Nobody said they replicated by authoring the replica from scratch, which seems to be what you’re assuming. A generative AI is ultimately a lump of code and a statistical model. Surely you’re not saying that it cannot copy files given file system access.

Because copying some files and starting new processes is all it really has to do to ‘self replicate’.

What a legend. Kudos!

Yeah, that sounds exactly like what everybody were looking for in an OS. /s

I’ve been very happy to be using Linux for the past decade and a half, but never more so than now.

I’m no lawyer, let alone a US lawyer, but can somebody explain how this isn’t a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which makes it a federal offense to intentionally access a “protected computer” without authorization or by exceeding authorized access?

That’s very sensible of you.

Haha, yeah. But seriously.

“ICE reached out to both Mr. Bale and Mr. Bean in an attempt to address the current gun-fu deficit of the agency, but regrettably neither had any interest in the job.”

I think that’s illegal now too. Can’t have anything interfering with the glorious vision of a relentlessly productive citizenry that ideally slave away for the benefits of their owners until they die in the office chair at age 74 - right before qualifying for pension.

Well, except for the health “care” system. That’s an exception, but only because the only thing better than ruthless exploitation is diversified ruthless exploitation. Gotta keep the peons on their toes, lest they get uppity.

You know what really grinds my gears? This shitty dystopia completely eschews any potentially cool aspect of invasive exploitative authoritarianism. The (not so) secret police is patching together their own “uniforms” by browsing the bargain bins at the local tacti-cool mall-ninja outfitters. Where’s the black leather trench coats, stylish sunglasses worn after dark and slicked back hair? If they’re going to ask me for ‘ze papers’ all the time, the least they can do is look cool doing it, godamnit. At least get Hugo Boss to design your attire; that’s just about the only thing that worked out well for the last bunch of pricks.

I mean, where’s the towering brutalist architecture? Where’s my mandatory daily dose of SOMA? Or my idiotically wirelessly hackable cyberware? Hell, they can’t even do bread and circuses right anymore. The bread is CO2-pumped flour glue and the circuses is an endless stream of more Marvel projects and Disney violations of Star Wars.

And don’t get me started on the quality of our dictators these days. They sure don’t make them like they used to.

I’m suggesting they should refuse to use the services of companies that act like this.

…Well, you’ve got my vote.

That would be ideal of course, but this is the US we’re talking about, so it seems unlikely that you’ll have them.

Totally nailed it!

Look, does it really matter whether they do or not? If a company is morally bankrupt enough to conduct business like this in the first place, it’s a certainty they’ll just find some other novel way to be flaming assholes.

If you don’t want to get cheated, stop doing business with thieves and liars.

Well, yeah, but what can one reasonably expect from a bunch of idiots but to miss the point? It’s what they do best.

The President of the United States interfering in the internal affairs of private corporations, while the part of the electorate who gave him the job clutches their pearls about encroaching ‘socialism’. Not even the most perverse satirical mind could make this shit up. The global supply of hallucinogens is grossly insufficient.

Alternatively, you could use a browser instead of an advertisement delivery app.

It really doesn’t. I highly doubt there isn’t office politics going on inside Microsoft, Apple and Google, but unlike them, Linux development is all public. If anything, that’s likely to curtail a lot of bad behavior rather than encourage it.