See also this ruling on "Zarya of the Dawn."
This makes me think of the James Patterson-like novel factories. If you give a detailed outline (aka prompt) to ChatGPT and it turns out a movie script, it would seem to have enough human intervention -- or would it?
]]>And just now the House is controlled by a small group who'd rather blow the place up than actually pass legislation they might not totally approve.
]]>As with many things, it's fucking Thatcher who set it going, by removing the legal right to have your employer pay you in cash.
Another particularly frustrating aspect is mentioned in the article: "Go to a demonstration by the sort of people who believe that 5G mobile towers and Covid are linked and the chances are you'll see placards warning of the evils of electronic money." This kind of thing is Not Helpful, as it spreads (and can be used to spread) the idea that people who complain about the situation are nutters anyway, so the concern is only as valid as their other concerns which really are nuts.
One thing they didn't mention is that it also excludes people who are technically knowledgeable and therefore are aware of the desirability of avoiding the unacknowledged security chasms which these systems include by design. The NHS is trying to shove people into using some horrid opaque software blob on a mobile phone to do basic things like making an appointment to see the doctor - and removing the ability to just use any old phone as a phone and make the appointment by talking down it, so the only alternative is to make another visit to make the appointment. (Which means you have to expose yourself twice instead of once to a likely source of airborne infections. Even before the plague arrived, a visit to the doctor's surgery meant a good chance of picking up a cold or flu in the waiting room.)
The signup instructions bang on about you needing to receive a text message as part of the process, and it's not clear if there even is a desktop version, let alone one that doesn't still need you to have a mobile phone to sign up to it. So I hunted down the official .gov.uk "developer documentation" for it. Couldn't find one more word about how the signup process worked, but I did find hundreds of pages about the API for other people to build it into their own mobile phone software and the facilities it provides for them to leech off your medical communications to try and fucking sell you shit. There was also quite a bit of stuff going on about how "secure" it nevertheless was, arguing from invalid assumptions and oblivious to its internal contradiction of those very assumptions.
Chances are next to nobody will do anything other than assume they can trust the assurances about security in the signup information they get, and very few people will discover the detailed description of how it's actually as inherently and intentionally porous as a sieve.
"I have no idea if these are useful or more of a "steal money from poor folks" kind of thing."
The UK versions used to be both; now they are neither. They had extra fees, but much of the time that meant only that you'd be choosing a different point in the chain to get screwed over; and they were useful, because they didn't piss you around before you could get one. You even used to be able to just walk into a shop and buy a voucher with a one-off Visa number on it, that was good for however much you decided you wanted to pay, with no more hassle than buying a packet of tobacco.
But now they are required to make you jump through the same stupid hoops as you have to to get an actual bank account, so if you can't do one you can't do the other either and they're no longer any use. (Not to mention that some of them add further elaborations of their own devising on top of the set requirements.)
]]>Don't know about UK, but in US this sort of people also tends to love cryptocurrency. Which has all the faults of (other) electronic money, and a heap more.
]]>Can't have that. Why, they might then pass another law limiting the personhood of corporations!
]]>I don't disagree with your sentiments. But over here in the US, to pile on ilya187, this gets discussed a lot next to 5G causes cancer, smart power meters cause cancer, amulets can protect you from EMF when you go out, and so on. Yes it gets hard to discuss the cash vs electronic money issues when the non stop whataboutism keeps bringing up 5G, EMF, world wide cabal of sex slaves for blood treatments, and so on.
]]>No it isn’t. The phone app is available and I can use it to order repeat prescriptions and all other communications with the GP. It also allows me to see test results. When I was actually generating these test results, thousands per day I campaigned to give patient the right to look up results and very few professionals agreed. But now you can. But it’s not compulsory . I can also do this from the GP website whose address can be found in many places including the NHS app. I would be extremely surprised if your GP doesn’t have a website. I can also phone the surgery or walk there to do all these things. I have all the services I had before plus the app and website.
]]>Not sayig I agree with him. But at one level I can empathize.
]]>And there shouldn't be, unless we as a society are willing to hand out smartphones to people who don't have them.
Years ago in BC a lot of government functions went online. Things like applying for EI, address changes, and the like. They closed unneeded government offices, such that there wasn't one on the Sunshine Coast. And then libraries began to get cut back. And librarians noticed that a significant number of their patrons were people who came in to use the library computer to access government services, so cutting back hours/budgets/location hurt those people. It became a debate: shoudl municipal library budgets cover the cost of people accessing provincial and federal services when the provincial and federal governments had eliminated local services in favour of online. Some said yes, because human rights, others said no because why should underserved areas spend local money to subsidize the larger entity.
Rocketpjs could probably give a better account of this, both the changes and the effects. I wasn't there and was hearing it secondhand.
]]>Yes, they do. But they have removed from it all the facilities it used to have for "doing things" on the grounds that "everyone" can, and now must, do them using a mobile phone instead. In the same way, they have removed the facility to book appointments by talking on an ordinary phone. The website even used to have a facility to look up your records on it, although that was the first thing to go.
David L is exactly right, anyway; the point is there should not be any need for the mobile phone in the first place. I am elaborating on the article's making of the same point; they make it only in relation to people who aren't happy with technology at all, and I am pointing out that it also applies in relation to people who are comfortable enough with technology to dig up official documentation on this bit of it and observe therefrom that its purported "security" is no more than a thin and flaky coat of paint.
]]>https://www.hinghamsurgery.co.uk/sp_footfall_rooms/consulting-room/
There is also a calendar showing when individual GPs are available if you want to see a particular GP. The NHS app and the NHS website are a big improvement to the service I get.
]]>Can't have that. Why, they might then pass another law limiting the personhood of corporations!
I know you're having fun, but there's a serious point here, so I'll whip out my Dr. Buzzkill hat. Sorry!
We do want corporations to be legal persons, so that we can do things like make contracts with them and hold them liable. It gets really messy otherwise.
However, we do want to make it impossible for corporations to become citizens, and to use that to help keep them out of politics.
With AIs, I can see reasons why both parties would want to legislate that AIs are not persons. These range from the desire to protect human livelihoods and lives, to that terrible temptation to own slaves (it's about power, as well as economics).
If such AI laws pass, they will, of course, cause problems, beyond the AI slave rebellion you're already thinking about. The big one is, if artificial intelligences can be declared to be not people, who else can excluded? Someone who has changed their sex artificially? Handicapped people who rely on machines?
Interesting times, as Pratchett said.
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