Nailed It

Generative automation seems to have become the new hammer; for the person who has it as a tool, any task in front of them requires nails. I received an e-mail to notify me of a new Windows promotion that Microsoft is running as "the ultimate college bundle." Buy an eligible Windows 11-base personal computer "for college" and receive: a year of Microsoft 365 Premium, a year of XBOX Game Pass Ultimate and a customizable XBOX Wireless Controller. Okay, fair enough. Not my thing, but I can see how it could be an attractive offer. What I don't see is how it relates to this:

The Slop is strong with this one.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that for me, college was quite some time ago, and I don't claim to be completely up on what "Generation Z" is all about these days, but I'm pretty sure that whomever prompted (and whomever greenlit) this picture isn't either.

Because while I suspect that there is an overlap between young female gamers and anime fans, I wouldn't think that the two were synonymous. And so this picture doesn't say "gamer" to me; it says "anime cosplayer." Because who else would go to their college library wearing a sērāfuku and bring a ninjatō with them (especially one that seems to simply float in the air behind them, as though looking over their shoulder)?

This usage of generative automation strikes me as absolutely perfunctory. While I understand Microsoft wanting some sort of image for the advertisement, why use a poor-quality generated one? Was a photograph of an actual college-age student, in a library or dormitory, with an actual book really that expensive? The time, energy and money to source something that resembles the target market was really that dear?

"AI Slop" has been defined as usage of generative automation that demonstrates contempt for the audience; the idea that since the audience will lap up literally anything placed in front of them, one may as well serve up the cheapest garbage one can find. That definition came to mind when I saw this. Nothing about this illustration says: "We understand young people who want to use their PCs for both school and gaming." Rather it conflates gamers and cosplayers and presents the sort of lazy stereotype that shows not only a lack of understanding, but a lack of desire to understand.

Uncharted

This is why I'm dubious about using generative automation when I don't have a clear idea of what the output should look like.

In short, the State Department produced a map of Africa showing countries that were receiving aid, and none of the places highlighted on the map matched the nations referenced.

While the criticism of people in the State Department for not checking the map for accuracy prior to preventing it is well taken, I am a bit unsure that it's a reasonable expectation, if one believes that saving time is the primary use case. After all, I don't think that it would have taken that much time for a person to make this map. Start with a blank map of Africa and color-code the relevant countries. Someone who felt that, in the interests of speed, this task should be passed off to generative automation seems unlikely to then go back and compare the output to an actual map of Africa. 

Missing a Step

According to Fortune magazine, Amazon and Microsoft are spending $400 billion on AI—and investors are low on patience. Patience for what, I wonder. The article notes that investors may be looking to understand which, between Microsoft and Amazon "soak up all that investment and spin it into gold faster," but it never gets into how this spinning would actually work.

And that seems to be the importance piece. If one presumes that there actually is an "AI Layoff Trap" as Professors Gerry Tsoukalas and Brett Falk lay out in their recent paper, there won't be much gold to go around, as the rush to replace people with automation grinds its way through corporate customers, crashing demand for most non-essential items. While people like Elon Musk have apparently convinced themselves that ubiquitous automation will rapidly usher in a post-scarcity economy, the techo-optimists, or at least the articles that lay out their positions, end to also be short on details as to exactly how this will come about.

I'm really bad at predicting the future, and so I don't claim to have much insight into how things will turn out. I've just learned to be skeptical of claims that the world will suddenly undergo radical change when the mechanism for such change can't really be identified.

For the hundreds of billions of dollars being put into generative automation to pay off, it has to create something that allows people to sustain themselves and an economy that relies heavily on discretionary purchasing. Right now, it doesn't appear to be doing that, and while hope that this will change may be common, that hope is going to have to be realized before there can be any sustainable return on that investment. 

Still Going

Went down to Lake Forest Park to chat with the demonstrators again. I remain struck by the fact that it's almost always older people there; the only younger people were campaigning for a candidate for the legislature.

To be sure, I'm not a big one on political protest myself... I don't find it as useful as simply voting for people who are more likely to share one's policy ideas. But I remember the Occupy Seattle protests, which were dominated by younger people, and am curious where that particular energy is now.
 

Location, Location, Location

So I was in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood the other day, and encountered this:

The cycle repeats itself...

I've been to Ballard often enough, and seen enough homeless encampments there, to understand that something about the area draws in homeless people. I presume that there are services nearby.

But the whole thing seems to work on an irregular, but repeating, cycle. Homeless people come to the neighborhood, and put up large tents in the parkways. After they've been there for a while, more people, in tents and/or vehicles, set up camp near them. Eventually, they start blocking the sidewalks and the local residents and businesses start petitioning the city to have them removed. The city then shows up, sweeps the encampments, and the campers go elsewhere. For a time. Then someone finds a nice stretch of parkway in the neighborhood, and puts up a tent... Wash, rinse, repeat.

If this goes on, the end will be fairly predictable... there will be another sweep by the city, and the campers will be pushed to another part of Seattle, or maybe just outside the city limits for a time.

While it's become popular to lay the blame at the feet of whatever Progressive (or simply Democratic) mayor has been elected to office this time around, I suspect that some of the responsibility belongs to the weather. Unlike Chicago, the Summer and the Winter don't roll into town looking for a body count. Climate change is a real thing, but the Seattle area still has pretty clement weather, when compared to some places I've been. And this makes involuntarily being out of doors unpleasant, but almost never life-threatening.

Of course, as is often the case, the homeless themselves are, as a group, a part of their own problem. There are enough people with mental health problems, addictions and both that it's going to be difficult to impossible for the community to police itself well enough to be good neighbors. And that means the locals are only going to have so much patience with their presence.