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.

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.

"Shot themselves in the foot" is relative; it was never about sustainability. It's about extracting the most they can as fast as they can, then selling the dregs at a discount.

That includes pursuing legal action against other vendors once their cash cow starts drying up.

One might be left with the impression that this is the goal.

There are two issues I have with Ceph:

1) management complexity. Proxmox is pretty easy to manage, very little to surprised a seasoned admin. Ceph, while easy to implement, can be deceptively difficult to administrate if something goes sideways. I usually recommend small businesses avoid it if at all possible.

2) SANs are often faster. Ceph has enough overhead to be noticable.

That said, it is a very nice feature and well worth learning how to administrate if you're already a linux admin. If you are going to use ceph, I highly stress at least a dedicated 10g network JUST for ceph.

We are obligated to ignore stupid laws. To mock them, to flaunt them and ultimately get them removed.

We are not sheep.

Everyone's (rightfully) bitching about this, and I agree, but none of that solves the problem.

What's the alternative? Give me a TV brand that gives you, ideally, a dumb TV, but alternatively a decent smart TV that is easy to work with.

Responsiveness is an important, and often overlooked, characteristic. It's important.

Brand/model recommendations; go!

The bots are the most interesting part of reddit. It's fascinating to me what foreign actors want us thinking or believing.

It's not like the organic reddit content has any value. This will be like the time onlyfans pretended they were going to get rid of porn.

Since when has "Free speech on the platform" been a consideration for either Alphabet OR Meta?

You think they'll take the loss out of the goodness of their hearts? Absolute bullshit; at most they'll shuffle the numbers around so it's hard to trace how it's being passed on to the consumer or local community.

Remember when "Think of the children" was a phrase which was rightly mocked as manipulative and only fooled the smoothest of the smooth brains who couldn't think beyond their emotional reaction?

Now it's a battle cry that suckers in millions.

Am I the only one who misses the pixel 2? It felt like the best phone. I was/am a huge fan of the rear finger print reader, and I must have been one of the few that used the squeeze functionality.

Every later version of the pixel is fine, but has felt like a step down from the 2.

Your strange obsession with comparing poor people to wild animals notwithstanding, there are plenty of valid considerations with the government being involved with free food for kids.

First of all, despite what many here might believe, I do not believe any child should go to bed hungry. In fact, quite the opposite; I believe every child should have quality, nutritious food. I simply doubt the government's ability to do so, a fear that is not without basis.

You have this almost..magical...belief in the competency of the government to provide food to all kids. I find this to be laughable, dangerously so, particularly when paired with the billions associated with such an endeavor.

I never said anything about "poor" people; in fact, I suspect those who would most take advantage of such programs to be middle class folks. You are woefully ignorant of the situation if you think it's just "poor" people.

The underlying point, of course, is that the food we serve these children would be garbage, inherent in the "lowest bidder" process inherent in the government process. How do I know? Because they currently serve trash at our schools to our children.

That's even assuming a level of success I don't believe anyone involved is capable of.