Looking at the way soldiers in Ukraine or civilians in Russia are being blown up to pieces by small drones, I'd say we're already here. And these drones are driven by AI, so even if GPS is jammed, these drones are intelligent enough to find their target without it.
Now imagine that AI has access to anybody's search history, plus that person is using a trackable phone, who's to say that a small FPV drone cannot be sent to get the job done? The way it's done in Ukraine?
I think we as humanity are facing mortal danger RIGHT NOW, not in the future. AI is killing humans on almost industrial. Especially because, well, some people might argue that's the entire goal. So AI is making it much easier.
Jürgen Schmidhuber said years ago during a live QnA that the debate is not dissimilar from that at the invention of fire: "Oh my, it's dangerous" // "Yes, but it is there - it is facts now".
Mass extinction through technology has been a known reality since decades. The technology remains the enabler, the responsible remains the human actor.
> The technology remains the enabler, the responsible remains the human actor.
That's an awful lot like "it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Some tech people just want to keep building, consequences be damned. Mentally shifting the responsibility one step further down the road is just a way for them to dodge responsibility.
It's worth remembering the developer is also "human actor." He's still responsible if he builds a dangerous technology, and leaves it for someone else to push the button.
It depends case by case. Examples abound, too many.
The atomic bomb? But Nazis had the V2.
The videogame? But the creator rewarded the creative, entertainment and possibly artistic results more than the idea of collective time of addiction, or maybe thought "better than chemicals"...
The axe? It is for chopping trees. Dynamite? Mines. Death ray? To defend yourself from wolves etc.
Sure there will be cases in which someone develops something inherently and only harmful, but it is not the general rule.
It's worth remembering "past performance is not indicative of future results."
Don't reason about the safety of potential future technology from the safety of past technology, generally. That gets you into nonsense like "my highly contagious bio-weapon won't destroy civilization because the axe didn't." You've got to look at the particularly characteristics of the new technology, with a cold and realistic understanding of human nature.
You are pointing to the risk that rogue engineers deluded themselves thinking that past technologies were not "that" devastating. That would be an error on more sides: not only you have not died by fall until the ground so past trend does not determine the future, but also, some past technologies /have/ been devastating.
Still, it is pretty uncommon in general to develop a «highly contagious bio-weapon»: when it happens - and it happens - the destructive context is clear. But there are also very many cases in which the productive or destructive adoption of an otherwise neutral technology is critical. The progresses enabled by Yann LeCun: recognize targets, or thieves, or citizens, or tumors...
I don't like the name "Cap". It implies a limit of some kind. Why would I sign up to get caped? I want unlimited video, not capped. I know you were going for capture, but now you're just cap.
Direct Response Copywriting works very well. So well that I even quit developing and started doing it full time. Launched a product and then another. Moved out of software development and into health. Like most successful marketers, I started by reading the great Gary Halbert Letter.
Acquaintance of mine bought an iPad. Proudly showed it to me how he can draw this and that. 6 months later he somehow forgot the password, entered it wrong too many times and the iPad is a brick. He's 75 years old. He can't find a receipt, there's no way to restore it. There's no way to put Linux on it. There's no way to do anything.
Another example - my mom. I was feeling generous, bought her an iPad as a present. Now nothing works on it anymore. You need some type of ID. The one I have never works. The whole thing is a brick. Useless piece of crap. She's 77 years old and uses her small phone screen to do anything.
So that's Apple products for you. They benefit the company, not the owner. You shell out thousands of dollars, end up with a brick. I will never buy another product from Apple again. (My wife just bought a brand new iPhone. Lol). Let's see how long that will work for her.
The problem here is that apple, in their infinite arrogance, feel that they continue to be the owner of the device you bought. The owner is who gets to set the policy. Apple here is setting and enforcing this bricking policy thus they are effectively the owner. But they still want you to pay for the device as if you were purchasing it!
The job of a vendor is to provide mechanisms to implement any kind of policy the buyer wants; the job of a buyer is to establish the policy that is best for them.
Apple wants to sell a device but continue being both the vendor and the owner of it. That is wrong.
Because 90% of the people are irrational buyers. They buy to impress their annoying cousin, or prove that they're more worthy than his wife's sister's husband. Because Apple's products are pricey and iPad case costs more than a iPad's competitor itself.
Same reason why my friend business owner in Dubai says his employees from India buy the most expensive phone with their first salary. Just because you buy the most expensive product, doesn't mean you get the best quality. And good marketers know it.
> Makes you wonder why they are so popular if this is the average user experience right?
Because people in general don't do risk analysis. Like in the 80s when everyone still smoked despite the risk of death being well known. Oh it won't happen to me!
Then when you have to throw away that perfectly functional $1000 apple device because apple decided you can't use it anymore, only then you realize you've been had.
> He can't find a receipt, there's no way to restore it.
These stories are semi-ridiculous. I don't doubt this person is in the predicament you describe. But why can't he just go to an Apple Store and have them unlock it? Does this person not own an ID?
This has disturbingly happened to just about every apple device made I've owned, except the older apple computers.
The older macos devices (pre-t2 chip) are always usable. You can usually get old data off them, or they can be re-initialized.
But old ios devices? Had an old ipad, it glitched and it needs an apple id password. but it hadn't been hooked up for years and you can't connect it to wifi without it. old ipod touch? same mess.
It seems if older ios devices get out of sync of current os, it becomes hard to recover them unless you have a mac with macos that matches ios by year.
Whoever set up the device is to blame. An iPad can do everything your phone can do so its security is taken seriously. Just write down the password if you can't remember it. Or make it your dog's name. If you can't find the password anywhere then how can you expect Apple to tell the difference between you and some criminal?
I made that mistake of partnering up with non technical co-founder to build travel insurance "configurator" to get the best deal on travel insurance. Only I discovered there were more co-founders like his wife "to do some accounting" and his buddies to do whatever.
And I was the only technical person who was supposed to build the thing, to launch it and they were the ones nit-picking little stupid details that took forever to fix but didn't matter all that much.
In the end I spent 5 months working on it and we still didn't get any paying clients, but many more ideas on what else I should build "to get clients". I realized they suck at marketing and business side of things and they don't know shit.
If you're a tech person, don't make the same mistake I did. Most people don't understand marketing. Their ideas are shit. They don't know the technology. And YOU are the one who's gonna be doing most of the work. And THEY think that the business belongs to them because as someone said they "came up with the idea" that wasn't all that unique because everything that's needed under the sun has already been built. Many times over. They had just no idea that that's the truth. Now if they have the money and want to hire you to do the work, charge them market rate.
There was an article at Forbes that said employees who stay with the company for more than 2 years are underpaid by as much as 50%.
So why do they stay for so long? Humans are resistant to change.
Speaking of myself, when I was working as a programmer, finding a new job meant going through endless interviews with leetcode tests even though I had 15 years experience.
Turns out it was Joel Spolsky who invented that practice. I'm sure most programmers want to strangle that guy. Lol.
As for me, I became a contractor. All my underpaid overtime turned into a paid one. Plus my contracts lasted a lot longer than my full time jobs. But even that what I later found out is what they call "trading hours for dollars".
In order to really succeed I need to start my own business. Which required me to learn "direct response marketing and copywriting".
Because being an Engineer I sucked at selling, finding hungry markets for my products, creating products and selling them by the millions.
Once I figured that out, it's like a new world opened up to me. Turns out you can make as much money as you want. Unlimited amounts. It's up to you how much you want to make. I wish I would've figured that out earlier.
Any recent books you suggest on "direct response marketing and copywriting"? I've tried to read "how to win friends and influence people" "ogilvy on advertising" "traction" but haven't taken actions yet.
You can only do this so much before you hit the pay ceiling of your role more or less. Then there is also the age factor, which whether it's justified or not the older you get the more expectations there are and the harder it becomes to jump ship.
Personally my biggest gripe is how technical careers evolve into non-technical roles because of how companies underestimate the engineering and overestimate people skills. The pay gap would be easier to bridge if yearly reviews were based mostly on technical skill growth instead of other corporate jargon like "impact" or "leadership".
Not an answer to your question, more bolstering your comment, hoping someone else will come along and be encouraged to answer. Trying to learn about this on the internet is a nauseating series of blogspam.
I have contracted about 1/2 my career. I love the freedom and the honesty about outcomes and money. I missed the benefits (esp group health insurance) and the sense of teamwork.
1. Introduction
2. Question about recent project candidate worked on
3. Easy Programming Question
4. Pointer/Recursion Question
5. Are you satisfied? [with your whiteboard code answer]
6. Do you have any questions?
This guy should win dad of the year award. Seriously. I gave my son a knife for his birthday when he was 7, but this is taking to a whole another dimension. I should also mention that growing up in eastern Europe back in the day, when I was 14, I was building a gun in my bedroom. It blew a hole in my palm when I was testing.
Been in your shoes, man. But according to smartest marketers (like Garry Halbert), we programmers are doing it backwards. Because when all you have is a hammer (or programming skills), then everything looks like a nail.
According to Gary Halbert, you first have to find a starving market. And there are three things people are starving for -- health, wealth and relationships. It's what they crave. It's what keeps them up at night. Notice, I did not say that they are starving for software of any kind. Unless this software helps them make money. For example, there's some software that generates $750/month per month per user. It's called Overflow. Why? because it generates more revenue for each of those clients. CBSplit is another one. It helps generate wealth to it's clients. Health supplements market is exploding. Golf buyers are so passionate, they'll spend thousands just to get an edge.
So in short -- we programmers suck as marketers. And until we unsuck ourselves, we will feel like giving up. Now I'm going to give you the legends you can learn from - Gary Halbert, Gary Bencivenga, Michael Masterson, Dan Kennedy. They wrote books they've learned from even bigger masters.
The sad fact is - your software or your product doesn't matter. Only your marketing does.
Now imagine that AI has access to anybody's search history, plus that person is using a trackable phone, who's to say that a small FPV drone cannot be sent to get the job done? The way it's done in Ukraine?
I think we as humanity are facing mortal danger RIGHT NOW, not in the future. AI is killing humans on almost industrial. Especially because, well, some people might argue that's the entire goal. So AI is making it much easier.