The elephant in the room: AI

Posted by satis
Jul 4, 2024 at 05:10 PM

I don’t use any apps that, if AI is added, (a) do not allow me to disregard it, and (b) want to use my data in any way without express approval. Assuming I have that control I don’t care at all about its inclusion in my software.

Currently I use AI primarily outside writing apps: it’s been baked into iOS for a while, doing everything from allowing me to grab text from inside photos, to Portrait Mode that (has gotten much better in recent months) realistically blurs backgrounds, to improved autocorrect. Lightroom Classic added AI in its new adaptive presets and its Masking categories, allowing for much more granular selections of areas to apply corrections, and easy preset production.

Federico at MacStories went from being a somewhat blinkered fanboy and iPad-only devotee to someone who after a couple of years grudgingly and testily returned to macOS, to being something of an Apple-skeptic, to defending the EU’s onerous new laws coincidentally crafted to focus on American companies (eg DSA and CSDDD) while pointedly ignoring European monopolies and gatekeepers (eg Spotify). So I’m not surprised to see a relative lack of nuance in his open letter to Congress (as if anyone in Congress is interested in hearing from an Italian tech-blogger). But it surely makes for a traffic spike for his site.