Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Brave Little Toaster by Cory Doctorow
?w=840&ssl=1The AI bubble is the new crypto bubble: you can tell because the same people are behind it, and they're doing the same thing with AI as they did with crypto trying desperately to find a use case to cram it into, despite the yawning indifference and outright hostility of the users:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/09/autocomplete-worshippers/#the-real-ai-was-the-corporations-that-we-fought-along-the-way
This week on the excellent Trashfuture podcast, the regulars joined by 404 Media's Jason Koebler have a hilarious as in, I was wheezing with laughter! riff on this year's CES, where companies are demoing home appliances with LLMs built in:
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-hgi6c-179b908
Why would you need a chatbot in your dishwasher? As it turns out, there's a credulous, Poe's-law-grade Forbes article that lays out the (incredibly stupid) case for this (incredibly stupid) idea:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2024/03/29/generative-ai-is-coming-to-your-home-appliances/
As the Trashfuturians mapped out this new apex of the AI hype cycle, I found myself thinking of a short story I wrote 15 years ago, satirizing the "Internet of Things" hype we were mired in. It's called "The Brave Little Toaster", and it was published in MIT Tech Review's TRSF anthology in 2011:
http://bestsf.net/trsf-the-best-new-science-fiction-technology-review-2011/
https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/09/autocomplete-worshippers/#the-real-ai-was-the-corporations-that-we-fought-along-the-way
This week on the excellent Trashfuture podcast, the regulars joined by 404 Media's Jason Koebler have a hilarious as in, I was wheezing with laughter! riff on this year's CES, where companies are demoing home appliances with LLMs built in:
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-hgi6c-179b908
Why would you need a chatbot in your dishwasher? As it turns out, there's a credulous, Poe's-law-grade Forbes article that lays out the (incredibly stupid) case for this (incredibly stupid) idea:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2024/03/29/generative-ai-is-coming-to-your-home-appliances/
As the Trashfuturians mapped out this new apex of the AI hype cycle, I found myself thinking of a short story I wrote 15 years ago, satirizing the "Internet of Things" hype we were mired in. It's called "The Brave Little Toaster", and it was published in MIT Tech Review's TRSF anthology in 2011:
http://bestsf.net/trsf-the-best-new-science-fiction-technology-review-2011/
https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/08/sirius-cybernetics-corporation/#chatterbox
3 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
The Brave Little Toaster by Cory Doctorow (Original Post)
justaprogressive
Jan 9
OP
Worst case is if the appliance has to transmit your data to the cloud instead of doing the language in the appliance. nt
Bernardo de La Paz
Jan 9
#2
Cory's URL for this is a nod to Douglas Adams' take on the subject - Hitchhiker's radio series 2
muriel_volestrangler
Jan 9
#3
UpInArms
(51,963 posts)1. Loony Goony
Bernardo de La Paz
(52,026 posts)2. Worst case is if the appliance has to transmit your data to the cloud instead of doing the language in the appliance. nt
muriel_volestrangler
(102,852 posts)3. Cory's URL for this is a nod to Douglas Adams' take on the subject - Hitchhiker's radio series 2
Here it is - the 2nd part with some animation added a couples of decades later: