Too Stupid for Words category archive

The phone rang. The caller ID showed a number from a city on the other side of the country, a city where I know no one, a city I haven’t set foot in in four decades.

As I sometimes do, I picked up the phone and said nothing. (When I do that, the computer on the other end will often disconnect after 11 seconds.)

After a few seconds, a woman’s voice said, “Hello. I’m Polly, I’m an AI assistant . . . .”

That’s when I hung up.

So, a recording on a computer is now an “AI Assistant.”

Give me a break.

Sara Gorman and Jack M. Gorman look at how “social” media helps spread dis- and misinformation about mental health and offer some suggestions for combating the flood of FUD. A snippet:

A relatively recent TikTok phenomenon called “Undiagnosis” is particularly problematic. In these videos, users record themselves usually dancing to a song listing conditions they previously thought they had and then declaring themselves “undiagnosed.” The process of “undiagnosis” is littered with questioning whether serious mental illnesses even exist, which is obviously harmful to the mental health community’s need for people to take mental illnesses seriously as true medical conditions. While some have said that there’s some benefit to this kind of open conversation and that it may reduce stigma in some ways by making discussion about mental illness more acceptable, the potential harms are still obvious. People with mental illness conditions are being encouraged to decide they don’t actually have them. That can lead to dropping out of treatment or refusing treatment in the first place, clearly placing people at risk.

One more time, “social” media isn’t.

The dialog, at about the 24 minute mark: You’ve got to ‘elp us, Ken.

The closed caption: You got elbows, Ken.

The words: They fail me.

About five minutes later:

The dialog, as Ken calls the name of another character: Rocky! Rocky!

The closed caption: Rookie! Rookie!

Afterthought:

Just because Big Tech calls it “intelligence” doesn’t make it so.