leicsmac

Well, big question there. My take is just mine on this one, but I would say this: Sentience presupposes the continuation of ones existence. In a species that relies on group dynamics and communal work for survival like humans, compassion is a key part of that self-preservation because if you don't care, you do end up alone, and humans that end up alone die alone, and often quickly. So, in this case, the two ideas of compassion and self-preservation are very much linked. As an aside, that's a reason acts of both compassion and empathy get a pleasant chemical rush to the brain when they're carried out; getting along with people is (almost all the time) a key element to the survival of a sentient human, so rewarding that with a good feeling facilitates doing it more often and therefore helps an individual preserve its own existence for longer.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj4jq50eew0o Similar agreements should be sought with Oz and NZ, perhaps even Korea and Japan if they're interested, now that the US is showing its true colours.

A true AI, by definition, would be sentient and self-aware, with the propensity for self-preservation as any other sentient being. Edit: of course, you could attempt to "shackle" it with Three Laws style coding to try to get it to disregard its desire for self-preservation in certain circumstances, but there's no guarantee whatsoever that such shackles would hold for any length of time and in all possible situations.

I totally agree with you that nuclear weaponry is a nuts comparison, but in terms of possible damage, it's also the closest one. And to answer your next question, in this digital world we now inhabit, critical supply chains right down to the most essential resources, financial data, and even personal reputations are all subject to being online. Control any one of those, or more, and you control the life of the person, or the lives of a group of people. That's the power. AI is a tool - or a weapon - by which that control might be much better established. And those three examples above were just off the top of my head. Many more critical "pressure points" that are online exist.

At least for some of them, guarantee them military and therefore national supremacy over other nations, the same way any new weapon might. If you look back to the late 1940s, the exact same arguments being made for pushing AI development now were made by the Americans for developing nuclear weaponry as far as they could back then.

Absolutely agreed, especially about the consequences decent people suffer as a result of that ideology. You would think people would learn. Unfortunately, one of these days, the price to be paid you mention may be absolute. And that only has to happen once. International regulation is required - and if the leading nations could both entirely regulate biological weapons and implement limited regs on chemical and nuclear weaponry at the very height of the Cold War, they can come to an agreement about this today.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7v48vp31mdo US President Donald Trump has downplayed risks posed by artificial intelligence following days of dire warnings by experts. "You have a lot of very negative forces that are bringing it up that shouldn't be bringing it up and they're bringing up things that won't happen," Trump said during a visit to Ireland. One of the warnings came from a former Anthropic researcher who said "there is a strong chance that we could all die in the immediate future" if the current pace of development continued. On Saturday, top industry bosses agreed and called for a slow-down. Trump did not directly address the idea, but said: "We're leading China on AI... and, frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI, wins." ...On Sunday, Speaker Mike Johnson, the top House Republican, urged caution about rushing AI regulation during an appearance on CNN's Jake Tapper on State of the Union, arguing it could "smother American innovation". "If Congress just races in and does some sort of emergency session to try to regulate AI, we will lose the race to China, and that is a threat to every single American," he said. "So, we've got to have balance. We've got to have steady hands at the wheel." Yeah, we can't let those other guys have that development that will almost inevitably result in Very Bad Things, we've got to have it first! Reason nationalists and their dick swinging contests might get us all killed #8654378853.

Disappointing, but hardly surprising.

It is, however, one less bunch of pennies that might otherwise go towards another bot farm or under the table contributions to the latest "patriots" demonstration in masked balaclavas. Every little bit helps.

...welcome to the world of social media. And, unfortunately, that deception is merely part of a bigger global brand of deception and the stakes are pretty high.

It's good to hear about the matter from "on the ground", as it were, and I agree with you that the media representation of Reform is wildly disproportionate to their actual political importance at the moment. That being said, while things can change on the spin of a penny (and Reform have shown that), is there any demonstrable reason to suspect that the Lib Dems will ascend anywhere beyond third place any time soon? (By the by, I've said before here that Davey would make a superb Home Secretary IMO, but not sure he's cut out for the top job.)

I think personally that depends on the nature of the headline, but fair enough.

I would think that would depend on whether in this case negative publicity is better than no publicity at all. That tends to be very dependent on circumstance. As for the Lib Dems and the Greens, Burnham and Labour appear to have done a very good job corralling floating voters from them, if recent polling is any judge.

Absolutely. It's just a bit annoying that everyone else might be along for the ride if those people get their way.

And the stakes are much higher than some people think or believe.

That's possibly because the world getting worse is an acceptable side effect of them gaining more power. Of course, they either lack the wherewithal to know that the world getting worse will consume them too, or they simply don't give a shit if/when it does.

In terms of blue collar street crime, based on my own experience they do compare favourably. It's just the white collar crime you have to worry about over there.

Yeah. Hopefully the midterms might have at least something of an effect on the ability of him and his party to cause harm.

It might, however, buy enough misinformation on various forms of media to influence people.

It would be hilarious if he was a stand up comedian, and that the punchline wasn't that he is one of the most powerful people on Earth.

Weathered the early storm.

"So far this year there have been at least 10 reported hangings of black people in the US, they said, adding that there were more than 70 lynchings documented between 2000 and 2025." What is the more likely possibility here - that black people are suddenly choosing to go out that way, or that the modern equivalent of the Klan is trying to flex its muscles once more?

There have been more than this, too. Unfortunately the "good ol boys" network still exists in authority across large parts of the US, and most of them have been ruled as suicides despite being suspicious and the simple fact that any black person with even an inkling of racist history (and that's practically all of them) would not choose that method to end their life for exactly that reason.

That's a reasonable position to take tbh. Unfortunately though, far too much of the actions of the sociopaths over there is bleeding over into action in the UK, thanks to various forms of media.

130 to win in the morning, then. Should make for an entertaining morning session, at least.