"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"
A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
The irony of loading this article and a clanker called "AskCR" immediately popping up to ask if I need help is incredible.
Lol πΉ
The one thing ai should be good at, replacing Siri style assistants for creating calendar events, timers, and sending texts hands free is still absent on all major platforms.
If I cant find my phone, I say "ok Google, where's my phone." It replies "I cant do that," and then I can hear where it is.
I also change outlets and light switches hot so I can confirm no shorts are made that will trip the breaker when Im done.
Your epitaph will read "Didn't trip the breaker"
We had working digital assistants since more than a decade ago.
Siri, Google Assistant, and even jankier offerings like Cortana and S Voice were perfectly fine at creating calendar events, timers, and diction typing.
The LLMs are actively worse, and where is this more apparent than with Google Maps. If you enable Gemini, Google Assistant is pseudo-disabled in a limbo state, and you are left with no assistant at all for Google Maps.
What if it gets it wrong though? Cause itβs all guess work.
I guess ML could be used for speech to text and then have it read it back to you, I still think you can probably do that rather easily with good old algorithms.
LLMs are actually quite good at taking free form content and turning it into structured content.
A year ago they were not good for this, but I can run small models locally now which do reliably generate json from content.
I think you would have to benchmark both approaches but the old way made mistakes too.
I love the way these things work
Lol
If you're on Android, I think deleting all AI apps and spyware packages using ADB would be better than just disabling them. If you want Email without any AI, use Email services like Proton Mail, Tuta or you can even use clients such as Thunderbird to use Gmail. And in terms of not liking AI overviews in Google Search, just use Startpage instead of Google Search.
Ah good, this confirms my earlier research into disabling the AI bullshit on Android phones...I happen to be getting a Galaxy FE S25 next week. I will be toggling all the AI garbage off. I'd stick with Apple (which has no Apple Intelligence on my phone as it's an iPhone 15+), but not being able to play nicely with Linux is a deal breaker.
More trust than I've got.
It isn't enough that a company gives me their word, I want to know they're neutered.
Lineage without gapps at the bare minimum.
I don't trust Google, but, Samsung is at least a bit more trustworthy mostly in terms of smartphones specifically. Still will be checking my settings constantly, making sure things are toggled as they should be. I will not be using any of Google's default apps and uninstall them when possible, using only Samsung Apps. I only do this after careful consideration, sadly, until a proper Linux distro that can be installed on any device manifests; this is a begrudging choice that I am making to have better distro to phone interactions.
My big thing is: why a Linux distro?
How did we all agree that instead of an entirely feature-complete, open operating system that we'd rather bolt stock Linux on mobile hardware? This is hardly the lesser of two solutions.
Android is already open source, already has a mobile app ecosystem. The choice seems to be continue development without google or convert a desktop OS to mobile, then continue development without google.
AOSP is cool and all because it has the building blocks for a whole mobile experience, I long for a wide range of supported devices style of mobile distro (or bare minimum several brands)...That has the appeal and vibe of the distros that I like. It's the cool factor that drives this want (even though it might not be practical). This is mostly an idle thought on my part.
There are de-Googled phones that run Android fairly well and have their own app suites and compatibility layers for using Play Store apps too. Part of the reason why I long for something...a bit more flexible is so that I could install it on a phone with a bigger screen and be set. Sadly, the models that I have found are a bit too small for my liking, 6.3 inch screens are simply too small for me. I like a roomy 6.7 inch screen.
but not being able to play nicely with Linux is a deal breaker
KDE Connect is available for iOS! It's an app that you can use to share files between an iPhone and a Linux PC, display notifications, use the phone as a remote for media controls and a touchpad and much more.
It's really nice, I use it on Android. :)
The iOS KDE Connect app doesn't work at all in my case. I've tried many a times to get it to work. It failed, to my general befuddlement (even though I followed instructions). At any rate I am tired of iOS, it's time to get away from Apple now.
apple have enough sense in putting AI into everything.
Lately I keep noticing my phone screen is on with a transcription of my conversation on screen as if I was asking it something. How do I turn that shit off? Galaxy S9+
Do you have Bixby disabled (including the side button)? Google assistant off or uninstalled?
Seems my "choice" of "assistant" had been changed to Gemini instead of regular Google Assistant. I managed to switch it back and then disable it.
That might fix it. Any time I said "ok cool" it thought I said "ok Google" and would start transcribing everything after that. I disabled/removed all of it and haven't had a problem since.
Genimi - I use Qwant search engine. But still I have problem with Genimi that turns on when I hold TURN OFF button for too long time. LOL
Apple intelligence - I got old Mac. It is too old to have this shit.
Copilot - I maybe have it on my Windows, but I don't touch it. When I tried uninstall Microsoft Edge the Microsoft Teams App stopped working so I needed use web version.