Is there a no-AI audience?

I bought a PS2 from a guy decades ago, back when a chip hack broke Sony's copy protection.

His deal was you pay him, he'd then walk across the street to FutureShop, buy the PS2, and do the hack.

So he bought the chips, had them in stock, but didn't invest capital in the rest.

You could easily do the chip hack yourself, but you risked bricking the beast, due to lack of experience.

So the $50 was worth it, chip included.

I'm sure you could do the same with TV hacks, so upfront capital costs are minimal, with reduced risk.

In my opinion the separation isn’t between AI vs. not. It’s between software that is restrained and well reasoned in their development vs. software that sticks unnecessary features in without enough testing that creates bugs and pushes useful UI features into a submenu. Software that updates just so they can sell a new version and get a product manager a promotion almost always sucks.

This is conflated right now with AI because every CEO and PM is pushing AI into their product as a first step to increased monetization once they figure out how. This is not well thought out and it ruins the experience of users who were previously happy with their software. A smart company would wait until the AI actually served a real use case and then roll out a well-tested update, but these companies are exceedingly rare.

I honestly don’t care if you add AI features, but make it so I can ignore them and make sure they don’t get in the way of the actual use of your software.

It’s sad that the best example I can think of such restraint is Apple, who was planning on rolling out AI on everything but realized that a lot of it sucked and halted the rollout partway through. It would have been better if they hadn’t made AI the key selling point of the iPhone 16 before failing to deliver, but at least they realized they should stop.

Microsoft also had a partially self-aware moment with their Recall feature, but it took a massive public outcry and their modifications only partially addressed privacy concerns.

But the volume of shit that gets funding because of AI overwhelms even the partial success stories- agents that don’t do what they claim, self driving cars that have never materialized, Rabbit AI, the Humane AI pin, Meta AI glasses, whatever shit Jonny Ive’s deal with OpenAI will produce- all of that makes people very skeptical because product managers and CEOs can’t hold back and wait until an idea is fully baked.

The Luddites and their sympathizers were often shot. Some labourers displaced by the mechanical looms did find work elsewhere... if you mean workhouses. You see, history is written by the winners and the capital holders won.

The modern perception of Luddites as being "anti-progress," is the myth written by the winners.

The real history was that they were arguing for better working conditions, abolishing child labour, and social safety nets for workers displaced by machines. The problem was that unions hadn't been invented yet and people working in these textile factories had little leverage. So they made leverage by destroying the machines in an attempt to intimidate the capital holders to the negotiating table.

It didn't work in the end.

History might not be repeating today with AI tools being foisted upon us everywhere but it sure does rhyme.

If you think AI art/writing is bad, you should have seen what the people who produced it were producing before.

I cancelled my very expensive corporate jetbrains ultimate subscription the moment it became infested

(and now just use the free one...)

I will not support any companies attempting to force this dogshit down my throat

if sublime text becomes infested I will no longer pay for those upgrades either