There was some of this, but at the end of the day, the C compilers are deterministic, while (hype wave) AI is not.

Now, I don't expect any of these new kids using C compilers to understand enough about computer science theory to know what "deterministic" means, of course. (this is sarcasm - computer science is still taught, thankfully)

Hopeful Counterpoint: The big money tech bros are so high on their own supply that they will waste massive amounts of potential progress on real AI using their LLM toys.

So there's a decent chance that real researchers get there first and open source their solutions.

Of course, in the end, it'll still be rich tech bros who connect whatever they're calling AI today to a set of wheels and a gattling gun, and send it into work life balance negotiations. (Because assholes are still going to asshole.)

I don't really think it's my funeral, since I'm not that invested. It could destroy everything and I'd still have a backup.

You've got the idea.

AI will sabotage you, but so will the average computer and about 5% of the accepted answers on Stack Overflow.

Just...check your backups. It's fine to trust a bunch of stuff to the easiest path, but never trust your backup solution to anything except your own two hands.

And... take some notes. The current era of cloud AI is wildly subsidized by idiot's retirement savings. When today's price goes away, you'll be better off with some notes to re-use, to keep ongoing token costs down.

Oh, and obviously, treat everything on your hosting environment as potentially public to the whole world at any moment.

As long as you and your club are fine with those risks, just enjoy and keep learning!

Yes! lol.

And wait until the confirmation study of the water in the kitchen sink comes back! Initial findings strongly imply it may be wet!

The moment AGI is achieved it’s going to be a glorious destruction of society.

Specifically, if ultra affordable AGI that also happens to be acceptably reliable.

Which is certainly a pipe dream, today. It might or might not ever get any more possible.

To be economically viable, AGI needs to cost less than the people it supposedly replaces. Sure, we can all think of a couple of over-priced Word document slingers.

But ask someone who wanted to buy a conveyor belt or a barcode scanner for a factory in an emerging market...until the technology costs dramatically less than local seasoned professionals, the technology just doesn't get bought.

Now, I do imagine there's a few specific use cases that billionaires are very interested in replacing humans - because humans as morally empty and worthless as Epstein and Thompson (rest in piss) may actually be hard to find.

I think Fire and Stick have a long future ahead of them still. Also a big fan of Wheel and Stardew Valley.

Uh...one of these is not like the others.

Are we sure Wheel has the long term practical staying power of the others in this list?

Do elaborate more on the 3D printing stuff

There's all kinds of mechanical things that can be directly 3d printed, now - screws, and hinges and springs!

Someone invented a 3-way zipper that allows a structure to be rigid when zipped or flexible when unzipped. Supposedly we're going to get a bunch of cool new more convenient tents and field furniture with it, soon.

Why does immigrant mean someone who looks different? That seems like a strange assumption imo

Fair question.

Politicians talk as if immigration enforcement only affects immigrants. But the data shows that plenty of citizens who look vaguely foriegn suffer substantially.

Citizens who look like immigrants end up living in fear - which could easily be seen as "by design" when compared to historic playbooks where intimidation and distraction were key components for awful people to stay in power.

There's quite a lot happening in 3d printing that is kind of life changing, and not getting any press coverage because no single obscenely wealthy person can use it to hype a pump and dump.

Weird specific stuff exists now, that never did before - like custom cases for weird sizes of batteries, and a pen-holder that looks exactly like the latest manga character to make a splash.

Yes. There's certainly plenty of possible future timelines where most quantum computers mainly sit in museums as curiousities.

There's lots of cool possibilities, but there's no guarantee that they'll be practical for wide scale use.

Is your cloud Quantum Safe™?

lol. That could end up being the one non-grift example, though.

There's going to be lots of grift claiming that something is somehow "better because quantum", as if how the thing was processed makes the outcomes artisanal. lol.

But defending against assholes who have access to a quantum computer is actually proving to be not too terribly expensive, so far. (Signal and Proton claim to be ready now, for example.)

But a big important open question is which kinda of assholes will have access to quantum computers, and what quality, and how soon.

I expect a slow stupid adotpion race between ignorance and laziness.

It's not unreasonably expensive to secure services against quantum computer attacks (so far), but until people understand it enough to want it, most vendors will probably ignore it.

So we will probably get something like HTTPS adoption, again - unreasonably slow due to lack of understanding or care about the risks, probably with a few infamous breach scenarios along the way to mark progress against.

You might not know, but you can say "crap" on the internet.

Nice!

• xrap!
• crat!
• crraaaab!

Well, I'll keep practicing.

Quantum non-fungible tokens won't be a grift. Trust me.

(Hopefully this obvious sarcasm is obvious.)

If I ever leave the company the entire company is screwed.

Yes. This has happened before, and it will happen again.

The time is coming soon for another bidding war on talent, and for all losers in the bidding war to pick up a lifetime subscription to "our software works for another month" from overpriced consulting agencies.

It is incredibly preventable, but you can't fix average CEO levels of stupid.

Edit: The funny part is that this next time the bidding losers will also have an AI token passthrough surcharge that is "pinky promise, only the token costs of your contract and definitely not subsidizing Todd's recreational use".

Sometimes we have to choose between someone who looks different earning a living wage, or Jeff Bezos having a slightly nicer trim on his yacht before the inevitable consequences of his choices cacth up with him. We just can't have both.

Or Google thinks all the other illegal crap they routinely get away with is a leading sign that they will also get away with becoming a monopoly...

The Bevery Hillbillies is still pretty side-splittingly funny. Standard product-of-its-time disclaimer applies.

Edit: Honestly, watching their asshole bank manager neighbor get shit on in every which way is all the funnier, today.

people will say QC is a grift when it eventually becomes commercially viable

Specifically, QC will be a grift when the media tells us all it is now, finally, commercially viable.

Then it will remain a grift until it either dies off or reaches actual commercial vaibility.

No, I didn't say anything about AI. Who brought up AI? I'm pretty sure I didn't. Really? Nah. Doesn't sound like AI. Oh...yeah, I guess. Maybe it does.

Sure, it's a wrong answer machine, but sometimes it's right, and it's almost always fast!