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How to disable or avoid intrusive AI

librarian.net

141–150 of 222 posts

Re: How to disable or avoid intrusive AI

#141
post #2

Such a cool guide to such a bizarre problem we live in… Companies forcing features that nobody wants, but that are also expensive to operate and cost real money to run? Market can definitely stay irrational for long.

Alternative hypothesis: people do gradually use these features, but HN became a weird anti-AI bubble for some reason. I mean, many of the features had previous pre-AI attempts. They all sucked much more. This is the first time they have a remote chance of working (but in many cases, timidity or cheapening out is still making them barely usable - which is why 99% of the cases it's still much, much better to throw one…

Shitty LLM chatbots providing unhelpful (read: lies) customer service is even worse than some Phillippeens or Indian support with terrible scripting and half-broken engrish. At least you could deal with those fucks with demanding a manager or similar.

The LLMs will always do the worse option to customers, to extract more money. Burn'em all to the ground.

Re: How to disable or avoid intrusive AI

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing with investor money is that after a while the investors start asking where their dividends are at. If you put all that money toward building features nobody asked for, you're in for a rough time.

> after a while the investors start asking where their dividends are at By then, a new fad will come in and you can just pivot to it. We went from "engagement" (with no concrete plans to monetize said engagement), through a brief period of "blockchain" and now finally AI.

> engagement" (with no concrete plans to monetize said engagement)

Google and Meta have made billions monetizing said engagement

Re: How to disable or avoid intrusive AI

#143
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use navigation via Google Maps/Android Auto almost every time I drive anywhere, easily north of 95% of the time.

Why? Are you driving somewhere completely unfamiliar where you have no mental model of how to get there every time? I just kind of don't get why people are so into it.

Because my 15 minute drive can be a 60 minute drive depending on traffic and there are 3 viable routes I could take.

Traffic changes while I'm driving and it automatically updates. An accident can occur on a bridge I'm approaching and I can get detoured and save actual time that I can spend with loved ones instead.

If I'm driving later at night, construction may block off my normal route and I can still get wherever I'm going.

I also get notifications for hazards like objects on the road, disabled vehicles, or events that are going to cause traffic. (I use Waze)

And the cost is zero. When I get into my car it automatically syncs and off I go. There's no reason to NOT have it.

Re: How to disable or avoid intrusive AI

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See how defensive people get about CarPlay? Why so emotionally invested? It's buggy and sucks when you are driving someone else's car or a rental. You proved my point too, which is that it's liked because it's better than everything else, not because it's objectively good.

“I don’t understand why people love it so much” and “the system has friction that could be improved” are two extremely different statements with vastly different communications. While it may be constructive to point out and discuss that, hey CarPlay has deficiencies and really could stand to be improved in XYZ way, vaguely gesturing at CarPlay and saying “I don’t get why people love this so much” and tacitly implying…

[deleted]

Re: How to disable or avoid intrusive AI

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bunch of reasons, in no particular order: Having my phone visibly in-use makes it easier to avoid the temptation of touching it. I have a long history of playing video games, and seeing a "mini-map" is just how I'm used to navigating, even when I know the way. Having navigation that incorporates real-time conditions helps me avoid construction, traffic jams, or other miscellaneous issues. I have a pretty bad sense…

I guess it didn't occur to me that people might not remember how to get places in real life. I don't think I could stand to have any sort of lit-up screen doing something in my eyeline when I'm driving. I turn off the backlight on the dashboard when I'm driving at night because it annoys me.

Again, it's also helpful for warning realtime issues like poor traffic conditions, road obstacles, speed traps, etc.

Re: How to disable or avoid intrusive AI

#146
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I've seen anyone drive further than about 10 minutes away without Google Maps in the last 5 years. Or maybe everyone's misunderstanding your question?

I don't really understand why anyone would need sat nav for a ten minute drive.

Once the city you live in gets large enough, memorizing the routes just becomes a non starter. I have my route to work almost memorized but due to construction or crashes it changes so often it is hard to cement it. (Seoul)

Re: How to disable or avoid intrusive AI

#147

It's a sad state of affairs when companies are cramming this unwanted garbage into every app putting the onus on the user to block, disable, unsubscribe, delete, edit and mitigate. Nobody asked for AI slop.

Currently the best theory I have is that China bought a bunch of accounts from India to promote anti AI propaganda. The people not corrupted by this are loving AI. From concerns about AI taking jobs to people upvoting memes made by AI, it's getting obvious the slop is getting smaller. And anyone who knew how LLMs worked in 2023 were fine with the slop. It was only normies who didn't understand how it worked.

Today’s winner of Poe’s Law of the Day goes to your comment.

Well done.

Re: How to disable or avoid intrusive AI

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand why anyone would need sat nav for a ten minute drive.

Because the traffic isn't known to you but it is to Google. I could take two routes, one is faster depending on circumstances, and Google knows those circumstances.

Is it really faster though?

All you have now is two routes with a roughly equal amount of traffic on.

One of those routes will be a massive detour.

Re: How to disable or avoid intrusive AI

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it didn't occur to me that people might not remember how to get places in real life. I don't think I could stand to have any sort of lit-up screen doing something in my eyeline when I'm driving. I turn off the backlight on the dashboard when I'm driving at night because it annoys me.

Again, it's also helpful for warning realtime issues like poor traffic conditions, road obstacles, speed traps, etc.

I don't know why people don't seem to understand what I mean when I say "I don't want any kind of lit-up screen in my field of view for any reason".

Why would I care about speed traps or road obstacles? "Poor traffic conditions" isn't really something I can do much about, either.

Re: How to disable or avoid intrusive AI

#150
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I start my music and navigation route before leaving my garage, and any other interactions (volume up/down, skip song) are buttons on my steering wheel. What do I need voice input for? (I use Android Auto, but it's basically the same thing for these purposes)

Do people really use navigation apps often enough for this to be an issue?

I’m perplexed too, but I used to study the Hudson’s map book for my metro area for fun before I could drive and have been driving for 25 years, and I didn’t have a phone with GPS until 2015 or so.

I don’t use active navigation, if I don’t know hot go get where I am going I just memorize the portion of the route I don’t know and then drive there. I will occasionally see what route is recommended due to road construction, but I generally know all of the proposed routes so I don’t need GPS once I pick one.

I avoid using active GPS navigation so my mental map of the road network stays in my brain, I think orientation/navigation is an important skill to maintain and using active turn-by-turn GPS destroys it.

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