Don't get me started as well on how the iCloud plans jump from 200gb to 2TB with absolutely nothing in between. Apple really knows how to extort their customers!
That's not just an Apple thing though. Google does the same thing. Dropbox only offers 2TB plan. OneDrive is just as expensive but offers 1TB.
They are all counting on you not using all of that space in the 2TB plan. So the avg user is subsidizing the usage of some small fraction of power users. They don't want to offer pay-per-use pricing plans because then they would have to increase the price ($/GB/month) to keep their existing margins.
This is one of the very techniques under which the entire Apple Empire has been built. They take the "sweet spot" for $product and intentionally offer options on either side of that sweet spot. They also nerf the lower-end option in other ways (i.e. fewer ports) so to make the upgrade more enticing. This enables them to offer "Prices starting from...." that are dead-end options (like 8GB RAM or 128GB HD's).
Lots of companies do this across various industries. But it works best when the brand name is really strong and/or the competitive landscape is very weak.
I've grown to accept that it's just how they operate.
Neat, but sort of ironic their main product is an "AI clock" that takes an intrinsically human act, writing a poem, and pulls the human out of the loop.
It's nice that they explained the process to a bunch of kids, helping to de-mystify something quite abstract to many of us (where does all the stuff come from?).
I just think that perhaps we have over-indexed on STEM and this is a prime example of that. The article mentions talking about industrial designers, which is cool.
> I want these kids to become designers, engineers, inventors, factory owners, and all the rest.
but what about the poets?
It's the sort of thinking that I've seen all over tech, where people are so focused on/obsessed with using technology to solve problems they seem to forget and lose appreciation for all the people that make their lives possible and enjoyable.
Anyway, cool article but don't buy the slop-flinging e-waste please.
To make it worse, I feel like the idea is really good, but I have no clue why on earth this requires 'AI'
I've seen similar clocks (software) that work by just storing a bunch of quotes and sentences from all kinds of different literature and then randomly picking one to show (with credits)
You get the same effect and (bonus) you get exposed to some piece of art that you may not have known about before.
I get where you're coming from.
I think that the clock sounds dumb too.
But what makes life "possible and enjoyable" in the most mundane sort of way that every human being can agree with relies on STEM. Before that though is the role that religion has in making life possible and enjoyable in ways that are beyond cold reason and material exploits.
Amen. I don't really notice the AI speak, especially if the content makes sense like TFA.
But man am I tired of the "Too good to be made by a regular person, but too average in every way to be made by a graphic designer" [1] graphics. It's just so smarmy somehow, "hey isn't my article a blast with these slick graphics?"
I'm not quite sure what the correct term is for this scenario, in which LLMs are being forced upon people in many places that previously had human-to-human interaction, some of it coming from YC backed companies, while HN tries to insist that it's discussions should continue be human-to-human.
Having your cake and eating it too? NIMBYism?
If anything it reeks of privilege. It says that it's okay to spread slop on the world at large, just so long as it doesn't soil the precious orange website.
What's worse about all of this is dang is going to be in the middle of a religious war between the AI accusers and defenders on who is using AI to post. People that speak well because they sound like AI will be pissed. AI will just keep sounding more human. And the self-righteous that feel good when they call out a comment are going to be annoying as hell.
You're painting this as some sort of hypocrisy but I don't think that's the case. AI has infinite legitimate uses outside of creating slop. Lots of tools are used in the creation and distribution of slop - do we criticize all those other tools too? Do you like slop? Do you want it on the platforms you visit? Personally, I would prefer for AI companies to take the attitude that YCombinator has here and do their best to remove slop from their platforms. It's not hypocrisy - it's ethical business practice.
> but I'd say it still remains the most rock solid UNIX™ desktop OS out there
That doesn't mean that they aren't still constantly making it worse.
Apple themselves note that most of the new features in the OS are "design" and "apple intelligence". I really don't care for these features, so I don't really care to upgrade. Even on the Tahoe page, they note many of the features as updates to individual apps themselves, so why can't they just release those as individual app updates?
I'd rather have a solid OS with a UI that isn't re-imagined every other year with more focus on usability improvements and bug fixes. And as you note, it is one of the most solid UNIX™ desktop OS'.
So when Apple puts out a major update that I think is going in the wrong direction, how else should I signal my distaste? I sent feedback. I posted on their customer forums (which are a terrible place for discussion btw). Now I just want to not update, but they use dark patterns to try to force it on me. So I'm going to be more annoying and vocal about it because I think they can and should do better.
> But I think the more exciting fact is that we can probably expect LLMs to get a LOT cheaper in the next few years as the current investments in hardware begin to pay off
Stop giving money to the ghouls who run these companies (I'm talking about all of silicon valley) and start investing in entities and services to help real people. The human cost of this mass accumulation of wealth is already too damn high, and no we're just turbo throwing people into the meat grinder so clowns like Sam Altman can claim to be creating god.
How is an article that discusses the shortcomings of a mega corp vacuuming up competition, resulting in the majority of restaurant food being the same bland low quality stuff a union hit piece?
Maybe Sysco sucks and it's easy for the union to point out the same things about it? It seems pretty cut and dry that consolidation in many industries results in mediocre at best outcomes.
This whole thing feels like a neat encapsulated example of how horrible the "Internet" has become. A bad actor with vested interest taking over a part of a website (Reddit) that is then used as a source of record (Google, LLMs), and bam, completely fabricated overviews of a brand/company are now all you see when you use the predominant search engine, because there are no alternatives.
All of this for what? Shareholder value? So Silicon Valley elites can get rich and force their shit ideas on everyone?
If you don't see this for what it is, and that is just pure rot of the major services that people use and rely on for their information needs, then you might be beyond helping. Everyone should be pissed that this is what the internet has become.
Most people have only interacted with a late stage of the internet already sewed up into walled gardens.
I don't know if it will work but it would be nice to show folks what the alternatives might be, examples of your ideal internet, instead of insult a generation of folks who don't know what a forum or a bulletin board or a blogroll is.
The stuff you miss is still out there. You can do good by sharing it with those who don't know what they are missing.
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