When you label anything with an electrical current AI, ignore all copyright, then cite AI as cause for layoffs ... what do you expect? It's all vibes. Qwen released "world models" that are video processing models instructed through text. Words have no real meaning anymore.
Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff
161–170 of 608 posts
Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff
#162I could be wrong, but it feels like one issue is that AI seems to cater more as a signal to venture capital and the internals of the tech industry in a lot of these products, while consumers just want to know "what is this product going to actually do for me," and care less about whether it is implemented with the buzzword du jour.
xAI built an unpermitted power plant in a residential area to power Grok [1]. No planning permission, no public comment, no environmental study, etc. Even worse, the gas turbines don't comply with Federal standards for air pollutants because they're "mobile". These kinds of gas turbines have exploded in demand by the way.
What's the government doing about this? They're stripping the EPA os the power to regulate pollution [2] and suing in support of xAI's gas turbines [3].
Anger about AI is in part a reflection of anger about declining material conditions where corporations and the ultra-wealthy can increasingly stomp over regular cities with impunity while getting ever-richer.
The state's response is going to get ever-more violent and extreme. Over-charging in federal courts, over-policing and violence against peaceful protestors as the law enforcement arm of the government increasingly takes off the mask regarding being the security apparatus for the protection of capital.
Automation (including AI) could be a good thing for society as people would have to work less and we could automate away more dangerous, menial and low-paid work, improving the material conditions for everyone. We don't live in that world.
[1]: https://www.selc.org/news/xai-built-an-illegal-power-plant-t...
[2]: https://www.npr.org/2026/02/11/nx-s1-5678273/trump-epa-clima...
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/06/trump-admin-help...
Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
That mentality existed well before AI. See out-sourcing.
Yes, but everyone kept it as quiet as possible. Or have you ever seen an advertisement for US/EU tech that said: "Developed and designed by our software experts in the Philippines", or "Call our help line and we transfer your call to India for free!"
If it were outsourced to somewhere "nice", it would surely be mentioned: designed in Italy, built in Germany, hand polished by a Buddhist priest in Japan, etc.
Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
>while consumers just want to know "what is this product going to actually do for me," and care less about whether it is implemented with the buzzword du jour. I would say that undersells the (not neutral, actively negative) impact of AI to many. What many people hear is "made with the tech that plagiarizes, leaves artists (and soon you as well) without a job, and makes things generic and bland!" You might as well ma…
> What many people hear is "made with the tech that plagiarizes, leaves artists (and soon you as well) without a job My unpopular opinion is that many or maybe most people don’t care about this. They don’t care about where the content came from or if the artists get paid for the work. If they can get something (an answer to their question, some output that finishes their homework, some writing for a work assignment)…
I think there is some nuance between an individual downloading something (and in many countries it is outright legal or at least, alegal) and building billion-dollar companies on it.
Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff
#165There is a difference between a toaster brand saying their toasting now has AI built in vs Anthropic releasing Mythos. The toaster brand is just trying to fool people. Something like Mythos is actually what's driving change. In tech, Microsoft is a big reason for this turnoff. First, they forced Copilot onto Windows users. Second, they decided to market "AI PCs" by forcing AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm to put NPUs into th…
A toaster with AI could potentially be useful. I've never had a toaster that can make toast for the whole family - you can do 2 slices but then you have to wait several minutes for it to cool down before making the next otherwise the second batch will not be done. (I have used restaurant toasters that can do this, but they are not for home use)
You wouldn't need AI for this; deterministic programming would be enough (and scads cheaper).
Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff
#166I could be wrong, but it feels like one issue is that AI seems to cater more as a signal to venture capital and the internals of the tech industry in a lot of these products, while consumers just want to know "what is this product going to actually do for me," and care less about whether it is implemented with the buzzword du jour.
>while consumers just want to know "what is this product going to actually do for me," and care less about whether it is implemented with the buzzword du jour. I would say that undersells the (not neutral, actively negative) impact of AI to many. What many people hear is "made with the tech that plagiarizes, leaves artists (and soon you as well) without a job, and makes things generic and bland!" You might as well ma…
What it also hits on for the average person is the uncanny valley. It just feels bad to talk to something mimicrying a person. It feels like talking to an invader at a deep, survival level.
Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff
#167This is the problem with all of the recent “AI” crap that has been shoved into our devices. We have had ML features for years and it provided real benefits but most people did not know or care how it worked, it just did its job in the background without the underlying tech being shoved in your face. Everything AI though is the opposite, it wants to focus on the technology first and the benefits second. It is actively…
Exactly. It was looking as though Apple understood this. But now they gave in and called it Siri AI.
Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
>while consumers just want to know "what is this product going to actually do for me," and care less about whether it is implemented with the buzzword du jour. I would say that undersells the (not neutral, actively negative) impact of AI to many. What many people hear is "made with the tech that plagiarizes, leaves artists (and soon you as well) without a job, and makes things generic and bland!" You might as well ma…
I wouldn’t over index in the artist side of things. A lot of people don’t really think about that at all, just look at how readily Spotify was adopted despite taking a ton of money away from artists. But “AI is coming for your job” is very resonant.
spotify still pays artists. it's just a shitty deal.
most big ai will never compensate anyone
Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff
#169I’m sure there are some good AI products but the vast majority seem to be garbage. The exception is coding agents and simple web text/image interfaces. So yeah, as a signal the AI brand is about as bad as it gets. Crypto tier. But just like crypto, the investors want to see that signal regardless of any underlying substance.
The exception is translation . Translation is what transformers were originally developed for. LLMs shine in translation, and creating code is, after all, a translation from natural language into a programming language. A lot of what current LLMs are good at seems to boil down to translation: * Translate some prompt into a planning list of individual TODOs * Treat each TODO as a new translation (e.g. from TODO to cod…
I think that's where it goes, yes. The ability to model the world internally predates spoken language. We (and other animals) already translate what we _sense_ into that internal model. Language is just another translation; all communication is bidirectional translation, internal modeling/thought is wordless.