6 ms·

Yes! I used this "AI" tool to help a friend write a letter to her landlord. It was not at all "generative AI" and seemed to just paste modules together based on

Yes! I used this "AI" tool to help a friend write a letter to her landlord. It was not at all "generative AI" and seemed to just paste modules together based on her answers to its questionnaire. To your second point, it's very funny how OpenAI seems to have soured the tech crowd on tech.

faangguyindia 2y ago
It's love and hate relationship with AI. All engineers I know in tech are bashing AI left and right and going home to work on AI projects in their free time.
- dukeyukey 2y ago
  You can simultanously believe that AI: * Is massively overhyped by certain persons and companies, and * Is both interesting and has loads of promise, so is worth working on in your own time They aren't contradictory at all.
  - bee_rider 2y ago
    Actually, I think they are the opposite of contradictory. This tech is dumb, funny, new, and maybe it has potential in the right (low-stakes) applications. Meanwhile, I dunno, I have some begrudging admiration for the folks getting rich selling premium GEMMs, but eventually they are going to piss off all their investors and cause a giant mess. Like good luck guys, get that money, but please don’t take us all down with you.
- whatshisface 2y ago
  The ship is sinking, and we're swimming towards the iceberg.
- shadowgovt 2y ago
  Pretty classic hacker behavior. "This sucks. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go make it better because everyone else working on it is an idiot and I, alone, see the True Way Forward."
ziddoap 2y ago
>To your second point, it's very funny how OpenAI seems to have soured the tech crowd on tech. In this particular case, I'm not sour because of OpenAI. I am sour because of deceptive and gross business practices highlighted in the article.
- ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
  It worked as well as any other eighteen dollar a month lawyer back when I tried it in 2017/2018. It was actually free back then I used it the one time and felt grateful enough for the help that I signed up for one cycle and then cancelled (since I didn't have a continued need for it). Nothing gross or deceptive.
  - ziddoap 2y ago
    >Nothing gross or deceptive. They just had to pay a fine for deceptive advertising. The article lists a number of other deceptive and immoral business practices.
    - ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
      I actually used the service in question during that time frame and did not feel deceived by their advertising. In fact, I felt good enough about the experience that I threw them a few bucks after the fact to compensate them for some of the value that they gave me. You read an article about it and 7 years later and are convinced they are crooks.
      - ziddoap 2y ago
        I hold the FTC in higher regard than I do your personal experience when it comes to this matter.
      - swores 2y ago
        > You read an article about it and 7 years later and are convinced they are crooks. Actually, you read an article and assumed that your anecdotal experience from 7 years ago is more reflective of how a business operates than a current year investigation into that company by a federal agency. Nobody is arguing that they deceived you personally 7 years ago.
thfuran 2y ago
Wasn't the tech crowd getting soured on tech by all the ads eating the world?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- miah_ 2y ago
  Basically every action the big tech companies FAANG, MS, HP etc have all done for the past decade+ has been detrimental to users. Oh sure yes I want ads in my Operating System and I want every browser to be Chrome with a mask, oh right I also want to pay a subscription to use a printer. Just absolutely bonkers brains in power at tech companies lately.
  - shadowgovt 2y ago
    Actually, of all of these, every browser being Chrome with a mask has been kind of nice as a web developer. Never have I had to invest fewer resources in wrestling browser quirks to the ground.
kibwen 2y ago
The race to the bottom in the ruthless and relentless pursuit of profit is what soured us on tech, and the AI hype train is but one in a long procession.
- refurb 2y ago
  > The race to the bottom in the ruthless and relentless pursuit of profit Welcome to humanity. You could blame capitalism, but it happened there too. In fact in every system.
add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
AI helps our lives in many ways and it's a shame that the LLM era has perverted the term with the same bad smells and scamminess of the NFT era.
- onemoresoop 2y ago
  It goes both ways. AI is used in both benefic ways as well as malefic ones. I don't think it's a net positive but that's just my opinion.
swatcoder 2y ago
> To your second point, it's very funny how OpenAI seems to have soured the tech crowd on tech. They represent an amplifier for the enshittening that was already souring the tech crown on tech. LLM's used in this sort of way, which is exactly OpenAI's trillion dollar bet, will just make products appear to have larger capabilities while simultaneously making many capabilities far less reliable. Most of the "win" in cases like this is for the product vendor cutting capital costs of development while inflating their marketability in the short term, at the expense of making everything they let it touch get more unpredictable and inconsistent. Optimistic/naive users jump in for the market promise of new and more dynamic features, but aren't being coached to anticipate the tradeoff. It's the same thing we've been seeing in digital products for the last 15 years, and manufactured products for the last 40, but cranked up by an order of magnitude. It's exhausting and disheartening.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

faangguyindia 2y ago

It's love and hate relationship with AI. All engineers I know in tech are bashing AI left and right and going home to work on AI projects in their free time.

dukeyukey 2y ago
You can simultanously believe that AI: * Is massively overhyped by certain persons and companies, and * Is both interesting and has loads of promise, so is worth working on in your own time They aren't contradictory at all.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  Actually, I think they are the opposite of contradictory. This tech is dumb, funny, new, and maybe it has potential in the right (low-stakes) applications. Meanwhile, I dunno, I have some begrudging admiration for the folks getting rich selling premium GEMMs, but eventually they are going to piss off all their investors and cause a giant mess. Like good luck guys, get that money, but please don’t take us all down with you.
whatshisface 2y ago
The ship is sinking, and we're swimming towards the iceberg.
shadowgovt 2y ago
Pretty classic hacker behavior. "This sucks. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go make it better because everyone else working on it is an idiot and I, alone, see the True Way Forward."

ziddoap 2y ago

>To your second point, it's very funny how OpenAI seems to have soured the tech crowd on tech. In this particular case, I'm not sour because of OpenAI. I am sour because of deceptive and gross business practices highlighted in the article.

ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
It worked as well as any other eighteen dollar a month lawyer back when I tried it in 2017/2018. It was actually free back then I used it the one time and felt grateful enough for the help that I signed up for one cycle and then cancelled (since I didn't have a continued need for it). Nothing gross or deceptive.
- ziddoap 2y ago
  >Nothing gross or deceptive. They just had to pay a fine for deceptive advertising. The article lists a number of other deceptive and immoral business practices.
  - ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
    I actually used the service in question during that time frame and did not feel deceived by their advertising. In fact, I felt good enough about the experience that I threw them a few bucks after the fact to compensate them for some of the value that they gave me. You read an article about it and 7 years later and are convinced they are crooks.
    - ziddoap 2y ago
      I hold the FTC in higher regard than I do your personal experience when it comes to this matter.
    - swores 2y ago
      > You read an article about it and 7 years later and are convinced they are crooks. Actually, you read an article and assumed that your anecdotal experience from 7 years ago is more reflective of how a business operates than a current year investigation into that company by a federal agency. Nobody is arguing that they deceived you personally 7 years ago.

thfuran 2y ago

Wasn't the tech crowd getting soured on tech by all the ads eating the world?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
miah_ 2y ago
Basically every action the big tech companies FAANG, MS, HP etc have all done for the past decade+ has been detrimental to users. Oh sure yes I want ads in my Operating System and I want every browser to be Chrome with a mask, oh right I also want to pay a subscription to use a printer. Just absolutely bonkers brains in power at tech companies lately.
- shadowgovt 2y ago
  Actually, of all of these, every browser being Chrome with a mask has been kind of nice as a web developer. Never have I had to invest fewer resources in wrestling browser quirks to the ground.

kibwen 2y ago

The race to the bottom in the ruthless and relentless pursuit of profit is what soured us on tech, and the AI hype train is but one in a long procession.

refurb 2y ago
> The race to the bottom in the ruthless and relentless pursuit of profit Welcome to humanity. You could blame capitalism, but it happened there too. In fact in every system.

add-sub-mul-div 2y ago

AI helps our lives in many ways and it's a shame that the LLM era has perverted the term with the same bad smells and scamminess of the NFT era.

onemoresoop 2y ago
It goes both ways. AI is used in both benefic ways as well as malefic ones. I don't think it's a net positive but that's just my opinion.

swatcoder 2y ago

> To your second point, it's very funny how OpenAI seems to have soured the tech crowd on tech. They represent an amplifier for the enshittening that was already souring the tech crown on tech. LLM's used in this sort of way, which is exactly OpenAI's trillion dollar bet, will just make products appear to have larger capabilities while simultaneously making many capabilities far less reliable. Most of the "win" in cases like this is for the product vendor cutting capital costs of development while inflating their marketability in the short term, at the expense of making everything they let it touch get more unpredictable and inconsistent. Optimistic/naive users jump in for the market promise of new and more dynamic features, but aren't being coached to anticipate the tradeoff. It's the same thing we've been seeing in digital products for the last 15 years, and manufactured products for the last 40, but cranked up by an order of magnitude. It's exhausting and disheartening.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]