One could even say that more joy came from booking a trip or a night out when it was done via phone with a person BEFORE we booked online. We might meet that person or at least have likely had one of the most highly sought out experiences that are diminishing in our "online" lives - a quality personal interaction with another person.
Everyone acts today as if strangers are too challenging to deal with (look at dating). The reality is that more joy comes from interactions with other people than anywhere else in life.
I think that the AI companies have yet to find the killer app for the general public, so they're casting about for ideas that only save minimal amounts of time and effort.
Compare to the Internet. It allowed us to do things we simply couldn't before that. It expanded our lives. AI does some of that professionally, but few of the personal use cases amount to much, yet.
There's nothing new under the sun. Even looking back to something like learning math in high school, I came to a similar realization. Unless you're entering a math-specific field, then there technically isn't a "reason" to learn math when a calculator is faster and more capable. However, as I always saw it, the point wasn't to get really good at math, but to learn and practice the unique ways math causes you to think, reason, and problem solve. Perhaps this doesn't apply quite as cleanly to more menial tasks like making dinner reservations, but it seems a lot of tech guys (especially ones who push AI creative tools), don't understand that a lot of life experiences are more about the process than the final result.
Several good points, but your advice that I constantly come back to is how much of our current digital malaise is reduced or totally removed by simply using a desktop computer and saving your phone for phone calls and texts.
I remember being able to take long walks with just my thoughts. No walkman, no phone. I remember payphones. I remember being enthralled by seeing a film at the theater. Seeing it more than once, because that's all you got. I remember talking to my friends about the shows we watched. They were all the same shows, because Happy Days was all that was on after dinner on a weeknight. Remember radio? Life was a shared experience, with people you might not know, but who lived in the same place at the same time. Shopped in the same grocery stores for the same products. We had to try harder. Everything took more effort and more time, and we were better for it
One could even say that more joy came from booking a trip or a night out when it was done via phone with a person BEFORE we booked online. We might meet that person or at least have likely had one of the most highly sought out experiences that are diminishing in our "online" lives - a quality personal interaction with another person.
Everyone acts today as if strangers are too challenging to deal with (look at dating). The reality is that more joy comes from interactions with other people than anywhere else in life.
really well put
"Perhaps some percentage of the population doesn’t really want to do *anything*"
I think you have nailed it here.
Its nice that all of the AI craziness is pretty concentrated in a small area. They just yell very loud about everything.
The rest of the actual real world continues to be pretty awesome.
AI is computer magic to build personal and work projects + crunching large data sets and finding patterns.
Giving it any decision making, general thinking, or access to personal info / accounts is pure madness. You are screwing your future self doing it.
I think that the AI companies have yet to find the killer app for the general public, so they're casting about for ideas that only save minimal amounts of time and effort.
Compare to the Internet. It allowed us to do things we simply couldn't before that. It expanded our lives. AI does some of that professionally, but few of the personal use cases amount to much, yet.
There's nothing new under the sun. Even looking back to something like learning math in high school, I came to a similar realization. Unless you're entering a math-specific field, then there technically isn't a "reason" to learn math when a calculator is faster and more capable. However, as I always saw it, the point wasn't to get really good at math, but to learn and practice the unique ways math causes you to think, reason, and problem solve. Perhaps this doesn't apply quite as cleanly to more menial tasks like making dinner reservations, but it seems a lot of tech guys (especially ones who push AI creative tools), don't understand that a lot of life experiences are more about the process than the final result.
Several good points, but your advice that I constantly come back to is how much of our current digital malaise is reduced or totally removed by simply using a desktop computer and saving your phone for phone calls and texts.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would miss the '80s.
90s were great too, our best decade IMO (not old enough to remember the 80s much but I was there)
I remember being able to take long walks with just my thoughts. No walkman, no phone. I remember payphones. I remember being enthralled by seeing a film at the theater. Seeing it more than once, because that's all you got. I remember talking to my friends about the shows we watched. They were all the same shows, because Happy Days was all that was on after dinner on a weeknight. Remember radio? Life was a shared experience, with people you might not know, but who lived in the same place at the same time. Shopped in the same grocery stores for the same products. We had to try harder. Everything took more effort and more time, and we were better for it