Tag: Big Tech

We are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately — Trump

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We have just been informed that Canada, a very difficult Country to TRADE with, including the fact that they have charged our Farmers as much as 400% Tariffs, for years, on Dairy Products, has just announced that they are putting a Digital Services Tax on our American Technology Companies, which is a direct and blatant attack on our Country. They are obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing, and is currently under discussion with us, also. Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately. We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

Edited Jun 27, 1:59 PM

AI and zero-click internet are killing the web’s business model

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AI and zero-click searches are killing the business model of the web that has sustained content creators for the last 15+ years. It’s an opinion that is shared by many, including Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince, who recently warned that “search drives everything that happens online.”

It’s been known for some time that the web is changing into the Zero-Click Internet, the name for when users no longer need to click on links to find whatever content they want.

Social media sites stopped promoting posts with links years ago, posting content directly on the platforms so users don’t have to leave them. With the advent of generative AI, people are having their queries answered directly on Google’s search page – no need to click on a website to find an answer.

The main issue is that nobody is going to want to create new content when they get paid nothing or almost nothing for doing so. This is especially true when it comes to smaller, independent, impartial sites that AI companies might not partner with. And let’s not forget how often AI gets things completely wrong.

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University of Zurich researchers secretly deployed AI bots to manipulate Reddit users’ opinions

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The revelation that University of Zurich researchers secretly deployed AI bots to manipulate Reddit users’ opinions should chill anyone who values authentic human discourse.

These weren’t merely passive observers—they were digital persuaders that analyzed users’ personal histories, fabricated identities, and crafted arguments specifically designed to change minds.

Most troubling?

They succeeded spectacularly—achieving persuasion rates six times higher than normal human interactions.

This experiment crossed critical ethical lines.

Without consent or disclosure, researchers unleashed bots that claimed to be rape victims, misrepresented religious teachings, and spread misinformation about controversial topics.

These digital ghosts generated over 1,500 comments, each precisely calibrated to exploit cognitive vulnerabilities of their human targets.

We’ve long worried about social media’s echo chambers.

But what happens when those chambers are deliberately infiltrated by increasingly sophisticated AI systems trained on the very platforms they’re manipulating?

Reddit’s recent data-sharing deal with OpenAI suggests we’re actively providing the training material for ever more persuasive digital manipulators.

Reddit moderators rightly condemned this unauthorized experiment, but their discovery came months after the damage was done.

How many other digital conversations are currently being shaped by invisible algorithmic hands?

Source: @reddit_lies  Engadget

I view Reddit fairly often. Started using it when it had very few users and you could easily get a post on the front page. AskScience was glorious back then as conversations would go on and on and there was very little bs. That was a long time ago. Today’s Reddit is mind-control totalitarian thought-slavery on virtually all major subjects. However, if you go to small subreddits, you can find very interesting material; subreddits on narcissism and other personality disorders; on aspects of culture such as parenting or marriage customs. I highly appreciate hearing authentic voices from around the world on topics like those and many more. That said, another thing you can see on Reddit is what looks to me like spontaneous hive-mind formation. These look real to me because they can form very quickly in subs that have nothing to do with politics. Tooafraidtoask is one example where this can happen. I encourage everyone to support free-speech on all platforms and use your free-speech yourself, use it often. Keep pushing the envelope wherever you are because widespread free-speech that people use is probably our only defense against a looming and probable computerized totalitarian nightmare. ABN

‘Soft’ totalitarianism will kill us all; free speech is the only antidote

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Ursula is pushing leftist ‘soft’ totalitarianism, wrapped in smarmy ‘morality’. What she wants is to control European minds by controlling what they can say and hear. At this juncture, as AI advances rapidly and security controls become increasingly omnipotent, we must insist on free speech, unrestricted free speech. Restricting speech based on bogus claims of ‘misinformation’ or ‘hate speech’ or whatever Ursula doesn’t like, serves only the totalitarians. With free speech on as many platforms as possible, the citizens of the West will constitute the only repository of information that can compete with AI. ABN

NVIDIA to Manufacture American-Made AI Supercomputers in US for First Time

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NVIDIA Blackwell chip production starts in Arizona — NVIDIA opens first US factories.

NVIDIA is working with its manufacturing partners to design and build factories that, for the first time, will produce NVIDIA AI supercomputers entirely in the U.S.

Together with leading manufacturing partners, the company has commissioned more than a million square feet of manufacturing space to build and test NVIDIA Blackwell chips in Arizona and AI supercomputers in Texas.

NVIDIA Blackwell chips have started production at TSMC’s chip plants in Phoenix, Arizona. NVIDIA is building supercomputer manufacturing plants in Texas, with Foxconn in Houston and with Wistron in Dallas. Mass production at both plants is expected to ramp up in the next 12-15 months.

The AI chip and supercomputer supply chain is complex and demands the most advanced manufacturing, packaging, assembly and test technologies. NVIDIA is partnering with Amkor and SPIL for packaging and testing operations in Arizona.

Within the next four years, NVIDIA plans to produce up to half a trillion dollars of AI infrastructure in the United States through partnerships with TSMC, Foxconn, Wistron, Amkor and SPIL. These world-leading companies are deepening their partnership with NVIDIA, growing their businesses while expanding their global footprint and hardening supply chain resilience.

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Elon Musk is Doing What Eric Holder Dreamed of Doing

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Everything we see unfolding, from the Tech Bro alignment with Trump, to the network of influence after the election, to the selection and advisement of specific individuals to join the administration, all the way to the first-round expose’ of USAID, should be looked upon with a background forecast.

(1) gaining access to govt data was the goal; (2) monetizing the system with proprietary AI contracts (vis-a-vis Palantir) is the benefit; (3) however, a national security justified surveillance state is going to be the outcome.

As people are shocked at the USAID spending scandal unfolding, I would posit the USAID silo was chosen first for DOGE exploration specifically because the subsequent outrage would gain the highest amount of public support for the pending solution. It’s the pending solution to the crisis that we should be very focused on.

Their solution will never be about US, it will always be about THEM; what’s in their best interests. That’s their focus, not us, them.

Failing to STOP after crisis in the past always ended up with acceptance of their solution. Now we take off our shoes at the airport, go through body scans, accept pat-downs, wear masks, accept sketchy vaccines, click yes on 5,000-word terms of service for privacy statements we never read, align ourselves with Real ID, and generally accept the all-encompassing surveillance state; none of which is grounded upon liberty or freedom. It’s all based on govt control.

Yes, as poked by Musk the govt is in crisis, and just as sure as you are reading this the administrators within govt already have the solution ready to roll.

“We will use advanced technology and non-partisan AI programming, to make the government more efficient and ensure this level of corruption and wasteful spending never happens again.”  That’s the selling point.

Every dollar will be tracked, monitored and oversight will be transparent and available for everyone to see. Just ignore the part where the same efficiency system is monitoring your real ID, connecting your personage to the new govt and private sector interfaces, and click “I agree” on your next federal tax filing.

Trust us Comrade citizen, the new technologically advanced DODGE approved govt system cares about responsible stewardship and you. Swear.”

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I honestly do not see any way out of this. The tech is too powerful and easy to implement. The dystopian side of this is a horror show. The utopian side might be good, even very good — no crime, smooth bureaucracy, better information everywhere. It looks like a reverse-Q plot. Robots doing all the work. Some hope may be higher IQs through digital babies leading to elites becoming bored with cruelty. Having total verifiable control of everyone is the ultimate KOBK move. KOBK has always ruled the earth. There is no reason to believe it will stop now. Can the same tech further evolved produce a wise hegemon, a benevolent dictator? ABN

Staggering number of federal workers accepting buyouts revealed amid DOGE’s mass purge of bloated bureaucracies

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About 75,000 federal workers have abandoned ship and decided to accept President Trump’s deferred buyout after a federal judge lifted a temporary freeze on the offer. 

The buyout was just one of many approaches Trump and Elon Musk‘s Department of Government Efficiency have taken to dismantle bloated bureaucracies and slash a civilian workforce of 2.3 million. 

Officials have been told that some agencies can see up to 70% of their staff cut. 

The deferred buyout program promised employees their salaries and benefits until October if they leave immediately. 

A union which represents hundreds of thousands of federal workers sued last week to stop the deal. But a Massachusetts judge ruled the unions lack standing to challenge the directive. 

Trump declared victory on the program Wednesday night and closed the offer to anyone who has not yet accepted. 

He also warned federal agencies to prepare for wide-ranging job cuts, and several departments have begun to lay off recent hires who lack full job security.

Elon Musk cheered on the government purge Wednesday night and warned critics ‘the matrix is being reprogrammed’ as he seeks to cut $2 trillion in spending.

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FULL REMARKS: JD Vance Puts European Leaders On Notice About Trying To Regulate U.S. Tech Giants

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This is an excellent speech and I hope Vance, Trump and USA live up to it. Vance broadsides European ‘leaders’ who are trying to control AI and information in general. He warns China and others there will be serious consequences for using AI to steal or undermine USA. He promises USA will promote and protect full free speech on USA platforms. I see no other intelligent way forward but to go for it full steam and agree with how Vance has put it. ABN

Musk-led group makes $97.4 billion bid for control of OpenAI

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Feb 10 (Reuters) – A consortium led by Elon Musk said on Monday it has offered $97.4 billion to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, months after the billionaire sued the artificial intelligence startup to block it from transitioning to a for-profit firm.

Musk’s bid could ratchet up longstanding tensions with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman over the future of the startup at the heart of a boom in generative AI technology.

Altman promptly posted on X: “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”

The two are already embroiled in an ongoing lawsuit. Musk criticized a $500 billion OpenAI-led project called Stargate announced with great fanfare at the White House just after President Donald Trump returned to office, suggesting the investors involved lacked the funding for the project.

“It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was,” Musk said in the press release. “We will make sure that happens.”

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Musk’s team given access to U.S. government payment system, New York Times says

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Billionaire Elon Musk and his government efficiency team have been given access to the U.S. Treasury Department’s payment system, resolving a days-long standoff, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

Musk, who chairs the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency, has been tasked by President Donald Trump to identify fraud and waste in the government and had sought access to the system Treasury uses to dole out federal funds.

His efforts were resisted by a career Treasury official, David Lebryk, who was placed on leave this week and then retired. On Friday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave Musk’s team access, the Times reported.

The system sends out more than $6 trillion per year in payments on behalf of federal agencies and contains the personal information of millions of Americans who receive Social Security payments, tax refunds and other monies from the government.

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DeepSeek, China’s new Ai model, is disrupting the entire world of artificial intelligence…in the blink of an eye

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DeepSeek, China’s new Ai model, is disrupting the entire world of artificial intelligence…in the blink of an eye.

If you don’t know…DeepSeek is an open sourced Ai program that anyone can use.

It’s the top app in all app stores today.

It’s free and the paid models are cheaper than competitors.

It’s also very powerful, matching or beating all the American competitors on all major benchmarks.

The reason this is significant – and the reason it’s crashing the financial markets this morning…is because they did this with OUT all the powerful US ‘hyperscalers’ or GPU Superconductors that the US has banned the export of to China.

They also don’t give the ridiculous valuations to this company like we do to our OpenAi and Meta, etc.

So China, against all our efforts and sanctions, created a cheaper, more efficient and more powerful Ai model by being creative and working around all our efforts to block their progress.

And from what I hear, DeepSeek is just the beginning. Many think it cracked AGI!

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Trump Likely to Unveil ‘Stargate’ – Domestic Infrastructure via AI Data Centers

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According to leaked media reports [CBS HERE] President Trump is going to unveil a private sector launch of $500 billion to create data processing centers for a national Artificial Intelligence (AI) network. The network will be known as “Stargate.”

SoftBank Chief Executive Officer Masayoshi Son, OpenAI head Sam Altman and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison are expected to be at the White House for the announcement.

The initial launch will consist of $100 billion for the first Stargate (AI processing center) in Texas. Other projects in other states will come online in the future.

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The inevitable arriving more or less as predicted. Only DARPA can stop or slow technology and it can only do that by hiding it and owning all the researchers. AI is out in the open. KOBK absolutely 100% demands USA continue developing it. Not saying I like it. Just saying this is how power is wielded in this world. Altman and Ellison are both Jewish. Son is Japanese. The only defense we the plebs have is free speech and as many of us as possible being on more or less the same page. I do not believe that is near enough but it is all we have. ABN