I'm worried 'AI' is a Silicon Valley Venture Capital buzzword that is just advertising gloss over bloat and surveillance systems. And I grit my teeth if Apple is only upping the minimum memory in the M4 generation so that we can have the shiny, Apple version of Copilot.
My wife had a part-time job all through Covid that allowed her to work from home doing chat customer assistance. What they were doing was babysitting an AI that was answering text messages. The entire goal of the workforce was to "train" the AI until it was ready to function freely.
Spoiler alert, it never really worked. Any interactions beyond the simple required a human operator to jump in (behind the scenes) and take over the conversation. The VCs just declared victory and laid everyone off eventually. Because the point was to sell the product. It didn't do what they promised, but they sold it anyway because it was time.
And this was always going to happen. I explained to my wife and her co-workers that it was always the case. The difference between a startup that is "funding" and "funded." Funding means they have to spend the money, thus you got a lot of Millenials showing 2022 TikToks of getting suspiciously decent pay for these jobs that don't require much but a lot of meetings and free Sun Chips and dance parties, etc. But being Funded means the company gets sold, they have to make a profit, and everyone gets laid off. Including/especially the lowest-paid. And now housing is too expensive and they cannot find a job and are told they will never get a job because AI has replaced them. The Millennial paradox.
I hate Microsoft Copilot, and I'm growing more and more fond of the prospect of going and living in a ToughShed™ in the Montana wilderness if this is the insanity we have to put up with.
I actually like being able to use chat AI for what it is good at. I ask it to give me a basic outline for code. It works like a glorified search engine and will answer some basic questions I have. Or explain math to me. But all that is available to me via the network.
An actual smart assistant in the phone would be useful. But of course if I tell Siri to make a reminder in the calendar, it still requires it to be connected to a network to work. Doesn't seem to be any sentience in the computer or phone at all.
But is 'AI' the current buzzword for just fleecing money from very credulous VCs? And justifying price increases and more data collection? I'm not convinced it is not.
