Technology

Am I crazy? I’ve got this thing writing code and listing website listings. I ask it certain things before Google and just have it give me the source. I use it to sum up huge documents to quickly analyze them before I go through them. Feels like how Google felt I when it first came out. Yall using the same ai?

(Apple ai is not what I’m talking about)

I love the AI features for photos of my galaxy, but other than that I don't use it

maybe if it was able to do anything useful (like tell me where specific settings that I can't remember the name of but know what they do are on my phone) people would consider them slightly helpful. But instead of making targeted models that know device specific information the companies insist on making generic models that do almost nothing well.

If the model was properly integrated into the assistant AND the assistant properly integrated into the phone AND the assistant had competent scripting abilities (looking at you Google, filth that broke scripts relying on recursion) then it would probably be helpful for smart home management by being able to correctly answer "are there lights on in rooms I'm not?" and respond with something like "yes, there are 3 lights on. Do you want me to turn them off". But it seems that the companies want their products to fail. Heck if the assistant could even do a simple on device task like "take a one minute video and send it to friend A" or "strobe the flashlight at 70 BPM" or "does epubfile_on_device mention the cheeto in office" or even just know how itis being ran (Gemini when ran from the Google assistant doesn't).

edit: I suppose it might be useful to waste someone else's time.

Artificial Incompetence

It's possible that people don't realize what is AI and what is an AI marketing speak out there nowadays.

For a fully automated Her-like experience, or Ironman style Jarvis? That would be rad. But we have not really close to that at all. It sort of exists with LLM chat, but the implementation on phones is not even close to being there.

Personally, I am just not going to use the smallest screen I own to do most of the tasks they are pushing AI for. They can keep making them bigger and it’s still just going to be a phone first. If this is what they want then why can’t I just have the Watch and an iPad?

I found AI tools awesome for removing objects in photos or transcribing a conversation. Other than that it's useless because it's not reliable.

Yeah? Well I fucking love it on my iPhone. It's summaries have been amazing, almost prescient. No, Siri hasn't turned my phone into a Holodeck yet but I'm okay with that.

I don’t use the A.I. features on iOS or Android — I have both for developer reasons — but I do like the new Siri animation better than the old one. So, not a total waste of time and money. More of a 99.999% waste of time and money.

Maybe it’s useful for people who work in marketing or whatever. Like you write some copy and you ask it to rewrite it in different tones and send them all to your client to see what vibe they want. But I already include the exact right amount of condescension expected in an email from a developer.

I hate it 🤷 I keep it turned off anywhere that I can.

Just look at Smart Speakers. Basically the early AI at home. People just used them to set timers and ask about the weather. Even though it was capable of much more. Google and others were unable to monetize them for this reason and have mostly given up. (Protip: if you have a google speaker and kids, ask about the animal of the day. It's an addition during COVID times for kids learning at home.)

But people also aren't used to AI yet. Most will still google for something, some already skip that step and have ChatGPT search and summarize. I would not be surprised if the internet of the future is just plain text files for the AI agents to scrape.

I use chatgpt for things like debugging error codes but I have to be explicit with as much detail as possible or it will give me all sorts of inapplicable crap

Well, as a user of both, I agree.

The only thing I want AI (on my phone) to do is limit my notifications and make calendar events for me. I don't want to ask questions. I don't want to start conversations.

I want to open my phone and have 1 summary notification of things I received and things to do. I want the spammy ones to just be auto filtered because I never click on them.

I'd also love if I could choose when to manage all of these notifications with my AI assistant. The only back and forth I'd like is around scheduling if I need to make changes.

I think the article is missing the point on two levels.

First is the significance of this data, or rather lack of significance. The internet existed for 20-some years before the majority of people felt they had a use for it. AI is similarly in a finding-its-feet phase where we know it will change the world but haven't quite figured out the details. After a period of increased integration into our lives it will reach a tipping point where it gains wider usage, and we're already very close to that.

Also they are missing what I would consider the two main reasons people don't use it yet.

First, many people just don't know what to do with it (as was the case with the early internet). The knowledge/imagination/interface/tools aren't mature enough so it just seems like a lot of effort for minimal benefits. And if the people around you aren't using it, you probably don't feel the need.

Second reason is that the thought of it makes people uncomfortable or downright scared. Quite possibly with good reason. But even if it all works out well in the end, what we're looking at is something that will drive the pace of change beyond what human nature can easily deal with. That's already a problem in the modern world but we aint seen nothing yet. The future looks impossible to anticipate, and that's scary. Not engaging with AI is arguably just hiding your head in the sand, but maybe that beats contemplating an existential terror that you're powerless to stop.

The only Galaxy AI feature I find even a bit amusing is Portrait Studio, which can turn a photo of someone into an AI generated comic or 3D picture. But only as long as it remains free, it's not something worth paying for.

Can it generate weird porn locally?