smtkr wrote on 2025-01-15, 01:46:
I know I'm old because I look at new technology and I don't think it's useful, but everyone else is super excited about it.
maybe not AI specifically but i do frequently get the impression that i have already seen, heard or even used "new technology" before years ago. It is often just that i used a forerunner of something that is now trending or that what i am seeing as 'new' is just a new layer over an existing tech. Its useful and new, but at the same time it's not "all new" and when people get excited about it i sometimes think they don't understand it.
There are also things which are new in capability, AI generative stuff. "AI" was never so capable in the past, it is astounding in what it does - no wonder people confuse it with actual intelligence. The idea that you can just talk to a device, be understood and have reasonable responses and have otherwise fairly complex things done for you is something from past sci-fi visions. Humanity has no moonbases or Mars missions in 2025 as would once have been predicted but in computing power, global communications and areas of AI like text, voice, image processing and generation of the same via AI i think its about on a par and perhaps exceeding past predictions
other old geek things:
I can't help but notice language and grammar more ("signs you're an old geek", sorry 😀 ), even my own errors!
in keeping with that i increasingly cannot stand modern 'new speak', especially in corporate tech circles ('cloud', 'ai [anything]', 'take that offline', 'fintech', etc) and generally the unholy alliance of trendy newspeak in culture and corporate worlds ('my truth', abuse of the word 'journey', 'intentional', everything is a 'space', verb abuse like 'learnings' and other endless terms which all sound a bit narcissistic, self aggrandizing, inauthentic and mostly i suspect are fairly light on actual meaning)
generally i feel held at more and more arms length from everything technical by the tech itself. everything is an interface to a far away underlying technology. Learning the interface is important sure, but its a fuzzy guide to what's actually happening. In the world of work people are clicking and dragging things in applications that use browsers, the action all happening in "the cloud", its all further way both in process and in the physical sense.
I just dont care much about media anymore, i wasn't the most excited about new film releases in the past, or new products relating to PCs or other tech - but at least i could be now and then. now i don't care much. There is so much happening all the time and so little that really captures interest, there is almost too much going on to choose from. To think of an analogy, say you like particular characteristics in a candy bar - you can discern the one you want from a selection of 10 or 20 different choices, but if you look at a massive pile of 10,000 candy bars how will you know what to choose? 😀
As such i really have no interesting in paying for streaming services, there is more than enough for free all over the place and who really has time for 6+ seasons of 12+ 60min episodes anyway.
I just don't want siri, alexa or whatever. i'll fill my own fridge! i'm fine with a car that drives - it doesn't need a HUD or whatever latest gadgets for me
i totally recognise that my past self would view all this a little bit as "being old" and to some extent its true, but at the same time it also feels like shaking off some layers of nonsense that existed before and seeing things more clearly as they actually are - a slow process that develops over most of adulthood i think
i'm actually less interested in vintage tech that i was too, its kind of a shame - sometimes i'll get into it again for a while - but in general its somehow less interesting than it was, maybe i have just done enough and maybe its partly because it isnt necessary to having the software experiences on the whole. Still like the whole hobby in general though 😀
edit: sometimes i just go on talking/writing for too long too! 😀