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The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

(www.honest-broker.com)
451 points imartin2k | 1 comments | 06 Jul 25 06:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.463s | 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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jzb ◴[06 Jul 25 13:48 UTC] No.44480804[source]▶
No, because “better products” won’t exist. That’s the complaint: every company is rushing to throw AI into their stuff, and/or use it to replace humans.

They’re not trying to satisfy customers: they’re answering shareholders. Our system is no longer about offering the best products, it’s about having the market share to force people to do business with you or maybe two other equally bad companies that constantly look for ways to extract more money from people to make shareholders happy. See: Two choices of smartphone OS, ISP regional monopolies or duopolies, two consumer OSes, a handful of mobile carriers, almost all available TVs models being “smart TVs” laden with spyware…

(I’m speaking from the US perspective, this may not be as pronounced elsewhere.)

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1. brookst ◴[06 Jul 25 15:41 UTC] No.44481692[source]▶
That’s a very self-centered view that assumes one’s own definition of “better products” is universal.

The reality is that most people like many of the things you or I might find useless or annoying.

There are better products, but they are niche. You pay more for a non-smart TV because 1) there’s less demand, and 2) the business model is different and requires full payment up front rather than long term monetization.

But who are you or I to look at the market and declare that both sellers and buyers are wrong about what they want? I’m very suspicious of any position as paternalistic as that.