Am I only person who's reached their threshold on companies forcing and shoving AI into every layer and corner of our lives?
I don't even look at this stuff any more and see the upside to any of it. AI went from, "This is kinda cool and quaint." to "You NEED this in every single aspect of your life, whether you want it or not." AI has become so pervasive and intrusive, I stopped seeing the benefits of any of this.
I feel like this WWDC kind of solidified that these corporations really don't know what to do with AI or aren't creative enough. Apple presented much better AI features that weren't called AI than the "summarize my email" and "generate an ugly airbrushed picture you buy at the mall kiosk to send to your mom".
All of these "make your life easier" features really show that no tech is making our lives simpler. Task creation is maybe easier but task completion doesn't seem to be in the cards. "Hey siri, summarize my daughters play and let me know when it is and how to get there" shows there's something fundamentally missing in the way we're living.
I'm resistant, too. I think from a number of reasons:
- So far, the quality has been very hit or miss, versus places where I intentionally invoke generative AI.
- I'm not ready to relinquish my critical thinking to AI, both from a general perspective, and also because it's developed by big companies who may have different values and interests than me.
- It feels like they're trying to get me to "just take a taste", like a bunch of pushers.
- I just want more/better of the right type of features, not a bunch of inscrutable magic.
The new generative AI stuff has been barely implemented in most products, I don't know how you are experiencing it as pervasive and intrusive. Are you sure you're not just cynical from all flood of negative news stories about AI?
this being a news thread about Apple integrating AI into all their operating systems and apps aside... Chrome has started prompting me to use generative AI in text boxes. Twitter (X) has an entire tab for Grok that it keeps giving me popup ads for. Every single productivity suite (Notion, Monday, Jira) are perpetually prompting me to summarize my issue with AI. Github has banner ads for Copilot. It is everywhere.
Summarization was implemented everywhere because it was the easiest AI feature to ship when a VP screamed "Do AI, so our C-suite can tell investors we're an AI company!"
Summarization is damn useful, though. It has solved clickbait and TLDR-spam, now you can always know if something is worth watching/reading before you do.
Agreed, the dehyping of article titles is one of the main reasons I built hackyournews.com, and the avoidance of clickbait via proactive summarization is consistently rewarding.
AI doesn't have to be intrusive but this "personal assistant" stuff, which is what they're marketing to the general public at the moment, certainly is.
Currently, AI use has a "power user" requirement. You have to spend a lot of time with it to know what it is and is not capable of, how to access those hidden capabilities, and be very creative at applying it in your daily life.
It's not unlike the first spreadsheets. Sure, they will some day benefit the entire finance department, but at the beginning only people who loved technology for the sake of technology learned enough about them to make them useful in daily life.
Apple has always been great at broadening the audience of who could use personal computing. We will see if it works with AI.
I think it remains to be seen how broadly useful the current gen of AI tech can be, and who it can be useful for. We are in early days, and what emerges in 5-10 years as the answer is obvious to almost no one right now.
> Am I only person who's reached their threshold on companies forcing and shoving AI into every layer and corner of our lives?
After a random update my bank's app has received AI assistant out of blue to supposedly help their clients.
At first I was interested how these algorithms could enhance apps and services but now, this does indeed feels like shoving AI everywhere it's possible even if it doesn't makes any sense; as if companies are trying to shake a rattle over your baby's cradle to entertain it.
Aside above, I was hoping that after this WWDC Siri would get more languages so I could finally give it instructions in my native language and make it actually more useful. But instead there are generated emoticons coming (I wonder if people even remember that word). I guess chasing the hottest trends seems more important for Apple.
They are not making it mandatory to use, just widely available through various interfaces. I see this closer to how spellcheck was rolled out in word processors, then editors, then browsers, etc.
I don't even look at this stuff any more and see the upside to any of it. AI went from, "This is kinda cool and quaint." to "You NEED this in every single aspect of your life, whether you want it or not." AI has become so pervasive and intrusive, I stopped seeing the benefits of any of this.