This and and the previous comment really highlights the true political divide between the Americans. I wonder if it is a flaw of such 2-party system (both that lean to the right-, and thus are inflexible to other political views) where others can't find space for less-extreme political views and ideas, and thus exacerbating the situation as people are forced to bracket themselves to only these two parties?
I certainly feel the two party system has really hampered us and largely contributed to where we are today. I never feel actually represented, yet nearly every candidate has to align themselves officially with one party or the other and tow that party line. Sure there is individual variance between representatives, but it's still mostly within a set of boundaries the party is more or less okay with. It sucks, and is often why the "just go vote" ethos feels about as inept as any other action or non-action I can take...
Both parties had this view even up to a decade ago. It was actually right-wing libertarian fanatics that advocated mass unchecked immigration with a view to cheap labor. The Koch brothers(now singular) and the vast amount of billionaires wanted a complete amnesty. Ronald Reagan did give a complete amnesty to Californians. Even Bernie Sanders warned about this years ago.
Immigration in the US has always been about addressing talent / labour shortage. Today though, whether it be in blue collar or white collar jobs, it is about wage suppression (and both the Democrats and Republicans are guilty of that). H1Bs and L1 visa (in IT) are great examples of this - one of my friend nearly doubled his salary after he became a US citizen, and says he now clocks out at sharp 5 / 6 PM whereas his other H1B colleagues feel forced to continue to slog on beyond that. (Interestingly, he is now looking to work for some European or Japanese companies, in the US, as he wants more than the 10-15 days annual leave American firms consider "generous", and also as some of these foreign international firms provide pension too).
Not a fan of Spotlight here too. But, you certainly can instruct Spotlight to ignore some directory or drive through System Preferences > Spotlight and selecting the Privacy tab in it which allows you to add the directory or drive that you want Spotlight to not index.
> Governments usually switch off the internet when they have a risk of being overthrown.
They also do so to prevent political violence from spreading, as social media does fan the flame of further violence. This is (in my opinion) a legitimate response to prevent hatred and mob violence from growing.
As someone who lives in a democratic country, I am quite loathe to trust any foreign-controlled communication platform. I also do not support or endorse violent politics. Seeing how social media has triggered political riots in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and now in Iran (probably with the aid of foreign sponsors / agents) to destabilise these countries, I am fully in favour of governments clamping down hard on such kind of "dark networks" that they don't have oversight over. Note that this is nothing new - governments always have been mindful that foreign agents in their country should not have a way to communicate with their masters, and that is why everything from radios to satellite phones require some form of license to operate.
South Indian kingdoms were once maritime powers who traded with Rome and exerted their influence over large parts of South Asia through their navy. Recommended reading: Nagapattinam to Suvarnadwipa: Reflections on the Chola Naval Expeditions to Southeast Asia - https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-southeast...
There's a difference between a doctor (an expert in their field) using AI (specialising in medicine) and you (a lay person) using it to diagnose and treat yourself. In the US, it takes at least 10 years of studying (and interning) to become a doctor.
Even so, it's rather common for doctors to not be albe to diagonise correctly. It's a guessing game for them too. I don't know so much about US but it's a real problem in large parts of the world. As the comment stated, I would take anything a doctor says with a pinch of salt. Particularly so when the problem is not obvious.
This is really not that far off from the argument that "well, people make mistakes a lot, too, so really, LLMs are just like people, and they're probably conscious too!"
Yes, doctors make mistakes. Yes, some doctors make a lot of mistakes. Yes, some patients get misdiagnosed a bunch (because they have something unusual, or because they are a member of a group—like women, people of color, overweight people, or some combination—that American doctors have a tendency to disbelieve).
None of that means that it's a good idea to replace those human doctors with LLMs that can make up brand-new diseases that don't exist occasionally.
It takes 10 years of hard work to become a profound engineer too yet it doesn't prohibit us missing the things. That argument cannot hold. AI is already wide-spread in medical treatment.
An engineer is not a doctor, nor a doctor an engineer. Yes, AI is being used in medicines - as a tool for the professional - and that's the right use for it. Helping a radiologist read an X-Ray, MRI scan or CT Scan, helping a doctor create an effective treatment plan, warning a pharmacologist about unsafe combinations (dangerous drug interactions) when different medications are prescribed etc are all areas where an AI can make the job of a professional easier and better, and also help create better AI.
Nobody can (and should) stop you from learning and educating yourself. It however doesn't mean just because you can use Google or use AI, you think you can become a doctor:
Educating a user about their illness and treatment is a legitimate use case for AI, but acting on its advise to treat yourself or self-medicate would be plain stupidity. (Thankfully, self-medicating isn't as easy because most medication require a prescription. However, so called "alternate" medicines are often a grey area, even with regulations (for example, in India).
User input data is always to be treated as suspect when it reaches the server and needs to be scanned and sanitised (if necessary) before accepting it for processing. Markdown makes this a lot easier to do and this is why it became popular.
Don't remember if it was the 90's, but we got trial versions of Photoshop on some magazine CD and it was then all about searching for cracks / patches to it. These were quite small and bearable to download on dialups. And of course, even otherwise, dialups really taught all of us patience ... our generation thus knows the value of delayed gratification :).
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