Rhaedas

Either I have some inside knowledge of that exact thing happening and I know the company (not saying who) or this is probably a common things that happened to a lot of major companies (more likely). To be fair, I do not have privy on how far it went and how much it cost before they realize the problem, and it may not have been this much. Which further suggests it’s a thing everywhere.

I don’t think Youtube’s history on false positives for things is all that stellar. Maybe if they get AI to help it will… oh, no, it will make it far worse than even Youtube can do alone.

Not quite that old, more in the 2000 range based on when I had my PC that I used it on. This was a GUI app for Windows. Wish I had an idea, that was like… too long ago.

No, I don’t see mention of it being an application but like Dogpile is a web-based collector.

I did a search myself, but (given how searching sucks now) couldn’t find anything. Lots of hits for search engines themselves, but getting past that to other methods back then is difficult.

It was much like an FTP or torrent program but you’d load up what search engines to use and your search words, and it would actively pull the info then provide a single page with all results.

I know the name, but no, it was an actual program on the computer.

I can’t remember the name, but when the internet was just starting and there were a lot of search engines with no dominate ones, there was an aggregator program that you could input many search engines into, then use it as the searching tool. It would query all the engines and combine, sort, rank, and remove duplicate finds.

Edit: more specific - It was much like an FTP or torrent program but you’d load up what search engines to use and your search words, and it would actively pull the info then provide a single page with all results.

The reason I mention it is because we’re sort of back at that point. Google is failing, Bing never was great, and all the alternatives have their issues, usually with not having the same database to work with. So if you gathered all the best ones, the ones without ties to corporate or AI, then put their results together, maybe you’d have something like what Google was at its peak before “do no evil” got painted over.

Incidentally, Google became what it was/is because it gobbled up a lot of those early search engines’ databases. I miss you, Hotbot. You were a good one.

There are different levels of AI books, and websites like BN and Amazon ask on their submission what specifically was done by or assisted by AI to get a read on what authors are doing. Full AI written based on a bunch of prompts gets garbage, I agree there, and it’s also the easy route so the market is being flooded, especially the low effort ones, since that’s far easier to do than actual prose from AI. But AI can also have a subtle aid to an actual writer. I realize some people are dead set on zero AI, period, and I understand the reasons. It sucks we’ve gotten to this point where some incredible things can be done, and yet so much as been ruined by that progress too, when it could have been done better and more honestly.

I’ve used AI for coming up with assets for the cover, then using Gimp to add, modify, and make the final product. The books were done mainly to see if I could put them together and was fun to do. The hard part is actually selling any, it’s a nightmare for the same reason, oversaturation.

I will say that BN’s website sucks big time. I thought Amazon’s was flaky but figured it out, but I’m surprised I ever got books onto BN as much as it hangs, and I haven’t been able to get onto my account in a while to even see how the books are doing there, but I doubt I’ve sold any because I haven’t seen evidence, and I question who goes there now to buy a book.

Fix your website!

Oh, and they also just raised the minimum print price to like $14.99, so no cheap books, and if you have a low cost book there, no one is going to buy it now for those prices. Brilliant.

It’s not about finding habitat, but a large scale version of kill or be killed, or stay quiet and hope they don’t see you.

Definitely not to enslave. The path that the 3 Body Problem goes down is a science-based eldritch horror.

I knew I remembered that name. Great book and reference.

I was with Pizza Hut when we got that directive of empowerment to do what was best to retain the customer. No manager needed for most things, just treat them well. We had a lot of regular customers, I wonder why. That was a long time ago.

I’d say answer just to see if the Dark Forest is valid. If it is, honestly they’re going to find us eventually anyway.

So, Ender’s Game

I’ll bet the cause of that is simple. The one person who knew how to change the message no longer works there, and while that has been mentioned to the higher ups, it’s not a priority so it got shoved into the “to-do” pile.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s instructions to modify the system prompt to maximize effectiveness, and everyone leaves it at the generic default. Just like so many people leave other things at the default and just plug it in and go. Thank goodness the Cisco hold music is decent. I grew to love it while holding on the VA phone lines a lot for my dad.

Funny you mention a phone tree, something that’s been hit by AI. It’s actually been around longer as voice recognition that finds a close match to a keyword, but in theory AI should be able to take a request and break down what is actually needed.

I haven’t run across an AI version that works well. I don’t know if that’s because the voice recognition part is still bad, or if they’re using Co-pilot (since I know how it mangles simple requests in text).

You forgot the mandatory lead message. “Please listen closely as our menu options have changed.” No, they haven’t. Ever.

I didn’t know that. So they can’t even rebrand well.

The movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley” shows how being the better product isn’t a requirement to dominate.

Windows wasn’t the first on the scene with a GUI, they just got a better foothold into the market and spread into the business world to become the default. If we’re talking about waves, MS has been riding that wave of being used the most everywhere for a long time while giving mediocre products.

I wish the better sides of religion would take arms against the ones using it for their own gain. I think they have that responsibility. They aren’t.

I get what you’re saying, use the same tools but for a greater good. I’d just like us to do things because they’re the right thing to do, and not because some book said or implied it. Because in the end even if you take the broad idea of loving and helping each other from a book, that doesn’t get into how to do that, and often times people with similar goals end up fighting over the details and undoing any progress simply because they can’t agree on the HOW.