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Evening from Spoons. I may be an AI luddite. I am utterly sick of having it rammed down my throat. A few examples:

1) Accounting platforms where it gives you suggestions for what the transaction may be which are almost always wrong. Takes longer to delete what Quickbooks / Sage / Revolut / Tide have autocompleted than to just do it directly
2) YouTube Studio. I am offered "comment reply suggestions" to most comments left on my channel. Can't switch this feature off, uses screen space, especially on mobile
3) Have just completed a trial of Monday.com for my business. Spent c. 8 hours on it, plus a few more doing planning etc. Trial about to expire so lets set our subscription. Not only do they force you to pay for users you don't have, you must buy AI tokens for those people you don't have. And in 2 weeks the number of AI tokens we have used on trial is zero. A cost increase of 50%. And of course you can't opt out. Other than binning the entire platform which we have now done
4) Microsoft won't let you remove Copilot. Endless intrusion on apps like Powerpoint, even down to the minor irritation of having to dock the logo thing so its not on the slides I am working on. WhatsApp won't even let you do that - the Meta AI symbol takes up screen space and you can't remove it

I'm being driven mad by AI. Please make it go away.

It's almost like they've forgotten all the lessons they (should have) learnt from the infuriating paperclip 20 odd years ago.

Microsoft absolutely learned the lesson of Clippy. Unfortunately, the lesson they seem to have learned is to not give the mugs any choice in the matter this time.

Evening from Spoons. I may be an AI luddite. I am utterly sick of having it rammed down my throat. A few examples:

1) Accounting platforms where it gives you suggestions for what the transaction may be which are almost always wrong. Takes longer to delete what Quickbooks / Sage / Revolut / Tide have autocompleted than to just do it directly
2) YouTube Studio. I am offered "comment reply suggestions" to most comments left on my channel. Can't switch this feature off, uses screen space, especially on mobile
3) Have just completed a trial of Monday.com for my business. Spent c. 8 hours on it, plus a few more doing planning etc. Trial about to expire so lets set our subscription. Not only do they force you to pay for users you don't have, you must buy AI tokens for those people you don't have. And in 2 weeks the number of AI tokens we have used on trial is zero. A cost increase of 50%. And of course you can't opt out. Other than binning the entire platform which we have now done
4) Microsoft won't let you remove Copilot. Endless intrusion on apps like Powerpoint, even down to the minor irritation of having to dock the logo thing so its not on the slides I am working on. WhatsApp won't even let you do that - the Meta AI symbol takes up screen space and you can't remove it

I'm being driven mad by AI. Please make it go away.

My pet hate is when I get a long pdf of the accounts for the charities that I am Trustee of. The AI comments that it is a long document and would I want a one page summary. The answer is No, I want the detail.

I am yet to find AI useful for anything yet it is drowning us in slop, that gets in the way of real content.

I did get some use out of AI the other day in figuring our steps to make an old game which has not been maintained work, as the answer is usually buried in some ancient reddit thread somewhere, but that's mainly a consequence of Google Search actually being pretty shit now (the consequences of monopoly perhaps) and the AI search actually being functional.

Google is now deliberately shit. They know that if you find your search result quickly then you aren't looking at their adverts for long. If they string you along with poor results and paid for placings they get more adverts.

It's the old adage that if you're paying, you're a customer. If you're not, you're a product.

I’ve come to the conclusion that all the major tech companies are run by the pointy haired boss from Dilbert.

Bollocks.

The minor ones are also run by him too.

England are playing Croatia in an air-conditioned stadium - will the still have advert hydration breaks?

Yep, like all the previous matches in AC venues in the last week.

Stadiums can have air conditioning? Outside?

It has a roof.

Why though

Why does the millennium stadium in Wales have a roof? Because they can, and because it means perfect conditions for playing sport.

And I believe it costs less than £10 (ten) to close it as it’s on a sophisticated roller system that goes on momentum once the inertia is overcome.

Evening from Spoons. I may be an AI luddite. I am utterly sick of having it rammed down my throat. A few examples:

1) Accounting platforms where it gives you suggestions for what the transaction may be which are almost always wrong. Takes longer to delete what Quickbooks / Sage / Revolut / Tide have autocompleted than to just do it directly
2) YouTube Studio. I am offered "comment reply suggestions" to most comments left on my channel. Can't switch this feature off, uses screen space, especially on mobile
3) Have just completed a trial of Monday.com for my business. Spent c. 8 hours on it, plus a few more doing planning etc. Trial about to expire so lets set our subscription. Not only do they force you to pay for users you don't have, you must buy AI tokens for those people you don't have. And in 2 weeks the number of AI tokens we have used on trial is zero. A cost increase of 50%. And of course you can't opt out. Other than binning the entire platform which we have now done
4) Microsoft won't let you remove Copilot. Endless intrusion on apps like Powerpoint, even down to the minor irritation of having to dock the logo thing so its not on the slides I am working on. WhatsApp won't even let you do that - the Meta AI symbol takes up screen space and you can't remove it

I'm being driven mad by AI. Please make it go away.

It's almost like they've forgotten all the lessons they (should have) learnt from the infuriating paperclip 20 odd years ago.

"You seem to be writing an anti-AI screed. Would you like help with that?"

a

On the riots in Belfast and the failure to tackle Loyalist groups: https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/elon-musk-belfast-pogrom-lee-hurley

But the Peace Process is so wonderful!

Yes it is with some reasonably obvious caveats. Would you want to return to the car bombs exploding outside the Europa Hotel every five minutes?

So race riots are an acceptable price?

Or should we risk a certain amount of disorder to clamp down on criminal behaviour?

I added provisos but I stand by my evaluation.

Perfect is the enemy of good.

Which is the kind of reasoning that has been used to avoid dealing with gangsters running the streets.

The belief that any kind of law enforcement against them “risks the peace process”

But most people think that's not the case and we could have a bit more law enforcement without any jeopardy to the peace process. Whereas you appear to think that the entire peace process was a mistake.

Which is exactly wrong - I think the Peace Process can survive more law enforcement. And without law enforcement it isn’t a peace process. Just giving criminals control.

It’s the governments in London, Dublin and Stormont who don’t agree with that.

Evening from Spoons. I may be an AI luddite. I am utterly sick of having it rammed down my throat. A few examples:

1) Accounting platforms where it gives you suggestions for what the transaction may be which are almost always wrong. Takes longer to delete what Quickbooks / Sage / Revolut / Tide have autocompleted than to just do it directly
2) YouTube Studio. I am offered "comment reply suggestions" to most comments left on my channel. Can't switch this feature off, uses screen space, especially on mobile
3) Have just completed a trial of Monday.com for my business. Spent c. 8 hours on it, plus a few more doing planning etc. Trial about to expire so lets set our subscription. Not only do they force you to pay for users you don't have, you must buy AI tokens for those people you don't have. And in 2 weeks the number of AI tokens we have used on trial is zero. A cost increase of 50%. And of course you can't opt out. Other than binning the entire platform which we have now done
4) Microsoft won't let you remove Copilot. Endless intrusion on apps like Powerpoint, even down to the minor irritation of having to dock the logo thing so its not on the slides I am working on. WhatsApp won't even let you do that - the Meta AI symbol takes up screen space and you can't remove it

I'm being driven mad by AI. Please make it go away.

That's the big issue, AI is good at some things but it's being forced into areas where it's just a pain in the arse and adds no value. Microsoft at least has started to reverse this and is steadily removing most of the pointless Copilot integration.

As for it going away, well OpenAI lost $34bn last year, $20bn of that just on general operations. They are a financial basket case, and Anthropic is little better.

There is a bit of a grassroots pushback over here on social media telling restaurants and similar to stop using AI for their photos and posts as it’s obvious and people want to see the actual food as done and frankly it would possibly/likely look better.

Authenticity might limit AI in a lot of areas. Music too - AI might produce the odd good tune but I think people still like the idea of people making and performing music.

Yes, our village hall committee used AI to design some posters, including ones promoting the businesses who sponsor them. Our shop was portrayed as selling loads of stuff we don't sell, and the burger van at the end of the village was transformed into a restaurant. When we queried it they "hadn't noticed" the issue...