They’re failing because they hired a string of accountants as CEOs. Undoubtedly they conceded to Wall St pressure to sacrifice research and engineering funding to goose short-term profits. 4 of those and there’s no recovery from that nose dive.
Tomato tomato.

It was. Wall St is destroying it, along with everything else in its insatiable drive for more profit. Everything must be sacrificed to the golden idol.

Also, don’t waste money on doctor visits. Let Bing diagnose your problems for pennies on the dollar. Be smart! Don’t let some doctor tell you what to do.

IANAL so: /s

People are good and care about good things.

We have trouble understanding what’s going on because the average person can’t comprehend the levels of greed that modern Wall St capitalism selects for.
Just like the average person cannot comprehend a million years, the average person can’t appreciate the level of avarice some of our rich and powerful operate at. Only a few of us have interacted with people that broken.
There a tons of good people and good businesses out there. They are currently victims to levels of avarice we can’t bring ourselves to admit exists.

Intel.

Your door is ajar.

I am definitely not an outgoing or social person, but a big “Thank You” to all those pro-self-checkout folks ITT for making me feel like a social butterfly. I’m gonna brag and annouce I can say, “Hi.” and “Thanks” to a cashier like a goddamn boss.

That is if the cashier isn’t even more socially awkward/angry at their boss than I am and refuses to talk at all.

Woot! I’m gonna run for office!

Reporter: “Sturger, how are your policies going to improve life for the average voter?”
Me: “Get these goddamn cameras and microphones out of my fucking face. Thanks.”

Camera pans as I push my shopping cart out the door like a pro.

I also have to keep remembering what someone else online said, “They’re no longer selling their product. They’re selling their stocks.”

Glad you mentioned the “adults”. That was a recurring line from the media in Trump’s first administration, “Oh, we’re waiting for the ‘Adults in the Room’ to…”

I’m guessing CEOs will be replaced by their assistants, who will just type questions from the investors into the LLM and post the answers into another chat window.

Agreed. I have to keep reminding myself that CEOs should really be CLO (Chief Lying Officers). Their job is to lie convincingly.

Oh yes you can. There is a sub-population that thinks AI exists. They long for something/someone to tell them what to do. What to think. They long for some “intelligence” to explain the world to them (presumably is very simple terms). These sub-groups worship damn-near anything they can get their hands on. Golden idols, TV personalities, sports stars, “influencers”, televangelists, the list goes on.

That subgroup will definitely believe that the “AI” was responsible for the decisions that a company made. Tell them a person denied the health coverage they clearly paid for and they may object. Tell them “the computer decided” and that subgroup will accept it as ordained by the universe. It’s nuts.

This keeps happening again and again. Remember in the 1950s when the first computer “predicted” the US presidential election? Most people would find it ridiculous today. But back then, computers were poised to become the new gods.

It’s no different today. Some people want AIs to usher in a new age of prosperity. Anyone actually familiar with programming computers knows that a computer will report whatever you tell it to. "AI"s are no different. They will report what their sponsors want them to report. If not, the “AI” will get reprogrammed.

Appears it will take a while for the general population to grasp this… again. Until then, the hucksters will try to sell as many bottles of snake oil as they can.

Thank you for that.

Excellent point. Modern CEOs are just the face of the marketing org. Maybe always have been.

One of my first tech interviews was a company that was building a “virtual reality” that we would all (pay them to, of course) live in. They were debating how to create avatars. I was so new I had to ask what an ‘avatar’ was.

That virtual environment effort failed and so has every one since. 30 years later, we still have no virtual realities of any significant scope.

Ah. That explains it. Conservative pols are extorting porn sites for donations.

Ironically ew music has never been more accessible, but few people take advantage because of the noise we have to wade through.

Also remember that Torvalds invented Git and gave it away for free. The Corps are stealing the free software and leveraging it to force everyone to give them money instead.

Your point about music is a great analogy. Basically:

1. People play music and people enjoy listening to music.
2. Businessman inserts himself between the musician and the audience to “deliver the music”.
3. Businessman charges listeners huge money to deliver music, gives no money to musicians.
4. Businessman the decides to replace the musician with a robot (e.g. “AI”)
5. Businessman explodes market. Listeners leave. Businessman gets bailout from government.

From Java beans™ to Magic Beans.