mpantone

blastdoor said:

mpantone said:

For anyone who thinks that AI is a passing fad, you are completely out of touch with reality.

AI is here to stay. It's doing some amazing things in the enterprise markets and if it can eke out 100 basis points in net profit for some Fortune 500 company, guess what? They're gonna use it.

I bet 99.9% of people on these tech news site discussion forums who say they don't use AI are over 30 years old. That's right. There's a generational gap in AI usage.

Just yesterday, the AP reported on this:

https://apnews.com/article/ai-companion-generative-teens-mental-health-9ce59a2b250f3bd0187a717ffa2ad21f

That's right pre-teens are using this stuff and some older teenagers even see the danger in young children using AI.

And the consumer AI industry is largely a lawless frontier right now, it needs heavy government regulation from world governments, not just your state's governor or 1600 Pennsylvania.

And many of today's consumer AI companies are really no better than tobacco companies. They are creating AI chatbots that look and behave like anime characters (Grok's assistants, SpicyChat AI, Character.AI, et cetera) to attract youngsters into interacting with them. It's the digital equivalent of adding candy flavors to vaping products.

Look at the way Grok started rolling out their AI anime-skinned assistants like Ani. They debuted on iPhones first, still not available on many Android devices. Why? Probably because iPhone is the platform of choice for young people (the under 25 market), especially teens.

If you care about the future of today's youngsters, the ones who will be tasked with fixing many of the world's problems, you need to pay attention to what AI is today, where it is going, who is using it, for what reasons, etc.

There's one oldtimer here who continually gripes about AI, fearing it will displace him from his job as a writer. AI's potential effects are far, Far, FAR greater than that.

Just sticking your head in the sand or plugging your ears and saying "I'm not using AI so nyah!" like a little brat throwing a tantrum isn't going to stop AI from proliferating. That much is clear in the 3+ years I've been closely following AI.

I think you’re mostly right that the AI naysayers are old. BUT — I think the old timers who do embrace AI have a potentially huge advantage over everyone else, because for them the AI replaces some of the junior colleagues who they previously would have delegated to. AI used by a seasoned veteran who has a deep understanding of their business can be much more powerful than AI used by a kiddo who knows very little about the real world.

You are one of a small minority of people here who seem to get it.

AI is a tool, a very powerful one in the hands of a skilled and experienced worker. It's a lousy and possibly dangerous tool for someone inexperienced, foolish, naive, etc. In many ways, AI is no different than a tool like a circular saw, a chainsaw, or a pneumatic drill.

Look at the whole Replit debacle from this past weekend. It happened to some venture capitalist guy who attempted to use the tool to write and deploy an app, i.e., not a professional coder.

Can a 15-year old use a table saw and create something useful? Back when I was in high school, there was a shop class. And yes, it was taught by someone with decades of experience who showed the students how to use the tools safely and effectively.

At some point the governments of this world will start regulating AI with increasing restrictions over time. Do you really believe that septuagenarian career politicians are the best people to be writing these guidelines? Older people really need to start taking some responsibility here and take some steps in educating themselves about AI.

Old people (including me) need to start exploring these tools and understand how they can used effectively as well as understand what their weaknesses are. The technology is evolving at a very rapid rate so just dabbling with one for a few minutes once or twice a year is not enough. But it's okay to try these out on small projects, something that's not going to cost you your life, your career, your family/friends, your bank account, etc.

One thing is pretty much guaranteed: some of these AI tools will get better, some of them will get worse.

We already have dullards recommending certain AI tools because they "sound human". Not the brightest method of selection. That would be like recommending a chainsaw because it has a cool stripe on the housing.

Is that with marginally normal Grok 3? Or with off-the-rails "delusions of grandeur" MechaHitler Grok 4?

The problem isn't with the ability of these AI chatbot assistants to have a conversational tone. The problems are things like accuracy, bias, lack of reasoning, lack of emotion/compassion, inability to recognize satire/sarcasm, lack of common sense (which is a growing problem with a lot of humans).

I occasionally try out all of these consumer AI assistants and they are all dreadfully inaccurate. About 5.5 months ago I asked "what time is the Super Bowl kickoff?" Not a single one got it right. About a week before the NCAA men's basketball tournament, I asked 4-5 chatbots to fill out a bracket. Not a single one provided a bracket that had the actual teams playing in the tournament.

Grok's performance was unbelievably bad at the March Madness bracket. Not only did it create fake competitors playing a fake bracket, it predicted that all of the higher seeds would win their games. ZERO upsets. That *NEVER* happens in a real sports competition.

Sure, it might sound like you're having a human-like conversation but Grok is about the worst of the AI chatbots. Embarrassingly bad. And let's not forget its MechaHitler hallucinations. That just happened a couple of weeks ago.

This is a good example of how a consumer thinks Grok sounds real so it must be accurate and trustworthy. LOL, terrible assumption. And now with Grok's new found language skills, would you vote it into office? Accept its recommendation to eat rocks and put glue on pizza? Give up your ICBM launch codes?

Ahahahahahahaha!!!!!

  

For anyone who thinks that AI is a passing fad, you are completely out of touch with reality.

AI is here to stay. It's doing some amazing things in the enterprise markets and if it can eke out 100 basis points in net profit for some Fortune 500 company, guess what? They're gonna use it.

I bet 99.9% of people on these tech news site discussion forums who say they don't use AI are over 30 years old. That's right. There's a generational gap in AI usage.

Just yesterday, the AP reported on this:

https://apnews.com/article/ai-companion-generative-teens-mental-health-9ce59a2b250f3bd0187a717ffa2ad21f

That's right pre-teens are using this stuff and some older teenagers even see the danger in young children using AI.

And the consumer AI industry is largely a lawless frontier right now, it needs heavy government regulation from world governments, not just your state's governor or 1600 Pennsylvania.

And many of today's consumer AI companies are really no better than tobacco companies. They are creating AI chatbots that look and behave like anime characters (Grok's assistants, SpicyChat AI, Character.AI, et cetera) to attract youngsters into interacting with them. It's the digital equivalent of adding candy flavors to vaping products.

Look at the way Grok started rolling out their AI anime-skinned assistants like Ani. They debuted on iPhones first, still not available on many Android devices. Why? Probably because iPhone is the platform of choice for young people (the under 25 market), especially teens. If you are over 35, guess what? You are not the target audience of consumer AI companies. I'm way beyond that but at least I know that I am not who AI companies crave as a user.

If you care about the future of today's youngsters -- the ones who will be tasked with fixing many of the world's problems -- you need to pay attention to what AI is today, where it is going, who is using it, for what reasons, etc.

There's one oldtimer here who continually gripes about AI, fearing it will displace him from his job as a writer. AI's potential effects are far, Far, FAR greater than that.

Just sticking your head in the sand or plugging your ears and saying "I'm not using AI so nyah!" like a little brat throwing a tantrum isn't going to stop AI from proliferating. That much is clear in the 3+ years I've been closely following AI.

lukei said:

mpantone said:

First of all Apple is not bringing back the iPhone mini. Let it go. I'm one of a very, Very, VERY small group of people who prefer smaller phones. Apple has sold smaller phones for years, they know exactly how many they sold and how the demand curve was trending before they canned the iPhone 13 mini.

As for the other iPhone models, I predict that any iPhone with only one rear camera will end up selling poorly. Poor sales of iPhone 16e in India shows that even price-conscious markets will lean toward an older iPhone with multiple rear cameras versus the current entry level 16e model.

That's because Joe Consumer all over the world prioritizes these features: camera, display, battery.

Recently changed from iPhone16 Pro to 16e

better battery life
I can’t tell the difference on screen

Ah, you very carefully ignored mentioning anything about the iPhone 16e's camera. As I mentioned, the 16e is showing poor sales in price-conscious India because people are opting for older iPhones with more camera lenses.

A single camera isn't what most consumers want in a phone in 2025. If Apple is to expect any long-term success for the e-series, they will need to put in at least a second rear camera and ensure that the front-facing FaceTime/selfie camera is comparable to what's in the regular iPhone model.

Even the discontinued mini models (12 mini and 13 mini) had dual rear cameras.

ChiIrishReed said:

You mean like how apple introduced Siri and let it fail for the last how many years? Yeah, sure there’s no doom and gloom. Like others have cited, Siri has a lot of catch up. Why wait? Why would other consumer electronics makers wait or even care if it’s compatible. They announced vaporware to sell phones last year, people bought them and features still haven’t arrived. Broken promises after another. 

Apple BOUGHT Siri. 

Siri was a standalone startup whose roots were SRI International (um, the name S i R I isn't accidental); the speech recognition engine was based on Nuance technology. That startup had a standalone iOS app (I even remember the very un-Apple-like script "Siri" on the app icon on my iPod touch) in 2010 before the company was acquired by Apple. Apple most certainly did not invent the technology. They did incorporate it in a relatively quick 18 months into iOS.

After that, they effectively did nothing of consequence with Siri. Siri's poor voice recognition has been well hashed over for 10+ years. People expected Apple to make Siri better once it was part of iOS. They did NOTHING. Siri has been festering for 15 years. They made bombastic statements in WWDC 2024 about Siri which failed to come to fruition.

When Apple's senior management belatedly got the hint that ChatGPT-like consumer-facing AI was a thing, they understood that voice recognition was an integral part of this experience. But Siri's long neglect slowed down their efforts. Had they been continuously maintaining and improving Siri over 15+ years, they would have been able to leverage these improvements into launching more Apple Intelligence features.

Voice command would be integral for the rumored screen-based HomePod device as well as something like an Apple Ring. Voice recognition needs to work 99+% of the time for 99+% of users, not just some of the time for some users. Including ones with strong accents, people not speaking in their native tongues, people with unusual cadences, lisps, etc.

Today's Siri is no where close which is why Apple senior management postponed the "improved Siri" deployment. It's still back in the garage. My guess is that New & Improved Siri™ has maybe a 50% chance of debuting in iOS 26. That's right, it might slip until iOS 27.

While I have no special insight into Apple's engineering efforts my guess is that Apple hoped on bolting on AI features onto the existing Siri service and belatedly realized in late 2024 that they needed to do an entire code rewrite -- both front end and back end -- to get Siri to where they want it to go. One thing Apple knows it cannot do is to rush out a "new" Siri that is only marginally better than what current exists. People need to be able to TRUST the voice recognition system if they are going to use it regularly to do important things.

Today's Siri does not enable any sense of trust whatsoever. It's actually closer to an SNL parody of voice recognition systems which it wouldn't be had Apple committed to continually improving it. What was a cute novelty in 2010 is now just an embarrassment.

With each passing week, the AI stakes grow enormously. Apple is aware of that and they can't have "new" Siri going rogue like AI Dumpster Fire of the Week Replit.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/replits-ceo-apologizes-after-its-ai-agent-wiped-a-companys-code-base-in-a-test-run-and-lied-about-it/ar-AA1J2IlP

And that comes just a week after Grok 4's "MechaHitler" delusions of grandeur.

Hell, you don't need comedy writers to make up AI technology skits. You can just cut-and-paste actual AI industry news in July 2025.

Wouldn't it be fun if "new" Siri With Apple Intelligence accidentally on purpose deleted your entire calendar and contacts databases?

One takeaway I've gotten from following the AI industry over the past three years is that AI CEOs are the absolutely least trustworthy executives in the entire technology industry. They are snake oil salesmen: Altman, Amodei, Musk, Zuckerberg, now this Replit doofus.

Apple must take their time and get AI right because now the bar is dropping every single day. No one really needs some silly fawning AI chatbot that exhibits serious bias.