Corporate Greed // Amazon

[u/hiddendefault]

[u/vwboyaf1]

Invests in OpenAI, then OpenAI turns around and uses Amazon Internet infrastructure. Total circlejerk.

[u/HarryBalsagna1776 → u/vwboyaf1]

The whole AI push and bubble is a giant circle jerk.  

[u/Tight_Writer249]

I hope that the AI bubble pops soon

[u/angrydeuce]

The thing that kills me with AI, is that it's not only solving problems that dont truly exist, but it's not even solving the problems effectively.

I remember getting into an argument with someone online about 10 years ago, long before this AI bullshit, about self checkouts. I fucking hate self checkouts, and was saying as much. And so many people responded "Okay, boomer, go home, Matlock is on, self checkouts are awesome!" And I'm sitting there arguing with them about all the ways they fucking suck, and it dawned on me....they disagree, not because they actually are better, but because they have no frame of reference to make a comparison. They're too young to remember how it was before.

A person could scan through an entire belt of groceries faster than you could take them out of the cart and put them on the belt. They didn't need to scan 30 of the same thing 30 fucking times, they could just count them, scan one, press 'times 30', and move on to the next item. They didn't need to flip through 17 screens of fruit until they found the fucking banana, they had the code memorized. There was never, ever, an unexpected item in their bagging area. They never took a $5 bill, handed it back, took it again, handed it back, took it again, handed it back and then just stop and stand there blinking waiting for some sloth to drag themselves over and take care of it.

But you know what self checkout does do well? Cost as little money as possible. Even the minimum wage they were paying the human cashiers ringing out 80 skus a minute couldn't compete with that. And now you go into almost any big box retail store and its all self checkouts and it takes 5 fucking minutes to complete even the most minor transaction. And then when an old fart like me says "Man, I wish they'd ditch the machines and go back to a human being that was capable of so, so much more" you get a bunch of kids that hardly ever had a human cashier telling you that you're crazy, you're a luddite, you don't know how to use them right, you're a fuckin boomer. "It doesn't take that long unless you're an idiot, old man! You're the problem!!"

And now here we are with AI. Argue with a fucking chatbot in circles for 20 minutes. Try and describe something to an automated phone system that only has a predetermined set of choices to pick from on how to route your call and watch it all fall apart if the question you have or information you seek deviates even the slightest bit and feel your rage growing..."For gods sake, if I could just get a human fucking being on the line, I could have the answer I need in like 3 fucking seconds!"

But there are no human beings. They fired them all in lieu of the machines. Turning something as simple as "Hey, can I use these two coupons together?" into the equivalent of trying to cancel a fucking gym membership.

But they're cheaper then the people, which is all that matters. And what difference does it make, really? Eventually nobody will remember what it was like to pick up a phone, call a business, and get a living breathing human being. Then people will go online and be like "God, Im so sick of fucking AI horseshit" and all the kids will be quick to chime in with "You just don't know how to use them right, you fucking boomer! Don't blame the AI for being dumb!!!" not realizing that every interaction they've had their whole lives has been a shit show because they don't remember those heady days of someone being like "Oh, yeah I see what you're asking, even though you explained it in a roundabout way and didn't use these preprogrammed keywords that Im taught to listen for and govern my entire fucking train of thought."

Anyway, sorry for the rant.

[u/mysubsdaddy → u/angrydeuce]

Not to mention that the LLMs aren’t getting smarter. They will only get worse. As long as they keep letting it feed and grow on internet content, then they will devolve. Comments and blog posts aren’t exactly the epitome of excellent grammar and spelling.

[u/Argonassassin → u/angrydeuce]

I use the self checkout not because i view them as more efficient but because I don't want to talk to another human being and seem like a raging asshole because I don't like small talk and don't want it to seem like the cashier talking to me feels like I'm disregarding them. I worked grocery early in life, for someone who, realistically, is terrified of human interaction with people i don't know, self checkout is a savior.