I find almost the entire article absurd. It touches on some real issues such as loneliness and declining birth rates but to ascribe the causality to AI girlfriends makes no sense. It seems these problems have far more to do with inequality and AI girlfriends are just a symptom 
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My aunt bought this for my grandparents, who were definitely NOT the gag gift type of people (old, Southern Jews). They loved it! My aunt (by marriage) really worked hard to breathe some life into my grandparents’ lives in their old age. She wanted to create a relationship with her kids and my grandparents. My cousins, who are much younger than me, had a much different experience of my grandparents thanks to her.
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Yeah, it’s backwards, and also misses the bigger picture. What are disaffected, lonely young men known for? Participation in radical extremist political groups, gangs, organized crime, etc. Is it really so bad if they’re chitchatting with an AI instead? Or is it a symptom that also indicates that we should be watching out for another rise in those things?
But the writer’s not looking at societal concerns, they don’t care about that. They’re strictly looking at it from an economic standpoint - “you people need to have more babies to work and pay for my retirement”.
That’s a very selfish and privileged statement. It may make sense mathematically, but it doesn’t make sense to ignore everything around it like it’s just one isolated thing.
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The latest odd chapter.
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Do we have a thread about AI’s sad future?
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Father Mark Grenon reportedly argued to the judge that he was a victim in the case and that his three years in custody so far amounted to “kidnapping.” As such, he said the US government owed him compensation of $5.76 million for being “held unlawfully.”
He apparently put the deal to the judge, asking “yes or no?” US District Judge Cecilia Altonaga called it a “nonsensical question,” and said, “I won’t answer that.”
The three sons, meanwhile, said they did not “consent” to the judicial proceedings and claimed their time in custody was already enough.
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What astounds me is he didn’t get a sentence for multiple cases of manslaughter at the very least.
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According to the BBC, that morning an officer noticed someone wandering around the grounds of Windsor Castle, and he suspected this person was not authorized to be there because he was wearing an iron face mask and carrying a loaded crossbow. “Morning, can I help, mate?” the officer said, which seems like a very British thing to say to someone wearing an iron face mask and carrying a loaded crossbow. Chail replied, “I am here to kill the Queen.”
It turned out that a few minutes earlier, Chail had posted a Snapchat video in which he apologized for what he was about to do, namely try to assassinate Elizabeth as “revenge” for the victims of the 1919 massacre. He identified himself in the video—although not as Jaswant Singh Chail.
“My name was Jaswant Singh Chail,” he stated, but now “my name is Darth Jones.”
According to the prosecution, the “defendant’s key motive was to create a new empire by destroying the remnants of the British Empire in the UK,” a motive informed in part by his immersion in the lore of Star Wars and “the role of Sith Lords in shaping the world.”
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It isn’t the worst thing I’ve heard being recirculated from the nineties, but it’s pretty bad and untrustworthy. The piece is not wrong that there are solutions that use democracy and markets. It is wrong in that the words used get sloppy handling, intentionally. Example: acting like the problems inherent to central planning don’t apply to firms and mob families as much as they do to dictators (whether clothed in red or black). That’s where democracy should get some credit for being indispensable to any technological goodness.
They are much more into the market solving our problems than democracy. They don’t care about democracy, they are libertarian extremists.
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Nope.
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I didn’t mention their technological solutions, because it’s a list of all the dumbest shit.
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At least it shows a sense of humor.
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Man, what a dipshit.
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I can see it now:
“You shattered your leg? Well, you should lose some weight, exercise more, stop smoking and drinking, get better sleep. Then your shattered leg won’t hurt as bad. Do you have any other questions? Oh, a ruptured appendix, I see. You can take a Tylenol for that.”
In other words, no worse than some doctors we have now.
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"It’s time for your colonoscopy. Eat a bag of prunes. Obtain a flashlight and a mirror. Then . . . "
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