The article mainly points out a Chinese AI kid toy for spouting chinese propaganda. I mean, obviously?

Their examples from the more popular mainstream toys was that it doesn’t prevent explaining how to light a match and how to sharpen a knife. Neither if those are that ridiculous. If a kid knows to ask they probably old enough to figure it out.

I’m not following. People may prefer cheap to expensive but that does not mean they are desperate.

The option isn’t just cheap or expensive therapy. No therapy is as much an option if the therapy quality was 90s level machine chat bot.

Why is it exactly a problem that people have an extra avenue to better mental well being?

Believe it or not AI results are doing fine, which is why people use it.

Yes they will produce some funny/tragic results that are both memeable and newsworthy, but by and large they do what they are asked.

If the results were poor you wouldn’t have adoption and your AI problem is solved.

We have had chat bots since the late 90s. No one used them for therapy.

For some people, paying with their data is a lot cheaper than paying for therapy or religion. I do not fault them for this, especially if they are getting similar results.

Why? Is it somehow better to go to an actual church or pay someone to confide in?

People using technology to fill a need on the company’s funds is not the worst thing in the world.

Big companies are subject to constant audits. You, too, can check their balance sheets that are released and scrutinize the numbers.

While you may personally dislike MS products, most of the world’s businesses and governments run on them. That’s licensing money every month without fail. They can literally charge whatever they want because companies with staff want Office and Windows Server backend.

I agree with you. I bet a portion of Jewish people also have an unfavorable view of Israel right now.

But it’s not the same as saying those people would agree to a candidate that says they would cut support to Israel or pledge their support for Palestine. It’s a spectrum, not either or.

Not completely.

It’s also that this data is incomplete and it’s a bad idea to draw all your conclusions from it.

For example, in the US, the Jewish voting bloc is very real, substantial, and influential. Compare that to the percentage of nonvoters or even just non political people who have a negative opinion of Israel.

Multiple horror stories is the weakest data set you can come up with.

How many tourists do you think come through the US in a single day? What percentage does “multiple” cases make up?

Yes, it is how its always worked that if you go through immigration and you get flagged for something suspicious you get detained for further questioning. Did you expect the immigration officer to let you through if you failed the initial set of questions like "where will you be staying for the duration of your trip? "

Let me throw this back at you for a sec. How exactly do you are the Trump administration organizing this? Did they suddenly hire a bunch of new immigration officers? Among the hiring and spending freeze and stupid Doge stuff, where did these new officers come from? Do the officers now have some detained quota they need to meet each day? Are all TSA secretly MAGA waiting for the chance to deny tourists?

Sometimes the simplest explanation is right in front of you. The girls were too truthful on their form and that for them flagged and detained. You need to account for where you will be while in the US ( or most countries honestly). Otherwise it is assumed you might do something like try to work and stay long term beyond your visa. When their answers didn’t add up they got sent home.

If you don’t believe this go ahead and try and travel to any country and tell them you don’t have a place to stay yet, don’t know when you will leave exactly, but you’ll just wing it. See if that flies.

This really doesn’t seem like something the administration has a hand in.

When you travel internationally and land the first thing that happens is you fill out a slip go through immigration. The slip asks how long you are staying and where your are staying among other things.

Not accounting for your accommodations for the full duration of your trip will get you flagged for more questions. If the immigration officer things you are going to work during your stay they will deny you because it’s illegal on a tourist visa.

What the girls should have done was just say they were staying at the hotel for the whole time (although 5 weeks at a hotel is probably also a red flag)