To be utterly sick of AI already

[snurtifier]

Logged on to my work email this morning to find that Google have added an AI assistant called Gemini, which pops up like a dependent puppy at every turn. It's monumentally annoying and, as far as I can see, completely useless. I contacted our IT dept and it turns out Google are charging us an extra £2 per month per user for this total waste of electricity, with no option to opt out. What's more, individual users don't have the option to switch it off, it's a global setting for the company account.

Meanwhile every online space has been invaded by AI bots, search results are polluted by pointless AI summaries, and our creative industries are being annihilated by generative AI slop. We were told AI would make our lives better, but so far the net effect is almost entirely negative as far as I can see.

AIBU to hate it and wish it would go away?

I find it all shit. Where is all the good AI they promised us?

I was confused by the previous poster who talked about self assessment. Clearly Not the SA tax return I thought you were referring to, which is actually very easy to fill out, if you know what you are doing.

Well. Governments better get on with implementing Universal Income cos it sounds like at this rate there won't be any jobs left for the masses....or they'll just leave us all in poverty and claim noone wants to work anymore.

AI offering answers to google searches which you/one haven’t requested is so bad for the environment. Think it takes 30 times more energy than a search response. Wish it was opt in instead of default in every platform.

Yes those are pretty useful. Out of curiosity I'm going to look for something with shit reviews and see whether it's reliable for that,

Work self-assessment, not tax self-assessment.

Mine has grades and short bullet points so it wouldn't be worth it, but if your workplace expects an essay and you're not a natural writer then I can see how chatGPT could help.

Apple told to drop AI tool that pushed fake BBC News stories
Number of iPhone users falsely told by AI-generated notifications that the broadcaster reported that Luigi Mangione shot himself

That’s from the Telegraph - the article goes on to point out loads of inaccuracies.

@AuxArmesCitoyens

Here is one of the threads about translating and AI

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/work/5145118-do-translators-have-a-future?page=2&reply=137696200

thanks @Barbadossunset

I did not know this! Just had a google. I’m shocked.

Another example of mistranslation:

During Malayan emergency a British General said to some guerilla fighters
“You’re bastards but so am I”
This was translated as “you’re illegitimate but so am I”.

It might be quite fun to see an AI translated passage and see if one could disentangle what it was trying to say.

I was at an art event recently where AI translation had been used. It gave the woman artists male pronouns because woman artists are rarer in the data set and it jut spat out the usual male pronouns as standard. But yay it saves a bit of time and effort 🙄

I hate it too.
I've seen people post AI images of women on facebook and men sleazing all over them even though they are clearly fake and women can't look like that.
The AI generated artwork is taking over genuine artists
People posting images of something that happened and it turns out it is fake, when AI gets even better we don't won't know whats real anymore.

I’m actually finding it really useful and trying to use it as much as I can. I’ve been trying lots of models and tools, really like Claude and Perplexity. While no where near perfect, it’s improved massively over the last year. The direction is only one way, like it or not. I’d rather learn how to work with it than be left behind. Don’t think we’ll have much choice in the matter and I do think it will have a huge impact on white collar jobs eventually.

@Rispa42 do any of the points upthread about the downsides give you pause for thought?

Random woman's life ruined by ai deepfake: www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/i-doorknocked-for-labour-then-racist-deepfake-ruined-my-life-fn6xxc5dc

That person put your company sensitive data into an open access engine.

Not necessarily the wrong approach, but I hope you asked following questions about how they mitigated the risk?

Unless you are part of the company, you have no access to company sensitive data - these engines only use what's widely available on the internet anyway, and even then it needs careful vetting. I had some fun playing with an AI image generator yesterday. I tried to see how closely I could replicate a painting I had done a few weeks back, which was reliant on knowledge of some fantasy book characters - descriptions of which are easily accessible online.

I asked the engine to generate the image just using the character names and series and what it came up with was wild, and highly amusing in places, but in no way following accurate information. I then asked it to recreate the same image using detailed descriptions. It could not cope with the level of detail and kept rejecting my description, so then we went with a slightly more loose description and what it generated was still far from what I had done. Art, which is focused on specific detail, and people, is still safe for a short while, until AI gets better at it.

I therefore have to assume that, despite using AI, the person who got the job in the interview process had not blindly used AI to do all their work for them, but actually carefully vetted what was generated and used AI to enhance their work instead. Doing what AI should be used for - making our work faster and easier, not taking it over completely.

Like any technologies, there are downsides. Same with the internet, mobile phones, even televisions and cars. However if we avoided all of those, we would get left behind in the modern world. The fact is, whether we like it or not, genAI is becoming increasingly prevalent in our lives, and if we don’t embrace / adopt this tech, there is a strong chance you’ll get left behind. If you’re older and nearing retirement, that’s fine, but I still have many working years ahead of me and would rather embrace AI even if there are aspects that make me uncomfortable.

I still use someone to write my web content for me. All is not lost ❤️