this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2025
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The onrushing AI era was supposed to create boom times for great gadgets. Not long ago, analysts were predicting that Apple Intelligence would start a “supercycle” of smartphone upgrades, with tons of new AI features compelling people to buy them. Amazon and Google and others were explaining how their ecosystems of devices would make computing seamless, natural, and personal. Startups were flooding the market with ChatGPT-powered gadgets, so you’d never be out of touch. AI was going to make every gadget great, and every gadget was going to change to embrace the AI world.

This whole promise hinged on the idea that Siri, Alexa, Gemini, ChatGPT, and other chatbots had gotten so good, they’d change how we do everything. Typing and tapping would soon be passé, all replaced by multimodal, omnipresent AI helpers. You wouldn’t need to do things yourself; you’d just tell your assistant what you need, and it would tap into the whole world of apps and information to do it for you. Tech companies large and small have been betting on virtual assistants for more than a decade, to little avail. But this new generation of AI was going to change things.

There was just one problem with the whole theory: the tech still doesn’t work. Chatbots may be fun to talk to and an occasionally useful replacement for Google, but truly game-changing virtual assistants are nowhere close to ready. And without them, the gadget revolution we were promised has utterly failed to materialize.

In the meantime, the tech industry allowed itself to be so distracted by these shiny language models that it basically stopped trying to make otherwise good gadgets. Some companies have more or less stopped making new things altogether, waiting for AI to be good enough before it ships. Others have resorted to shipping more iterative, less interesting upgrades because they have run out of ideas other than “put AI in it.” That has made the post-ChatGPT product cycle bland and boring, in a moment that could otherwise have been incredibly exciting. AI isn’t good enough, and it’s dragging everything else down with it.

Archive link: https://archive.ph/spnT6

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[–] PeteWheeler@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I just don't get why they haven't put AI in the already established 'assistants' yet.

Why isn't siri or google home not integrated? Why make new things instead of improving the tech you already have?

If I had to guess, its either because of branding, or because they know it doesn't work that well yet. Probably both.

[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This has been a huge let down. Thought at the very least home assistants which are marginally useful could become less infuriating with an intelligence boost, but not at all. I'd be happy if I could simply upload a damn 64 Kb thesaurus at this point to my alexa so she would not ignore everything I say if I don't remember the exact right commands.

[–] earphone843@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Sounds like you should check out Homeassistant.

[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah maybe. Switching infrastructure would be a headache and expensive though. Last I checked the off the shelf versions which is how I would want to start at least didn't have wifi capability. Is there a turnkey version that does now?

[–] earphone843@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

Yeah, ODROID partnered with them to create an off the shelf product. It's pretty pricy, though, but honestly you could run it on a pi 3b+ for pretty cheap.

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[–] DogEarBookmark@reddthat.com 9 points 1 day ago

A whole generation of basically disposable devices at that

[–] dditty@lemm.ee 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Someone should just sue Apple for false advertising at this point. Apple "Intelligence" is utterly useless in its current form.

[–] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

But it can make custom emoji! 🫨 That alone is worth the hundreds of millions Apple spent.

[–] venotic@kbin.melroy.org 6 points 1 day ago

AI is about as useful as when there was a movement to take away human assistants to troubleshoot issues and replacing them all with centralized hubs. These hubs are built with the assumption that they will answer everything and anything people have a concern with. However, their fundamental flaw is that they don't cover every base and people are left with limited options. They can forget it and just live with it. They can just go through a few more hoops until they're talking with a human.

And this kind of over-reliance on AI is what will turn people off from it. I'm seeing AI implemented in places where nobody asked it for it to be implemented in. Whereas, there are missed opportunities for AI to be implemented in but aren't for some reason.

AI in of itself isn't an entirely bad thing. It is just once again, another great idea, ruined by blind executors in big tech that just don't get it.

[–] upandup@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

My iPhone 14 Pro has no AI and still works as wonderfully well as it did the first day I bought it. And I know that on iOS, you can simply disable the AI element.

But, yeah, the “promise of AI” was always bullshit.

[–] qupada@fedia.io 3 points 1 day ago

Even for devices that will stand the test of time on their own, they're still being unnecessarily modified by the addition of extra nonsense to support AI boondoggles.

I was talking to our company's account manager from one major PC manufacturer, he agreed that a generation of laptops with a likely-to-be-useless-in-future Copilot button permanently emblazoned on their keyboard will really date this era.

The computers themselves will be fine - they have some extraneous hardware but that doesn't really detract from their usability - but there's a better than even chance that logo will exist as a reminder long after memories of what it was supposedly for begin to fade.

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