Probably the biggest difference between 1995 and 2025 is that most calls weren't scams in the 90s. There were certainly scams, I had family members get scammed over fax machine.

But it's not like now where any unknown text or call is more likely than not a scam. We are definitely in a golden age of scamming. Look up the scam call centers in Myanmar if you haven't heard of them. Thousands of slaves locked in offices and beat with cattle prods if they don't hit their quota on the phones.

You seem to be confusing the quality of the data (which is excellent) with the tendency for the media and politicians to fixate on the U-3 rate. The U-3 rate accurately measures what it says it measures, but the titling of that specific figure as the "unemployment rate" and ignoring all the rest of the figures, is done by those presenting the statistic to you. Not those calculating it.

When people have previously spoken about "the numbers are manipulated" they were not quite accurate. The numbers are right, but their presentation and meaning is manipulated.

It is however, likely to become the thing you think it is, very soon.

Let's assume your ingredient panel isn't in Korean. (If this is a regular occurrence for you, you should probably learn Korean.)

Are you still pointing your phone at English ingredient panels, and if so, why?

My criticism wasn't so much that it's "not perfect", but that it's functionally useless.

Still not sure what I'm supposed to do with an AI-generated simulacrum of what sounds like a mathematical proof, other than gape at it. Not sure what a mathematician would do with it either.

There is no "almost" or "close" in math, it's either correct or not. You can look at the wall of text it tells you is a proof, be amazed, and then what? If you actually want to do anything with it, you have to find a mathematician to verify it. I don't imagine they're so short of ideas that an "incorrect proof generator" would help them in any capacity. Their own brains come up with incorrect proofs just fine. The entire field of mathematics is in pursuit of separating the correct from the incorrect. It's kinda the point.

Your comment about "unable to be amazed" reminded me of a nature video I watched a few years ago. A guy had set up a full-size mirror in the middle of the woods and let his camera record the wild animals interacting with it. The deer, never having encountered a mirror before, didn't realize the mirror-deer was not real. They treated the mirror-deer as a live animal.

Similar to the deer not understanding mirrors, most people don't understand the technology behind AI. They see something that might look human from an angle, and treat it then as a human. Me, I'm not so impressed with mirrors.

If you're the type to take medical advice from aggregated internet randos, well, there's no fixing stupid. But at least I understand stupid.

This is the part I don't understand: You have a dairy allergy and didn't know whey was a milk product? Do you remember it now, or are you scanning every box of food you eat with your phone, querying the AI about milk products? Do you have learning difficulties that preclude you reading the label yourself?

Schroedinger's techbro. Until his answer is actually tested, it exists in a superposition of states. It is both right and wrong, charming and strange, confident and worthless.

I notice they cite "math performance" as being a bright spot. Presumably they aren't talking about speed, but correctness.

Let that sink in: We now have to question not only how quickly our computers can perform a calculation, but whether the calculation is performed correctly at all.

I also notice the term "reasoning model" being applied. Everything I've read indicates the "reasoning" is just a differently-weighted LLM layered on top of the existing one. Artifice on top of artifice, with no real logical anchor. It sounds like exactly the right way to wave your hand for maximum voodoo, though.

And though that extra packaging material is there only for the purpose of deceiving you, you still have to pay for it. You pay for even more of it, proportionally, since you have less food inside.

The deception itself has a cost which is additive with the actual inflation.

Maybe we could start a Coffee Party. Something like that Tea Party from a decade ago, except not a scam.

I think it would show a great contrast with the Covfefe Party.

The US market is terrible. Selection is very poor. Not just how many models aren't sold, but entire categories of vehicle are missing from the market.

A lot of it has to do with the top-down focus of the big auto companies. They act from a mindset of, "What can we push on these people to make them spend as much as possible?" which has shaped the vehicles they offer. You see how deeply this mindset runs in the industry, with the dealership model for sales as well. At every level, they're focused on pushing you toward the largest purchase you can possibly make - and then a little bit larger, after a decade or so of financing...

Some of the European manufacturers take a similar approach. But the Chinese strategy for market-making seems to come from the other end. Analyze first what people need, then how to make a product to fill that need. I don't see how that strategy would fail in the US - should a company decide to make such a product, and should the government allow it to be sold.

You've managed to identify a use cases where AI offers a clear benefit, transcription/translation. I would consider that more of a "special purpose" than general purpose.

It also doesn't require any special app, at least not on my $40 Android phone. The built-in default camera app offers to translate when you point it at foreign text.

I'm at a loss why I would want to pay anyone anything to double up on this feature.

I imagine some of them were able to negotiate the extortion fees down to equal whatever the migration costs would be.

And those organizations are probably just waiting for the next contract renewal or other inflection point to pull the trigger on migration.

Trying to extend your personal finance analogy - still flawed, so don't put too much stock into it - it's like burning down your house for an insurance payment.

It may not be a thing you've ever done, it may not even be a good idea. But it certainly happens, and works enough of the time that it keeps happening.

Most call centers disincentivize escalating issues. They do this through official policy (escalated calls count negatively on an agent's metrics) and culturally (agents who escalate issues are berated as not taking ownership of the issue, not wanting to work, creating extra work for superiors, etc.)

Forcing you through the troubleshooting steps is the least-problematic way for that issue to manifest. It is the level 1 agent doing CYA so he won't be accused of cutting corners. The more problematic way for it to manifest is that your issue simply doesn't get escalated, they deliberately allow it to slip through the cracks.