An amusing anecdote, in light of all these other comments. I've lived in downtown Dallas for about a decade now and am a frequent pedestrian. I run every morning and didn't have a car for nearly six years. So I see a lot of people who live on the street. I've seen entire tent cities come and go. One of the striking changes over the years is that people living on the street actually do have mobile phones and Internet access now. There are so many electrical outlets in public places that they can easily keep them charged and working and I'm guessing the devices and data plans are either subsidized, free to them, or just really cheap if you don't need latest and greatest.
This seemingly means they can access whatever web-based AI friend as a service thing your friend's daughter is using.
But indoor plumbing, running water, temperature control, clean food. A whole lot of people still don't have those things. Police protection is an underappreciated one. How often do you see people on Hacker News complaining that police won't investigate package theft or shoplifting or something? Imagine if they investigated no crimes at all. Live on the street and you can have everything you own stolen from you every day, get beaten, raped, even murdered, and no one will care or do anything about it. Your interaction with the police is them waking you up and telling you to move if you're sleeping somewhere a tourist might see you.
Civilization itself is less equally distributed than AI chat services.
Comments
An amusing anecdote, in light of all these other comments. I've lived in downtown Dallas for about a decade now and am a frequent pedestrian. I run every morning and didn't have a car for nearly six years. So I see a lot of people who live on the street. I've seen entire tent cities come and go. One of the striking changes over the years is that people living on the street actually do have mobile phones and Internet access now. There are so many electrical outlets in public places that they can easily keep them charged and working and I'm guessing the devices and data plans are either subsidized, free to them, or just really cheap if you don't need latest and greatest.
This seemingly means they can access whatever web-based AI friend as a service thing your friend's daughter is using.
But indoor plumbing, running water, temperature control, clean food. A whole lot of people still don't have those things. Police protection is an underappreciated one. How often do you see people on Hacker News complaining that police won't investigate package theft or shoplifting or something? Imagine if they investigated no crimes at all. Live on the street and you can have everything you own stolen from you every day, get beaten, raped, even murdered, and no one will care or do anything about it. Your interaction with the police is them waking you up and telling you to move if you're sleeping somewhere a tourist might see you.
Civilization itself is less equally distributed than AI chat services.
Excellent post, thank you