What if there are already (possibly hidden) loops somewhere, maybe even ultra-slow ones at the inter-generation level? What if some AIs could do that not with so explicit and dramatic actions, but much more subtly, through undetected manipulation at a vast scale level? What if (when) they reached ASI and through billions of micro-decisions manipulated people to do apparently minor choices that appeared innocent in isolation but whose collective outcomes lead to an earlier extinction of the human being (if at some point was determined to be an obstacle)? How could we (as a species) not be outsmarted by an ASI?

That reads far too much like science fiction to me. As for how we could "not be outsmarted:" we're the ones prompting and controlling it. There is no blind autonomy here (and if there is in some pseudo sense, just unplug the damn thing). This isn't a Johnny Depp movie despite how desperately many want it to be.

Neoliberism is not the only possible system, it is very well possible to change the boundaries of what enterprises can do. Technology-will-save-us is a quasi-religious belief, not supported by evidence. Also if it was true that we can't convince politicians and enterprises to change their course now, why should they do later when costs will be much higher?

Relying mostly on technology that doesn't yet exist seems absurd to me. We have an incredibly hard problem to solve and maybe a narrow window of action, we should use all the tools we have at our disposal: rapid deployment of available solutions, sustained research into better ones, adoption of more frugal lifestyles, development of alternative sociological, political and economical frameworks.

The problem is money, but at a different level. When you deal with the homeless it's too late. That money must be spent before someone becomes homeless, on welfare: unemployment benefits, accessible healthcare and housing. A minor cut taken care of immediately is nothing, but let it turn into gangrene and you won't be able to fix it at all.

AFAIK also SF was long known as "hobo capital", meaning many homeless or drifting people just ended up there. So it's much more complex than that, since many of the homeless are not even locals.

Even benefits etc are too late. The money should be spent on providing hope for people. It's 45 years of neoliberalism that we are reaping.

> The money should be spent on providing hope for people.

How do you suggest that would work? Obviously you can’t just buy hope, so could you provide some specific ideas?

Yes, develop an economy that is not run for rent seekers. Provide a job guarantee so everyone can work at a wage floor. Build housing stock that is actually affordable and desirable for anyone on a normal wage. Make sure healthcare is affordable and available universally. Provide schools that are good regardless of where you live or what you can afford. Those things would be a start.

Then the question becomes why US has such a huge problem with mental health and drugs that most other countries don't have with this scale. Maybe it's easier to develop mental health and/or drug issues when there are no societal safety nets, like accessible healthcare, decent affordable housing, unemployment benefits, ...

I don't know why people seem to think the US has "no societal safety nets."

We have medicaid, unemployment benefits, how expensive our housing is completely depends on location just like other places (rural-ish areas are probably cheaper than almost all of Europe), etc.

Why is your job to make the reverse engineer harder? When the user buys a product, it should be theirs to do whatever they want, even brick it. Your job should be creating the product the user wants to use, not building obstacles, otherwise you are creating something actively user-hostile. What if your company goes out of business and the user ends up with a device that can't be updated, that depends on cloud services that don't exist anymore, or worse with security vulnerabilities?

"Making reverse engineer harder" is just a side product of "improving security" that upper-level people like to hear.

I definitely don't want my C-suite people reading "The product X of company Y has been reversed engineered" on their newspaper.

In the old days, when businesses were not governed by pure greed, many electronic products, if not the majority, included schematics in their user manual. If a product today made a point of pride of having fully open source firmware and included a github/gitlab link, there would be no reverse engineering to write about. Security can be obtained also with an open source firmware.

I guess the question could be: "how much Meta did by directly or indirectly damaging people mental health in New Mexico?". Note that the damage could be more or less subtle: someone could have been affected in great measure and become, for instance, depressed, while someone else could have been only mildly affected and just become a doom scroller. Is there a level of reasonable damage that could be tolerated? In my personal view, no, there isn't, and in theory all the earnings deriving from that person should be confiscated (and only after that you can apply the sanction). Unfortunately this won't be practical, and the only remaining option would be to heavily regulate or ban platforms that are engineered on people psychological weaknesses, and when tolerated they should be taxed to the sky (like tobacco and alcohol, or even more)

I'd gladly pay for the OS if this guaranteed abstaining from unnecessary changes and/or from removing useful features (eg 2d Spaces in Leopard and Snow Leopard, replaced by the inferior abomination that is Mission Control)

Those living the longest are those born 75-85 years ago. Later generations will have to wait to assess how it ended for them.

Gen X and early millenials are already doing worse than boomers did at that age...

https://now.tufts.edu/2026/03/09/why-arent-americans-living-...

I think that to sum things up, we will have to wait until we can evaluate the cost of the mistakes. You could be lucky but you could also end up with a very negative output value in the longer time frame.

I've been a paying customer since their early days. Their value, at least in my view, lies precisely in that they are just a file storage SaaS. They are focused on doing one thing and doing it well. The day this will change they'll lose me as a customer.

that's fine, to me it should be fine for companies to exist like that

but it doesn't match the archetype of a "growth" company. to the commenters talking about the share price, if you want a consistently growing stock, that's not the way to do it (not saying it's right or wrong)

I thought they already kinda did. The UI has a load of features I am not interested in. I spent hours turning of the sync on opening file feature they have, can't recall the name of it now. But to turn it off was a ridiculous effort of web searches and lying documentation.