I like that he is being decisive about it. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the feature was only being delayed because of internal project politics or quirky policies that normally make sense, but don't in this specific scenario.

It isn’t AI itself, it’s AI as a vector for corporate recklessness.

This. 1000% this. Many of Issac Asimov novels warned about this sort of thing too; as did any number of novels inspired by Asimov.

It's not that we didn't provide the AI with rules. It's not that the AI isn't trying not to harm people. It's that humans, being the clever little things we are, are far more adept at deceiving and tricking AI into saying things and using that to justify actions to gain benefit.

...Understandably this is how that is being done. By selling AI that isn't as intelligent as it is being trumpeted as. As long as these corporate shysters can organize a team to crap out a "Minimally Viable Product" they're hailed as miracle workers and get paid fucking millions.

Ideally all of this should violate the many, many laws of many, many civilized nations...but they've done some black magic with that too; by attacking and weakening laws and institutions that can hold them liable for this and even completely ripping out or neutering laws that could cause them to be held accountable by misusing their influence.

13 billion Euro British Franc Moneys?

That's pocket change to Google.

Note: the above message is satirical. Do not reply.

This is pretty clearly a company practiced at "riding the waves" of what's popular to sell absolute bullshit.

They appear to raise millions, develop what looks like a minimally viable product for it's development phase, then pull the rug out and exit with the bag of cash, quickly pivoting away from discovered scams and name changing to avoid too much consumer ire or regulator scrutiny.

It wouldn't surprise me if the CEO or anyone else at the top levels of this company has an entire resume full of these sorts of 'scam and run' operations, the kinds that melt into the background and vanish the moment any real strong consumer or regulatory/legal scrutiny hits it.

Basically this is investment fraud 101; you find something you can trick people into investing into, then spend as little as possible to get a 'minimally viable product' that appears plausible enough to give you time to exit stage left with all the fat cash you can take. Because this sort of operation does produce something; oftentimes they get away cleanly; because they did do something and oftentimes they obscure or obfuscate and hide the evidence of any planned malfeasance; usually the only places with any record of it is in the mind of the CEO or other executive(s), if they're in on the scam too.

Sometimes the CEO gets 'caught' intentionally and then fired...or they just run the company into the ground. That latter case can let them off the hook with a tidy golden parachute as well; depending on the circumstances and what they 'negotiated' when they were 'hired'.

NOPE!

You cannot pay me to use Windows 11.

The nice thing is that I can customize it however I like too; change weights, choose which engines to pull from always, or even from search to search; so I'm not getting cruft.

SearXNG always rearranges the crap most engines serve to the bottom without fail.

I can do everything Kagi does for free...using SearXNG.

How can you call it sensationalist when you know that the consequences of Trump being elected that are listed in the article are highly likely to be true?

I don't consider it sensationalist. I consider it to be a strong warning. If you read the article through to the end; you'll note the tone changes and explains why this has happened. Is it potentially sounding the alarm too soon? Personally, I do not think so. It might be the intention of the author to scare someone of enough power into action extraordinary enough to Stop Trump.

Or maybe it will scare an everyday reader into leaving the country to escape the growing fascism, or into actually turning up at the polls and voting for anything but the Orange Tyrant.

Emphasis added - I will try to avoid highlighting who is responsible for the failures but they are listed in the article. I am not sympathizing with Trump Supporters; I am pointing at how this article outlines how we got here today.

What is certain, however, is that the odds of the United States falling into dictatorship have grown considerably because so many of the obstacles to it have been cleared and only a few are left. If eight years ago it seemed literally inconceivable that a man like Trump could be elected, that obstacle was cleared in 2016. If it then seemed unimaginable that an American president would try to remain in office after losing an election, that obstacle was cleared in 2020. And if no one could believe that Trump, having tried and failed to invalidate the election and stop the counting of electoral college votes, would nevertheless reemerge as the unchallenged leader of the Republican Party and its nominee again in 2024, well, we are about to see that obstacle cleared as well. In just a few years, we have gone from being relatively secure in our democracy to being a few short steps, and a matter of months, away from the possibility of dictatorship.

TL;DR: The odds are higher because the listed barriers have been cleared.

Yes, I know that most people don’t think an asteroid is heading toward us and that’s part of the problem. But just as big a problem has been those who do see the risk but for a variety of reasons have not thought it necessary to make any sacrifices to prevent it. At each point along the way, our political leaders, and we as voters, have let opportunities to stop Trump pass on the assumption that he would eventually meet some obstacle he could not overcome. Republicans could have stopped Trump from winning the nomination in 2016, but they didn’t. The voters could have elected Hillary Clinton, but they didn’t. Republican senators could have voted to convict Trump in either of his impeachment trials, which might have made his run for president much more difficult, but they didn’t.

TL;DR: There were many people in power who could have stopped him, but did not, as they felt certain that "Surely the next obstacle will stop him. The next obstacle did not stop him

Throughout these years, an understandable if fatal psychology has been at work. At each stage, stopping Trump would have required extraordinary action by certain people, whether politicians or voters or donors, actions that did not align with their immediate interests or even merely their preferences. It would have been extraordinary for all the Republicans running against Trump in 2016 to decide to give up their hopes for the presidency and unite around one of them. Instead, they behaved normally, spending their time and money attacking each other, assuming that Trump was not their most serious challenge, or that someone else would bring him down, and thereby opened a clear path for Trump’s nomination. And they have, with just a few exceptions, done the same this election cycle. It would have been extraordinary had Mitch McConnell and many other Republican senators voted to convict a president of their own party. Instead, they assumed that after Jan. 6, 2021, Trump was finished and it was therefore safe not to convict him and thus avoid becoming pariahs among the vast throng of Trump supporters. In each instance, people believed they could go on pursuing their personal interests and ambitions as usual in the confidence that somewhere down the line, someone or something else, or simply fate, would stop him. Why should they be the ones to sacrifice their careers? Given the choice between a high-risk gamble and hoping for the best, people generally hope for the best. Given the choice between doing the dirty work yourself and letting others do it, people generally prefer the latter.

TL;DR: The Psychology is briefly explained; and it highlights how extraordinary that taking action would have been for the person(s) in question.

A paralyzing psychology of appeasement has also been at work. At each stage, the price of stopping Trump has risen higher and higher. In 2016, the price was forgoing a shot at the White House. Once Trump was elected, the price of opposition, or even the absence of obsequious loyalty, became the end of one’s political career, as Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, Paul D. Ryan and many others discovered. By 2020, the price had risen again. As Mitt Romney recounts in McKay Coppins’s recent biography, Republican members of Congress contemplating voting for Trump’s impeachment and conviction feared for their physical safety and that of their families. There is no reason that fear should be any less today. But wait until Trump returns to power and the price of opposing him becomes persecution, the loss of property and possibly the loss of freedom. Will those who balked at resisting Trump when the risk was merely political oblivion suddenly discover their courage when the cost might be the ruin of oneself and one’s family?

TL;DR: More Psychology is explained briefly and it highlights that the price to stop Trump has been rising exponentially with each step.

I see a lot of the Kagi shills crawling out of the woodwork here. I've been using SearXNG locally to query many free engines at no cost to me.

If this is true; this is probably going to be a very shocking revelation to some people.

I don't know how much treason this man needs to commit to get convicted; but I hope he does get punished for something.

Finally.

I've always felt the FSF has had no idea what they were doing. Therefore I do not always agree with or support 100% of what they do.

I do feel that sometimes code should be able to carry reasonable restrictions. Just not sweeping restrictions.

An example of a reasonable restriction would be a clause that prohibits commercialized use of free software without first obtaining permission from the project in question. Another reasonable restriction would be a clause that prohibits governmental use or use by military entities.

An unreasonable restriction would be naming only specific companies that are not allowed to use the 'free' software. It would also be further considered unreasonable for rights to use 'free' software if it expires, goes away, or is revoked if you commit a specific crime, or fall under suspicion of committing said crime.