel criminal and civil cases)

US legal system is kinda weird


This should be just the begging as Social Media companies will not be able to just declare themselves over the law on fraud claims.

Related:

- "Social media giants liable for financial scams under new EU law " https://www.politico.eu/article/social-media-giants-meta-tik...

- "Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads, documents show" https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortu...


Making these ad companies liable for the scams they allow (even take a premium for running them) seems like the only way forward.


When anybody wonders why everything is getting worse and more expensive, remember that all the money to create new better products is being redirected to this clusterfuck.

What could we have if all that massive amount of money was used in one other field. (Or many others, there is too much money to invest effectively in just one thing)


The EU also has rampant inflation even though we have no AI sector to speak of.

It seems to me they have realised they can continue printing money to keep stealing from us forever and nobody seems to care.


Inflation in the EU is at 2.5% (2.1% in the Eurozone), that's hardly "rampant".


Ah yes, the official numbers. If only food and rent were going up only by 2.5%


> I am a fairly apolitical guy but in light of this I will cast my next votes for the parties that want to leave the EU from now on.

You say that you are apolitical, but you sound like an extremist. What should I believe, what you say you are or what you actually do?


So now holding politicians accountable is being an extremist?

If the EU politicians start working against my interests as a citizen, then why shouldn't I penalize them? If the EU as a whole starts working against my interests as a citizen, when why should I keep supporting this system?

The fact that you label me as an extremist for voicing my opinion (which I can only assume is different from yours) is telling. Your view of democracy seems quite skewed and if you were in charge of my country, you can bet I would vote you out too.

This is a forum where everyone is free to participate. If you don't like opinions different from yours, then feel free to skip them instead of insulting other people. This is not high school.


> The root of the problem isn't in the generative models, it's in what they're used for

That's like giving weapons to everybody in the world for free, and asking to be blamed for the increased deaths and violence.


No, that's like pretending the weapons weren't already available. Everyone had assault rifles for two decades, giving access to smart rifles isn't really changing anything about the nature of the problem.


> But if picturing that guy running the show feels like a disaster, then let’s be honest: the issue isn’t the absence of regulation, it’s the desire to force the world into your preferred shape.

For example, we can forbid corporations usage of algorithms beyond sorting by date of the post. Regulation could forbid gathering data about users, no gender, no age, no all the rest of things.

> Calling it “regulation” is just a polite veneer over wanting control.

It is you that may have misinterpreted what regulations are.


> or example, we can forbid corporations usage of algorithms beyond sorting by date of the post

Hacker News sorted by "new" is far less valuable to me than the default homepage which has a sorting algorithm that has a good balance between freshness and impact. Please don't break it.

> It is you that may have misinterpreted what regulations are.

The definition of regulation is literally: "a rule or directive made and maintained by an authority." I am just scared about who the authority is going to be.


> If anything, AI may help us reduce preventable deaths. Even a 1% improvement would save hundreds of thousands of lives every year.

And what about energy consumption? What about increased scams, spam and all kinds of fake information?

I am not convinced that LLMs are a positive force in the world. It seems to be driven by greed more than anything else.


> Nobody can really know what things will look like in 10 years,

100% true. Do not invest trillions on such an uncertainty in the long term is always a bad investment.

> but if you have the capital to deploy and any conviction at all that this might be a sea-change moment, it seems foolish to not pursue it.

Gamblers argument: "But what if this is the winning ticket?"


Then aren't most forms of investment based on a "gambler's argument"?

A risky investment is obviously akin to gambling, but to get things built and make a profit you have no other choice.


> Then aren't most forms of investment based on a "gambler's argument"?

Are you now equating an investor with some guy in a casino? Sorry, but that seems like a stretch.


You are quoting and responding to a rhetorical question from a person with essentialy the same criticism as you, to respond as if they are making the claim.. why??


No I am not, you took the opposite of the intended meaning.

I'm saying the risk aspect is similar, but I take issue with equating (product) investment and gambling, since one has a potential to create, and the other just shifts money around.


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