Live data from Hacker News

I do not want AI to "polish" me

thebloggess.com

81–90 of 276 posts

Re: I do not want AI to "polish" me

#81
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly the only spot-on use case I can think of for an eternally calm, friendly, totally bland and generic customer service AI is for interacting with the Karens of the world and only because it would spare the nerves of human employees and because the logs would no doubt be hilarious to read.

I feel like nothing would turn me into a Karen more than interacting with AI customer service on a regular basis. It’s already severely frustrating that at many companies, you have to talk to several people (separated by copious waiting) to get your problem solved after handling a severely outdated and underdeveloped phone system.

Yes, of course that’s how it will go in reality. But some customers are terrible people from the start and definitely don’t deserve any human service.

Re: I do not want AI to "polish" me

#82
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to look at it holistically. This is the current modern Human: 1. Born into the beast, enters social media by 5-7 years old 2. All math and writing is done for you (becoming illiterate) 3. You don't have to spell ever again (becoming illiterate) 4. You cultivate a virtual persona since childhood (becoming vain) 5. Did your life really happen if it wasn't posted online (the digital existentialist crisis -- do…

The old human: 1. Born into plague 2. Never learns maths or writing 3. Nor spelling 4. Half the time your life ends before childhood does 5. Nothing happens in your life

I can't believe that people unironically believe that humans lived unfulfilling lives until mass consumerism started. Incredible.

Just because we don't know what daily life looked like doesn't mean "nothing happened".

Re: I do not want AI to "polish" me

#83
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> swipe left and right to find your soul mate ... > Women only like 4% of the men they see on the app. > Men like more than 60% of the women they see on the app. this ends with 20 women with the same soul mate and 19 men without any. you need to add > no kids, no grandkids to your litany.

There are alternate explanations here. Men do not put as much effort into their presentation as women do. Men are putting out profiles that show themselves as anti-woman, and that's unattractive. Men absolutely should be pickier - they would honestly only date people compatible with them, but try to cast the widest net rather than finding people they could vibe with. Men in the dating pool have become toxic, and wome…

No matter how much polishing a man does to his appearance / profile the biological reality is that women are sought after and men have to compete for their attention. There's some statistic along the lines of "the average female has about as much 'pull' as a male A list celebrity"

This means that women will receive far more attention from the opposite sex, and therefore have an "easier" time finding potential partners. This problem is just exacerbated by dating apps and social media making women more aware of their position and options - 100 years ago women could barely date outside their village. Nowadays they receive 100s of messages from men around the world competing for her attention. The opposite happens to men, they become more aware of how "undesired" they are so they start casting a wider net since no fish are caught in their smaller nets.

Blaming the men here just reeks of those toxic standards - since again it is on the men to improve. Not the women who should continue being hyper selective (most attractive, wealthy, etc.).

(Note I'm not blaming any side just showing the reality men face - really this is a problem both sexes need to tackle)

"easier" is in quotes because I appreciate women have to filter out abusers and creeps. But from the male perspective they'd kill to even have a chance with an abuser or creep.

Re: I do not want AI to "polish" me

#84
post #31

> It’s like my whole computer is a toddler screaming “LET ME DO IT!” every time I try to create something. Every autocorrect or auto suggestion ever has felt like this to me, but the volume has been turned up to 11. The otherwise drab Adobe Reader is covered with colorful sparkly buttons and popups suggesting I need not even read the document because it can give me “insights.” First, no you may not ready my proprieta…

> no you may not ready my proprietary document, nor do I suspect most people using this particular software - I only have it for digital signatures - have permission to share IP with a third party. This is a massive liability that almost everybody seems to be ignoring. My employer has a ban on using AI on IP until this is properly resolved, because we actually care about it leaking. Maybe an Information Commissioner…

I think in general, no major liability issue will come up:

- if everyone is doing it, you can't really fault anyone

- on some level we are, or will be, kinda dependent on that AI and opting out will probably be made unpleasant via dark patterns as usual

- no pushback to every piece of software, including at the operating system level, slurping all the keystrokes and data, let alone the data that's already in the cloud - big tech knows everything about us but to my surprise no major public leak has happened, i.e. one where you really can see your neighbor's private data without buying leaked data from someone on the dark web or wherever

- things are moving too fast, and you don't know if you can afford to have your programmers not use tomorrow's AI, for example, so your "bans" will have to be soft etc., this limits the potential pushback and outrage

Re: I do not want AI to "polish" me

#85

AI does not want to do anything, whatsoever. It's owners , however, definitely want you to fall into lockstep that cooking the Earth for their billion$ is perfectly fine and that waking up to a life of low-impact, serviceful compassion to the Earth and its peoples is just virtue-signalling when, in fact, it is simply virtuous in the face of demented psychosociopaths. Note that this all started with all that digital c…

Oh come on - we've been doing this since way before crypto was a thing. We knew about climate change in the 80s.

So then it's ok to not only continue ignoring it as the evidence mounts, but to actually accelerate it?

No. No, it's not. It doesn't matter how many fools do something, they're still fools. The root word of ignorance is "to ignore".

Re: I do not want AI to "polish" me

#86

There is no way in hell anyone who knows me would get that email and not think I’d been abducted This person cares about not putting up a fake identity. That's pretty cool, but social media has exposed that a large number of people are perfectly fine presenting an illusion. People will have no shame passing off well written things as an output of their talent and hard work. Digital makeup has no bounds.

If you care about putting up a fake identity this is still bad. Social media is all about being distinct and grabbing attention. Getting samified into a bland featureless identity isn't the same as as carefully crafting a persona to maximize clicks

Re: I do not want AI to "polish" me

#87
post #39

AI takes the personality out of written communication, and swaps it with a bland corporate persona. I want to know that I am working with actual human beings. It reassures me to know that if something goes wrong, I can appeal to those human beings, and not to soulless corporate automatons working off of a flowchart.

I feel like this is what corporate wants. A single way of speaking. A single way of thinking. Round off all the sharp edges and smooth out all the wrinkles. Humanity filtered through a sycophantic psychotic AI tuned to perfection by psychopaths who want to change humanity into their image.

"The idea of a Soul, Free Will -- these are Over!" - Technocracy explained by Prof Yuval Harari https://youtu.be/NV0CtZga7qM

Re: I do not want AI to "polish" me

#88
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> swipe left and right to find your soul mate ... > Women only like 4% of the men they see on the app. > Men like more than 60% of the women they see on the app. this ends with 20 women with the same soul mate and 19 men without any. you need to add > no kids, no grandkids to your litany.

There are alternate explanations here. Men do not put as much effort into their presentation as women do. Men are putting out profiles that show themselves as anti-woman, and that's unattractive. Men absolutely should be pickier - they would honestly only date people compatible with them, but try to cast the widest net rather than finding people they could vibe with. Men in the dating pool have become toxic, and wome…

> (That probably means don't have a fishing photo, even if you enjoy fishing!)

not a good start to a relationship :)

Re: I do not want AI to "polish" me

#89
post #19

AI "polishing" tools are essentially a form of anti-compression. Lets take some information represented concisely and needlessly pad it with formalities and waffle so it appears more "professional" (whilst also throwing away useful "metadata" like message tone). No doubt the recipient will also be using some form of AI summarization that strips away all that added "polish" - making the whole exercise entirely redunda…

> No doubt the recipient will also be using some form of AI summarization that strips away all that added "polish" - making the whole exercise entirely redundant!

Not entirely, there’s still the energy usage and stock price increases. All because everyone’s too anxious to just talk to each other directly.

Re: I do not want AI to "polish" me

#90
post #22

I get the frustration, but I think there’s a hidden assumption in this discussion: that everyone can write well in English. Only about 5% of the world’s population are native English speakers, but more than twice that number use it daily. For many, AI rewriting isn’t about losing personal style—it’s about making sure they can communicate clearly in a language that isn’t their first. It’s fair to dislike how AI flatte…

English is not my native language yet somehow I share this sentiment towards AI. I'm fine with a spell checker, I don't need whatever I write completely rewritten, thank you very much.
Post reply on HN