The Ai thread

[RockRock8]

makes it all the more critical to get the details right. Something I have not seen much interest in.

Yes, because it's a lab experiment taken out of the lab, not a product.

I've seen only Apple care about this aspect, hence why they haven't built a chatbot. They're the only company to care about guaranteeing correctly formatted output from a transformer model, which is the first step to Siri 2.0. They're the only company to care about energy efficiency in ML, both working on innovative transformer model architectures (like coding weights in a format that is hardware accelerated) and hardware that doesn't draw 10000000watts.

 

[Nycturne]

Yes, because it's a lab experiment taken out of the lab, not a product.

If they were treating it like an experiment, I'd probably be less annoyed. But they are treating it like a product, so I'm going to judge how it's being delivered like one.

But you are right that this is a good example of why Apple can waltz in "late" and wind up being a major player in some markets. People talk too much about "first mover advantage", forgetting it can hurt you if your first move erodes trust in your brand.

 

[RockRock8]

If they were treating it like an experiment, I'd probably be less annoyed. But they are treating it like a product, so I'm going to judge how it's being delivered like one.

I didn't say they were treating it as an experiment. I said that it was and is an experiment, which is was and is. I agree otherwise.

But you are right that this is a good example of why Apple can waltz in "late" and wind up being a major player in some markets. People talk too much about "first mover advantage", forgetting it can hurt you if your first move erodes trust in your brand.

I agree!

 

[KingOfPain]

And even if the LLM *had* been trained on those million hypothetical documents, it would at best only increase the odds that it would happen upon the right answer, because an LLM has no concept of facts. It’s just autocompleting.

One of the best analogies for LLMs I've seen is a parrot: Both repeat things they've "heard", but they don't know what it means.
The problem is that often enough the answer fits the context, so people believe that there is intelligence behind it.

What is really disturbing is the fact that not only dumb people lock to LLMs.
My boss is one of the most intelligent people I know, and still he thinks LLMs are great...

 

[KingOfPain]

Yes, because it's a lab experiment taken out of the lab, not a product.

Reminds me of the experiment with Microsoft's Twitter chatbot, which quickly turned racist:

In 2016, Microsoft’s Racist Chatbot Revealed the Dangers of Online Conversation

The bot learned language from people on Twitter—but it also learned values

spectrum.ieee.org

 

[Eric]

LG TVs now installing Microsoft Copilot without the ability to remove it. You'll take AI whether you like it or not, the lack of interest is causing all of these companies who are spending billions on it to force it on you.

 

[tomO2013]

As somebody who bought an LG G5 Oled earlier this year and also a Samsung Frame Pro for another room, I'm beyond pissed off at this type of stuff being pushed down. I simply do NOT want it polluting my TV.
I'm also annoyed that TV manufacturers have the gaul to include a boat load of advertisements eating up significant screen real estate n their tv menus.
I think that it's disgraceful that you pay all that money and yet they are still trying to sell you something or harvest your viewing habits to sell data back ... all of my stuff is behind a pihole device blocking ads and 'phone home'. The Samsung is particularly bad for this.

 

[Cmaier]

As somebody who bought an LG G5 Oled earlier this year and also a Samsung Frame Pro for another room, I'm beyond pissed off at this type of stuff being pushed down. I simply do NOT want it polluting my TV.
I'm also annoyed that TV manufacturers have the gaul to include a boat load of advertisements eating up significant screen real estate n their tv menus.
I think that it's disgraceful that you pay all that money and yet they are still trying to sell you something or harvest your viewing habits to sell data back ... all of my stuff is behind a pihole device blocking ads and 'phone home'. The Samsung is particularly bad for this.

This is why i use Apple TVs and only use my LG OLED’s as, essentially, monitors. Nobody ever even sees the built-in GUI in my house.

 

[dada_dave]

This is why i use Apple TVs and only use my LG OLED’s as, essentially, monitors. Nobody ever even sees the built-in GUI in my house.

Same with my "Smart" TV - has 0 connection to the internet.

 

[Eric]

As somebody who bought an LG G5 Oled earlier this year and also a Samsung Frame Pro for another room, I'm beyond pissed off at this type of stuff being pushed down. I simply do NOT want it polluting my TV.
I'm also annoyed that TV manufacturers have the gaul to include a boat load of advertisements eating up significant screen real estate n their tv menus.
I think that it's disgraceful that you pay all that money and yet they are still trying to sell you something or harvest your viewing habits to sell data back ... all of my stuff is behind a pihole device blocking ads and 'phone home'. The Samsung is particularly bad for this.

Roku is beyond ridiculous, you get one row that takes up maybe 1/8 of the screen and the rest is all ads and pushed feeds from other manufacturers. Meanwhile, if I want to view more than a few of your preferred apps I have to navigate into the full list.

 

[Eric]

Same with my "Smart" TV - has 0 connection to the internet.

Better watch that HDMI connection for forced ads, at least with Roku.

 

[dada_dave]

Better watch that HDMI connection for forced ads, at least with Roku.

No Roku, just Apple TV.

Roku is beyond ridiculous, you get one row that takes up maybe 1/8 of the screen and the rest is all ads and pushed feeds from other manufacturers. Meanwhile, if I want to view more than a few of your preferred apps I have to navigate into the full list.

Yikes.

 

[dada_dave]

 

[Eric]

Some jackass has been stealing some of my posts and running it through a Meta AI generator to make it look all animated and shitty, likely training their models at the same time. I reported him to Meta IP and they handled it, copyright infringement is one thing they take seriously and handle quickly.

I'm also taking a stand on Instagram because there is so much AI bullshit on there now that nobody can tell what's real and what's not, including myself. I can't really control that but I can at least inform my followers that I flat out won't be using it.

 

[dada_dave]

The effort I'm seeing pushed right now is more in the B2B space, trying to entice folks with the lure of lower labor costs. The free usage is crowd-sourced training data for that other usage.

According to BofA that market may also be slowing down:

 

[Nycturne]

According to BofA that market may also be slowing down:

Wouldn't surprise me. Just saying that the engineering effort for actual features built on this stuff is aimed at B2B.

I've been sucked into such an effort myself.

 

[Eric]

Hopefully the fall is as fast as the rise.

Microsoft Scales Back AI Goals Because Almost Nobody Is Using Copilot

Google's Gemini is on pace to push Copilot into third place.

www.extremetech.com

 

[dada_dave]

That about sums it up

 

[Cmaier]

Merriam-Webster crowns “slop” word of the year as AI content floods Internet

Dictionary codifies the term that took hold in 2024 for low-quality AI-generated content.

arstechnica.com

 

[tomO2013]

This is a nice essay by Ed Zitron that was referenced during a UIX design talk during Canonical talks 2025.

AI Bubble 2027

Soundtrack: The Dillinger Escape Plan - One Of Us Is The Killer An MIT study found that 95% of organizations are getting "zero return" from generative AI, seemingly every major outlet is now writing an "are we in a bubble?" story, and now Meta has frozen AI hiring. Things are

www.wheresyoured.at

Ed focusses heavily on the business model behind AI (this essay from August is equally relevant today if not more so) and highlights a bunch of eye watering numbers. There is no doubting the numbers... they are staggering.

Here is Ed Zitron also talking about it on Newsweek :