Some of the older lemmings here will remember what it was like when every company wanted to make a website, but they didn’t really have anything to put in there. People were curious to look at websites, because you hadn’t seen that many yet, so visiting them was kinda fun and interesting at first. After about a year, the novelty had worn off completely, and seeing YetAnotherCompanyName.com on TV or a road side billboard was beginning to get boring.

Did it ever get as infuriating the current AI hype though? I recall my grandma complaining about TV news. “They always tell me to read more online.” she says. I guess it can get just as annoying if you manage to successfully ignore the web for a few decades.

As someone (forgot which blog I read it on, sorry) recently observed: if AI made software development so much easier, we'd be drowning in great new apps by now.

It definitely feels buzzword-like & vague. Kind of like how Web3 Blockchain XYZ was slapped on to a lot of stuff

TL;DR

4 layers of stupidification. The (possibly willfully) ignorant user, the source bias, the bias/agenda of the media owner, then shitty AI.

AI should be a backup to human skill and not a replacement for it. It isn’t good enough, and who knows when or if it will ever be at a reasonable cost. The problem with the current state of AI is that it’s being sold as a replacement for many human jobs and knowledge. 30-40 years ago we had to contend with basic human bias and nationalism filtering facts and news before it got to the end user, then we got the mega-media companies owned by the ultra wealthy who consolidated everything and injected yet more bias with the internet and social media but at least you got provided with multiple sources, now we have AI being pushed as a source that can be programmed to use biased sources and/or objectively wrong sources that people don’t even bother checking another source about. AI should be used to find unique solutions to medical research, materials design, etc. Not whether or not microwaving your phone is a good idea.

It's advertising. It's shoved in your face so you use Copilot instead of Google.

I setup a brother all in one printer for my mother in law and it wanted to install software that loads at startup that pops up constantly with their printer toner sales and marketing.

The 0.001% have stolen $76,000,000,000,000 from US workers alone in the last 40 years.

AI is just a way for them to burn money rather than allow the poors to have a raise.

A couple years ago I read a news article written by a woman who had just left her silicon valley career because she was one of the people forerunning the implementation of AI and it terrified her and she saw how bad it was and the long-lasting implications on society and she bailed out due to conscientious objections.

When someone comes up with something like this, I transport the phrase back to the 80s where people said the exact same thing about home computers. "if a computer was something everyone wanted or needed, it wouldn't be constantly shoved (in) your face by every product. People would just use it." Ok great but a computer turned out to be something everyone wanted or needed which is why computers were built into everything by the turn of the 90s, famously leading to the Y2k bug.

Then I transport the phrase back to the mid 90s where people said the exact same thing about the internet. By the end of the 90s, the internet provided the backbone communications structures for telecommunications, emergency management, banking, education, and was built into every possible product. Ten years later people got smartphones and literally couldn't put them down.

Canva just announced the next generation of Affinity. Instead of giving us Linux support, while Affinity is “free” now they crammed in a bunch of AI to upsell you on a subscription.

It’s the only thing holding the US economy afloat now. Do you want to fight your neighbours for the last piece of hardtack?

it isnt, the fact they are shoveling into every tech, retail included, means its about to burst. they are just stemming the bleeding so they recoup some losses.