The blame for this falls squarely on the politics surrounding education fads. We abandon the boring things that work in favor for the new exciting crap that doesn't. And it's not because anyone really thinks it works, but because there are billions behind the new crap.
Parental apathy factors into this as well, no doubts.
We know what works, so ask yourself why we aren't using it.
Your right to operate a business based on lies is not constitutionally protected. Of course our judiciary has been sucking capitalist cock for so long that they are no longer capable of impartiality.
And MS should be forced to allow activation of XP. If I have a legal copy then I should be able to install it. Microsoft is the one that coded up the hoops we had to jump through, so they ought to be liable for supporting that process indefinitely or remove that activation behavior.
It's also toxic if you ingest or inhale or touch it. People are used to the risks of gasoline, or complacent. Nice thing about lithium batteries is that you won't have to inhale the fumes every morning while stuck in traffic. (Only solution to traffic jams is bikes, buses, and trains. EVs won't solve that quality of life issue)
My tablet is an N350 (Star Labs StarLite), roughly in the same ballpark as N100 and N150. It's enough to play on dndbeyond. But whatever you considered "very capable" does not align what I consider barely capable.
I stand by my OP that it's a piece of crap. And that it's not about AI but about getting compromised hardware into your home.
Except it's too low spec to play games or do any heavy browsing. So it becomes a foot-in-the-door for an AI agent to snoop your home networks and copy your personal information. For the low low price of $399. Plus whatever you will need to pay to Anthropic, OpenAI, etc to actually have access to their APIs when free tiers disappear next year.
And what about the computer that was used to write to the floppies?
"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!"
— Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), Dane-geld, Stanzas 5-6
There is a good reason that law "law enforcement agencies around the world" advise again paying cyber criminals. And it isn't because law enforcement is dumb, or that they like seeing you getting your data stolen.
I remember perhaps 20 years ago, some futurists were predicting that most of the time we'd interact with agents. That we'd each have our own personal assistant to curate and present us the information we need. This particular interview (sorry, I don't remember who it was) used the example that an agent would put together your daily newspaper specifically for you from multiple sources. I thought it seemed like kind of a stupid idea...
What Digg and others don't realize is that websites will be dead in 10 years. At least sites that people regularly visit for content. Nobody will visit them directly. Everything will be curated behind app stores and AI will present summaries. Even YouTube isn't safe.
The question I have here is based on what?
Based on my analysis of their needs and what AI can deliver. I agree that it's management's job to increase efficiency and output, but change for change's sake is never good. For instance, in the examples above I *knew* what AI would deliver. I told them, in no uncertain terms, what product they'd receive. They still made the decision to push ahead ( and I'm more than willing to cash that check ). I can see, objectively and by any metric, that what was delivered is a worse customer experience than what they had before.
However, because it's "AI", that makes it acceptable. The buzzword has effectively disabled the rational and critical thinking parts of this management's teams brains. Of course I have seen this before ( First rule of IT: Vendors lie, Second rule of IT: Managers believe them ), but to this extent? Especially in smaller businesses, where margins are tighter. For what they're paying for this AI solution ( ha, "solution" ), they could afford to hire another staff member; another person on the phones, and far more capable than AI in delivering the ultimate product ( caring for the patient ).
Mind you; I pointed all this out to them. They know the math, but they are so...enamored with AI that it doesn't mean anything to them. Meanwhile, patients and staff hate it.
I'm sure there's AI use cases out there which deliver a decent ROI. What I'm seeing in the field, however, is management hysteria for the latest thing at a scale I've never before experienced.
I shouldn't complain, it's paying extremely well, but I know this will all come crashing down at some point.
Trump is doing all in his power to fight for the little guy including stopping foreign H1B1 Visa holders.
The democrats care about the foreignors. Not us!
I've been through more than a few technology cycles, so while I don't necessary disagree with you, the scale of the disconnect between the worker bees and management is more significant than I ever remember.
It's becoming exceedingly difficult to dissuade management from AI courses of action, even when they make no sense or will end up delivering a substandard product for significantly higher cost.
For instance, I just had a client implement an AI auto-attendant for a medical office. Were they having difficulties answer the phone in a timely manner? No. Do they anticipate a staffing shortage that would cause such an issue? No. Will the auto-attendant be able to accomplish what a regular worker can? No. In fact, it can pretty much only answer the phone and find someone for the caller to talk to.
But by god, management had to have it. So, for an extra 2000 a month they get a middle man that delays delivering service to patients. Management loves it. Folks answering the calls hate it because the patients hate it.
Different office asked about AI curated music. Another client asked about replacing our network monitoring software with AI so their IT staff can stop working after hours. They both will end up getting their wish, and at least in the case of the network monitoring solution it's going to cause so many issues I'm having them sign a waiver before I implement; I won't be held responsible when the AI agent is rebooting servers randomly because it thinks they're offline.
More than any other IT fad over the past 2 decades, I've noticed AI has really divided "decision makers" and "makers/workers". Those of us in the trenches making things work are highly skeptical of AI and treat it much as we have any other "flash in the pan" technology; weary, willing to test/play with it, but disbelieving of the hype.
The decision makers though...whoooboy, they've bought into the tech hook, line and sinker. They want AI everything, even in places it makes no sense. They can't define what they want AI to do, or how it's supposed to do it, but by god they will sign away millions of dollars in pursuit of their golden cow.
The only time I really saw anything like this was with "Teh Cloudz!", but even then it was tempered by practicality. AI? It's magic beans, all the way down.
Jensen Huang to college grads: "Run. Don't walk" toward AI
https://www.axios.com/2026/05/...
Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang told graduates at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh yesterday that demand for AI infrastructure is creating a "once-in-a-generation opportunity to reindustrialize America and restore the nation's capacity to build."
Why it matters: With many college grads fearing AI could obliterate their career dreams, Huang pointed to boundless opportunity as a "new industry is being born. A new era of science and discovery is beginning
Nvidia, which makes AI chips, is the world's most valuable company. Huang told 5,800 recipients of undergraduate and graduate degrees that the AI buildout will require plumbers, electricians, ironworkers, and builders for chip factories, data centers and advanced manufacturing facilities.
"No generation has entered the world with more powerful tools â" or greater opportunities â" than you," he said. "We are all standing at the same starting line. This is your moment to help shape what comes next. So run. Don't walk."
"Every major technological revolution in history created fear alongside opportunity," Huang added. "When society engages technology openly, responsibly, and optimistically, we expand human potential far more than we diminish it."
Full speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Do you suffer painful elimination? -- Don Knuth, "Structured Programming with Gotos"
