But you know they are spam, so it’s something you can avoid. But what if the majority (over 80%) of the calls you receive can’t be identified as spam. At some point, you may be wasting far more time than it’s worth to keep using a phone without some major whitelist/blacklist system.

Also, what happens when the outbound calls you make are answered by AI, and you don’t know? If this AI is giving you replies that are word salad, how long are you willing to tolerate it?

I’ve been getting text messages now from companies that I actually do business with, but they are spam. Calls from companies that I have accounts with, and they are scams. At some point, SMS and phone calls will be more trouble than its worth.

And the thought of either having to go without it, the pain of replacing it, or the frustration of being strung along in a scam are not thoughts I want to have.

There will always be a large number of sites that are not capitalist hellholes that only exist to steal user’s data or scam users or do other malicious things. This may be down to things like credit unions, federated social media, and non-profits that exist to make the world better, but there will always be something that is out there that keeps it from being useless.

No doubt that there will be people who still have morals and will run sites and services that don’t completely screw people.

But at some point, you won’t be able to tell which are legit, and which aren’t. AI generated websites can make any scam site look completely legitimate, fake thousands of testimonials, have bots post about it on every major website (Reddit, YouTube, etc.) without being caught, etc.

The currency of the internet is no longer about what’s valuable to users, but what’s valuable to bad actors, data thieves, and marketers.

There will be a tipping point when the bad far, far outweighs the good, and I’m curious to know when society decides that the internet isn’t worth using anymore.

Let me ask you this: assuming you use the internet for information rather than entertainment, would the internet be useful if the majority of content ends up being AI generated (not fact checked, not accurate, and not original)?

What if the overwhelming content you come across could neither be verified as true, and the majority of comments (including here on Lemmy) were bots? Would you still use it?

For me, it would stop being useful. Almost like a library only carrying fiction, when I’m trying to research a topic.

For entertainment, sure, it’ll be great for sucking the attention from people without having to invest in skill to be good at something. Hell, if you currently find YouTube shorts and Tiktok to be “good content”, then it’ll be around forever. Corporations and advertisers love this technology.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of things, and where we are heading.

At what point do we consider the internet “useless”? It must be coming very soon (less than 2 years), since the majority of content will be AI generated and targeted, which drives down the value for users even further.

Once original ideas vanish, and you can’t trust any text/audio/video/photo you see, what will be the point? It’s like the internet will simply be a video game world with next to no value.

And I can’t see how society can possibly reverse this.

I appreciate the math! But yes, for a crime this significant, and one that affects 1 billion (!!!) people, the equivalent of $467 to the average American is peanuts.

But I’d also argue that a $467 fine to the average American hurts more than the equivalent to a company that amasses so much wealth. There are so many hundreds of billions of dollars in excess profit being funnelled into Meta. For a fine to sting, it would need to be at least $100 billion or more, but even that could be made up very quickly…

We’re just talking wishful thinking at this point. None of these mega corporations were ever “hurt” by a fine, so they factor it into their business costs when they plan to commit these crimes.

FFFUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKK YYYYYYEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHH!!! That’s an incredible pace she was able to hold.

Lael is such a cool and genuine person. I’m so happy for her.

If that is what an easy to clean outer surface looks like… just imagine what the inside looks like.

Saw a video where a guy was standing in the engine compartment of a Tundra. There was a enough room between the engine and the grill that he could comfortably stand on the ground.

There’s a video illustrating how many kids can be in front of a pick-up truck before the driver can see them… hint: it was A LOT.

The number of times I’ve seen people “stalled” at green lights, only to ride past them and see a phone in their hand is quite unbelievable.

As a motorcyclist, this is one of the first things you learn in class - other people don’t see you because they don’t expect to see you.

Assuming others see you is like planning to make this situation happen.

I’m a very defensive cyclist (and motorist), but the idea that it’s the most vulnerable people on the road or sidewalk who have to pay attention more than the person behind the wheel is exactly the thing that motorists want to hear.

Why can’t car drivers pay attention? Why can’t they follow the rules and stay below or at the posted speed limits? Why is it that “I didn’t see you” is such an airtight defence, that society basically accepts it as normal without any consequence?

People are getting killed doing ordinary things, and it’s because of someone else driving a multi-ton weapon without any regard for human life.

And it’s not only humans. Some will purposely go out of their way to drive INTO animals, but maybe the animal should have been paying better attention. /s

I’m getting really tired and angry of seeing cyclists and pedestrians getting run over on a regular basis, and then getting blamed for not anticipating every idiot’s move behind the wheel.

“I didn’t see you” it’s always that line no matter how much effort you make to be seen

The times when I’ve almost been hit by turning cars has been when I was visible enough to see from space. I can’t do anything more to be seen.

If someone is admitting to be blind, they shouldn’t be allowed behind the wheel. Or, they can admit to negligent driving and be fined. They can’t have it both ways.

A year of work… for something that NOBODY asked for or even wants? That’s a shame. I’d expect that from Google, but not a team working on an open-source project.

I’m sure someone will fork a build to keep the legacy UI. Seems like it would be easy to NOT include the code that uglifies the UI like that. LOL

Crap, so that’s what I should expect to come down the line? Not a deal-breaker for me, but it is going backwards.

YouTube does this. Infuriating well beyond mild.

What version is this? I’m not seeing that huge ass play button, and I’m on the latest beta build.

Maybe drivers simply didn’t see the building. These stores need to be painted with high-viz paint! You can’t blame drivers for these stores being invisible! /s

I’ve used plenty of Linux VMs through Windows, so I’m aware of the limitations. I’m not trying to game through a VM, more like accessing some programs that I need for a few minutes at a time (and not even on a daily basis).

Can you share the software you went to use? Maybe there’s a good Linux alternative or someone knows how to get it working in wine.

These are all paid programs that don’t have viable alternatives and/or I actually need to use them.

A few off the top of my head:

• Excire Foto
• Jpegmini Pro
• Garmin Basecamp
• Garmin Express
• several paid video editing/photo editing apps; I’ve tried alternatives, but they aren’t nearly as intuitive.
• Reolink camera software.
• ACP Ups software.

I do my best to find alternatives to other software, and prefer to use self-hosted solutions, but the ones above aren’t really easy to replace, so I’d rather just run them in a VM.

I’ve use VMs in windows to run Linux, so I’m aware of the performance hit and possible startup times (but I use snapshots for quick access). I’m not too concerned about that for any of these programs, since I’m only using them from time-to-time.

Bottles didn’t run anything I tried, unfortunately. They seemed to install just fine, but that was about it.