thesumofall

There is probably a marvelous software core in many large enterprises but at least in my experience it’s surrounded by layers and layers of very basic stuff. Read from a database, write to a database (often not even with any logic dealing with parallel read/writes). Excel Macros. Basic forms to submit data. Scripts to print some stuff from a database. …

I guess experiences differ across companies and industries. I work in logistics. Logistics deals with messy processes and a messy reality all the time. A tiny fraction of that is due to buggy software. Some of it could be avoided with great software, but again: that we also didn’t have before LLMs

Yes. Bad UI, cumbersome flows, too little automation, … plenty of flaws, but the business just keeps on running. Orders received, invoices written, documents shared, …

I think the author underestimates how boring and simple 90% of enterprise software is. The part that isn’t powering aircraft and power plants. So much of it originates from one-nighters, badly managed subcontractors, and requirements that are of low quality to begin with (because they are written by people who have very different day jobs). And you know what? Most of that runs 24/7 without a glitch. LLMs just gives us more of that. And maybe it’s even better

Not a lawyer, but I’m reasonably sure things like the HF incident _are_ considered a crime? It’s just that no one pressed charges yet?

Absolutely fair points!

> Regulation before the market has even settled down

The counter point would be: the major AI providers have seemingly also lost control of their creation. So at the very least both sides are doing things before they fully understand what they are doing. Also, looking at the (planned) IPOs and the share of AI in S&P 500, one could argue that while the market hasn’t settled, it already is a massive market. When should we start regulating? Eventually it will be too late

> Regulation that cannot practically be implemented or complied with

Yes. Having worked with one EU authority, it’s still people who eventually do the enforcing. That has the risk of corruption but I have also seen repeatedly that they won’t do something if it violates common sense. As always, there is room for interpretation and enforcement and it will be used. Like with any good governance. And companies still can (and do!) sue

One can and must discuss and challenge all these regulations, but this seems better than just sliding carelessly into some sort of mega-corp dystopia. It is good to have some balance of power. Is the EU perfect? Absolutely not, but neither are the corporates. Ideally, compromises will be found (and mostly they are found). Honestly, what’s the worst that can happen here? If this slows down the European economy, that’s a trade-off Europe has chosen to take (and yes, I’m very aware of the difficulties of fair representation in such a complex entity as the EU). We now have three big power blocks with very different politics and governance models. Isn’t that so much better than just playing one massive bet on a few big AI players? Honestly, I think it is exciting!

There might be a set of people for whom that might be true. There are a lot of people for whom that is not true and, fair or not, they will have an easier time to make things happen in the world

Today’s surface areas are gigantic and many of them will - in a typical company - not be chosen by cybersecurity experts. How do I hide the physical location of an office that offers physical access to the company’s network? How do I hide which OS the company is using? How do I hide the underlying technology of customer-facing systems? How do I hide which SaaS services I use?

No, a compromise can also be a win-win. It balances potentially extreme positions, it adds further perspectives, it forces all parties to consider what is most important to them. If the only alternative to a compromise is no agreement, it may actually be the only way to win

But isn’t that what the parent says? Fix the underlying laws instead of relying on a single person to randomly overrule the law

Skeptical of the study approach, but it is an entirely possible scenario if we don’t hit AGI. Many of the non-tech companies are only now starting to invest into AI. For many of them, AI might unlock new business approaches. Eg a company switches to real time pricing. Great, but suddenly you need people swapping price tags. Or you launch a project to replace paper price tags with electronic tags. Those need to be regularly maintained and charged, etc. Oops, our legacy ERP system can’t deal with that. Let’s upgrade that

It’s such a beautiful plane. Despite having worked for Airbus, the 747 triggers emotions for me that the A380 simply doesn’t. It represents an era of aerospace engineering that will not come back (in many cases probably for the better - but still!)