Tag Archives: technology

AI, Michael Caine and Mr. Potato Head, together again

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I mentioned on social media in the past couple of days that I got the biggest reaction I’ve ever received on LinkedIn after posting that i’d unfollowed a LinkedIn connection after seeing them post touting AI.

Now this isn’t unusual on LinkedIn, where a lot of people have some financial investment and a vested interest in seeing AI succeed.

I posted this:

Unfollowed and cut my connection with an AI user.

AI is a destructive force. It kills jobs, creativity and the environment, all for profits for billionaires who don’t care about any of us. And when the AI bubble bursts, the economy will suffer.

If you’re an AI user, go ahead and unfollow me and cut our connection. You might as well, because when I see you touting AI, I’ll do it.

This brought responses from people I actually know and some that I don’t, taking the approach of warning me that: I’ll never get ahead without AI – similar to Reese Witherspoon’s “don’t get left behind” warning to all her girlies out there – and that I’m already using AI but probably don’t know it and that I’ll be using it in the future because everybody will be.

My answer was more polite than “bullshit” but that was the gist of it.

Anyway, the whole thing was amusing and good for engagement and I’ll probably go to that well again, despite the dire warnings – all, without a doubt, from people who have something invested in AI or at least hope to make a buck in it – popularizing the notion that all of us who have been writing email, writing books, etc., for decades WITHOUT the assistance of AI have apparently lost the ability to do so unless we rely on the processes that are killing the environment and killing jobs just so some poor schmuck can imagine themself as an author or have a “girlfriend who won’t say no.” (See my recent post on the topic of the AI girlfriend.

Then this morning, Publisher’s Marketplace reported on an “AI voice company” that plans to release an audio version of “The Odyssey,” timed to coincide with the Christopher Nolan movie, that will be narrated by the AI version of Michael Caine’s voice.

I can guarantee you I will live the rest of my days without listenng to that.

Those of you who know I have an absurd sense of humor know that the final paragraph of the article was my favorite:

ElevenLabs primary business is creating synthetic AI voices and text-to-speech audiobooks. They have partnered with Spotify to produce audio for self-published authors, and digital distributor Bookwire. Their Iconic Marketplace allows brands to license famous voices for AI-created content, in partnership with the celebrity or estate. Currently available voices include Dr. Maya Angelou, Judy Garland, David Hasselhoff, Laurence Olivier, and Mr. Potato Head.

So I want to know, did the company license the AI rights to the voice of Don Rickles, who voiced Mr. Potato Head in the “Toy Story” movies? And if so, why not just say their available voices included “Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head?”

Apple – and everyone else – stop making your products so sleek (and hard to use)

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Screenshot

I’m not crazy about my latest iphone upgrade.

Or my new coffeemaker, for the matter.

Let me explain.

As I write this, Word – a needy little bitch if ever there was one – is notifying me once again that I should update. Nevermind that I see these pleas when I’ve opened Word on my Macbook Pro and I’m trying to get some work done so no, I don’t plan on updating now.

Not to mention the number of times Google Chrome asks me to update.

I wouldn’t mind the updates if I thought they’d have a good outcome. But too often lately it seems like companies update their products – I’m not even talking about just tech products here – based on bad design.

Example: I had to buy a new Mr. Coffee coffeemaker recently when our old one – about seven years old – began leaking water I’d poured in. I got a new one because I didn’t relish the idea of getting electrocuted before I’d had my coffee.

So I picked out the basic model, which seemed to be the same 12-cup coffeemaker as I’d had and began using it. Immediately I noticed that the water level indicator is tucked away on the side, presumably to make the coffeemaker more narrow and more sleek. (Nevermind that I could only find it in black, which might hide coffee stains better than white but is harder to tell how much water you’ve poured in.) If I want to double-check how much water I’ve poured in, because of the place Mr. Coffee is tucked away in our tiny kitchen, I have to pull it forward on the counter and turn it to peer at it.

More annoying is a recent upgrade to my iphone – I bet you wondered wtf I was going to get to that – changed the way you can turn off notifications like the alarm indicator you see above.

In the past, the phone has offered a single button to tap to end an alarm or notification. Now you have to slide the notification.

No one at Apple thought about how hard this was to do with one hand. I can’t any longer turn off a notification casually with a single tap. Now I have to hold my phone in one hand and “swipe” with the other.

This change seemed to occur right about the time Apple introduced liquid glass, its “unified visual theme for the graphical user interfaces.”

Yes, by all means, you techboy schmucks, make apps and labels on your products transparent and harder to see.

You’d think someone could get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars – maybe millions in stock – to advise these companies on how not to piss off their low-vision or low-dexterity or low-mobility users?

Maybe I should apply for the job.

My love-hate – mostly hate – relationship with alerts and notifications (disclaimer: not my phone pictured here)

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If I’m ever swept away by a tornado, you can blame the authorities in Tennessee.

I appreciate that I can get notifications on my phone. They’re often helpful. I just wish I could choose when I want them to be helpful.

Notifications – letting us know we’ve got a text message or a new email or if bad weather is on the way or a public figure has kicked the bucket – are a way of life for many of us now, and I’m not going to disable all my notifications – which are called “push alerts” by many newspapers, or just a “push” – because they can be useful.

These thoughts are occasioned by a couple of obnoxious instances of push alerts or notifications in the past couple of days, some of these of the health app variety. Yes, thank you, phone, for letting me know my trend in walking has changed lately. Did you happen to notice how rainy it was? And yes, thank you, other health app, for waking me up in the middle of the night to let me know of something that might otherwise have let me croak deep in peaceful slumber.

Part of my hate for pushes is that I’m obsessive enough to not only swipe them off my screen but actually go to my email inbox to delete the email that generated the push or, gasp, read it and even possibly respond.

(Don’t think we don’t understand that the Push Alert Industrial Complex is conspiring with our phone manufacturers to ensure we spend more time on our devices. It’s true. I read about it on the internet.)

Anyway, I’ve gradually over time changed my phone settings to end most push alerts from the authorities, who seem to abuse the tool.

The final push alert that broke the camel’s back was one recently that alerted me of a fatal shooting in Memphis, which is five hours and 47 minutes from me. Needless to say, this 2 or 3 a.m. push alert was not from a news outlet. It was from a state-run agency. I won’t comment on why this push was sent out but not why other fatal shootings are not sent out. You can guess.

So here I am, because the state insists on alerting me to things happening six hours away, perhaps expecting me to run down to the street at 3 a.m. and scan passing vehicles for the suspect, without any means of being woken in case of forest fire or flood or tornado or hurricane.

If I die, it’s on you, state officials.