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The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

(www.honest-broker.com)
451 points imartin2k | 4 comments | 06 Jul 25 06:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.723s | source
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cs702 ◴[06 Jul 25 12:09 UTC] No.44480036[source]▶
Your may agree or disagree with the OP, but this passage is spot-on:

"I don’t want AI customer service—but I don’t get a choice.

I don’t want AI responses to my Google searches—but I don’t get a choice.

I don’t want AI integrated into my software—but I don’t get a choice.

I don’t want AI sending me emails—but I don’t get a choice.

I don’t want AI music on Spotify—but I don’t get a choice.

I don’t want AI books on Amazon—but I don’t get a choice."

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brookst ◴[06 Jul 25 12:24 UTC] No.44480166[source]▶
It’s not spot on. Buying and using all of these products is a choice.

The last is especially egregious. I don’t want poorly-written (by my standards) books cluttering up bookstores, but all my life I’ve walked into bookstores and found my favorite genres have lots of books I’m not interested in. Do I have some kind of right to have stores only stock products that I want?

The whole thing is just so damn entitled. If you don’t like something, don’t buy it. If you find the presence of some products offensive in a marketplace, don’t shop there. Spotify is not a human right.

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roxolotl ◴[06 Jul 25 13:02 UTC] No.44480469[source]▶
The Onion has a great response to this from 2009: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lMChO0qNbkY

Of course you can opt out. People live in the backwoods of Alaska. But if you want to live a semi normal life there is no option. And absolutely people should feel entitled to a normal life.

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AstroBen ◴[06 Jul 25 13:15 UTC] No.44480553[source]▶
If these things are genuinely so universally hated won't they just be.. capitalism'd out of existence? People will stop engaging with them and better products will win

What book store will stock AI slop that no-one wants to buy?

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jeauxlb ◴[06 Jul 25 13:47 UTC] No.44480798[source]▶
You might be conflating capitalism (owning things like factories) with consumerism (buying things like widgets).

If all of the factory owners discover a type of widget to sell that can incidentally drive down wages the more units they move, it's unlikely for consumers to be provided much choice in their future widgets.

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1. AstroBen ◴[06 Jul 25 14:36 UTC] No.44481150[source]▶
The lowest cost (either purchase price, or to produce) products don't create a monopoly

$30 blenders that break in 3 months haven't bankrupted Vitamix

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2. jeauxlb ◴[06 Jul 25 15:14 UTC] No.44481432[source]▶
Search, music streaming, books: heavily consolidated markets where the value-based offering has supremacy (Google vs any paid search; Spotify/Apple Music vs Tidal; Amazon vs anything). It's the market supremacy that generally allows this.

If quality were a sufficiently motivating aspect, Google's deteriorating search wouldn't be a constant theme on this site, and people on the street would know where to download and play a FLAC file.

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3. brookst ◴[06 Jul 25 15:42 UTC] No.44481703[source]▶
Tidal is a great example. They seem do be doing fine with a niche. If more people wanted what they offer instead of Spotify, Tidal would eat market share.
4. AstroBen ◴[06 Jul 25 15:56 UTC] No.44481813[source]▶
The market supremacy came afterwards, not before. Most people don't want the expensive premium version - they want good enough at a low investment. And that's fine

There's also a segment of the market that wants the FLAC, premium handcrafted experiences at top price. They're not in direct competition and both can co-exist

My initial point was that companies can't just exploit consumers relentlessly because the market won't let them. The good value option can't just box people in and show them only ads. I bet YouTube would love to show you unskippable ads for 75% of the video length. Good luck staying market leader with that

I don't think Google is a good example here. They've been actively trying to fight and failing against SEO and affiliate spam for a decade. No-one else has solved that problem either which is why Google remains at the top. I personally had a hand-crafted content site thrown out of their search results because of them going after spam