AI doesn’t solve any problems.

It creates new ones. With the self-assured confidence that only a techbrodude billionaire could project.

(This is probably not a coincidence.)

That’s really weird to me.

If I’m playing a board game (like Xiangqi/Chinese Chess) what’s cool is when I spot an opportunity and exploit it. This is playing according to the rules of the game.

If I’m playing a card game (like Fight the Landlord) what’s cool is when I assemble a good combination of cards that drains my hand with inexorable play. Or when I find just the right timing to interfere with someone else draining their cards. Again this is playing according to the rules of the game.

In sportball, presumably when the audience is going wild at a cool play by some player they’re playing according to the rules of the game. (I can’t attest yeah or nay to this because sportball isn’t my vibe.) Is this not cool? (I’ll let sportball fans answer here.)

So why would RPGs be the exception to this? Why do you have to break the rules of play to do cool things?

That’s really weird to me.

He’s not talking about the touchscreen kiosk things. He’s talking about the drive-through AI order-takers. Which have pretty much been a disaster no matter where you go.

I’m talking from the global take on the economy, yes. This wave of AI will go the way of every previous wave: some niche products will use it effectively and the rest of the world will look back with keen embarrassment at this phase of history when people took LLMs seriously.

I mean there’s still practical uses for '50s-era “AI” out there. (“Symbolic AI” was it called?) But it is so tiny a segment it is basically nonexistent.

Every previous wave of AI died in the same hype/disappointment cycle. Yes each previous wave still has niche uses, but their economic activity is basically a rounding error.

They’re dead.

The bodies are just still twitching a little from the chemical reactions of deccomposition.

The current wave will do the same thing.

the reboot wasn’t so hot though

They rarely are.

Selling pre-rotted eggs? 🤣

Well thanks! Next time I’m in a position to buy some I will.

Evaporation when covered in clay is slowed by quite a bit, but yeah, 25+ years will still lose you volume.

This is exactly what happened with the three previous (or was it four?) waves of AI.

It was oversold. People got very cynical. Quiet rebranding behind the scenes let it continue life in the niches where it was appropriate.

AI. For … the fourth time or fifth time? (I’ve lost track of the generations of AI.)

OK, so they’re consumed directly, not ground up or smashed into paste or something?

I’m not sure that’s a very good measure of fear, though.

If you showed me an average jump-scare-infused “horror” flick of the variety that gets tossed out by the film-making industry every five minutes or so, you’d see my blood pressure and heart rate spike each time, but five minutes after the end I’d likely not even be able to identify that film it was I’d watched.

On the other hand, The Thing (the John Carpenter version) keeps me feeling unsettled each time I think of it (and has the occasional starring role in my rare nightmares). During the movie, though? Maybe a blood pressure increase, and a slight increase in heart rate. But nothing compared to the jump-scare fodder.

Yeah, the day there’s an airliner that has a single pilot is the day I stop flying ever again.

Dipping into the Wayback Machine: Columbo.

The USA doesn’t have an administration any longer.

It has a regime.

Boiled peanuts are the second best way to make peanuts! (The best way is roasted in red clay.)

If he hits you, end it. Even if he’s “sorry”. Because he isn’t.

Buy a jar and go to town. (Equivalently, though I’ve just made every Brit and Aussie wish my death, go with Marmite.)

You don’t have to worry about wasting it. If you don’t like it, it’s very good wood filler as well. (Indeed for my purposes that’s its prime usage.)

Blood products (including blood sausage/black pudding, duck blood “tofu”, etc.) react very badly with my stomach. I like the taste fine, but I really hate tasting it, along with any other food I’m eating with it, twice (if you get my drift).