- flkiwiGoodness no, I chuckled.
- Someone didn't think so, lol. I debated not saying anything because the AI partisans are just so awful.
- I gave up my OpenAI subscription a few days ago in favor of Claude. My quality of life (and quality of results) has gone up substantially. Several of our tools at work have GPT-5x as their backend model, and it is incredible how frustrating they are to use, how predictable their AI-isms are, and how inconsistent their output is. OpenAI is going to have to do a lot more than an incremental update to convince me they haven't completely lost the thread.
- It's cute that this presumes Office will still be called O365 in 10 years. It will have been through at least new naming schemes by then.
- This is a big of a gravity vs. acceleration issue, in that the end result is indistinguishable.
- There’s also a whole “gosh golly look at me using the latest fad!” demonstration aspect to this. People status signaling that they’re “in”. Thus the Bluetooth earpiece comment.
It’s clumsy and has the opposite result most of the time, but people still do it for all manner of trends.
- I read comments citing AI as essentially equivalent to "I ran a $searchengine search and here is the most relevant result." It's not equivalent, but it has one identical issue and one new-ish one:
1. If I wanted to run a web search, I would have done so 2. People behave as if they believe AI results are authoritative, which they are not
On the other hand, a ban could result in a technical violation in a conversation about AI responses where providing examples of those responses is entirely appropriate.
I feel like we're having a larger conversation here, one where we are watching etiquette evolve in realtime. This is analogous to "Should we ban people from wearing bluetooth headsets in the coffee shop?" in the 00s: people are demonstrating a new behavior that is disrupting social norms but the actual violation is really that the person looks like a dork. To that end, I'd probably be more for public shaming, potentially a clear "we aren't banning it but please don't be an AI goober and don't just regurgitate AI output", more than I would support a ban.
- On the other hand, if it's true, it explains a LOT about Microsoft's silly AI strategy.
- Me: Can you access my inbox and Teams messages?
Copilot: Yep!
Me: Please find any items in my inbox or sent items indicating (a) that I have agreed to take on a task or (b) identifying me as the person responsible for a task, removing duplicates and any items that I have unambiguously replied to via email or Teams. Time window is preceding 7 days.
Copilot: Prints a list with, at best, 5% accuracy
I know some folks have the peculiar idea that search is dead in favor of AI, but if AI can't accurately find information, it is useless. As near as I can tell, Copilot finds 3-4 items (but rarely the SAME 3-4 items across runs) and calls it a day. It just seems like nobody is actually testing any of this stuff. Microsoft is actively destroying its credibility because it's offering a tool with a party trick but is utterly unreliable. I will, therefore, not rely on it.
- In a typical corporate environment, you cannot assume the recipient of an email will read past the first sentence, maybe not even the subject line. A vast number of people simply do not read. They can but they don’t.
- I mean, he lived to 97. Given what he's known for, it made me chuckle. Anyway, I thought it was Crick who was into eugenics. If it was both of them, I'm afraid I shall have to amend my opinion of both of them from "disturbingly troubling" to "unredeemable so let's just get them out of the textbooks thanks" right away.
- There was irony involved.
- A rebrand is the most ominous sign of Mozilla’s declining health I could have imagined.
- I’m an American. The response is coded as “do nothing”. The proper response here would be to say “we’re going to roll back the changes until we understand and fix things that are going wrong.” The individual may not have INTENDED the dismissive due to the way American corporate language has internalize “do nothing, take no position, take no risk, admit no fault” but it’s definitely the tone. Essentially this is a human problem: how do you deal with someone motivated by project passion rather than revenue goals or personal income? It happens ALL THE TIME with nonprofits interacting poorly with volunteers because the motivations and associated daily language are so divergent.
- Same same. Never even occurred to me to look. That's the risk of a (successful) low-friction product though: you use it in quick bursts where the tool is necessary but largely invisible, and you never invest in learning more about it because it works so well with the defaults. There's probably a profound strategic insight buried in there somewhere.
- (1) AI isn't educated. It has access to a lot of information. That's two different things.
(2) I was rebutting the paper's standard that AGI should be achieving the status of a well-educated adult, which is probably far, far too high a standard. Even something measured to a much lower standard--which we aren't at yet--would change the world. Or, going back to my example, an AI that was as intelligent as a labrador in terms of its ability to synthesize and act on information would be truly extraordinary.
- > defining AGI as matching the cognitive versatility and proficiency of a well-educated adult
I don't think people really realize how extraordinary accomplishment it would be to have an artificial system matching the cognitive versatility and proficiency of an uneducated child, much less a well-educated adult. Hell, AI matching the intelligence of some nonhuman animals would be an epoch-defining accomplishment.
- I saw someone post a Gemini summary from a Google search as their interpretation of a legal question (not a lawyer) and, when they were called on it, scoffed that they hadn’t used AI. People don’t even know when they’re relying on AI at this point. Which isn’t great given the current state of things.
- Thanks for calling that out. You're right to be upset.