Is it fair to say the Open Router models aren't subsidized though? They make the case that companies on there are running a business, but there are free models, and companies with huge AI budgets that want to gather training data and show usage.
Interesting, Mexico has in the past been a big source of SIM cards for questionable activity in the US. Now the flow may be reversed but of course the cost is ~15x in the US. Or will there be a big influx of Honduran or some other CA county SIMS?
That's surprising, US sim cards are routinely used for questionable activity in the US. What kinds of questionable activities would benefit from using a Mexican SIM in the US?
Not a direct answer to your reuqestion re: questionable activity, but for me it's more about ease of access.
A SIM in the U.S. is significantly more difficult to acquire than a SIM in Mexico/many other countries.
E.g.
- Limit on # of SIMs purchased at retailers, low ability to use cash to purchase them, generally always on camera
- SIMs locked up behind the counter at lots of major retailers in the U.S.
- Activation requirements on U.S. networks for prepaid SIMs
Granted, if you're a company you can certainly acquire a lot of SIMs. A lot of questionable activity uses straw purchases, very similar to folks using smurfs to acquire pseudoephedrine in the 2000s.
Certain internet forums related to VOIP routing seem to have no lack of sellers offering to sell all kinds of US sim cards by the thousands, I don't think availability is an issue.
Historically, availability was very different between the two countries when we're specifically talking about purchasing SIMs for questionable activity.
Physically acquiring the SIMs is only one part of the process as they're pretty worthless without going through the activation process.
Prior to this year in Mexico (which introduced ID-based regulations around SIM purchase/activation), you could buy a SIM at a remote gas station, a data package in cash, and activate it without giving your name/email/etc. Now, in 2026, you have to show an ID/passport to do that.
The U.S. doesn't have a federal regulation (as far as I know) for this. That level of network protection is usually at the provider level. However, activating the SIM almost always requires an email or existing phone number and not just purchase/possession of the SIM+top-up card. Purchasing the top-up card sometimes can be done in cash, other times requires a pre-paid debit which has its own limitations/regulations due to a mix of KYC/AML. But applying said top-up card usually still requires at least some form of identity verification. For some of the top national providers, and I'm not sure what model they use to gauge risk to make this decision, they even require an SSN (for prepaid!) and run some form of a check on you (I'm not entirely sure if it's a soft credit check or what).
To me this doesn't sound logical because you still have to hire someone to manage your cloud deployments which is an entire specialized discipline. Yeah you can get some leeway the job being fully remote I guess but ultimately you aren't reducing headcount as linearly as you seem to imply by going cloud vs on-prem.
Well, they don't, but this is a particularly damning statement and it's age is more of a feature than a flaw because it shows a long history of anti-social disdain for humanity.
Maybe not 25,but IBM Watson beat humans at Jeopardy over 10 years ago. The technology has been there, the difference is the willingness to burn money on it in hopes of capturing exponential revenue from disrupting industries.
Obviously the costs have come down but if IBM felt like burning 100 Billion in 2012 I'm pretty sure they could have a similarly impressive chat bot. Just not sure how they would have ever recouped the revenue.
Nah, IBM watson jeopardy version was a one-off. It was an app specifically tuned for that usecase. IBM Watson is not a single product or app. It is more of a marketing term
Nice that ChatGPT does that, its also true that Google Translate and other APPs have had this functionality for a decade or more. I was getting live German translated on my phone in 2015 with no problems.
Yes, there have been translation apps for along time, but the LLMs are much better. If the phrases can have dual meanings the LLMs will often explain so you end up with a better understanding of what was said/needs to be said. The LLMs can pull more context from the web, so if you're dealing with more complex topics that may have acronyms they are much better at getting to a correct translation.
I have been using google lens heavily to scan posters/flyers/information displays in other languages and get it translated to english in like 2-3 seconds. So freakin helpful.
I'm very similar to the OP here, always hear about ChatGPT rarely anything else. Most people are definitely not paying, but of the few that are paying, outside of software developers, they are all paying for ChatGPT exclusively. I don't know of anyone paying for the basic chat versions of other AIs. A few developers paying for Claude and Gemini, but I know hundreds of people that talk of ChatGPT and no other AI, again most not paying though.
Outside of work I don't know anyone who pays for AI.
But I have noticed that everyone seems to be using ChatGPT as the generic term for AI. They will google something and then refer to the Gemini summary as "ChatGPT says...". I tried to find out what model/version one of my friends was using when he was talking about ChatGPT and it was "the free one that comes with Android"... So Gemini.
It just seems really obvious to me that it's not one disease. One problem with the research is that there is SO much money. It's corrupting. There's a whole thing about the plaque cartel and if you aren't testing around a possibly flawed concept the availability of funds is much lower.
I just feel the thinking is off, it's like we are trying to treat cuts by removing scabs and scar tissue. We really need deep investigation on the sources, which I feel in many cases are industrial chemicals and how some people's body / immune system respond to them.
One of the most compelling studies I saw was how distance from a Golf Course predicted neurodegenerative diseases, based on their use of certain pesticides.
But it is a wildly variated, almost meaningless diagnosis. 3 of my 4 grandparents got Alzheimer's diagnosis as well as my mom and mother-in-law. The variation of progression and symptoms is so wide that it really seems like a catch-all. One grandmother was fine until about 72 and in 2 years forgot who people were and 4 years had lost all executive function and passed away. The other one was diagnosed in her early 80s and lived to be 96 with no major progression, like slightly more repeating, but never forgetting people or not knowing how to talk etc. Similar dichotomy between my mother and mother-in-law but with considerably different presentations of symptoms.
It's a weird disease and IMO not even really a disease it's a bunch of different causes of cognitive impairment under one umbrella but shouldn't be separated out much further to find actual causes and treatments.
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