Here’s the thing: I’m not willing to pay for AI. I liked Siri when its “cookie monster” joke about dividing zero by zero wasn’t considered offensive and before it had to Google everything or ask ChatGPT for everything. Now I just don’t care about it at all. And that’s Siri — I’m intentionally on the platform with the crappiest, deadest, most useless AI because I really don’t want AI in my life. And it’s great.
As long as I can use Firefox on the Mac and not worry about AI — Firefox did add some chatbot thing, but it was very easy to disable — I’m just going to keep doing that.
My only worry will be, at some point, the Net might get to where you need AI. Hopefully by then they will have figured out a way to make it free. I hope I can just ride that wave. If not, who knows. I worry for younger users, though many of them seem to be embracing the changes, kind of like how we embraced Web 2.0 before social media went to shit (and that was before fascists started taking over/spinning up their own).
I hate to say it, but we’re basically there, and AI doesn’t help a ton. If the net is slop and trash, there’s not a lot it can do.
Hopefully by then they will have figured out a way to make it free.
Fortunately self hosting is 100% taking off. Getting a (free) local agent to sift through the net’s sludge will be about as easy as tweaking Firefox before long.
You can already do it. I already do it (and am happy to ramble about how when asked), but it’s more of an enthusiast/tinkerer thing now.
Here’s the thing: I’m not willing to pay for AI. I liked Siri when its “cookie monster” joke about dividing zero by zero wasn’t considered offensive and before it had to Google everything or ask ChatGPT for everything. Now I just don’t care about it at all. And that’s Siri — I’m intentionally on the platform with the crappiest, deadest, most useless AI because I really don’t want AI in my life. And it’s great.
As long as I can use Firefox on the Mac and not worry about AI — Firefox did add some chatbot thing, but it was very easy to disable — I’m just going to keep doing that.
My only worry will be, at some point, the Net might get to where you need AI. Hopefully by then they will have figured out a way to make it free. I hope I can just ride that wave. If not, who knows. I worry for younger users, though many of them seem to be embracing the changes, kind of like how we embraced Web 2.0 before social media went to shit (and that was before fascists started taking over/spinning up their own).
I hate to say it, but we’re basically there, and AI doesn’t help a ton. If the net is slop and trash, there’s not a lot it can do.
Fortunately self hosting is 100% taking off. Getting a (free) local agent to sift through the net’s sludge will be about as easy as tweaking Firefox before long.
You can already do it. I already do it (and am happy to ramble about how when asked), but it’s more of an enthusiast/tinkerer thing now.