I just got recruited into a workgroup assigned to get AI tools together to perform one of the job functions we have in all our teams. We were told it’s on the down-low for now because people are of course concerned about job security, but this is all really to guarantee they have job security.

I was like… blink… wut.

Nothing like being told to ignore the evidence of your eyes and ears.

I work in tech and I cannot overstate the AI craze that executives are on. We are constantly told to use it for everything, and that the only secure jobs are those held by people who use AI for everything. Using AI all the time is the only way they think you’re maximally productive. My LinkedIn is full of CEOs and influencers all crying that people who use AI will be elevated and everyone else will be dropped. In the most extreme cases, they imply that people who don’t use AI are obviously so stupid that you wouldn’t want to employ them anyway.

Meanwhile I sit at my desk trying to make it do something useful.

My daughter keeps texting me screenshots of her “streak” achievements as if that means anything. And then when I ask her how to say something in German she barely knows a thing.

It can be done to a stupid degree. Duolingo defines the outer limits.

I hate this app so much now. It has become the poster child of enshittification by gamification.

Imagine if now, at the height of their success, Apple finally decided, for the first time, to alienate the core audience they’ve always shown undying dedication to: gamers /s

Everyone cashed out on Skype the day it was sold to eBay. Years later people are still wondering what happened to it?? The train left the station forever ago.

What a brave, original thought. Did an AI write this for you?

I recall all the same arguments about how much energy and carbon are involved in performing one Google search. Does anyone care? Nope.

I’ve always ignored the energy issue on the assumption that it will be optimized away. Right now, leapfrogging the competition to new levels of functionality is what’s important. But when (if?) these tools settle into true mass usage, the eggheads will have every incentive to focus on optimization to save on operating costs. When that finally starts happening, we will know that AI has passed out of its era as a speculative bet and into prime time as an actual product.

What’s wrong with Zuck’s family?

Yep he looks at the world and sighs and thinks he could lead humanity into a shining future but for one thing: the legacy structures dragging it down. He really believes he has all the answers but we’re so bogged down by our establishments that we can’t follow him. He’d love to wipe the slate clean. I’d fucking love to be on a desert island with him and three other people trying to establish a colony. He’d be so goddamn useless.

My first thought was: let me guess, his own. Sure enough. This fucking asshole needs to go away. Every time he opens his mouth, shit comes out.

Yeah that’s a good point.

If they mean “30% of the code we wrote last month” then I might believe it. Though I bet it is not across the board but deep in one or two areas. Still, it’s a crazy number.

But he said something like “30% of the code in our repositories” which would mean everything, including their entire legacy of code. And that I simply do not believe.

More than a decade on that. I would say the usability is so bad that they are not on track to catch up ever unless something changes. Every year or so I download GIMP and try to use it for something basic, and I always fail and give up.

Oh do you mean you’re using it for exercise somehow? Or are you making a masturbation joke?

Agree on all that. In addition, headsets would become so very unhealthy if they took off. Just imagine the addictiveness of phones combined with the sedentary qualities of TV, with both dialed up to 11. People’s vision would get all fucked up, and they would start dying on their couches plugged in. It’s simply not a vision for the future that has any legs.

Exactly. Thank you.

I might be impressed by a truck that could haul a cooler, an empty plastic barrel, and a crate at once. But the lack of any tie-downs for those straps makes my point well for me. Thanks.

Look closer and read the dimensions. The Verge say “it can hold a sheet of plywood” in text but if you look at the dimensions, there isn’t 48” of space between the wheel wells, so it has to be propped up on them seesawing back and forth. And there is not 96” of length to support it, even with the tailgate down. At best you could limp home with one sheet rocking around, sticking out behind you. Forget transporting a stack.

It’s yet another urban toy truck that’s not equipped for actual utility.