> I'm half expecting to see "AI model" appearing as stand-in for "linear regression" at this point in the cycle.

Already the case with consulting companies, have seen it myself

> Can you explain what open society means?

An open society is a society where people can freely express ideas, question authority, practice different beliefs, and participate in public life under the protection of laws and individual rights. It is usually marked by free speech, rule of law, pluralism, relatively open debate, and institutions that allow peaceful change.

> Open phones are all fine and well, but good luck convincing banking and government applications to work on those (especially in countries where bank login is used to access government services).

First phones, then lobbying. As citizens of an open society, government exists to serve us, not the other way around. With enough users, they will have to respond. As I said, there are a number of areas that need attention and a coordinated effort across the breadth of society to restore, maintain and improve the foundations of an open society.

It is way past time to build a 'people's phone', funding it through a platform like LiberaPay [1][2] or Open Collective [3][4], with a requirement for the device to be completely open-source.

[1] https://liberapay.com/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberapay
[3] https://opencollective.com/
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Collective

If we start today, we could have a new phone in 2-3 years. Future generations will thank us.

It's not just phones. There is a concerted movement by massively-moneyed folks to destroy the fabric of open society, so there are a number of different areas that need attention. A coordinated effort across the breadth of society to restore, maintain or improve the foundations of open society.

Society is not ready for an AI world: any platform that does not guarantee anonymity will be of limited utility for social discourse in a world lurching towards authoritarianism, and any platform that does guarantee anonymity can no longer reliably distinguish human from ai; not that that should matter when it's ideas that are being debated.

But the bigger issue is the control of money: hierarchical institutions disintermediate workers from the way the fruits of their labor are put to use. Money spent or paid in taxes is aggregated and misused by third parties against the wishes and against the providers of that money. Essentially, your labor is used against you. This is true regardless of where someone is on the political spectrum.

A platform for debate or voting isn't going to resolve this fundamental problem.