The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[Renate]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Anyone know of a Search engine that has settings to ignore 'popular culture', 'sport' and 'celebrities' - I've tried all the usual suspects.

I applaud your pursuit.

Windows 11 (if you do something wrong) puts "news items" on your start menu.
"Glance" for Android puts "news items" on your lock screen.
Motorola's own version of this is on steroids and reinstalls itself after you disable it unless you use ADB.

These items open my eyes to a new and unfamiliar world for me.
I usually can't even identify the context of what they're talking about.
"Oh, A and B have escalated their feud? Who are they? Why should anyone care?"

[Cactus Chef]

Like most people in this thread, I am deeply skeptical of AI.

However, since I've started getting "AI summaries" in my news feed, I have noticed one positive thing they do: ignore the stupid clickbait article titles and tell me the actual thing.

It's hard to know whom to root for in this scenario. Because on the one, fuck AI. But on the other hand, fuck clickbait. I worry that AI will be the death knell of traditional media, but if the only media left already is clickbait articles, then I'm okay with it burning to the ground.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

However, since I've started getting "AI summaries" in my news feed, I have noticed one positive thing they do: ignore the stupid clickbait article titles and tell me the actual thing.

Which is great until they tell you outright lies. Over the weekend, ChatGPT's summaries insisted that the US invasion of Venezuela didn't happen. You can't trust the clickbait titles because they're designed to trick you, and you can't trust the thing that's supposed to cut through the clickbait titles because they're designed to show you what the operators want you to see rather than the truth. Which is to say, they're also designed to trick you.

[Cactus Chef]

Originally Posted by ratinox

Which is great until they tell you outright lies. Over the weekend, ChatGPT's summaries insisted that the US invasion of Venezuela didn't happen. You can't trust the clickbait titles because they're designed to trick you, and you can't trust the thing that's supposed to cut through the clickbait titles because they're designed to show you what the operators want you to see rather than the truth. Which is to say, they're also designed to trick you.

Possibly. But at least from what I've seen, it did a decent enough job to let me deduce what the article was about, and make a decision about whether to read it.

For example, here's a clickbait article that showed up in my news feed:
The Surprising Reason This Obscure Star Wars Game’s Price Has Quadrupled

Meanwhile, the Google News AI summarized it as (paraphrasing):
"Star Wars: Racer Revenge’s has skyrocketed in value because it contains a potential exploit for hacking the PS5."

That's not a classical newspaper headline, but it more closely follows the spirit of old headlines, which is to convey information, and let me decide whether I want to read more about it (I would), rather than the clickbait method of "Titillate the reader and withhold all useful information until they open the article."

[Renate]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

Like most people in this thread, I am deeply skeptical of AI.

I agree. It's certainly to the point that you can never believe a photo of anything.

I do notice that in my internet searches I tend to format my queries more often as a question now.
I do not mind AI if my question is "How do I get rid of <annoying feature> in <application>?"
It doesn't really matter if it gives me wrong or outdated info half the time.
If in five seconds it gives me something that might be worthwhile that's ok.

Thing thing is to keep up our distrust and skepticism as AI gets better.

[ownedbycats]

Startpage doesn't force AI on you