TechTakes

No thanks. I’m perfectly capable of coming up with incorrect answers on my own.

Even non tech people I talk to know AI is bad because the companies are pushing it so hard. They intuit that if the product was good, they wouldn't be giving it away, much less begging you to use it.

One of the mistakes they made with AI was introducing it before it was ready (I’m making a generous assumption by suggesting that “ready” is even possible). It will be extremely difficult for any AI product to shake the reputation that AI is half-baked and makes absurd, nonsensical mistakes.

This is a great example of capitalism working against itself. Investors want a return on their investment now, and advertisers/salespeople made unrealistic claims. AI simply isn’t ready for prime time. Now they’ll be fighting a bad reputation for years. Because of the situation tech companies created for themselves, getting users to trust AI will be an uphill battle.

I think people care.

They care so much they actively avoid them.

Oh we care alright. We care about keeping it OUT of our FUCKING LIVES.

Maybe I'm just getting old, but I honestly can't think of any practical use case for AI in my day-to-day routine.

ML algorithms are just fancy statistics machines, and to that end, I can see plenty of research and industry applications where large datasets need to be assessed (weather, medicine, ...) with human oversight.

But for me in my day to day?

I don't need a statistics bot making decisions for me at work, because if it was that easy I wouldn't be getting paid to do it.

I don't need a giant calculator telling me when to eat or sleep or what game to play.

I don't need a Roomba with a graphics card automatically replying to my text messages.

Handing over my entire life's data just so a ML algorithm might be able to tell me what that one website I visited 3 years ago that sold kangaroo testicles was isn't a filing system. There's nothing I care about losing enough to go the effort of setting up copilot, but not enough to just, you know, bookmark it, or save it with a clear enough file name.

Long rant, but really, what does copilot actually do for me?

Reducing computer performance:

Turbo button 🤝 AI button

Imagine that, a new fledgingly technology hamfistedly inserted into every part of the user experience, while offering meager functionality in exchange for the most aggressive data privacy invasion ever attempted on this scale, and no one likes it.

That's not fair! I care! A lot!

Just had to buy a new laptop for new place of employment. It took real time, effort, and care, but I've finally found a recent laptop matching my hardware requirements and sense of aesthetics at a reasonable price, without that hideous copilot button :)

Y'all remember when 3D TVs were going to be revolutionary?

WTF is an AI computer? Is that some marketing bullshit?

It's not care. Its want. We don't want AI.

Google, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia and everyone else is hyping up AI. Consumers are not really seeing much benefit by making everything AI-ified. Executives are raving over it but maybe aren't realize that people outside of the C-suite aren't that excited? Having it shoved in our faces constantly, or crammed in places companies hope they can save money is not helping either.

My problem is that it's not that fucking useful. I got the Pixel 9 specifically because of its advertised AI chip for the assistant and I swear it's just gotten worse since the Pixel 7. I used to be able to ask Google anything through the assistant, and now 90% of my questions are answered with "can't find the information."

They also advertised (or at least heavily alluded to) the use of the AI chip when you are in low network areas but it works just as good outside of 4g+ coverage as it ever did without the stupid chip.

Whats the point of adding AI branded nonsense if there's no practical use for it. And that doesn't even start to cover the issues with AI's reliability as a source of information. Garbage in = garbage out.

Fuck AI

AI on phones peaked with MS Contana on W10 mobile circa 2014. "Remind me to jack off when I'm home". And it fucking did what i wanted. I didn't even have to say words, i could type it into a text box... it also worked offline.

I would actively avoid the extra hassle of an AI computer.

I care. I care enough to crater copilot.

The only real purpose of AI is to get sweet VC money. Beyond that...

Do they care? No! Will they push more AI? Yes! Will they listen to the consumers? I don't think so.
Same thing happens with lot of products over the years. Companies push new stuff that we don't want, and a year later becomes a regular thing! They push AI day by day, from websites AI chat help to in app AI assistant. Do consumers like it? No, but still you gonna find it everywhere! and now they push it in computers and looks what it happens! No sales!

Call me crazy, but at some point, they need to look at their data or their consumers and do the right thing.

The average technical person realises ai is shit.
The average non-technical person doesn't need an ai computer, because chatgpt is free.

If I want at AI I have a multitude of options. It's baked into my editors and easily available on the web. I just paste some crap into a text box and we're off to the races.

I don't want it in my OS. I don't want it embedded in my phone. I'll keep disabling it as long as that is an option.