Just another voice yelling in the void.
I’ve probably protested for your rights. I’m definitely on at least one list.
I believe firmly that everyone should have a fair shake and as much freedom as they can be afforded - so long as it does not encroach on the freedoms of others.
Occasionally a wordy cunt who will type a book when a sentence or two will suffice.
Absolutely. I should have used the term productivity rather than service. Lack of caffeine had blunted my vocabulary. In essence: more output for less work. Output in this case is profit.
Enshitification is, in essence, the push beyond diminishing returns into the ‘lossy’ space … sacrificing a for b. The end result is an increasingly shitty experience.
It’s technically closer to Schrodinger’s truth. It goes both ways depending on “when” you look at it. Publicly traded companies are more or less expected to adopt AI as it is the next “cheap” labor… so long as it is the cheapest of any option. See the very related: slave labor and it’s variants, child labor, and “outsourcing” to “less developed” countries.
The problem is they need to dance between this experimental technology and … having a publicly “functional” company. The line demands you cut costs but also increase service. So basically overcorrection hell. Mass hirings into mass firings. Every quarter / two quarters depending on the company… until one of two things becomes true: ai works or ai no longer is the cheapest solution. I imagine that will rubberband for quite some time. (saas shit like oracle etc)
In short - I’d not expect this to be more than a brief reprieve from a rapidly drying well. Take advantage of it for now - but I’d recommend not expecting it to remain.
I always loved the simple statement that:
Death is inevitably caused by swallowing tiny bits of saliva over time.
It illustrated the utter senseless linking of observed events to results with dubious research. Is it technically wrong? No. Is it correct? Of course not. (I hope.)
We are constantly being sold something. Sometimes it’s obvious - other times it’s not. Frequently its a bent truth to just nudge us in the direction the advertiser wants. Health is extraordinarily complicated. We know we should be healthy - but there is so much noise potential profit in the space… that it becomes hard to determine the correct path to take.
Shit like the above is effectively tabloid journalism. If it is sensationalist - and urging you to act without thought … you absolutely should give it as much credence as an article about bat boy in the checkout line. Until these pseudo journalism “half-truth” adverts get degraded to tabloid levels they will continue to pollute our information channels with their snake oil.
It is possible to distill correct - or at least better information from questionable sources: we play the overlapping circle game. If you compare multiple sources of partial truth… each source added can begin to define the boundaries of what is true (or at least accepted as truth.) Now this isn’t perfect and certainly doesn’t replace real research - but this method in combination with learning to identify masked advertising is a way to protect yourself from falling prey to their trash.
What’s to be done about this shoddy reporting? When you see it - call it out for what it is. Shame the publisher. Trash the poster. Openly mock them. Do what you can to tarnish the perceived reputation of that outlet. If they sell sewage then make sure the stink sticks to them. Enough people doing this will start a positive feedback loop and eventually lead to visible improvements.
They really haven’t taken massive hits because we are creatures of habit: it’s more convenient to hang around even if we know we’re getting ripped off. There is a conversion rate - but it’s low enough where clearly they believe the market will bear more abuse.