this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2024
275 points (98.2% liked)

Ask Lemmy

34150 readers
2195 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I've seen reports and studies that show products advertised as including / involving AI are off-putting to consumers. And this matches what almost every person I hear irl or online says. Regardless of whether they think that in the long-term AI will be useful, problematic or apocalyptic, nobody is impressed Spotify offering a "AI DJ" or "AI coffee machines".

I understand that AI tech companies might want to promote their own AI products if they think there's a market for them. And they might even try to create a market by hyping the possibilities of "AI". But rebranding your existing service or algorithms as being AI seems like super dumb move, obviously stupid for tech literate people and off-putting / scary for others. Have they just completely misjudged the world's enthusiasm for this buzzword? Or is there some other reason?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] savvywolf@pawb.social 13 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I personally think people were "burned" by the whole NFT situation. During the NFT "hype" a year or two ago, a lot of companies were slow to get on board with releasing NFT products, and so they missed the bubble entirely. NFTs are, of course, silly but if they did take off, companies would have loved to have been part of the boon.

Fast forward to now and you have AI bros shilling AI in the same way cryptobros were shilling NFTs. However, this time it's different! They have results, they have technology. Microsoft is on board! They have fancy tech demos which are not staged at all! If you didn't have experience with the technology and limitations, you would be lead to believe that this is the same as the NFT bubble, but it's actually going to be a real technology rather than snake oil.

I think there's also the issue that it takes a long time to bring a product to market. Imagine you've spent millions developing software and hardware for your AI coffee machine or whatever and it turns out that there's no market demand. You can't really turn to your stakeholders and say "oops, we made a mistake and have to cancel this product. Sorry!", you have to finish the product and try to recoup losses where you can. That's why there's all these weird posts advertising AI products - they can't just not release a product, and AI bros might be tempted to buy it.

I also wonder if the whole AI hate is bias due to us being here on mastodonlemmy... We tend towards fairly cynical people who are critical towards new technology and corporations. Maybe actual consumers who aren't online all day and clued into the tech scene are wowwed by AI. I've certainly seen people here casually remark that they use ChatGPT and Copilot.

[โ€“] lemmyng@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago

You're essentially describing FOMO. The hype bros are telling the CEOs "if you don't offer AI then your competition will, and they'll take all your customers."

load more comments (4 replies)