Tbf if you actually look into Mozilla’s “AI” plans, it’s for stuff like better offline translation, better screen reader and image description functionality for disabled users, finding alternate sources for articles, and so on.

It all runs locally, is trained on open source models with ethically sourced training data, and doesn’t send your personal information to Mozilla.

I don’t think it should be treated in the same way as Google or Microsoft’s AI implementations.

Yeah. He explicitly stated that the only thing stopping them flipping the switch were those damn pesky road laws

IIRC it was, then the EU stopped it. I don’t know if they still do it outside of the EU.

Of course it would’ve been better if it were present from the beginning. But I’m not going to complain about them doing the right thing now.

And EU fines so far have proven to be quite the motivator. These aren’t the baby fines the US hands out.

Loads of young people use Instagram. And Messenger. And WhatsApp. Some have Threads. They own a few shitty mobile games companies.

Then on top of that Facebook collects data for third parties too via their ad network.

Going after Meta for this is 100% justified.

Company tries to cut costs by outsourcing to another company with lowly paid employees in another country, often India or Pakistan, where the outsourced labour (that all too frequently hasn’t been properly trained in the company’s procedures) often doesn’t share the same first language leading to misunderstandings, made worse by the difference in office hours meaning the teams often can’t communicate with eachother in real time (the timezone factor is a big one IMO).

It’s an issue affecting a lot of tech companies right now, including where I work (HPE). But I guess it must work out as being cheaper despite the issues, otherwise it wouldn’t be happening.

It’s because they’re trying to instill in your mind that you’re getting into an ecosystem. A way of life, even.

“XYZ on the iPhone” just makes it sound like an appliance.

“XYZ on iPhone” makes it sound like it’s an ecosystem. An experience. Something to be part of.

It’s a very deliberate (though subtle) marketing choice that I believe impacts how people view the brand.

I don’t understand what your point is here? Fossil fuels were instrumental in the industrial revolution so we have to stick by them forever, planet and people’s health benefits damned?

Nah. Use the most appropriate tech available. Which is now renewables, electric motors, etc.

This is an argument publishers love to make, but it’s bullshit. Yes, games (assuming you ignore in game purchases/DLC, which you obviously shouldn’t but I digress) have got cheaper in real terms due to inflation lowering how much $60 is really worth, while games have stayed at that price tag.

It’s also true that development costs have went up.

Now, here’s the part that game publishers conveniently never talk about: distributing games is far cheaper now. We’re usually not shipping pallets of discs that take up loads of space and cost money to physically create, while also having to build in a profit margin for all the middlemen along the way, including for the retailer. We predominantly buy games digitally.

On top of that, gaming used to be niche, now everybody does it. The market is far larger, so they don’t need to charge a lot to still make bank.

The thing is, nobody can be educated on everything. It’s impossible.

Nobody can know every part of a supply chain, how every aspect of everything they buy is made or how it works or the ramifications of all of that.

It is impossible for a person to do this stuff.

This is why regulations need to be part of the equation.

I’m all for reducing the number of cars on the road but IMO this is a poor attitude to have to a problem that exists right now and is ballooning out of control, but has a very easy solution.

Moving away from cars will take a long, long time. Infrastructure doesn’t come from nowhere, and some places are so sparsely populated that public transport can be a very difficult proposition, or even an impossibility. Those places in particular will be stuck with cars for a while. Banning predatory data gathering on cars can happen right now if there is the political will to do so.

I know it’s easy for some to say “well I don’t care, fuck anybody who drives a car, they’re evil and I don’t like them. Why don’t they simply be rich and buy a house in a city where public transport is usable?”, but I think everybody has a right to privacy, and the default shouldn’t be for our tools to spy on us and report it back to the OEMs. Particularly when a lot of car drivers don’t have any choice but to drive!

You can work on strengthening public transport while at the same time improving privacy laws for cars. It’s not one or the other.

Lmao what’s up with the hostility? Can you not just talk like a normal, civilised person? If you behaved like this in real life, people would very quickly either stop talking to you, or knock you out.

You said that it’s blanket legal, in all cases, and that anybody who says otherwise is an idiot. I said that not only is that not the case in the one country you brought up, it also isn’t in others.

Nobody asked you to list the laws of every country, or of any specific country. You said archiving is always legal in every case, everywhere, and said anybody who says otherwise is an idiot. Unfortunately your perception and reality don’t quite line up with one another.

That’s just one country, and only covers archiving and privately storing your own media. It also doesn’t technically allow for breaking DRM IIRC, which almost all media now utilises, so what you say unfortunately isn’t true.