Maybe ban algorithmically-delivered content? So, for example, consider YouTube. The only way to get content would be to search for videos or to subscribe to individual channels. You can still have a user-curated experience, but that curation must be actively done by the user. This would at least prevent feed algorithms selecting for engagement and rage.

I would rather target the worst practices of social media companies in general, rather than try and keep kids from them. It’s not like adults aren’t harmed by this stuff either.

Frankly, for investing, AGI shouldn’t even be on your radar. AGI can only result in three outcomes - extinction, complete totalitarianism, or some sort of communist system. Most likely any AGI would just kill us, probably by accident. But even if they manage to control it, then what? You quickly end up with one or a handful of AI companies owning literally the entire economy, producing everything. At that point capitalism is done. Either we allow the new oligarchy to exist indefinitely (totalitarianism) or we nationalize the companies and go full Star Trek.

What these AI companies miss is that true AGI is incompatible with capitalism. Capitalism doesn’t work when only 1-3 companies make all the goods and services in the economy.

Your point on 2008 is valid though. There’s a lot we just swept under the rug instead of dealing with properly.

You can’t eliminate the risk, but you can ameliorate it. Yes, sectors like retail, construction, and even healthcare will take a hit during the AI bust. After a crash, there’s much less money floating around. People are out of work. Asset prices are down. People spend less. So every sector gets hit.

But there is a difference between a hit and a collapse. If you’re invested in OpenAI, and the bubble bursts? Your investment is going to zero. The company is going to go bankrupt. Shareholders will be completely wiped out. If you’re invested in say…Home Depot, well yes, in a crash, the stock will go down. With millions laid off, people will have less money to spend on home renovations, so demand for the Depot’s products will decline. Their stock price will take a large hit.

But, if you’re smart, this won’t hurt you. Eventually things will recover, the bubble will clear out, and demand for building products will return. At that point the Home Depot stock price will recover. As long as you don’t sell during the crash, you won’t see any losses.

That is the key difference. An investment in any sector right now risks a decline and then recovery a few years down the road. An investment in the AI sector risks a complete collapse to zero.

NASDAQ is still buying. S&P500 isn’t. But it’s still a major concern if you’re holding a total market index fund or similar.

What do you think about value mutual funds like these?

https://www.schwab.com/research/mutual-funds/tools/schwab-funds/index-funds/fundamental

I’m moving most of my US stock holdings to these funds. It’s still US market exposure, so there will be some risk from the AI bubble. But the key thing is that these indices are not trying to track the Dow Jones, the NASDAQ, etc. They don’t actively manage funds - they don’t pick winners and losers. They are a passive investment blindly applying uniform rules - just like index funds. However, they don’t weight by market cap. Instead they weight stocks in the index based on fundamental values - actual sales, retained earnings, book value, etc. The actual share price of the companies isn’t factored in at all. And you can’t even get into one of these indices until your company is profitable.

The expense ratios are higher than I’m used to. The low-cost index funds I’ve traditionally used have expense ratios more like 0.01-0.02%. This is 0.25%. This is still well below the 1% most managed funds use. But that is a downside of this.

With how tightly the whole global financial system is tied together, I’m not under any illusions that moving to these funds will eliminate my exposure to the AI bubble. But I hope at least to ameliorate it.

Don’t be so smug. The intended victims of this IPO are passive investors who aren’t trying to time the market and are just long-term holding index funds for retirement. That’s exactly who Musk is planning to rob. If you’re taking the typical low-cost index fund strategy, you will be giving approximately 1% of your life savings to Elon Musk.

I do. But I do it mainly to support the creators I follow. I’m not going to sign up for a bunch of patreon or channel subscriptions, but at least they can get their share of the subscription money.

Seriously. My default script when interacting with customer service folks when asked my name is to say my name and then spell out both the first and last names. Because my first name has several variants that people will misspell it with, and the surname is relatively common but still one people struggle with. It’s easier just to spell it out than to fix the inevitable input errors later.

“I would like one cup of water and the entirety of Wikipedia translated back and forth between Navajo and ancient Sumerian Avogadro’s number times.”

FNDX and similar. https://www.schwab.com/research/mutual-funds/tools/schwab-funds/index-funds/fundamental

FNDX and similar.

https://www.schwab.com/research/mutual-funds/tools/schwab-funds/index-funds/fundamental

FNDX and similar.

https://www.schwab.com/research/mutual-funds/tools/schwab-funds/index-funds/fundamental

I’m still invested in some US stocks, but I’m switching my US market exposure to an index fund that weights by actual sales, revenue, and other objective factors, rather than market cap. Companies don’t even get into the index unless they turn a profit first.

Yeah I’m thinking of an automated version of greebling. Except you design the extraneous bits so that they’re only attached to the intended print like print supports - something in a non-critical location, easily torn away.

Then five minutes later, someone figures out how to make a 3d printable gun that bypasses the gun detector on the 3d printer. It’s not like you’re printing a whole gun; you’re printing parts, most of which look nothing like a gun. How hard would it be to design an algorithm that takes a gun part cad file and then adds a bunch of extraneous pieces to it that can be easily removed? Just keep adding extra crap until the system no longer detects it as a gun part.

Well that’s literally what these laws are requiring. You can speculate on future laws, but you can imagine innumerable horrible futures. It’s important to stay grounded and not get lost in the dooming. And I see nothing wrong with an optional feature that lets you set an age on a child’s account. As long as it’s something I control, then that’s actually giving me more control over my hardware, not less.

Yes, there will be people pushing for more invasive methods. But those are the laws you should oppose. Not these. People tend to think in binaries. And they tend to lump everything called “digital id” into one bucket devoid of nuance or discernment.

If anything, lumping all digital id into one bucket without any nuance only helps the opponents of privacy. Simply giving the parents the option to enter an age is a perfectly reasonable policy. If you oppose that because you cannot recognize nuance and consider all id laws equivalent, then you’re hurting your side. People see you appealing to privacy when opposing something that reasonable people will not see as a violation of privacy. Again, we’re taking OS-level controls that actually give you more control over the machine.

You risk a “boy who cried wolf” scenario. You turn everyone against you fighting something that really isn’t an invasion of privacy. Then when someone does actually try to pass a law mandating facial recognition be built into apps, people will ignore you as they already consider you an irrational radical.

But that’s literally what these systems are. There is more than one form of age verification. The type we’re discussing here literally is just “enter your name in a box.” It’s important not to muddy the waters. If you don’t know what you’re opposing and choosing your battles carefully, you can’t effectively fight infringement on privacy. And I really don’t see anything wrong with a law that just says, “every OS needs to have a feature that lets parents self-report age on a child’s account.”

Yes, there are other forms of digital id laws. But we’re talking specifically about OS-level ones. This literally just be a more effective parental control, giving people more control over their own PCs, not less.

Again, try to focus on what specifically we are talking about, not similar-sounding but unrelated technologies.

I don’t really get this. Why is it such a big deal if your OS has setting where you enter your age, and the OS then sends that to websites? Face scanning or demanding uploads of photo IDs is an immense privacy violation. But simply having your OS have a setting you can use where you provide a number, a number that you’re completely free to alter or report whatever value you want? I really don’t see the issue with this.

This seems like a pretty easy way to give parents some control over their kid’s online activities while also not infringing on privacy. The parents can set up the OS and give an account to their kids that lists their ages as under 18. If they want their kids to access the web without restrictions, they simply don’t have to create an under 18 account on the computer. And even if your OS has to report an age to access a website, if it’s all based on self-reporting, you can just self-report a false age.

We tend to think in binaries, as this is convenient. We tend to view all digital age verification as horrible and equally horrible. But this? Just giving parents a way to give their kids a minors-only account, and have websites respect that OS-level flag? This is nothing like bills that require uploading face scans or photo IDs.

Sure you can speculate a slippery slope. But that is a fallacy for a reason. It tends to wash out all nuance and make you conclude everything is absolute evil forever.

There’s a reason we abandoned monarchy. Zuck is effectively the king of meta. Literally. The founding corporate structure is designed so he literally can never be fired. And if you give anyone absolute unaccountable power, it’s only a matter of time until they drive things right off a cliff.

Don’t even wait for the drainage district to do it. What’s Tesla going to do, sue you for blocking their illegal dumping?