Sorry if this is a dumb question, but does anyone else feel like technology - specifically consumer tech - kinda peaked over a decade ago? I’m 37, and I remember being awed between like 2011 and 2014 with phones, voice assistants, smart home devices, and what websites were capable of. Now it seems like much of this stuff either hasn’t improved all that much, or is straight up worse than it used to be. Am I crazy? Have I just been out of the market for this stuff for too long?

    • amlor@lemmy.world
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      26 days ago

      We had a chatbot based on Markov chains like 20 years ago in a friend’s group chat that ran on a potato, so no. LLMs are mostly the same thing only wasting astronomically larger resources.

      • amlor@lemmy.world
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        26 days ago

        And those principles were formulated at the start of the 20th century and partially in the 19th.

      • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
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        26 days ago

        Markov chains are way worse and nearly always fail to preserve the illusion of reasoning. Markov chains also haven’t generated them deepfakes.

    • chetradley@lemm.eeOP
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      25 days ago

      I suppose my intent for this question was a little more nuanced than what I posted, so my bad. Generative AI wowed me initially, but it very quickly lost its appeal to me the more it became anti-consumer. As I learned more about the models and saw how it just aggregates and plagiarizes human created content it all really soured on me. I suppose it’s still technically impressive, but I really struggle to see how the benefits outweigh the cost.