To quote one of the excessive number of Baltimore County police officers who responded to an erroneous computer-generated alert of a student with a weapon which was in fact a bag of chips, “A.I.’s not the best”.
Previous “Our Terrible Future” posts
The Doritos Gun ∞
Perhaps the first response should not involve guns drawn.
Monday, October 27th, 2025
Smart Beds Went Dumb ∞
Next time, maybe just unplug it.
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2025
Speaking of overengineered nonsense, Monday’s AWS outage left smart beds from Eight Sleep stuck in position and refusing to cool down.
Used, Misled, and Doubting What’s Real ∞
“Chatfishing” is quite the neologism.
Thursday, October 16th, 2025
Online daters are using artificial intelligence to assist them, and boy howdy, outsourcing all human connection to ChatGPT doesn’t sound sociopathic at all. Nope, that‘s just a real time-saver.
ChatGPT discerned that sending an initial message on Monday midmorning would set the right pace. “Then it gave me some options for what the message could be,” says Rich. “Keep it light, warm, and low-stakes so it reads as genuine interest without urgency,” the bot advised. “Something like: Hey Sarah, still laughing about [tiny shared moment/reference if you’ve got one] – good to meet you!”
“[S]till laughing about [tiny shared moment/reference if you’ve got one]”!1 What are we even doing here?
Footnotes:
“People need to know about the [CAN EAT MORE]”2 ↩︎
The relevant Futurama clip is archived here. ↩︎
ICEBlock Blocked ∞
Tell me again how a lack of sideloading is making me safer?
Friday, October 3rd, 2025
Gosh, it’s almost like Apple serving as the exclusive gatekeeper for what software can be installed on the iPhone (and iPad, and Apple TV, and Apple Watch, and Vision Pro) is a bad thing that creates a single point of failure which can be abused by increasingly authoritarian governments.
With Friends Like These ∞
Who the fuck needs COINTELPRO?
Monday, September 8th, 2025
A little over a year ago, I linked to a puff piece about the AI-powered Friend pendant. Now, writers Kylie Robison and Boone Ashworth have reviewed the device for Wired, and they are not fans.
It is an incredibly antisocial device to wear. People were never excited to see it around my neck. I certainly wouldn’t approach my neighbor with a mic and try to assuage their anxiety by telling them the audio is just going to a chatbot…I found out quickly that even at the most tech-minded gatherings, the thing was a complete taboo.
My initial reaction to this device, as well as others like it, was distinctly negative. I do not want to wear an always-recording device. I also do not want to hang out with someone else who’s wearing one. As I’ve read more about these devices, my distaste has only grown. A negative review such as this offers some hope that like Google Glass, these creepy little wiretaps will face enough backlash that they never take off.
I Like People to Look Like People
Sadly for me, that doesn’t seem to be in right now.
Friday, July 18th, 2025
When I wrote about garish weddings earlier this month, the linked page included an image that really caught my eye:
The woman on Jeff Bezos’s arm is apparently Lauren Sanchez, his wife. I poked around a bit more, and wound up on an article that included this comparison of Sanchez at age 33 (2002) and age 55 (2025):
Yes, how do these rumors get started?
Look, I make an effort not to comment on the appearance of other people. If someone stops looking like a person, however, an exception may be made. If that’s the result of plastic surgery for a billionaire’s wife, no one is safe.
This came up again when I read about a bizarre murder (and beheading!) in Australia. Tamika Chesser is charged with killing her boyfriend Julian Story. In something of a reverse “In The Pines”1, Story’s body was found in an apartment, but his head never was found.
Chesser’s head, meanwhile, looks like this:
[Photo credit: Tamika Chesser]
When I saw this picture, I wondered how police were going to arrest a mid-2000s video game character. Chesser has somehow fallen backwards from human into something out of the Uncanny Valley, and she looks like a virtual reality rendering.
That led me to ask ChatGPT to re-draw Chesser in the style of Fortnite. It came up with this:
Somehow, that AI creation looks more realistic than her actual photograph. Compare!
Anyway, seriously folks, aging is OK. So is looking your age! Looking like not a person, and paying for the privilege? No thanks.
Footnotes:
Perhaps more familiar as “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?”. ↩︎
New and Not Improved ∞
Oh, also, Grok even more recently added a porny chat companion.
Thursday, July 17th, 2025
Earlier this month, Elon Musk wrote about X Formerly Twitter’s integrated chatbot: “We have improved @Grok significantly, You should notice a difference when you ask Grok questions.” People did, in fact, notice a difference. Soon thereafter, Grok started spewing antisemitic content and eventually began to refer to itself as “MechaHitler”. That doesn’t seem like an improvement to me, but then, I’m not a neo-Nazi.
Anyway, sure, what could possibly go wrong with the U.S. Department of Defense giving a contract worth up to $200 million to xAI, to “develop agentic AI workflows across a variety of mission areas”?
Rental Car Damages Should Not Be a Profit Center ∞
Normal wear and tear is a thing.
Monday, July 14th, 2025
In a vacuum, an AI-powered scanner for rental car companies to check for damage could be OK. Performing identical scans both before a rental goes out and after it returns should make for easy and useful comparisons that remove subjectivity and human error.
The trouble appears to be that Hertz is looking to cut both humans and common sense entirely out of the process.
Something to Fear and Embrace ∞
I lean away from the latter, myself.
Thursday, July 3rd, 2025
Sam Apple took a couples retreat with 3 humans and their AI partners, and it was really something.
While AI chatbots may have benefits in certain cases, I can’t help but think that they’re likely a net negative for society. Forming real, authentic connections with others is part of what it means to be a person. Paying to have your phone provide a simulacrum of a real relationship feels depressingly unhuman.
