This is a question that might require a bit of “prior knowledge” in order for an answer to make sense.

Basically computers keep track of each other with complicated, unique numbers. This isn’t easy for humans to deal with so instead we have websites like netflix.com. DNS is a system that translates “netflix.com” to it’s more complicated unique computer address so that your computer connects to the netflix server when you type in that web address.

There are a number of servers (DNS Servers) on the Internet with databases that keep track of which website has what computer address. Usually, the company (ISP or Internet Service Provider) that you get Internet from has their own DNS Server and tells your modem to tell your computer or phone to use that server to look things up when you browse the web, but it is possible to use alternative servers.

Technically, the system is very trust-based - it’s just assumed that they are going to respond accurately and in good faith. It is possible to mess with this but there are other layers of security and authorities your computer should be using to make sure that you are actually visiting the website you think you are visiting. Usually ISPs just use this server to keep track of the websites you visit so they can sell your data to advertisers.

If I remember correctly, some of the ROG phones could actually run directly from the cable bypassing the battery. I think the idea was that it could be plugged in and gaming without wearing down the battery.

They’ve been fantasizing about that ever since “computers” started growing in accessibility - in the 1960s…

Fantasizing wasn’t the best choice of words - I often understate what I mean to communicate at an attempt at humor. I should have said "everyone started fantasizing becoming so obsessed with intelligent “AI” that they’re willing to dump a significant portion of the world’s resources just because… "

The current crop is just the first time such things have been delivered with something resembling “average” human responses.

That’s more or less what I meant by “patterns of language that seem relevant to a given input”. I was attempting to understate this in order to exaggerate the villainous eagerness and stupidity of greedy, rich fucks.

The LLM craze is a natural maturation point of the AI field

I don’t see why that is. Using ML to generate models that accurately perform specific tasks is orders of magnitude away from attempting to feed the entirety of human text into ML and expecting superhuman intelligence to emerge.

now it’s expanded into foundational models (FM) which you would still probably just call LLMs because most people don’t know the differences.

While ML and “AI” is not my field, I’m fairly certain that what I was attempting to describe in layman’s terms in my literal first sentence were these foundational models you are referring to.

FMs are getting close to that point of a magical universal computer that you can tell it to do anything about anything and it just works.

I have no direct experience outside of LLMs and I don’t really take issue with what I understand FMs to be, so long as they keep their scope narrow and focus on accurating completing specific tasks to assist humans. As soon as we hand off control and trust it blindly without extensive trials ensuring it’s reliability and failsafes in place to ensure inaccuracies are caught I start raising concerns.

My only experience is with LLMs - a few, minor attempts to “test the waters” of the major, publicly available LLM models. I’ve been frustrated with my search results and glanced at the AI results. Work gave us Gemini licenses and I used it in similar, desperate situatiuons for coding help and help with Google products foolishly thinking that if any LLM designed to help with such tasks would be passably useful it would be the LLM of the company that owns the products I seek help with. Unless something has changed drastically in the last month or so, every interaction has been a roll of the dice to such an extent that my occasional “testing the waters” caused me to jump out and avoid it as much as possible. I simply can’t trust it to not halucinate and gaslight me.

What I see as the problem is moving way, way, way too quickly in trusting language models to do anything even remotely important. Human communication is extremely nuanced, complicated, fluid, and imperfect. Humans misunderstand each other during communication even when we have the context of in-person visual/audible cues and interpersonal history.

Maybe it’s because I’ve only ever had at most a comfortable income but I truly don’t understand the mentality of needing so much money.

I don’t get paid as much as my peers but I make enough to be comfortable. I am my own department and, aside from emergencies and other high priority situations, I manage myself and choose what to work on when. I have a decent work life balance. Because I make enough to be comfortable (in large part because my landlord promised not to raise our rent - early in the COVID lockdown - if we were “good tenants” and has managed to keep true to her word) I don’t feel the need for more. That balance is worth not making the 20% more a year I might get somewhere else because I can’t guarantee I won’t have a shitty boss that doesn’t let me have that work/life balance.

I was excited about the idea of purpose-built systems trained on specific datasets to be help find complex patterns to diagnose diseases or suggest potential molecules for specific purposes.

Then the LLM shit started and everyone started fantasizing about intelligent “AI” just because it was able to reproduce patterns of language that seem relevant to a given input. Some of those funding it kept chasing that dream and are convinced that, if they just throw more compute at the problem, they can evolve the renaissance AGI that can do anything. Then they can fire every worker and be bazillionaires with robot slaves and never have to work another day of their lives… and fuck everyone and everything else.

It’s amazing what we can ruin when we let greed and selfishness drive our society.

So… when there is potential for someone to take advantage of something, it should be denied to everyone lest they happen to be the type that might take advantage? That more or less negates all social safety nets, charity, and acts of kindness.

Interesting that there really are employees that flourish and work more effectively when they do so from home.

How much do those who take advantage cost the employer vs those that benefit the employer? What the net gain or loss? Is it impossible to unobtrusively measure this? Maybe those who take advantage can be put on an improvement plan, brought into the office, or terminated without banning the practice.

Others have been sold the lie that it is flawed and inferior.

I’ve spoken briefly with some semi-progressive family about it and they immediately dismissed it as able to be “gamed” and therefore a worse system. I didn’t get time to really dig into it with them. I was just confused and shocked.

I fucking wish the US wasn’t entrenched in this abysmal two-party system.

I have somewhat similar concerns. I’m not as worried about sanitized Linux as I am about new mandates entrenching Microsoft, Apple, and Google as the only valid options. Even it it is an enormous pain in the ass for everyone, including those big three, it would infinitely preferably for them to more widespread adoption of alternatives.

Just propose solutions/mandates that are fundamentally incompatible with GPL and FOSS ideals, or deeply contentious within open source communities and you can do irreparable damage to the growth of Linux and any space that needs to adapt to those new mandates. Linux moving into education? Pretend it is needed to protect the children. Linux moving into government? Pretend it’s needed to protect security or efficiency. Linux moving into the workplace? Pretend it’s needed to protect AI or liability or synergy or whatever the fuck gets CEO dicks hard these days. BAM - Linux gets hit with massive internal strife and splitting of vital communities and resources. I know it was already absurdly contentious before, but seeing what happened when storing a users age hit systemd really worried me.

I think it’s already been kind of ongoing by co-opting or even creating “open source initiatives” from the business world who ultimately just jump in when things look mature and rapidly implement profit extraction and enshittification.