Long before the Turing Test, there was the Edison Test: from 1915-25, the scoundrel Thomas Edison traveled around the US, setting performers and a phonograph behind closed curtains that were pulled aside to reveal that the music the audience had taken for performance was a recording:
https://www.tomedison.org/blog/edisons-tone-tests
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/11/03/nobody-is-home/#metabolizers
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@pluralistic What's particularly nefarious about a world without skilled professionals is that then it's helpless. It can't run without being dependent on those companies, and if the DRAM comment is anything it's a hint that's the point. They're trying to create a world were you can only access your "own" skill as a service detached from your person. Flood the market, kill the competition that isn't helpless yet, become the new monopoly over labour.