Perhaps you don't understand peon. The technologist is there to take orders and execute. You thought you were being given input/a voice at the table? God, no. That's above your station. Now go on, shoo. Let the monied people talk. We'll call you when we need something done.
There weren't that many people online, but because there were so few BBSes/lines it could be difficult to get connected. Once connected there wasn't all that much to do, send and check messages, look at mostly utility programs like file compression, and serial terminal, maybe a few dithered GIF images, bit rates were so low 2400 for a very long time that larger programs/files weren't really shared. Demo versions of full shareware was popular. I remember finding Composer 669 music tracker thinking it was the coolest thing ever and learning how to send a money order to the author in the mail.
Quite some time later also ran an OS/2 BBS for a while that I started with a younger highschooler. By then there were lots more BBSes and online services but not much for OS/2 so that made sense. I recall getting an amazing discount on a US Robotics Courier modem (the large flat black one, Dual Standard I think it was) it was so much faster. At that time I also had a job and the office used Telebit Trailblazer modems that had a fast proprietary protocol for communication between offices. I once did tech support from Toronto to Vancouver to recover corrupted OS/2 drives at an IBM office, I sent Norton Utility over the modem and a series of things to enter at the DOS prompt to reconstruct/undelete the OS/2 HPFS filesystem. This part doesn't have much to do with BBSes but that's what it was like around those times. Laplink was another super popular file transfer utility that could directly connect two computers using a printer/parallel, serial cable, or remotely via modem. BBSes were possibly how I also found the VESA VGA driver for OS/2 1.3 that a summer student had made at an IBM office--it was incredible being able to run high-res (800x600 or 1024x768) graphics on a PC clone and ATI VGA card (overclocked 11 MHz ISA bus) running OS/2.
> Fridman, the podcast’s host, defines AGI as an AI system that’s able to “essentially do your job,” as in start, grow, and run a successful tech company worth more than $1 billion.
Didn't I see a headline about Zuckerberg (not so secretly) training an AI to do his CEO job?
I tried getting some work quotes not long ago and was surprised by how many local shops still don't have: (1) website that takes info and emails/calls back, (2) voicemail, or (3) having one or both of those and didn't call back all week. I suspected they had all the business they can handle. I did get a call back later in the week from one that said as much.
Why would a car repair shop need a website for? All I care about is the phone number, with the hope that someone will pick it up. IDK about the world, but in Poland every single mechanic I know has no downtime at all. The better ones have queues measured in weeks or months for simple repairs. They don't care about extra business, the business will find them anyway.
I've made that website! Just put the name and a big fat print phone number in the middle of the page.
There use to be a windows shop around here that had a game on the website where you have to throw stones at windows. Limited time per house, limited stones, more points for big windows, run away when you hear police sirens.
Hard to estimate how much extra work they got out of it but I imagine it > 0.
That generates more supply (mechanics) not less demand (volume of broken cars). Sometimes having excess demand is ideal to keep the market balanced in your favor.
Increasing price would just move up the demand curve (less people willing to spend the increased amount on fixing their broken car) and the mechanic would earn more.
ofc overtime it's likely more mechanics enter the market to compete, but that wouldn't be instant. and when it does happen the table stakes would be that everyone's phone call get's answered
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