The difference, unlike a Playstation console, is that you also control the hardware and OS on a PC (mostly, and for now, at least; they’re working on fixing that)

This means that you don’t need to “jailbreak” it with a modchip to gain access to basic functionality like simply deciding to make backups and other copies for yourself or to simply not to run the DRM requirement since you don’t want to run that on your hardware that you own and you should not be obligated to. They call this piracy and cracking and say it’s illegal, but I say it’s a fundamental right. When it’s convenient they’ll tell you that you own the games, and when it’s inconvenient they’ll tell you you don’t own them and they decide what you can do with them. It’s like saying I can’t photocopy pages from or write in the margins of a book I bought and own, whether it’s digital or not. I reject that principle and refuse to abide by it, and you should too, and PC allows you to. Playstation does not, at least not with a nontrivial amount of work and a lot of penalties. It only requires a trivial amount of work on PC and generally will not allow the enforcement of any penalties (it shouldn’t require any work and shouldn’t enforce any penalties, but DRM and laws and always-online content are doing their best to make it difficult as much as they can)

The reality of the encroaching enshittification is real, but that is still the fundamental difference that a PC gives you, and I suspect it will always remain so. Never give up on this platform, defend it like a fortress and do not let anyone entice you away from it, only suffering leads down those paths.

Don’t forget about might makes right. What, you didn’t want to live in a world where big burly dudes with guns protecting wealthy pedophiles tell you what to do?

Morally I think it’s reasonably clear in many (not all) cases, but it can become complicated. Who is responsible when the inherently ineffective safety guardrails fail? What about someone who intentionally uses a bypass technique to jailbreak and escape the guardrails? Who is responsible for an open weights model that had some of the guardrails removed or rendered even more ineffective either intentionally or by accident?

Legally, it is an entirely different story, and it is absolutely and entirely unclear. Several cases are already before the courts and I don’t think we’ll know where any of them end up within this decade, and even if they do receive some token legal judgement against them eventually, that just sets the stage for those legal responsibilities to be overturned by new legislation. These are companies that are positioning themselves as bulwarks in the new frontier of economic warfare, information warfare and physical warfare, they are critical national security and geopolitical assets, they have infiltrated governments at all levels and are receiving direct protection from same.

Do you believe they will ever be truly held accountable for the damage they’ve already done to society, much less the damage they will do over time? That’s part of responsibility, and it needs to be debated because that’s the only way to even start to hold them accountable for anything. We need to hold them accountable with words first if we want to have any hope of holding them accountable in any other way. And these are my words to help start doing that.

Of course that’s a possibility, but AI does not have responsibility. The question is who does?

Do I blame a train for hitting someone who steps onto railroad tracks when there’s a train approaching? It’s a machine. It doesn’t have responsibilities or opinions or agency. It does what it has been built to do, in exactly the manner that anyone with sufficient understanding of its operating principles could tell you, because that’s what machines do. The person or persons interacting with the machine is not absolved of any responsibility by how complex or inscrutable the machine is. It’s still a machine.

The question is, who is responsible for the person stepping onto the railroad tracks when there was a train approaching? Was the person trying to end their own life? Maybe it’s their responsibility. Or maybe the crossing signals failed and told them it was safe, and they did not realize a train was approaching. Maybe there were too many trees or signs or construction that was blocking their view. Is the train company responsible for that? Maybe. Did the brakes fail due to poor inspections or substandard work during the last maintenance? Maybe. Did the train have plenty of time to stop and the engineer was not paying attention? Maybe. These are all people, and groups of people, who may have responsibility. The only thing that’s certain is: The train doesn’t.

We, as a society, need to decide who is responsible for the possibility of a horrific consequence arising from the use of these sort of machines. Is it the person using the machine? The people who made the machine in the first place? The people who put it in a place where this person could easily use it? By assigning responsibility, ideally in advance of any horrific consequences, that provides a clear incentive for the people we deem responsible to actually start acting responsible and take the appropriate measures to avoid such horrific consequences that they might be held responsible for.

Pfft, “not polished”. Looks way more polished than manually dumping shit into a folder on my http server. Thanks!

Github sucks though, unreliable and headed to bad places. Considered mirroring or rehosting it somewhere with forgejo? Self-hostable, or there are some public options

but I would not expect the stock prices too reflect that.

Agreed. One rule of the stock market is that while it might theoretically rely on sound fundamentals, it can stay irrational longer than you (or anyone) can stay solvent. It will inevitably fall screaming towards reality eventually, but there’s no guarantee it will happen within any reasonable timeframe and expecting it to is dangerous. It’s a rigged casino, the house always wins, and when they don’t their goons will grab you when you try to leave. At this point the billionaires own pretty much the entire house, and their goons are running the world’s largest military and police state. “Invest” at your own risk.