Yesterday, I had to ship an envelope to the UK and got caught in dead ends at the Fedex and DHL sites. One of them said my zip code wasn't in the town I live in. How do you get past that?? These companies are losing business because their systems are broken. Maybe they worked at one time. I used ChatGPT as I often do to get help on one of these antiquated sites. And while ChatGPT has the technology and Fedex has the info, they just have to get together and upgrade the user experience, and eventually of course the AI version of the UI becomes the real one. #Back when I ran a software company I'd help the team understand why they should be very very nice to our customers. "They have our money in their pockets." It generally got a laugh partially because I was their boss, but I like to think also because it's the truth. #
BTW, people make the same mistake with AI that we make with every new tech. We focus on the creators not the users. As users we are learning a new skill, how to specify our needs precisely. Whether this is good or bad, I don't know.#
Paywalls that require you to subscribe to an Atlanta news org when you don’t live in Atlanta prob don’t generate much revenue. Why not instead charge per article. Like a toll you pay on a road you drive on once every few years. On further thought, I wouldn't even have an exception for Atlanta residents. If they start spending more money than a subscription costs, you could offer a subscription then, as a way to save money. Kind of the way Amazon lets you buy a certain amount of coffee beans without requiring you to sign up for monthly delivery. They do tell you how much you'd save if you subscribed. Everyone appreciates a chance to save money, but still might not want the commitment. And asking someone from upstate NY to subscribe to the Atlanta Journal Constitution is a total bullshit. An insult to both our intelligences.#
My Twitter account is owned. I can't even see what people are doing with it because you have to be signed on (apparently) to read stuff on Twitter nowadays. I wish current Twitter management would put it out of its misery. Served me well for approx 20 years. Let's clean up the mess. Thanks for your attention this matter.#
- Aram Zucker-Scharff writes "I don't want to read one more thinkpiece about blackbox AI code factories until you can show me what they've produced." #
- I've made the same request, and there was very little even brilliant programmers could show, including some who have become influencers in the AI space. #
- Here's the problem -- it takes a lot of skill and patience to make software that appears simple because it gives users what they expect. It's much easier to write utility scripts, where the user writes the code for themselves. That is very possible, esp if you use a scripting language created for it, and the AI bots are really good at that, they speak the same language we do. #
- But to make something easy to use by humans, I think you actually have to be a human. I've found I'm not very good at creating software that isn't for me. And I've been practicing this almost every day for over fifty freaking years. (I think freaking is the proper adjective in this situation). #
- Scaling which everyone says is hard is actually something a chatbot does quite easily imho -- because you just have to store all your data in a relational database, you can't use the local file system. That's all there is to it. They try to make it sound mysterious (the old priesthood at work) but it is actually very simple. It's so easy even ChatGPT can do it. #
- I know this must sound like the stuff reporters say about bloggers, but in this case it's true. ;-)#
- An anectdote -- I used to live in Woodside CA where a lot of the VCs live, and we'd all eat breakfast at Buck's restaurant, and around the time Netscape open sourced their browser code, the VCs were buzzing because they wouldn't have to pay for software, they'd just market the free stuff. That was a long time ago, and it did not work out that way.#