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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 19th, 2023

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  • They’d legally still on the hook for the difference, and if it’s a large enough amount for the creditor to care about they’ll come after you for it using the variety of means available. In the US that can include taking the money from the debtor’s bank account or having their employer take it out of their paycheck before paying the debtor.

    There are some ways around that. You can self-employ and ignore the garnishment request, but that works best if you have a constantly changing client list, like a roofing contractor or wedding-dress-maker or whatever. You have to be careful about keeping cash in your business because they can show up with the sheriff and take any cash, or in extreme cases they can seize non-exempt property (like, they wouldn’t generally be able to seize the lawnmower you use for your lawnmowing business).

    Also, just not having any money is a pretty good defense. There are limits to wage garnishment for example.

    But yeah, in a lot of cases it’s not even close to being worth the effort to chase someone down to collect, so you get a ding on your credit report for a few years, and then almost nobody cares.





  • So what will everyone having their own AI look like in a way that doesn’t just sound like a chatGPT joke? What would make it a desirable future?

    I guess that depends on how much authority you’d want to delegate.

    For me, it would be nice if I could have it do things like shopping tasks without being more of a pain than doing the task myself. For example, I needed to buy a hot-water carpet cleaner today. It would be great if I could tell it

    Hey Staffie, buy a carpet shampoo machine for home delivery within the next two weeks. Pick a highly rated machine from a widely recognized brand, and focus on carpet cleaning and water extraction performance, I don’t need any upholstery cleaning features. Don’t spend over $400. If the best option is under $200 don’t ask, just buy it. If it’s over $200, show me the top two options before buying.

    And end up with something pretty close to what I’d have picked if I did the shopping myself.

    It would also be great if I could have it reliably perform arbitrary tasks that it isn’t specifically programmed to do. Like

    Hey Staffie, check if I’ve got enough PTO to take next Thursday and Friday off, and if so, reserve a campsite for me at Foo State Park for three nights, preferably one close to the water, then send Mr. Boss an email letting him know I’ll be out those days.

    If it were particularly smart it would infer from previous conversations that I might want a 1lb propane cylinder, marshmallows, graham crackers, and Hershey bars added to my grocery list and would add them automatically (because it already knows my preferences about small automatic expenditures like that and is aware of the spending limits I’ve given it).

    Then it might come back a few minutes later and say

    'Hey boss, all the campsites within 250 of the water are already reserved, but site 1701D, which is near the only restroom and a tailhead, is available. Reviewers report that the park WiFi access point is installed at the restroom, so that site has good free internet service. Shall I reserve it?

    So yeah, in general, the ability to take arbitrary directions and execute them in reasonably intelligent ways (for example If I ask for a site Foo State Park, and there are two such parks in my country, it should be able to guess which park I’m talking about based on the context (like, if I’m reserving 3 nights and one of the parks is an hour down the road and the other is a two day drive, just assume the closer one)) and not require pre-programmed interfaces to every single thing. It should be able to search the web, find the interfaces humans use, and use those to do the kinds of things humans can do. It should also have some capabilities to use my accounts and passwords under a delegated authority to get shit done as my authorized assistant.

    Ideally it should also do things like observe my choices and infer my preferences so it can constrain choices it offers me:

    Hey Staffie, order lunch from Subway for pickup at 3.

    Sure boss, do you want your usual 6 inch turkey sub?

    Yep

    Nacho cheese chips or salt-n-vinegar?

    Nacho.

    Done, I’ll let you know when it’s ready.

    Stuff like that.