Technology

I can't help but wonder if the empowerment LLMs may have to an individual is terrifying leaders into an authoritarian mindset

LLMs are here to enrich the rich, not to "empower the individual". They require ridiculously expensive computing power, which makes them impractical or even impossible to self-host (with data centers buying up the market, the required hardware becomes unaffordable to the individual). Now you're at the mercy of renting out the compute from the oligarchs and their companies, and you're also relying on their censored and biased models (see Grok and his "Mecha-Hitler" antics if you want a taste of the future). Please don't expect that to empower you, or anyone else. It can't, and even if it could, it wouldn't be available to you.

Unless we democratise LLMs, they'll just become yet another tool of enslavement in the clutches of the Epstein class.

It could greatly boost the use of decentralized apps. Which will ultimately give people more power than they have right now. So in the long run, it might have some positive side effects.

Have you not been following the EU and the right-wing influence the last few years? Spain is practically the only leftist country left.

this isnt about protecting kids online

It never is, but they always try to sell unpopular things as "protecting the kids".

This authority will provide you with tokens indicating you are 18+ (or whatever age verfication you may need) These tokens are stored locally, and contain no identifying information other than a simple "is this guy 18+?"

So they're reusable? One token can be used for multiple age checks, right?

If not, then think about what that means.

1. The token gets sent back to the authority for revocation.
2. The token is authorised by the central authority as still valid.
3. The token is uniquely identifiable
4. The central authority knows who it issued each token for
5. The central authority knows who has asked it the verify age.

Sure, the company you're purchasing from may have no new information, but the central authority now has everything it needs to know:

• How often you buy tobacco, alcohol or medications
• What discussion boards you are a member of
• Have you purchased anything age restricted from any store (e.g. propane from a DIY store)

I get why this sounds better than websites directly collecting IDs, but I think it still understates the problem. Even if the site only sees “18+”, the system still begins with strong identity proofing somewhere upstream. So this is not really anonymous access, it is identity-based access with a privacy layer on top.

The bigger issue is centralization. You still need trusted issuers, approved apps, approved standards, and authorities deciding who can participate. That means users are being asked to trust a centralized framework not to expand, not to abuse its power, and not to fail. History gives us no reason to be relaxed about that.

I am also skeptical of the privacy promises. These systems are always presented in their ideal form, but real-world implementations involve metadata, logging, renewal, compliance rules, vendors, and future policy changes. “The website does not know who you are” is only one small part of the privacy question.

So even in the best-case version, this is still dangerous because it normalizes the idea that access to lawful online content should depend on credentials issued inside a centrally governed identity ecosystem. Today it is age verification. Tomorrow it is broader permissioned access to the internet. That is why I do not see this as a decent compromise, but as infrastructure for future control.

The big problem is the trustworthiness of that central authority to maintain the confidentiality of your information, and to not use it for other purposes.

The government isn't doing shit except censorship and mass data surveillance. This has less than nothing to do with kids.