Weird Al Yankovic Pulled Out of AI Ad Deal: 'I Can't Be the Poster Boy for AI'

I had noted a few weeks ago that Hacker News used a font without serifs, causing confusion. I'm not sure when they changed that, but there are now serifs on the capital I and lower case "l".

This headline is much less confusing for the change. Thanks.

HedonicEscal8r• 20 days ago

It depends on browser defaults. On Brave and Chrome, I don't see serifs, and on Firefox I do.

bitwize4• 20 days ago

There was a guy on TikTok whose daughter (~10 yo) had discovered a "Weird A.I." that could "take any song and make it funny".

DamnInteresting• 20 days ago

I was in my car with my seven-year-old when the Paul Simon song "You Can Call Me Al" started playing. She saw it pop up on the infotainment screen, and wanted to know why anybody would want to be called A.I. (our household has a low opinion of A.I., largely due to the unending firehose of slop aimed at children on YouTube).

Good song though.

busyant• 19 days ago

you'll like this https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/due-to-a-clerical-error-...

olivierestsage• 20 days ago

Best possible ad for Weird Al.

How did we get here? Why am I, a lifelong tech enthusiast, on a tech enthusiast board championing someone for resisting technology? I’ve been on HN for years but it’s starting to feel absurd ever since I’ve been out of sync with the whole AI thing. Thanks for listening to my Ted talk.

ares6232• 20 days ago

As is often repeated here, "technology is a force multiplier".

AI has been multiplying the wrong things (for the common people) at an amazing rate, while the good things it multiplies have been few, arguable, and lagging behind.

Usually to be enthusiastic about new tech, it needs to be the reverse. New tech that multiplies the "good things" first while the wrong things catch up later (see Internet, cars, commercial aviation, smartphones).

Sure, fellow software engineers who spend 8+ hours a day writing code see it as the opposite, since AI _is_ seen as doing the "good things" (i.e. writing code). But eventually the bad things will catch up with us too.

solenoid09372• 20 days ago

The general public has never been enthusiastic about new tech until well after the benefits start rolling in and are undeniably obvious. https://pessimistsarchive.org/

AI is no different. People like to think they have some special new insight as to why "it's bad this time!" but the average person has always reacted to change with FUD.

justinclift• 20 days ago

fellow software engineers who spend 8+ hours a day writing code see it as the opposite, since AI _is_ seen as doing the "good things"

Dunno about that. I work in writing infrastructure code (telco space), and while we do use Claude Code (Optus 4.8/Fable 5/etc) there still needs to be extremely thorough review and a close watch kept on its output.

AI generated code that's not carefully managed is not suitable for really important things. At least, not the stuff I've seen it generate so far both for my colleagues and myself.

bitwize4• 20 days ago

There's a meme that goes:

Person A: I'm a tech enthusiast! I have the latest smartphone, smartwatch, smart car, smart TV, smart home... all networked together and automated to make my daily life easier.

Person B: I work in tech. The last piece of tech I bought is a printer from 2004, and I keep a loaded gun nearby in case it starts acting funny.

Once you understand how the sausage is made and what the incentives are, you become very suspicious of every hot new tech integration that comes along.

But humans just don't write commercial software anymore. Don't expect to keep doing that for a living.

altairprime3• 20 days ago

Please don’t be sweepingly dismissive of people by framing like this. Printers lack mobility and firearms would only activate their defensive ink cloud reflexes, as every expert office IT worker knows (including you!). So the group B you’re describing is being portrayed as both excessively paranoid and blatantly incompetent in order to dismiss the views of tech experts that reject A.I. and support your own claim that they’re, to paraphrase your intent in last century’s terms, ‘dinosaurs’. That’s not a respectable form of rhetoric and your use of it paints both you and group A, the one whose beliefs you’re trying to promote, with a broad brush of skeptical disbelief.

karahime• 20 days ago

This has always been just a meme. Plenty of the people I know who know the most about tech are also very excited about it. Person B in this example is often miserable for a lot of other reasons that have nothing to do with tech, doesn't understand tech as deeply as the meme suggests, and pattern matches cynicism into everything.

hdgvhicv• 20 days ago

HN is full of people who are far more on the “enthusiast” side than the cynical greybeard side.

Sohcahtoa822• 20 days ago

I will never understand some smart appliances.

Like...a smart TV so you don't need a second device to play your streaming services? I kinda understand, though I think it's a silly move. If my Fire TV stick gets deprecated, I can buy a new one for under $50. If my TV itself gets deprecated, I'm spending $1500+ for a new one. But like...the number of people who have their heads in the sand when it comes to pervasive ads being injected by their TV is appalling.

But why does anybody need a smart washer (either clothes or dishes)? I need to be physically there to load it. There's literally nothing to be gained by having an app. Sure, sometimes I want a delayed start for whatever reason, but literally every washer already has that function without an app.

I don't even see the purpose of WiFi-connected light bulbs. The only time I'm turning a light on or off is when I'm entering or leaving the room, in which case I'm passing by the light switch anyways.

buggy6257• 20 days ago

My favorite response to this was a fellow dev who immediately replied “you let your printer near a GUN?!”

zem• 20 days ago

I think cory doctorow had the best lens through which to view the issue: "who does this technology do things for and who does it do them to?"

even tech enthusiasts can see that a major chunk of the populace is increasingly falling on the "to" side, so championing resistance makes a lot of sense.

somat• 20 days ago

Generated content has a real duality to it. I would describe it as It feels great to use. It feels terrible to have it used on you.

Very few people appear happy to receive generated content. It is fun to make however.

We as a society will probably figure this out(and look back fondly on the days of real handcrafted artisanal writing) but for now there is a lot of tension between the two sides.

I know I loose all interest in a thing when I learn it is generated.

qsxfthnkp23222• 20 days ago

Take the money while it’s still there.

galleywest2002• 20 days ago

Nah, he turned down alcohol ads in the past too. Id rather he retain his legitimacy and morals.

Sohcahtoa822• 20 days ago

He has a career that's spanned over 45 years and has managed to avoid controversy.

The man's a saint.

olyjohn• 20 days ago

This is the attitude that is ruining everything.

qsxfthnkp23222• 19 days ago

In five to ten years we all are going to be wishing we took the money.

Weird Al Yankovic Pulled Out of AI Ad Deal: 'I Can't Be the Poster Boy for AI'

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