The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public • Hacker News Board

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#231

Post by Avamander » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 4:16 PM UTC

CuriouslyC wrote: post #148

dang wrote: post #115

I also find these features annoying and useless and wish they would go away. But that's not because LLMs are useless, nor because the public isn't using them (as daishi55 pointed out here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44479578 ) It's because the integrations with existing products are arbitrary and poorly thought through, the same way that software imposed by executive fiat in BigCo offices for trend-chasing…

I am a huge AI supporter, and use it extensively for coding, writing and most of my decision making processes, and I agree with you. The AI features in non-AI-first apps tend to be awkward bolt-ons, poorly thought out and using low quality models to save money. I don't want shitty bolt-ons, I want to be able to give chatgtp/claude/gemini frontier models the ability to access my application data and make api calls for…

> The AI features in non-AI-first apps tend to be awkward bolt-ons, poorly thought out and using low quality models to save money.

The weirdest location I've found the most useful LLM-based feature so far has been Edge with it's automatic tab grouping. It doesn't always pick the best groups and probably uses some really small model, but it's significantly faster and easier than anything that I've had so far.

I hope they do bookmarks next and that someone copies the feature and makes it use a local model (like Safari or Firefox, I don't even care).

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#232

Post by ToucanLoucan » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 4:18 PM UTC

Eisenstein wrote: post #217

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's because the integrations with existing products are arbitrary and poorly thought through, the same way that software imposed by executive fiat in BigCo offices for trend-chasing reasons has always been. It's just rent-seeking. Nobody wants to actually build products for market anymore; it's a long process with a lot of risk behind it, and there's a chance you won't make shit for actual profit. If however you c…

This is not an AI problem, this is a problem caused by extremely large piles of money. In the past two decades we have been concentrating money in the hands of people who did little more than be in the right place at the right time with a good idea and a set of technical skills, and then told them that they were geniuses who could fix human problems with technological solutions. At the same time we made it impossible…

> This is not an AI problem, this is a problem caused by extremely large piles of money.

Those are two problems in this situation that are both bad for different reasons. It's bad to have all the money concentrated in the hands of a tiny number of losers (and my god are they losers) and AI as a technology is slated to, in the hands of said losers, cause mass unemployment, if they can get it working good enough to pass that very low bar.

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#233

Post by alganet » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 4:19 PM UTC

The major issue with AI technology is the people. The enthusiasts that pretend issues don't exist, the cheap startups trying to sell snake oil.

The AI community treats potential customers as invaders. If you report a problem, the entire thing turns on you trying to convince you that you're wrong, or that you reported a problem because you hate the technology.

It's pathetic. It looks like a viper's nest. Who would want to do business with such people?

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#234

Post by pera » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 4:24 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #115

I also find these features annoying and useless and wish they would go away. But that's not because LLMs are useless, nor because the public isn't using them (as daishi55 pointed out here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44479578 ) It's because the integrations with existing products are arbitrary and poorly thought through, the same way that software imposed by executive fiat in BigCo offices for trend-chasing…

At work we started calling this trend clippification for obvious reasons. In a way this aligns with your comment: The information provided by Clippy was not necessarily useless, nevertheless people disliked it because (i) they didn't ask for help (ii) and even if by any chance they were looking for help, the interaction/navigation was far from ideal.

Having all these popups announcing new integrations with AI chatbots showing up while you are just trying to do your work is pretty annoying. It feels like this time we are fighting an army of Clippies.

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#235

Post by croes » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 4:26 PM UTC

satyrun wrote: post #85

daishi55 wrote: post #62

ChatGPT is the 5th most-visited website on the planet and growing quickly. that’s one of many popular products. Hardly call that unwilling. I bet only something like 8% of Instagram users say they would pay for it. Are we to take this to mean that Instagram is an unpopular product that is rbi g forced on an unwilling public?

My 75 year old father uses Claude instead of google now for basically any search function. All the anti-AI people I know are in their 30s. I think there are many in this age group that got use to nothing changing and are wishing it to stay that way.

Isn’t it fascinating how all of a sudden we swap energy saving and data protection for convenience.

We won’t solve climate change but we will have elaborate essays why we failed.

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#236

Post by croes » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 4:28 PM UTC

daishi55 wrote: post #62

ChatGPT is the 5th most-visited website on the planet and growing quickly. that’s one of many popular products. Hardly call that unwilling. I bet only something like 8% of Instagram users say they would pay for it. Are we to take this to mean that Instagram is an unpopular product that is rbi g forced on an unwilling public?

It’s popular by scammers too.

I wonder how many uses of Chatgpt and such are malicious.

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#237

Post by SoftTalker » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 4:29 PM UTC

dataflow wrote: post #143

jen729w wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m at the point where a significant part of me wishes they hadn’t been invented. We sat yesterday and watched a table of 4 lads drinking beer each just watch their phones. At the slightest gap in conversation, out they came. They’re ruining human interaction. (The phone, not the beer-drinking lad.)

Is the problem really the phone , or everything but the actual phoning capability? Mobile phones were a thing twenty years ago and I didn't recall them being pulled out at the slightest gap in the conversation. I feel like the notifications and internet access caused the change, not the phone (or SMS for that matter).

Yes it's the content delivered by the phone. My first mobile phones could only make calls. Not even text messaging was supported. So pretty obviously you're not going to pull out your phone and call someone during a lag in conversation unless you are just supremely rude or maybe it's a call to invite someone to come over and join the group. You might answer a call if you get one I suppose, but it would be fairly awkward. I do remember the people who always seemed to be on a mobile call, often with a headset of some sort, and thinking they were complete douchebags, but they stood out by being few in number.

As text, email, other messages, websites, Facebook, etc. became available the draw became stronger and so did the addiction and the normalization of looking at your phone every 30 seconds while you were with someone.

Did SNL or anyone ever do a skit of a couple having sex and then "ding" a phone chimes and one of them picks it up and starts reading the message? And then the other one grabs their phone and starts scrolling?

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#238

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 4:35 PM UTC

rimbo789 wrote: post #181

I honestly can’t think of reasons to use AI. At work I have to give myself reminders to show my bosses that I used the internal ai tool so I don’t get in shit. I don’t see the utility, all I see is slop and constant notifications in google. You can say skill issue but that’s kind of the point; this was all dropped on me by people who don’t understand it themselves. I didn’t ask or want to built the skills to understa…

One recent thing I did was make cute little illustrations for an internal slide deck. I’m not even taking work away from an artist, there was no universe where I would have paid someone to do this, but now every presentation I give can be much more visually engaging than they would have been previously.

The reason your bosses are being obnoxious about making people use the internal AI tool is to push them into thinking about things like this. Perhaps at your company it’s genuinely not useful, but I’ve seen a lot of people say that who I’m pretty confident are wrong.

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#239

Post by LgLasagnaModel » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 4:37 PM UTC

alganet wrote: post #233

The major issue with AI technology is the people. The enthusiasts that pretend issues don't exist, the cheap startups trying to sell snake oil. The AI community treats potential customers as invaders. If you report a problem, the entire thing turns on you trying to convince you that you're wrong, or that you reported a problem because you hate the technology. It's pathetic. It looks like a viper's nest. Who would wan…

Good point. Also, the fact that I’m adamant that one cannot fly a helicopter to the moon doesn’t mean that I think helicopters are useless. That said, if I’m inundated everyday with people insisting that one CAN fly a helicopter to the moon or that that capability is just around the corner, I might get so fed up that i say F it, I don’t want to hear another F’ing word about helicopters even though I know that helicopters have utility.

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#240

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 4:39 PM UTC

phito wrote: post #16

jstanley wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proof by counterexample: I want this.

You probably want the version of it they sold you in the advertising. Or are you actually happy with the slop they're currently shipping?

The article leads with a feature to get AI to write your emails for you. I personally don’t have much use for that, since I like writing and I’m pretty fast at it, but I know multiple people both inside and outside of tech who’ve told me they do this for most of their long emails now.