131–140 of 504 posts
Fine article but a very important fact comes in at the end — the author has a human personal assistant. It doesn't fundamentally change anything they wrote, but it shows how far out of the ordinary this person is. They were a Thiel Fellow in 2020 and graduated from Phillips Exeter, roughly the most elite high school in the US.
Tangent: what is the appeal of the “no capitalization” writing style? I never know what message the author is intending to convey when I see all lower case. Normally I can ignore it, but the font on this blog makes it hard to distinguish where sentences start and end (the period is very small and faint).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its a gen z trend. My nephews do the same. We are old.
It’s older than that - lots of my boomer bosses did it to seem cool over email in the late 90s. I viscerally remember starting my day with my inbox saying “ cum c me ”… I know what you’re trying to do, bro, but damn. We are young and old all at the same time.
But where's the added value? You can book a meeting yourself. You can quickly add items to the freezer. Everything that was described in the article can be done in about the same amount of time as checking with Clawdbot. There are apps that track parcel delivery and support every courier service.
What's puzzling to me is that there's little consideration of what one is trading away for this purported "value". Doing menial tasks is a respite for your brain to process things in the background. Its an opportunity to generate new thoughts. It reminds you of your own agency in life. It allows you to recognise small patterns and relate to other people.
I don't want AI to summarise chats. It robs me the opportunity to know about something from someone's own words, therefore giving a small glimpse in their personality. This paints a picture over time, adding (or not) to the desire to interact with that person in the future. If I'm not going to see a chat anyway, then that creates the possibility of me finding something new in the future. A small moment of wonder for me and satisfaction for the person who brought me that new information.
etc etc.
Its like they're trying to outsource living.
Maybe the story is that, outsourcing this will free them up to do more meaningful things. I've yet to see any evidence of this. What are these people even talking about on the coffee chats scheduled by the helpful assistant?
Tangent: what is the appeal of the “no capitalization” writing style? I never know what message the author is intending to convey when I see all lower case. Normally I can ignore it, but the font on this blog makes it hard to distinguish where sentences start and end (the period is very small and faint).
You mention the technical aspect (readability) and others have suggested the aesthetic, but you could also look at it as a form of rhetoric . I'm not sure it's really effective because it sort of grates on the ear for anyone over 35, but maybe there's a point in distinguishing itself from AI sloptext. Incidentally, millenials also used the "no caps" style but mainly for "marginalia" (at most paragraph-length notes, o…
-- inspired by e.e. cummings!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its a gen z trend. My nephews do the same. We are old.
It’s older than that - lots of my boomer bosses did it to seem cool over email in the late 90s. I viscerally remember starting my day with my inbox saying “ cum c me ”… I know what you’re trying to do, bro, but damn. We are young and old all at the same time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've seen this before, I know Sam Altman does it (or used to do it). That was a couple years ago. Hope it doesn't become a trend.
Unfortunately it has become quite common on HN already. It comes from people growing up on smartphone chats where the kids apparently don’t care to press Shift.
Holy shit, fuck that. Slow the bejesus down and live a little. Go look at the sky.
Tangent: what is the appeal of the “no capitalization” writing style? I never know what message the author is intending to convey when I see all lower case. Normally I can ignore it, but the font on this blog makes it hard to distinguish where sentences start and end (the period is very small and faint).
I really dislike it too. I think it might be adults ignoring established grammar rules to make a statement about how they identify a part of a group of AI evangelists. Kind of like how teenagers do nonsensical things like where thick heavy clothing regardless of the weather to indicate how much of a badass them and their other badass coat wearing friends are. To normal humans, they look ridiculous, but they think the…
it's meant to convey a casual, laid back tone - it's not that big of a deal.