WallowC_33

Given all the other points in life where, despite my awareness, I don't have much choice, how is an AI just directing me really any different?

My culture, education and skills limit what work I can do.

Our culture places limits on a vast number of experiences. On the road and the only thing is fast food? Welp, eating fast food. Live somewhere that only has one grocery store or cable provider?

I don't really see AI in the form Google is peddling as really all that much different. We're just 'more aware' that the world around us is really guiding us.

I may be somewhere new, and can only see the immediate surroundings without a lot of exploring. And let's be real, in the US, most cities are the same when it comes to restaurants/hotels and such. There are differences in culture but we don't usually see them if we're just visiting. Not in a way that matters.

Google will let me know that the things I prefer back home? there are equivalents nearby.

Fencing ourselves in is what we do. Who knows, perhaps a digital assistant would help us stick to our personal goals and decisions better. Rather than just having to accept what's there.

The details can vary wildly between regions.

For example, early-90s, me growing up in the sticks. Poor people were busted for growing/selling pot. It was reasonably their only choice, there were no jobs. 19 year old gets his car confiscated, and loses his job. Has no way to support his new wife/baby. It just happened to be at the house where the pot was being grown. He did not live there. This kid gets hit with a felony, now he'll never get a job.

Meanwhile, 20 year old son of local construction company owner gets his plants confiscated, and a few hundred in tickets.

Everyone involved here was white. Judge, poor family growing pot, and the family that owned the construction company. The only difference is poor rednecks versus rich rednecks.

Should probably read the posters profile

Answers:

https://github.com/Azure/azure-cli/wiki/Motivation

I tend to lean on the "Do people feel that way? Or are we told to feel that way?"

Let's not pretend we're making our decisions on these things in some kind of vacuum.

We're battered with "buy this, support the economy, drive your car" propaganda. How much of the 24/7 news cycle is dedicated to intelligently discussing the environment? Not much.

How much is spent detailing what companies are up, which ones are down, and oh shit did you hear about BrAngelina getting divorced? We're told that is the important stuff and let others worry about this other stuff.

It's too hard for me to accept that we have a democracy that actually cares about the concerns of the people. It all just feels like a ballot stuffed online poll.

Interestingly, despite Thinkpads being the best at running Linux over the years, they never officially supported it. At some point they began cracking down on it.

At last job, we had to wipe machines back to the version of Windows that came with them in order to get Lenovo to honor the NBD support we paid for, even when it was obviously not a software glitch (displays dying or DVD drives not reading discs in any OS). We kept a couple spare hard drives around with vanilla Windows installs for this reason.

We were pretty excited when Dell started shipping their Developer models. Told Lenovo to pound sand when it came time to refresh.

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