I think it was Gina Yashere (British comedian) who did the math and worked out while she was touring the US, if her leg was cut off, it would be cheaper to take a taxi to the airport, book two last minute first-class seats on British Airways (one seat for her, and one for the leg) and fly home to be treated in the UK than it would be to just go to a US hospital.
There was this old book in my school classroom I remember that was speculating about the future; it had illustrations of robot butlers and maids helping people about the house in that 1960s-painting style. Think the future as seen in “The Jetsons”, or Andrew from “Bicentennial Man”.
That’s the “robot assistance” I was promised. So I’d say to my robot “Hey, can you turn the lights down?” And a humanoid robot would walk over to the light switch and turn the lights down.
Of course, it turns out building robots like that is hugely expensive so it’s easier to just sell smart lights that connect to a voice-activated app on your phone. That’s just not the same as a true general purpose robot, dammit! There’s no whimsy. Generative AI is ruining the Internet and for what? I’m no closer to my true robot butler and flying car than I was 20 years ago.
Cars, and all the resulting infrastructure.
Ruined city structures and, to an extent, local communities. Small corner stores and tight-knit communities have vanished in favour of giant shopping malls meant to serve everyone in a huge radius.
Smartphones are the most useful thing ever day-to-day… So I want to keep those, like keep all the text and call and email stuff, keep the games I guess, but somehow also go back to the days when the Internet was something to peruse for an hour or so a day on the computer.
I found it to be a struggle to find a non-smart TV that was decent…
… Well great, now I have to check whether my television has a goddamn microphone for some reason. I didn’t think to check because it’s a television.
Never connected it to the Wifi though.
The Da Vinci Code
Watching ‘The Mummy’ on streaming the other day… Unless subtitles were switched on, the translation when anyone spoke Egyptian wasn’t used. It also weirdly removed location title cards, like when there’s an establishing shot and text ‘Cairo, 3 months later’ or something.
Management in charge of these decisions wildly underestimated how mindless customers are almost all the time.
I work retail and can feel my IQ drop when I am shopping vs working.