Tech you miss/ new tech trends you hate - ok boomers

[888Flux]

Computer speech should sound like stereotypical robots,

For real. The uncanny ML speech synthesis stuff like ElevenLabs or Suno or whatever is just so uncomfortable to listen to. I hate it.

There's also a huge psychological impact. Have you heard of the ELIZA effect? All the way back in 1966 a researcher at MIT developed one of the first "AI chatbots" that was really just a bunch of if / then logic and canned responses.

Nonetheless, people he would recruit for the experiment would talk to it as if it was a real person and engage for hours despite the fact the program had literally no understanding of what the user was even inputting.

LLMs are this times 10x. Add in something like realistic almost-human sounding voices and you've multiplied it by 100x. Normalfags are dumb and even now with the current state of machine learning people think it's like an actual sentient program talking to them. You can't explain to them what a token is.

At least if it was something like a vocoded robot voice like from a movie, normalfags would understand that they are talking to a computer program that's fallible. People trust ChatGPT and similar far too much because they literally think it's a person and not a token predictor. Maybe that's an interesting plot device to explain why they sound like that in media set in the future?

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Have you heard of the ELIZA effect?

Yep. Even made a post on a vid about that.

Speaking of LLMs contributing to the competency crisis, Truthstream Media did a documentary on the "Eliza Effect":

 

[Thiletonomics]

Chinese companies also decided to ripoff Japanese "smart toilets" by making their own, but their poor quality has led to issues like burning people with hot water, or even catching fire like how other Chinese electronics like smartphones, watches, power banks, and EVs do:

And what's even more funny is that toilets can catch fire in The Sims 4, but it turned out to happen IRL too:

 

[I was a Teenage “JA”-man]

Whatever the hell is instagram’s newest update, when I follow people I want to see their content not some buttfuck’s ai slop it gets worse every time

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Nobody does anything anymore. They just look at screens.

That crap is what mainly contributes to that feeling that real life is getting "cancelled" by "social media" on "smartphones" -- and that "Internet Of Things" -- these days.

catching fire like how other Chinese electronics

That is another tech trend I diss. Those ubiquitous bombs rechargeable batteries in new electronics. And also making things "smart" that don't need to be such. Like toilets.

 

[Lobster Cult High Priest]

Whatever the hell is instagram’s newest update, when I follow people I want to see their content not some buttfuck’s ai slop it gets worse every time

Instagram's feed is broken ever since they moved away from chronological timeline and moved to Top posts (which are just ads and slop)

Also feels like they put an ad between every story / post now. Absolute lunacy.

 

[Thiletonomics]

I miss when PCMCIA cards and card slots were a thing on laptops. Those were the closest thing to PCI slots for laptops, and sadly laptops have enshittified to the point that components like RAM and hard drives are now SOLDERED in and cannot be replaced easily.

 

[Cave Fisher]

For real. The uncanny ML speech synthesis stuff like ElevenLabs or Suno or whatever is just so uncomfortable to listen to. I hate it.

There's also a huge psychological impact. Have you heard of the ELIZA effect? All the way back in 1966 a researcher at MIT developed one of the first "AI chatbots" that was really just a bunch of if / then logic and canned responses.
View attachment 8049319
Nonetheless, people he would recruit for the experiment would talk to it as if it was a real person and engage for hours despite the fact the program had literally no understanding of what the user was even inputting.

LLMs are this times 10x. Add in something like realistic almost-human sounding voices and you've multiplied it by 100x. Normalfags are dumb and even now with the current state of machine learning people think it's like an actual sentient program talking to them. You can't explain to them what a token is.

At least if it was something like a vocoded robot voice like from a movie, normalfags would understand that they are talking to a computer program that's fallible. People trust ChatGPT and similar far too much because they literally think it's a person and not a token predictor. Maybe that's an interesting plot device to explain why they sound like that in media set in the future?
View attachment 8049355

I miss when I was a kid and really thought there would be walking robots you could talk to by the time I grew up, or at least have pet Wall-Es or Medabots by now, but the only notable efforts at "AI" these days are grifts, surveillance tools, LLMs that are dumber than Cleverbot, or all of the above.

 

[Big Fish]

Instead of the Serif shop, you now see this:


I'm scared and pissed off. Affinity Designer really is a good piece of software. Why can't I have just one nice thing?

Rate me rainbows, but I really hope that Canva won't go full Adobe and shove subscriptionshit and AI down our throats.
Recently, I really wanted to save some money and support the Affinity suite, but seeing this shit makes me want to sail the seven seas. Either that, or sticking to good ol' Gimp.

 

[jray4559]

Rate me rainbows, but I really hope that Canva won't go full Adobe and shove subscriptionshit and AI down our throats.
Recently, I really wanted to save some money and support the Affinity suite, but seeing this shit makes me want to sail the seven seas. Either that, or sticking to good ol' Gimp.

Just stick with GIMP. You can never be fucked over by a corporation changing their product if you can just go back to the earlier version and live with it until the silicon dies. Cloud services, or really anything stuck behind a corporation, always run the risk of the devil popping up and stabbing you.

 

[The14thPrime]

I miss when PCMCIA cards and card slots were a thing on laptops. Those were the closest thing to PCI slots for laptops, and sadly laptops have enshittified to the point that components like RAM and hard drives are now SOLDERED in and cannot be replaced easily.

100% Having user repairable and upgradable laptops should be the norm.
Mass production of products was supposed to create individual components that when assembled made a functional product.
I don't think it's profit that they are after with that.
Being able to replace a single component and continue to make a product function is cheaper than making a whole new product from scratch.

Companies fail to realize their reputation and reliability is a part of the transaction.
Reliable companies will get more sales than companies that are unreliable, given a reasonable difference in price.

The only thing we are still missing is a repairable battery tech.
Batteries are the one thing that is not recommended to repair on your own, or even with the correct tools as far as I know.

 

[Unintelligence Score]

"Send us a picture of your face or your passport to use the service"

Is fedposting still discouraged on this site?

 

[Cave Fisher]

I've never touched Windows 11 until a few days ago I was helping someone set up their new laptop, and MAN it sucked more than I was expecting. I SWEAR a majority of the process was having to click "no" to like twenty different ads and surveillance features from Microsoft, waiting hours for it to fully finish, then having to manually turn off safe mode to actually download anything.

 

[AnOminous]

I've never touched Windows 11 until a few days ago I was helping someone set up their new laptop, and MAN it sucked more than I was expecting. I SWEAR a majority of the process was having to click "no" to like twenty different ads and surveillance features from Microsoft, waiting hours for it to fully finish, then having to manually turn off safe mode to actually download anything.

This isn't actually that new (other than the OS itself being malware and adware). As early as XP, especially the crappy pre-SP2 ones, I remember you'd have to install offline because if you did it online, you'd be infected by some bullshit before you could even install the latest security updates. It was pretty solid after SP2 but much like 95, had a really rocky early period.

You'd think they'd have fixed this kind of problem that has been around for ages, and I'd bet having to manually turn off safe mode is specifically to avoid that "so full of holes it gets infected instantly" thing.

Also things being made of metal (miss) instead of plastic (hate). I have a Whirlpool washing machine (not actually by choice) that has had three or four bullshit plastic things break in ridiculous ways. Whenever I go part hunting to replace them, the replacements are metal, while also having considerably lower prices than the "official" bullshit plastic.

Same with a Corvette my dad had. The gears for the popup headlights were plastic and one of them got stripped (despite infrequent use). The replacement pair were metal, like they should have been in the first place.

 

[BeckhoffAX5702]

Its been mentioned few times here, but look at this fucking thing. It's fucking miserable to drive these cars on unlit roads, can't see shit in the dark with all those screens glaring at my peripheral vision.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

>be ToroidalBoat
>needed to know something about a service
>called the number
>greeted by a perky-sounding "AI assistant"
>it asks how "she" can help
>(no way it would know the correct answer)
>[in monotone voice] "Speak to agent."
>the "assistant" asks if it can help with anything else
>[in monotone voice] "No."
>transferred to an actual person
>she responds in thick-accented English that she needs to transfer me to another line
>endlessly on hold with annoying music and annoying pre-recorded claims I can use a nonfunctional website

At least I use a real landline phone with a loudspeaker. Couldn't imagine using a "smartphone" limited battery for the loudspeaker. Or having to be on hold, the stupid thing next to my head for that long. Still wonder how "normies" even like using the things to make calls, much less using them seemingly almost every waking moment for everything.

 

[Thiletonomics]

View attachment 8074822

Its been mentioned few times here, but look at this fucking thing. It's fucking miserable to drive these cars on unlit roads, can't see shit in the dark with all those screens glaring at my peripheral vision.

I did mention this before, but if you thought this was bad, then the screen madness that is Chinese cars will give you an aneurysm, since they have even less physical controls too since most of it is funneled into the GIANT ASS SCREEN:

Exeed Exlantix E05


Xpeng X9


BYD Qin L DM-i


Zeekr X


GWM Tank 400 PHEV


Thanks a fucking lot Elon.

 

[KRAINOS]

I forgot I had a little graveyard of iPods in my old room at my parents' place. Those things were fun, These days I just use whatever that LG phone with the good DAC was as an "ipod" if I feel the mood.

EDIT: Any ipod nerds here do any modding? I was on the ipod wizard forums. I remember I had an OG ipod video, the SD card adapter inside. and the custom OS that supported flac and shit, good times.

 

[jeff7989]

I'm not a fan of putting screens everywhere either but let's not be too dishonest. Those should have ambient light sensors for automatic brightness and night mode. My car dims backlight of cluster and all secondary screens by itself and it's not that new either.

 

[Soso]

I did mention this before, but if you thought this was bad, then the screen madness that is Chinese cars will give you an aneurysm, since they have even less physical controls too since most of it is funneled into the GIANT ASS SCREEN:

Exeed Exlantix E05
View attachment 8076284

Xpeng X9
View attachment 8076286

BYD Qin L DM-i
View attachment 8076289

Zeekr X
View attachment 8076291

GWM Tank 400 PHEV
View attachment 8076295

Thanks a fucking lot Elon.

I miss the physical buttons, everything is a touchpad now