@stux there's tons of different kinds of AI, so it really depends. Like AI to play chess against? Yes please. AI for portrait mode photos? I like it. AI to replace my search engine? Absolutely not. There's a lot of AI already present on people's phones that they don't really think about that is genuinely useful and not harmful. It just depends on what kind of AI you're talking about and how it's being used.
@stux it's already here, sort of. But not particularly, however I just got the Samsung Tab S9 Ultra and it's AI features are really impressive. It used to be that only Photoshop had the ability to take the subject from a photo and manipulate it, but now you can just take any image, hold it, and remove the background or bring out the subject and save it as a .PNG or make it a sticker to re-use whenever. So there are some aspects that are helpful and not especially invasive. But as others mentioned, I don't see a huge use for generative imaging.
I will say, there was one day where I used voice-chat with ChatGPT on my phone, and treated it like I was on a phonecall. Asking questions, having regular conversations. It was actually pretty interesting, and I didn't feel like it was taking me away from my surroundings but made it so that I could get more information if I wanted to
@stux Tbh it depends on what kind of AI.
A small local LLM as a smarter auto correct? Yes please!
Image desctiption through AI as an assistive technologie? Great idea!
An AI "Assistant" to "speak" to or to generate images for me? No.
I especially don't want a fucking dedicated button for that
@stux I have mixed feelings. On one hand, it would REALLY improve Siri. On the other hand, practically all AI at the moment is problematic, and there's no reason why Apple's attempt would be any different.
@stux I impulsively voted "no" thinking of LLMs, but... it depends? some of the offline, machine learning-based stuff that Apple does is quite impressive, like being able to search your photo gallery for text on pictures. I stick to a degoogled Android ROM with mostly FOSS apps, but things like that one do make me jealous just a little bit.
any ChatGPT-enabled assistant and the like can eff right off, though.
@stux I asked someone something similar a few days ago.
What point is too far and we really do push back into the flip phone?
Can we even do that anymore? Are the networks still viable?
Verizon a long time ago, forced me into a smart phone. They said it was a requirement because of tower coverage. This was a hundred years ago back into the iPhone 2 or 4 at least. Probably 10yrs or more?
I use my smart phone like crazy but with the amount of overreach that is constantly happening from every avenue - I certainly don't know how much longer I can justify it.
@mentallyalex@stux Verizon are a bunch of bastards when it comes to devices they'll allow on their network. T-Mobile will let pretty much anything that'll take a SIM card on theirs so long as it supports 4G
I'm curious about the infrastructure though. T-Mobile will let pretty much anything for now but what happens when maintaining legacy hardware becomes too costly?
As the markets push from corporations to "innovate or die" by moving models slightly, feature set groupings and underlying programming - the infrastructure costs are going to become difficult.
Keeping "4G" and "5G" and whenever 6,7,8, etc. and other networks running in parallel is going to become prohibitively costly. So I suspect companies to push back on consumers and demand they 'stay current' by removing support for the older technology. Landlines come to mind... in that they barely exist anymore.
Can older non-AI intruded technology like the Nokia 5100s and other indestructible devices join and operate as phone/text devices going forward?
@mentallyalex@stux I believe 2G still exists as a fallback but 3G is being phased out. The same process will continue but it would probably take a decade or more for devices that came with a new technology to no longer be supported on the network
@stux Exactly - who the hell wants a four year old taking over their phone.
That said AI will wreak havoc in the workplace. Social welfare states like the Nordic countries will cope. The Unregulated Free for All countries will flounder. The opioid crisis is going to look tame by comparison.
@stux I like the idea of a dumb phone, and I spent a good amount to time thinking about buying a Nokia 800 (the TOUGH one).
My problem is that 4G on my home network is getting less reliable every day, as 5G takes over some of the available spectrum. And none of the feature phones have 5G chipsets (yet).
I’d also like it to be FOSS, of course, but my iPhone isn’t, so I’m not going backwards.
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