Oskar Howell: Tech Commentator on the increasing prevalence of AI

AI is in everything - and it's giving us a lot of stuff we don't need.

Personally, I am sick to death of AI in everything, from phones and computers to TVs and fridges now.

The problem isn't the helpful AI that you can choose to use like ChatGPT and Midjourney, it's the annoying ones that they're installing without asking on our technology, like Copilot on Microsoft, Gemini on Google, Meta AI on Facebook, Grok on Twitter, etc

They're unavoidable and inconvenient and they're almost never fit for purpose. You can't actually rely on them to provide accurate info or do what you want them to. You can't delete Gemini from your Android smartphone so it's taking up space for nothing. I have a particular gripe about Facebook Meta AI, where the button is inconveniently positioned right next to the search button.

Everyone wants to be on the cutting edge of tech and position themselves as thought leaders, and that means forcing AI into consumer technology that no one's asking for. I don't think it reflects how normal tech consumers think or act - we don't want to automate our lives, we just want things to make sense, be as they were when we left them, and if you're launching new features, let us choose when and where we want to use them.

We're in a tricky phase of AI adoption, where extensive and expensive investment has been made into the development of AI tools. Many big tech companies are now looking to justify that investment, by inserting the tools into just about everything there is.

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