I was a long time (relative to AI age) Cursor fan but have since abandoned it for Claude Code. Working on mostly php/laravel/js/vue stack the difference in the quality of models is insane. No other model can really compete with Opus, and using it through Cursor is just insanely expensive.
So while the Cursor AI is great, especially for reviewing generated code, it just can't compete.
All of this would be easier if we just called Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and all the others by a more correct name: “Sales-acceleration platforms” and it's mode of operation is "inducing emotional instability in consumers".
“Sales-acceleration platforms” should be regulated to protect consumers, no? Also, why do children need to be on “Sales-acceleration platforms”?
I remember watching old American educational videos for teens from something like the 50s (on YT). They talk A LOT about how to be likable and how much work one has to put into being accepted and included. The tone is very much "if you want friends and not be excluded (and being excluded is your own moral failing) you need to work on it".
I feel people have forgotten that. Having friends isn't easy. You do actually need to put in the effort - everyone needs to put in the effort, not just "the extrovert" that "adopts" you. And not just effort, it takes *SKILLS* that you need to actively develop and maintain.
So now we have generations where no one really thought us the skills or instilled the value of "it's a YOU problem". Everyone is just waiting for someone else to do the hard work. Even more stupidly, people might be lonely, but they are also very picky and if the person isn't exactly what they are feeling at the moment they flake/don't engage. And then they are surprised they don't have a surplus of friends when they need them.
So how do we resolve this? By telling people it's their our damn problem and fault. And no, I'm not saying ignore it on a societal level, I'm saying that the public policy to fix this is to start educating people that social engagement requires effort and skills. Maybe take those old American movies as inspiration (naturally remove all the sexist and racist bullshit).
Yeah, the hardest part is understanding the requirements. But it then still takes hours and hours and hours to actually build the damn thing.
Except that now it still takes me the same time to understand the requirements ... and then the coding takes 1/2 or 1/3 of the time. The coding also always takes 1/3 of the effort so I leave my job less burned out.
Context: web app development agency.
I really don't understand this "if it does not replace me 100% it's not making me more productive" mentality. Yeah, it's not a perfect replacement for a senior developer ... but it is like putting the senior developer on a bike and pretending that it's not making them go any faster because they are still using their legs.
This obsession with "everything must be commercialized" is really killing creativity.
Now if the author was commercializing other peoples reviews, sure, it's potentially(!) unethical.
But scraping a website for reviews that are publicly(!) posted, training a recommendation LLM and then sharing it, for free, seems ... exactly the ideal use case for this technology.
In countries that have it. In Slovenia we have no such legal entity and so starting a business requires, at the very least, ~400€/month for a single proprietorship (unless you are already employed elsewhere already, then it's <100€) or even more for an LLC-type company (since it requires one fully employed person at a level above minimal wage).
Ask a teenager what a folder is. There's a good chance they'll not know what you are talking about. They can use apps and that's about it. Thunderbird? Good luck with that.
Didn't we go through this before with PGP-encrypted emails? 90+% of users are not technically competent enough to even understand, in the vaguest of terms, what you are saying. Even fewer have the time, ability and resources to do so.
> First, Chat Control refers to a proposition in the EU, which has not been accepted at this point. So no, it's not Chat Control.
The EU proposition of Chat Control is the proposition to make it mandatory. Facebook has already been performing it voluntarily (as I've discovered today).
> The problem I see is that you disagree with how Meta handles Messenger, but still use it. Chat Control or not, there is no law preventing Meta from reading your messages for moderation.
Meta isn't just some random company who's decisions don't have wide and far reaching societal effects.
Moderation of private 1v1 chats only make sense in case of harassment - i.e. when one side complains. In all other cases, except with a courts decree based on legitimate suspicion of wrongdoing, it's absurd.
As someone who's part of a startup (hrpotentials.com) trying to bring truly scientifically valid psychological testing into HR processes .... yeah. We've been at it for almost 7 years, and we're finally at a point where we can say we have something that actually makes scientific sense - and we're not inventing anything new, just commercializing the science! It only took an electrical engineer (not me) with a strong grasp of statistics working for years with a competent professor of psychology to separate the wheat from the chaff. There's some good science there it's just ... not used much.
Slovenia is similar, but with even more intervention in the form of public grants. We also have no tax breaks for individuals who may wish to support the arts/humanitarian/ngo endeavors. It's all “systemic”.
Which is "fine" as long as a certain ideology controls the government (not always the same party, just the same "network"/ideology).
Now, the quality/quantity of the output is a mater of my subjective opinion, which would only muddy the water.
What isn't is what happened when the opposite ideology took over the government. Suddenly the much lauded ministry of arts became the enemy who chose different artists to subsidize. There were many Pikachu faces that day.
We did something similar with eglasovanje.si (currently only in Slovenian). Our idea is that secret online elections do not need a technological solution, but a procedural one.
The solution to "multiple crisis which only seem to get worse" is to go on the offensive, and lobby for laws that answer those questions in the way we like. Changing an established law is much different than adding a new one.
Quite a few parties suffered from either takeovers and the "crazy people magnet". Everyone with fringe views on ... anything ... decided that the Pirates were the place to be.
Which, fine happens, the problem we had was, that the core ideology was very anti-censorship, so much so, that in the end those fringe groups dominated the discussion.
It's worse than that. Czech pirate party also lost most of their members. The other member states also failed to gain any new ones.
As someone who ran a national party for a while, it feels like an end of an era.
The generation that started the Pirate party is getting older (in our 30s or older) and we're loosing (realistically, lost it a while back) our energy. If we had managed to establish the Pirates as an established party, then that would be fine, but we didn't (except in Czechia).
And now, even if you manage to give the Party to a new generation (as we did, before I left) the cultural moment is gone. Now it feels like people don't know or care about digital rights — even tho they affect them way more than they did 10 years ago when we were in our prime. If you'll allow me a hypothesis: everyone interested in IT got (financially) fat and lazy, and now we don't care anymore.
In the words of Douglas Adams: "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish"
So, I get your point. I can see how (1) can be aggravating. Can't really say anything to defend it, that's the Brussels effect for you. From the point of view of your own sovereignty, it's a bad thing, period. From the point of view of an effect on the lives of average people, I'm not so sure, it's so cut and dry.
Now, point (2) is, unfortunately, in the same vein as smoking, pollution, seat belts etc. Uninformed people (uninformed because they have better things to do) are not protected from their lack of knowledge. They suffer the consequences just the same.
And while I agree that and informed person, making a self-destructive choice has (in most cases) the right to do so, there is something to be said about the very, very powerful exploiting the uninformed. And this is where GDPR comes into play. It's protecting normal people, from a very, very big threat, that is not that obvious and is being wielded by the powerful.
GDPR is one of those laws restraining western corporations from going full dystopian future on us all. I said restraining, to be honest, I think it's just slowing them down.
And as far as surveys go - it used to be the same here. Europeans didn't care and said exactly the same things (i.e. the famous "i didn't do anything wrong, so I have nothing to hide") and then activists worked for years to educate them that, at the very least, it's leading them to buy things at higher prices. Now most people are extremely sensitive to their data.
The actual outcome is, from my experience, that tracking has reduced, a lot. When this law was enacted, *we all removed "like on Facebook"* buttons. Remember those? Yeah, we don't see them anymore. Google Analytics also was forced to change, at least a little.
Is there still tracking? Sure. But it's not so blatant anymore. There are hoops one needs to jump through. And that was the point - to make tracking a harder.
None of my projects have cookie banners. Why? Because I use a first party tracking system (Matomo), I anonymize all visits and I respect DNT. It's that easy.
You realise that lobbying is literally sitting down for a cup of coffee with "a friend", right?
It's a whole different world of probal that would require an authoritarian state with an absolute control over people's lives... And at that point it becomes moot.
So while the Cursor AI is great, especially for reviewing generated code, it just can't compete.