Yeah, I keep wondering if I should switch to something cheaper, but I'm too lazy to evaluate service qualities across providers, and I don't really use enough for it to matter. If they are the most expensive because they're the best, I'm fine with that, but have no idea.
As a provider, I can add a tool or change instructions on my MCP server, and you'll get it on your next connection, sometimes even mid-session.
With a skill, updates depend on whatever channel delivered it to you. Whichever channel that is, it's out of my hands as a provider.
So, MCP solves the problem of coordinated distribution of updates to a larger subscriber base. Think inside of a company, for example. I don't have to go around and tell people to `git pull` their skills folder.
Because why should you have to load "here's how to update this skill!" information into the context window every time you use it? Would you expect the agent to go to that URL and look for more recent skill files every time you use it? Is this a real question?
Nothing says that agents can't read skills, interpret them and fetch stuff. Needing to agent to pass things off to powerful LLMs to interpret doesn't have to be done for everything.
> he asks who is accountable when an AI agent causes autonomous damage
He is. On the other hand, when a tool of massive power becomes increasingly easy to use, it becomes increasingly easy to misuse, intentionally or not.
The question is if self-regulation is enough. Not that I necessarily trust legislators to know any better. But like we have observed from the world of agentic coding, sometimes two stupid things can behave as a unit of higher intelligence than the individual parts.
Right, I'm not saying that they would be regulated, but rather the provider of the instrument, and the market adoption of it.
Take the emotions he experienced after the event: "Who do I talk to, how do I undo this, what do I do" etc., and the fact that he's met with a wall of silence from Anthropic.
Perhaps there needs be more concerted preparation, guidance, direction and less trial and error for how society adopts it.
The imperfect comparison that sometimes comes up is to that of nuclear power, where international regulation and guidance quickly was adopted. I'm not necessarily endorsing the literal comparison, but an attitude of "well, let's just see how people choose to use nuclear power" would have yielded a significantly different world, I'm sure.
Its far more difficult than physical safety criteria with things like nuclear energy. Will the ban be on providing tools that can delete things? In this case it looks like it was writing software that can delete things. SO maybe require that coding tools do not run code without a check? So things like Claude auto mode are not allowed? The result will be people ignore warnings.
The question of how people choose to use nuclear power does not arise, because most people use the electricity it generates rather than operate their own nuclear power stations. With AI people need to operate it themselves. Its fundamentally different. Its more like trying to stop people from writing bad code.
While I hear you, I think AC is better centralized for the building, along with heat and water.
Yes, there are numerous reasons why this is harder to do than just doing it ad-hoc per apartment, but if we’re to see it as infrastructure, it should receive the same level of consideration as other utilities.
Agreed, new builds should be mandatory, but this is not easy to retrofit to existing apartment buildings in a country where labour and parts are notoriously expensive and have to be split with the residents.
I can run a broken toilet tank all day long without extra fees, hundreds of gallons. Can turn all faucets on without penalties, nobody is counting and the utility doesn't care. The maintenance fees for water cover it, spread across all residents (although they are not low, like $1,800 on top of mortgage, subsidizing things I don't use, like card rooms, ping pong hall, etc.). Some families live 4-5 in a 2 bedroom, in my case it's just the two of us and the dog. Pretty insane, no logical solutions in sight. Moving isn't inexpensive.
That seems unusual to me. I've never lived in a place where water was not metered and charged by the volume consumed. A necessity like water (and A/C) should be as you describe, but I've never seen it, at least not in the USA.
I live in a condo in Florida in a 3 building high-rise compound. There are no water meters per unit. Water is covered by maintenance fees. They are atrocious and rising, but water is "free". Retrofitting will increase maintenance fees, likely by a lot more than I would save paying for my own water usage.
I had a similar situation involving electricity when living in Los Angeles, in the Valley. Electricity costs were averaged across all units, there were no individual meters per unit. My family of 3 humans in a 2 bedroom apartment consumed a lot less than a 10 human family in a 3 bedroom, and that was a thing. I subsidized their electricity usage. This involved things like pool heating, grass maintenance which I never cared about or used. This was at Bella Vista near Warner Ridge. https://www.equityapartments.com/los-angeles/woodland-hills/...
In the US, utility companies don't bill you for actual usage, they have "predictions" on what you may use. IME. You can burn candles and eat canned food for a month and still get billed $300.
The problem with shared is the issue of shared cost. How do you determine how much a user consumes?
There is also the issue of upgrading the shared infrastructure. Because of the size it's a lot more expensive to replace, so that is postponed for much longer because now everybody needs to pitch in.
For most of the buildings from communism era - all the utilities run through the apartments anyway and there is absolutely no place or way to retrofit these utilities without extensively either re-doing it from scratch, or trying to somehow retrofit it on the outside.
All of these options are a non-starter considering basic AC starts from $500. Why should anyone invest more than that?
Permissions and structural concerns aside, you only need one 65mm/2.5" hole in the wall to run the high/low pressure gas lines, a drain hose, and a power cable, plus couple more non-penetrating drill holes on the wall to mount the inside and outside units. You'll need a hole saw attachment on a drill, a vacuum pump to thoroughly dry out the system, and bits of plastic putty to fill the hole against intrusion. It's a less than 5 man-hour job.
you don't really need drain hose for outside multisplit unit, my AC drain hoses from all indoor units are connected to my WC tank, I used previously pumps to push the water to the roof, but they were not reliable and once after thunderstorm they died when I finally went for passive solution, should have done it from the beginning)
Many communist-era buildings had a service shaft the width of the back wall of the toilet closet (yes, bathroom and toilet are separate rooms). This was hidden from everyday view with large cabinet doors.
A national-scale project can likely package cooling for these shafts, possibly emanating from rooftop units.
I've read that German society, for example, is largely based on contracts between the family unit and the state. Sweden, as a contrast, is largely based on contracts between individuals and the state.
As an example, Germany treats a married couple as a fiscal unit, Sweden abolished joint taxation in the 70s. Swedish parental leave is allocated per individual, and is mostly non-transferable.
In a lot of ways, individualism is produced by state contract in Sweden.
But I might be in the minority of people who don’t talk much to their TV.
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