it’s short sighted, because an ai chat bot that can answer basic surface level questions 24/7 should absolutely be more cost effective than having staff field the same questions. You can have half of them be the escalation point and assign different work to the other half. For the population of NYC this is the right approach.

However I would accept that the previous administration was corrupt and overpaid an incompetent contractor. Mamdani should restart the project, not scrap it.

Franctario!

The article mainly points out a Chinese AI kid toy for spouting chinese propaganda. I mean, obviously?

Their examples from the more popular mainstream toys was that it doesn’t prevent explaining how to light a match and how to sharpen a knife. Neither if those are that ridiculous. If a kid knows to ask they probably old enough to figure it out.

I’m not following. People may prefer cheap to expensive but that does not mean they are desperate.

The option isn’t just cheap or expensive therapy. No therapy is as much an option if the therapy quality was 90s level machine chat bot.

Why is it exactly a problem that people have an extra avenue to better mental well being?

Believe it or not AI results are doing fine, which is why people use it.

Yes they will produce some funny/tragic results that are both memeable and newsworthy, but by and large they do what they are asked.

If the results were poor you wouldn’t have adoption and your AI problem is solved.

We have had chat bots since the late 90s. No one used them for therapy.

For some people, paying with their data is a lot cheaper than paying for therapy or religion. I do not fault them for this, especially if they are getting similar results.

Why? Is it somehow better to go to an actual church or pay someone to confide in?

People using technology to fill a need on the company’s funds is not the worst thing in the world.

AI is good and cheap now because businesses are funding it at a loss, so not sure what you mean here.

The problem is that it’s cheap, so that anyone can make whatever they want and most people make low quality slop, hence why it’s not “good” in your eyes.

Making a cheap or efficient AI doesn’t help the end user in any way.

Big companies are subject to constant audits. You, too, can check their balance sheets that are released and scrutinize the numbers.

While you may personally dislike MS products, most of the world’s businesses and governments run on them. That’s licensing money every month without fail. They can literally charge whatever they want because companies with staff want Office and Windows Server backend.

Why is this a shit post? This is like straight out of Silicon Valley.

It’s not that relevant if, prior to the man performing multiple nazi salutes, we already knew he was a full blown fascist.