That still doesn't seem autonomous in any real way though.
There are people that I could hire in the real world, give $10k (I dunno if that's enough, but you understand what I mean) and say "Do everything necessary to grow 500 bushels of corn by October", and I would have corn in October. There are no AI agents where that's even close to true. When will that be possible?
Given enough time and money the chatbots we call "AI" today could contact and pay enough people that corn would happen. At some point it'll eventually have spammed and paid the right person who would manage everything necessary themselves after the initial ask and payment. Most people would probably just pocket the cash and never respond though.
You can already do this by…. Buying corn. At the store. Or worst case at a distributor.
It’s pretty cheap too.
It’s not like these are novel situations where ‘omg AI’ unlocks some new functionality. It’s literally competing against an existing, working, economic system.
No joke, it just came up at work as a possible solution to something. We have some legacy systems that talk over TCP in plaintext. It's all within well-secured networks on locked down machines, so fine. But now we want to move things to Megaport, and their agreement says "btw don't put anything in plaintext ever, we guarantee nothing". So stunnel will probably be the fix.
I was involved in a very similar situation once.
I recommend wireguard for this, it's mature for years, has superb support in linux and some BSDs and there are userspace implementations if you need that.
It wraps traffic in UDP, the overhead is much smaller thus throughput mich higher than traditional TCP-based VPN (you want to avoid tcp-in-tcp!).
There were once patches posted to lkml that passed QoS-flags from the inner packet to the wireguard packet, if you need that. not sure if that landed upstream in the end.
key distribution and lifecycle management is what was still unsolved years back when this was evaluated, nowadays tailscale and its clones and similar oss should serve you well.
"Everyday you get electricity, water, transportation, food, and general survival are dependant on horrifically outdated software systems that aren't going to be changed any time soon"
I mean...fair. All I can say is it's still very critical and in production. I guess it's just worth pointing out that horribly outdated things still need support :)
Maybe they need something that works without root and IP space allocation. I like WireGuard and use it myself but it is a bit of an installation compared to binding a port
Not a security expert and also curious about implications:
I always considered it the best solution to have both: VPN encryption and TLS encryption over the VPN. Different OSI Layers. Different Attack Surfaces.
Not sure if that is a recommended pratice though (see initial remark ;) )
An undervalued company is one that everyone else thinks is a loser but actually isn't - if you can identify that (and maybe make some adjustments to it) you can make a lot of money pretty quickly.
I worked at a big-box retailer before figuring out a career. They had an old-school TUI that was incredibly fast and well designed. Function keys to do all kinds of lookups and adjustments, advanced menus when you needed them, overall just a well designed system. People took a week or so to get the hang of it but then the skill ceiling was insane, people could get fast.
A few months before I left they switched to a "modern" GUI. It was shockingly bad. The speed of every transaction lowered. Even with optimal use it just took longer. So much time wasted.
I think this is a strange and very modern conception of weddings. Weddings are not just about the bride and groom; they're about the bride and groom and the community of their friends and family. That third part is a key component! It's why we invite people to weddings, so they can witness and help the couple in making and keeping the commitment of marriage.
True, of course, but they're the ones spending a fortune on it. Not only so they can have a memorable day but so their guests enjoy it too. Seems fair that if they ask you to do something really really easy like not take photos, you do that.
I think everyone agrees that some rules for guests are fine, and some are silly. "No flash photography or leaning into aisles during the wedding procession" is a reasonable rule, "No taking photos when we're dancing and having fun" seems silly to me.
Just like a dress code for a wedding is fine, but if they said "also you need to wear blue cotton underwear" I'd think that was a bit inappropriate to require.
Historically at least, it's not that weddings are in public places, but that they're inherently a performance for the community. Like the reason for having a wedding is to make a commitment publicly in front of your friends and family. That doesn't mean it needs to be open to all who want to wander in, but it's strange to think of it as a secret event.
I feel like it's pretty strange (and mildly rude) to insist no one take/post photos of a wedding, and also very rude to take/post photos when asked not to.
> but it's strange to think of it as a secret event.
Not sure why you're using the word "secret" there? Something being not-public (ie invitation only) doesn't mean it's secret or hidden. It just means it's not public.
It's not the cost, it's the headache. Do I need to worry about setting up SSO, do I need to work with procurement, do I need to do something in our SOC2 audit, do I need to get it approved as an allowed tool, etc.
Whether it's $100/year or $10k/year it's all the same headache. Yes, this is dumb, but it's how the process works at a lot of companies.
Whereas if it's a free tool that just magically goes away. Yes, this is also dumb.
SMS 2FA is good enough for most people most of the time. It's very bad at preventing high-skill targeted attacks against individuals, but it's perfectly good at preventing mass brute-force attacks.
It's popular because it solves the problem (not ALL problems, but the one they're trying to solve) and it's easy and low-barrier to implement and use.
There are people that I could hire in the real world, give $10k (I dunno if that's enough, but you understand what I mean) and say "Do everything necessary to grow 500 bushels of corn by October", and I would have corn in October. There are no AI agents where that's even close to true. When will that be possible?
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