When they began offering this, their rep for ending services was already so bad I refused to consider goo.gl. Amazing for how many years now they have introduced then ended services with large user bases. Gmail being in "beta" for five years was, weirdly, to me, a sign they might stick with it.

Letter to the Attorney General is the first step in many states. And often the last.

Because they normally sort it, or because there are no other customer protections?

You are formally documenting for all future processes that you have filed a complaint, and should include relevant contracts, receipts, correspondence, and support materials. This can be enough to encourage the business to be more responsive.

So it's a low-cost first step that can trigger mediation or settlement and help resolve your dispute (and contribute to broader consumer protection). It's a quick way to signal to the business to work with you.

Submitting a letter or formal complaint can prompt the AG (sometimes) to contact the business in an attempt to mediate or resolve the issue informally. The AG also often offers informal mediation services though some division. The AG’s office sometimes starts investigations based on complaints from the public.

  > I don't think corporate election influence or mass media had anything to do with it

Always risky to allow the implication that money or propaganda isn't central to power/influence.

   > it's a very complicated and very powerful new tool that you need to practice using over time in order to get good results from.

Of course this is and would be expected to be true. Yet adoption of this mindset has been orders of magnitude slower than the increase in AI features and capabilities.

In science fiction dystopias, there is often the "adjustment to the machines taking over" phase, with analysis of the arguments of those resisting. AI is rapidly ticking the boxes of common "shift to dystopia" writings.

Agree. It keeps getting closer to "I've had a negative experience with the internet ..."

You say "people", any filters? Young/old, working/not working. I notice changes in each new generation that are at least cognitive adjacent.

My partner was telling me about the Gen Z stare last night. Apparently when you try and talk to them in the workplace they don't know how to respond so they will just stare back at you.

And you know what your partner telling you about the gen-z stare story means?

They are a social media trend addict, just like anyone else. Because the gen-z stare is a new meme that bubbled up to the top of social media infinite scrool content in the last week.

And here I am bubbling it up to the nerdiest social media of all! :)

All ages for both of us (I'm OP). All spans of economic status (poor, middle, rich—doesn't matter).

The "accelerate the end times" argument was probably made most famously by Charles Manson. The "side" effects from supporting bad actions are not good. Presumably you are being 51% or more facetious, but probably more nuance is preferable.

Crime is always a "use case", and usually the most profitable. This is part of the fear around AI capabilities increasing.

Definitions around AI have been changing since the beginning, making it always farther in the future. In this system it can always be "right around the corner" but never arrive.