gcheliotis

Believe me I’m old enough to be set in my ways too. Trends come and go and the way I work hasn’t changed much. But that is also the force of habit. Even if the perfect AI were available today and I could talk to my computer for most tasks I’d have a hard time adjusting, even if I can see the potential and think that current workflows will someday seem very antiquated and inefficient.

I know it is very much de rigeur on here to bash AI but I’ve personally wished for a more ‘intelligent’ user experience for the longest time. Most tasks that are common for professionals or for private use on a computer have remained virtually unchanged for decades. Find file, open file, process, read, whatever, find another file, do the same, combine them into something new, produce a new visual or summary of that something new, stop to check email, go back, etc. Most people use a small number of popular applications that haven’t evolved much. Same with OSs and file management.

I am tired of the same old process, the endless stream of clickety clicks to get the simplest things done, and have often wished for a digital assistant that would offer up options, take instruction in natural language and have access to the file system, email, etc, to help me complete daily tasks, alert me to important things happening in the background, etc. I remember already a decade ago thinking surely this will be possible one day, just like in the movies. And now it’s here, it’s a privacy and security quagmire, because it can’t run local, not efficiently enough just yet, but it’s here, and it works only sometimes and many people are up in arms against it.

So what gives? I think the idea of a computer that is now an intelligent and maybe even proactive digital agent instead of a dutiful code execution machine is very compelling. So it’s natural that some people are super excited about it on a personal level. But it doesn’t work as well as advertised yet and accepting such a huge ugh… paradigm shift is not going to be easy. Not unless the AI proves itself equal (and completely trustworthy) or better than the user. But then the user may fear it or resent it for those very reasons.

Unpopular opinion: Apple could make it work better as a true OS-level all around assistant given their experience and control over OS and apps but they are lagging behind for now. And Microsoft is busy being Microsoft, angering its users by trying to push its own vision of the future down users’ throats without sufficient market or product testing.

Anyway, long post to say: If I am honest with myself, I actually have always wanted an AI to assist me in my work, but like in the movies, where it just works, seamlessly, and it just ‘gets’ you and you can delegate some busywork to it and rest assured that it isn’t spying on you nor messing anything up. Not like in the dystopian movies where it goes horribly wrong and you end up begging it for mercy. And right now we’re neither here nor there.

The moment we use the NIMBY label we prejudice ourselves against potentially legitimate local and global concerns and specific local protest movements. I do that too on some issues but do wonder sometimes whether I’m being unfair. I guess the determining factors would be how big a sacrifice a local community is asked to make, how great the greater good that sacrifice will serve, also who is protesting and what arguments they bring forth, what values they stand for, how these values align with yours, etc.

I focus on the hardware, OS and ecosystem which are all very good for my use and just shake my head at things like this and move on. It’s not like I approve or feel like I have to approve of everything a company does to use their products. Of course the more attuned they are to my needs the more I like them. And Apple has been a mixed bag over the years. Then again so has everyone else.

Yes, possibly, for the best of both worlds

Yes, you may be right, given how there seems to be some geographic patterns in the level of fluency. A map would show these better. A bar chart would be better for making visible actual absolute differences in scores. But yeah, a map would be good, I agree.

I look at this and I think you know, not everything needs to be a bar chart… this is different, it’s creative, but then again, it would be better as a bar chart.

One reason, maybe not the only one, could be that they’re being told it’s all lies or in any case untrustworthy reports, or hugely exaggerated. I’ve seen many examples of this.

I can imagine this being initially an accidental discovery like oh every time so and so’s body interacts with the WiFi signal it’s the same pattern… until someone starts exploring this further… and then some engineer or their manager started looking for applications for this. In my experience engineering researchers especially are very good with coming up with use cases for whatever tech they’re working with, with little ethical consideration.

Tbh I always loved the idea of an opinionated car GPS/AI, just for fun, I always thought it would be hilarious if it gave instructions with an attitude or responded to the driver in kind, depending on what you throw at it. Still not buying a Tesla, just saying.

What you’re describing is the etymology of the word, but its actual meaning in public discourse has morphed to “men who see women and any real or perceived slight/rejection from them as the source of all their problems and are thus generally - sometimes extremely - hateful towards them”.

I mean yes race does intersect, it’s a longer discussion, I guess I’m just tired of this “whiteness” critique because it feels cheap and easy, hence intellectually lazy. Anything that happens in the west politically can be linked back to whiteness one way or another. I don’t think it’s been particularly helpful as a critique, in fact I think it has backfired and probably needs to go.