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0 pointsJumpCrisscross5mo ago0 comments

This has been the pitched playbook for decades. (Metamates!) I'm increasingly convinced its driven by a specific generation of tech entrepreneurs who cut their teeth while reading ca. 1980s science fiction.

I could see chat apps becoming dominant in Slack-oriented workplaces. But, like, chatting with an AI to play a song is objectively worse than using Spotify. Dynamically-created music sounds nice until one considers the social context in which non-filler music is heard.

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fidotron5mo ago

The thing it reminds me of is those old Silicon Graphics greybeards that were smug about how they were creating tools for people that created wealth when those other system providers "just" created tools for people tracking wealth.

There's a whole bizarre subculture in computing that fails to recognize what it is about computers that people actually find valuable.

echelon5mo ago

It's because Zuck can't own a pane of glass. He's locked out of the smartphone duopoly.

Everyone wants the next device category. They covet it. Every other company tries to will it into existence.

neutronicus5mo ago

Chatting with an AI to play a song whose title you know, sure.

Getting an AI to play "that song that goes hmm hmmm hmmm hmmm ... uh, it was in some commercials when I was a kid" tho

JumpCrisscrossOP5mo ago

> Getting an AI to play "that song that goes hmm hmmm hmmm hmmm ... uh, it was in some commercials when I was a kid" tho

Absolutely. The point is this is a specialised and occasional use case. You don't want to have to go through a chat bot every time you want to play a particular song just because sometimes you might hum at it.

The closest we've come to a widely-adopted AR interface are AirPods. Critically, however, they work by mimicing how someone would speak to a real human by them.

fragmede5mo ago

more abstract than that, "I'm throwing a wedding/funeral/startup IPO/Halloween/birthday party for a whatever year old and need appropriate music". Or, without knowing specific bands, "I want to hear some 80's metal music". "more cowbell!"

array_key_first5mo ago

You don't need AI for this, Spotify has, like, infinite playlists.

Also their playlists are made by real people (mostly...), so they don't completely suck ass.

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