A background on me as a techie: Whenever I could put a screen in front of me, I did. I was always tinkering, figuring out the inner workings of whatever computer was in front of me, getting in places I shouldn’t, and the like. I quickly became one of the family tech support guys from a very young age, so I have had a lot of time of the last few years to figure out what I need or don’t need in a piece of tech. Over many things, I value functionality. I want whatever piece of tech I have to do the thing I ask of it, and not much more. It’s why I liked earlier versions of windows. I like being able to just install the programs I needed to make the operating system work the way I wanted with all the programs I needed, and left it at that. Back in the days of Windows 7, it felt like all the gimmicks that were in the OS were cosmetic, and optional. Now, with all Windows 10 PCs needing to be upgraded to Windows 11 or become obsolete, I feel like we are at a point where tech is just to serve this thing that isn’t even by definition ‘artifical intelligence’.

I remember a while ago, there was such a thing called Machine Learning, which is what I equate modern day “AI” to. You could shove a bunch of data into a computer, it would look at all that data, figure out what it meant, and do something with it. I know I have used this technology a few times when I had popular songs I wanted to remove the vocals from so I could sing to it in a talent show or something in second grade. And in a way, what I have seen and heard from modern tech is that it is still a variant of this approach. We are still putting sets of a data into a computer, figure out what it means with yes or no prompts, and spit out something for us to enjoy, soullessly. The thing is, I personally wouldn’t call that computer particularly intelligent.

There is very few implementations of this technology that I have found useful in my day to day life. Even with Apple Intelligence on my phone, I don’t particularly care for it. Having my phone or Mac summarize notifications doesn’t really serve me well, I feel I lose the nuances of messages when they are summarized. I’d just like more than to have ChatGPT integrate with Siri, to have the on device Siri just be smarter, which you can just build into the on device software. Not everything needs to call back to a server farm using the power electrical needs of a small city. Just make it so when I ask Siri a question, they can answer. I don’t need the ability to generate emojis or have my phone imagine a fish on top of the Empire State Building. Make the software functional.

Instagram and Meta in general are probably some of the biggest offenders when it comes to adding features for AI that nobody asks for. I’ve encountered many times when using Instagram’s search feature where it would just pull up some sort of ‘Ask Meta AI’ thing, when all I am trying to do is find someone’s profile. I don’t need to ask Meta AI anything, I just want the search function of the software to work. It’s just another implementation of this “technology” that feels so much more like a gimmick than any sort of feature that is of use to the end user.

My biggest gripe out of all of these, is any of the new items that can write for you. It feels disingenuous at best to have a computer write your items for you. If I had a computer write this article, I would feel pretty garbage about that fact because the words on here aren’t mine. It wouldn’t feel like me. It seems every company now is having some sort of technology that can rewrite your words for you, and Apple is marketing this technology pretty heavily. They want you to use your device to change your words tone. Personally, I just want my words to sound like me, errors and all. If for whatever reason this article feels like it flows weird, I want that to be from me, and not from a machine trying to figure out how to rewrite what I have said into another tone. Here’s an idea, LEARN TO WRITE.

Too many of these new ‘AI’ things, are taking away the thinking power from your own brain to a machine, which is using less of your cognitive ability. You should be using your brain. I worry if too many people use these sorts of products, they won’t be able to do anything without them. We are already on the cusp of too many people not being able to focus without a game or something underneath a clip of their favourite show, or watching a show in 60 second clips on Tiktok, just scrolling forever. We should at least hold some parts of what we are starting to impart on these machines in our minds so that we don’t forget how to write with tone. I personally don’t believe most of these technologies are helping, it’s just another gimmick that we don’t need. All I personally care about is functionality, and for my data to be mine. It’s why I haven’t (and personally won’t) ever enable ChatGPT to be used in my Siri responses. I want whatever data privacy I still have left to be mine, and for my words to always be my own.

To end off, I wanted to link to a video that Sam so helpfully linked to me, that I feel perfectly encapsulates my feelings on a lot of these new technologies, and helped introduce me to the idea that these technologies are making people stupider. This video from CNET that Sam provided helpfully talks about why Apple Intelligence is not as helpful as it may seem. Looking back at the ads that Apple released, and to be fair, some of Google’s as well, they aim this at people that seem to not be able to use their own words to convey things that are very simple. Things that they could very easily write for themselves, but because the technology now exists, they can just lazily press a button to write something that sounds nothing like them. Technology is neat, but we shouldn’t be using it to replace things that our brains should just be able to learn how to do.