mountainriver

joined 1 year ago
[–] mountainriver@awful.systems 8 points 5 hours ago

I usually go with "Scientology for the 21st century". That for most gives just "weird cult", which is close enough for most people.

For those that are into weird cults you get questions about Xenu and such, and can answer "No they are not into Xenu, instead they want to build their god. Out of chatbots". And so on. If they are interested in weird cult shit, and have already accepted that we are talking about weird cults the weirdness isn't a problem. If not, it stops at "Scientology for the 21st century".

 

Capgemini has polled executives, customer service workers and consumers (but mostly executives) and found out that customer service sucks, and working in customer service sucks even more. Customers apparently want prompt solutions to problems. Customer service personnel feels that they are put in a position to upsell customers. For some reason this makes both sides unhappy.

Solution? Chatbots!

There is some nice rhetorical footwork going on in the report, so it was presumably written by a human. By conflating chatbots and live chat (you know, with someone actually alive) and never once asking whether the chatbots can actually solve the problems with customer service, they come to the conclusion that chatbots must be the answer. After all, lots of the surveyed executives think they will be the answer. And when have executives ever been wrong?

[–] mountainriver@awful.systems 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Who in specific do you see voting for the next Dem who did not vote for Kamala?

Some of the 19 million 2020 Biden voters who didn't vote in 2024? Maybe some of the 5-6 million they lost one the issue of aiding and arming a genocide in Gaza?

No, going more Nazi must be the way. Much wise, much centrist. Much exhausting.

[–] mountainriver@awful.systems 10 points 1 week ago

The investors read "11x, the company's, revenue is 10 million" but what they missed was that the correct reading was "11 x [the company's revenue] is 10 million", so the actual revenue is less than a million. Easy mistake to make! Better luck next time investors!

[–] mountainriver@awful.systems 7 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah, the exclusion of the dismal science got a chuckle out of me.

[–] mountainriver@awful.systems 8 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

I believe I read somewhere that Wikimedia was some time ago (a decade ago? who knows and no point in trying to search for the article) exploring the idea of a human curated search engine. Perhaps an idea who's time has come.

[–] mountainriver@awful.systems 5 points 3 weeks ago

Chatbots are coming for the traditional jobs of gurus, astrologers and tarot-readers.

[–] mountainriver@awful.systems 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

They removed the citation, but did they keep the definition?

[–] mountainriver@awful.systems 52 points 3 weeks ago

That was gross.

On a related note, one of my kids learnt about how phrenology was once used for scientific racism and my other kid was shocked, dismayed and didn't want to believe it. So I had to confirm that yes people did that, yes it was very racist, and yes they considered themselves scientists and were viewed as such by the scientific community of the time.

I didn't inform them that phrenology and scientific racism is still with us. There is a limit on how many illusions you want to break in a day.

[–] mountainriver@awful.systems 8 points 3 weeks ago

From topic and lack of citation I just assumed that they had an LLM write it.

[–] mountainriver@awful.systems 7 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I was going to write that it was good that you didn't say "um" all the time. (Being silent in pauses is in my experience a learned skill for most people and one that comes once one has heard oneself say "um" too many times.)

The sound was fine. I think your (Jabra?) headset did its job unless that was also the result of editing.

The imagery got a bit distracting because you look to the side of the camera. No problem for podcasts, but for video it's better to look straight at the camera to look at the audience so to speak. (Also a learnt skill.) So maybe a webcam you can place in front of the screen you are presumably reading of?

No idea about marketing a YouTube, but you got in the "like and subscribe", so that is probably good.

[–] mountainriver@awful.systems 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm thinking stupid and frustrating AI will become a plot device.

"But if I don't get the supplies I can't save the town!"

"Yeah, sorry, the AI still says no"

[–] mountainriver@awful.systems 6 points 1 month ago

These stiff-armed salutes are not expressions of sincere Nazism but an oppositional culture that, like a rebel band that keeps wearing fatigues after victory, has failed to realize it’s no longer in the opposition.

"Keep wearing", so is he saying that Musk et al "keep doing" "stiff-armed salutes" (that anyone with eyes can see are Nazi salutes) in public?

I know one shouldn't expect logic from a Nazi, but claiming that the fog horn is actually a dog whistle is really ridiculous. "You heard nothing!"

 

This isn't a sneer, more of a meta take. Written because I sit in a waiting room and is a bit bored, so I'm writing from memory, no exact quotes will be had.

A recent thread mentioning "No Logo" in combination with a comment in one of the mega-threads that pleaded for us to be more positive about AI got me thinking. I think that in our late stage capitalism it's the consumer's duty to be relentlessly negative, until proven otherwise.

"No Logo" contained a history of capitalism and how we got from a goods based industrial capitalism to a brand based one. I would argue that "No Logo" was written in the end of a longer period that contained both of these, the period of profit driven capital allocation. Profit, as everyone remembers from basic marxism, is the surplus value the capitalist acquire through paying less for labour and resources then the goods (or services, but Marx focused on goods) are sold for. Profits build capital, allowing the capitalist to accrue more and more capital and power.

Even in Marx times, it was not only profits that built capital, but new capital could be had from banks, jump-starting the business in exchange for future profits. Thus capital was still allocated in the 1990s when "No Logo" was written, even if the profits had shifted from the good to the brand. In this model, one could argue about ethical consumption, but that is no longer the world we live in, so I am just gonna leave it there.

In the 1990s there was also a tech bubble were capital allocation was following a different logic. The bubble logic is that capital formation is founded on hype, were capital is allocated to increase hype in hopes of selling to a bigger fool before it all collapses. The bigger the bubble grows, the more institutions are dragged in (by the greed and FOMO of their managers), like banks and pension funds. The bigger the bubble, the more it distorts the surrounding businesses and legislation. Notice how now that the crypto bubble has burst, the obvious crimes of the perpetrators can be prosecuted.

In short, the bigger the bubble, the bigger the damage.

If in a profit driven capital allocation, the consumer can deny corporations profit, in the hype driven capital allocation, the consumer can deny corporations hype. To point and laugh is damage minimisation.

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