Flutterby™! : On bullshit and enabling technologies

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On bullshit and enabling technologies

2024-04-24 18:46:29.284755+02 by Dan Lyke 0 comments

Charles Buhler's "reactionless drive" is making the rounds again, just as the reviews of all of these half-baked cell phones that talk to "AI assistants" are starting to come out. This morning it's The Verge talking about the Rabbit R1, in the wake of all of the hullabaloo over Marques Brownlee's review of the Humane AI pin titled "The Worst Product I've Ever Reviewed... For Now" (YouTube).

And I'm reminded of that thing where it's useful to look at "what's the enabling technology here?". If Buhler's right, space travel is the absolutely least interesting thing about what he's pushing. If a company has developed interesting "AI assistant" technology, carrying around another device is the least interesting part of that.

A few years ago I was thinking "well, I could learn to play another instrument, or I could use my voice to generate MIDI", so I went looking for those technologies, and holy shit the number of people who were selling plugins that promised to do that, but bundling it with a cheap USB mic, were legion (especially once I triggered the Facebook ad demons). And, of course, none of them found any third party who'd credibly say "yeah, this works".

Anyway, wish more "AI" reviewers would do head-to-heads against the current state of Siri or Alexa.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Movies Space & Astronomy Astronomy Work, productivity and environment Artificial Intelligence ]

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