Brian Phillips

"One of the strangest things about AI in 2023, and one of the best things from the perspective of Big Tech’s self-image, was the way people talked about the strangeness itself. 

"Normally, when a tech product is flawed, the flaws are criticized, and the criticism makes the people who produced the product look bad. That’s clear enough, right? A few months ago, I bought some fancy noise-canceling headphones. Almost as soon as I took them out of the box, they developed a persistent loud hiss in the left ear cup. This flaw did not make me think the headphone designers were geniuses; it made me think they were clowns who should have their headphone-building tools expropriated by the state. And this was reflected in the angry and contemptuous way I spoke about them, mostly to my dogs, who lost a lot of respect for the manufacturer, believe me."

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