What I meant by that was that many tech companies hire people, who frequently perform these tasks on a project basis for only short periods of time, and pay them a pittance for their work. Their numbers are likely to fluctuate greatly.

I was by no means trying to emphasise the fact that these people mostly live in countries where wages are particularly low and where there are virtually no labor protections; I was simply pointing out that they are usually hired on a short-term basis.

This exploitative practice, as well as other “gig-work” arrangements, is unfortunately quite widespread, especially in the tech industry, and serves to increase corporate profitability. Many tech companies use this approach to reduce the number of permanent employees—a practice that, of course, isn’t unique to the tech industry—but using these practices there are many tech companies that generate astronomical revenues with a comparatively small workforce.

Mechanical Turk

I don’t understand what you’re getting at. Of course tech companies have a lot of employees if you count all the “mechanical turks”. That’s simply misleading.

None of that has much to do with what my original comment was about.

You’re saying that it’s impossible for powerful, completely degenerate people to be capable of playing their power games.

My take on this is that a look at the history books proves you wrong. LinkedIn-style fairy tales about leadership and all that bogus doesn’t change much about that.

Because they have the money to do so. Those who have it simply pay good people. You should know this if you’ve ever dealt with large companies. It doesn’t take good management—just the money to pay the people who do the work. You should also know that giant online corporations like Meta have an incredibly small number of employees compared to industrial companies, and labor is the biggest cost factor in any business.

What do you actually do for a living? You claim to have insights. Where did you get them?

I’d be an idiot to say here what I do for a living, but yes, I regularly deal with CEOs -and it’s precisely this experience that makes it all the more likely to me that a conspiracy like the one mentioned above is underway. While I’m nowhere near that level, I’m still quite familiar with the politics in companies with 500 or more employees. For me, this is all the more reason to entertain such thoughts, because I know of hardly any company where performance or competence is even remotely appreciated. The people I know as “the decision-makers” should actually be the very last ones to make decisions—they’re self-absorbed, unscrupulous people.

This is a conspiracy theory, but is it really so far-fetched to assume that the most powerful 1% of the populations are joining forces worldwide to establish something like a global feudal regime?

It’s entirely feasible, since we’re talking about just a few thousand people here.

In any case, these people have one thing in common: they view democracy as a problem. This applies to Trump just as much as it does to Putin and Jinping. The same goes for their henchmen, such as Merz in Germany, for example.

It’s not that unthinkable when you consider the fundamental idea behind fascism, as shaped by Mussolini in his day: a brotherhood of the elites striving for absolute rule.

It seems to me that this is now the agenda, especially since in the U.S., with the pseudo-intellectual concept of “Dark Enlightenment,” there doesn’t even seem to be any attempt to hide it.

I’m not usually a fan of such ideas, but it does seem very, very suspicious to me, given that the leaders of the world’s most powerful countries are apparently doing everything in their power to undo the civilizational progress of the last hundred years—and are clearly doing so in a fairly well-coordinated manner.

Think of it like Smurf accounts on apps in the Fediverse: Nobody wants that—it’s extremely counterproductive and unfair—but people do it anyway.

That’s a commendable attitude, but it doesn’t help in the face of reality.

What I’m getting at is this: People have been using it for a long time now, whether you like it or not. I don’t like it, but it’s still the reality. Pretending it isn’t helps no one—in this case, it’s even counterproductive for the reasons I mentioned.

That’s why I called it “Panora’s box”: This technology is out there—there’s no changing that, even if we’d like to.

This is a side effect that the billionaires who run the AI models are counting on: that people no longer pay attention to the message itself, but instead waste their time speculating about whether someone used a proper app or image generation.

You’ll never be able to close Pandora’s box. So…

I don’t think Russia plays much of a role here, but yes, absolutely: Trump and his henchmen are, in my opinion, merely accelerating the decline of the U.S.

This former superpower is clearly on its last legs, as too many resources have been embezzled—as is typical in oligarchies. Therefore, aggression is all that remains for it, since its bloated military apparatus is the only thing left, alongside the IT sector, which is currently dismantling itself for the very same reasons that led to this situation.

China is also a misanthropic autocracy, but the policies of its leaders are nonetheless far-sighted, forward-looking, and skillful, which is why China is already the superpower that the U.S. once was (albeit it’s glory was bought on credit after WWII).

Europe’s future, in my view, depends on whether it will be possible to shake off the influence of the U.S. and its disastrous turbo-capitalism. Unfortunately, it does not look that way, because in the strongest European countries, neo-capitalist forces are still at work, whose maxim is now turning into fascism precisely because their approach is no longer competitive in today’s world.

Either way, dark times are ahead for science—and, consequently, for humanity as well.

Yes, that’s right. I recently spoke with five friends of mine who are chief physicians and senior physicians in Spain, Switzerland, and Germany: They all agreed—the U.S. is no longer conducting scientific research; the CDC, which used to be a globally important institution because many countries followed its guidelines, no longer exists, since all competent staff who refused to go along with this absurdity were fired.

They are appalled at how quickly this decline was orchestrated by the Trump regime, especially since it took decades to reach an international consensus. All of them have lost all trust in U.S. institutions and believe that these inhumane policies will cost hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide.

That’s because he doesn’t want to go to prison.

Tell him he’s not welcome here. We have zero tolerance for intolerance and mindless hatred!

Toto - Africa (metal cover by Leo Moracchioli feat. Rabea & Hannah)

This cover should meet just about all of your criteria, but it’s already a few years old.

…yes, appropriate for protecting Epstein’s billionaires clients and accomplices, some of whom quite obviously make up this criminal regime.

This case really shows all too clearly what a lawless oligarchy the U.S. is. A true rogue state ruled by the scum of humanity.

I’m pretty sure this technology will never have its moment in the spotlight because it can never, ever live up to the expectations that marketing has hyped up.

After multibillion investments and a database that encompasses nearly everything humans have ever produced, the lofty promises have, as expected, failed to materialize. It’s simply nothing more than a tool that can certainly be used profitably. But its areas of application have absolutely nothing to do with what was promised to investors. It is simply not artificial intelligence, but a search engine that reproduces existing data or, upon request, assembles it into something that looks like it’s new, but is actually just a collage of what the model was fed.

The fact that humans, in their way of being creative, naturally never operate outside the bounds of their own experience was exploited by marketing here to portray the probability calculations performed by LLMs as comparable to what we understand as intelligence. For LLMs, however, this is never achievable. It is merely an illusion built on the lack of understanding among so-called decision-makers.

If U.S. citizens truly have a problem with how utterly undignified, unprincipled, and corrupt their government is, perhaps they should fight back, because it’s not just the disgraceful image being projected here—it’s the downfall of the world’s most powerful economic nation.

But hey, it’s probably better to live under the thumb of other autocratic countries, whose leadership at least acts rationally.

This ridiculous spectacle only shows the world what to expect from the U.S. If the U.S. were a person, it would be an incel: that’s the kind of values and intellect this country represents.

That might appeal to billionaires, but they’re not the majority…

Religion certainly plays a regulatory role within society - historically, for a very, very long time. It also promotes values such as charity, empathy, and humility as virtues. The problem, unfortunately, is that this system of order is frequently abused in practice - just like the legal system, whose guidelines are often derived from religious values. So it is not religion itself that is the problem, but the way it is abused.

A good example of this is the ultra-conservative Christians in the U.S.: Since this ideology is being exploited politically to promote a ruthless form of hyper-capitalism that serves only a tiny elite, there is no room for values such as humanity and empathy, which the Bible clearly prescribes as positive values. Thus, inhuman policies are legitimized in the name of God and Jesus, though only those aspects of religion that enable the propagation of “in-groups” and “out-groups” are utilized. On the one hand, this serves to convey a sense of community, and on the other, to deny all rights -including the right to exist - to anyone who does not belong. Of course, this could no longer be reconciled with Christian ethics, but since this is not about ethics but about power, these schizophrenic movements are nevertheless very successful.

This logic is present in nearly all forms of religious extremism - from ultra-Christians to fanatical Muslims and Jews to Hindus and so on. These fundamentalist movements always have one thing in common: they are not interested in good, peaceful coexistence, but solely in the dominance of one group over another, which is because they are political movements whose leaders use religion merely as a means of power to legitimize their inhumane ideology.

But please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here: It is not religion itself that is the problem, but the way it is abused to pit people against one another and distract them from who actually benefits from the corresponding policies.

This effect is by no means limited to religion: the same can be achieved, for example, by emphasizing nationality - in this case, concepts such as “foreign infiltration” serve as a backdrop of fear, so that the corresponding out-group can be denied basic rights, even their humanity.

This doesn’t baffle anyone at all. On the contrary. It was entirely to be expected, given all the AIPAC money Israel uses to bribe politicians.