[HN Gopher] Brits are scrolling away from X and aren't that inte...
___________________________________________________________________
Brits are scrolling away from X and aren't that interested in AI
Author : LinuxBender
Score : 71 points
Date : 2024-11-29 21:03 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
| grues-dinner wrote:
| So the actual breaking news here is "Brits actually fairly normal
| after all"?
|
| Neither X nor AI is particularly relevant to the average person,
| British or not, unless they're terminally online and/or the kind
| of person to write unhinged nonsense on LinkedIn.
|
| Sure quite a few people might use ChatGPT or whatever sometimes,
| but they use Excel too and they're probably not especially
| "interested" in that either.
| ben_w wrote:
| The average person on AI:
|
| "Forty-three percent had used one for work" ... "The numbers
| are slightly different for the under-16s. Fifty-four percent
| said they had used a GenAI tool, with more than half (53
| percent) of those saying they had used it for schoolwork."
| jrflowers wrote:
| This makes sense. Since googling something now counts as
| "using a genai tool" everybody uses and cares about AI
| defnotai wrote:
| Some people are being pressured by their management to use AI
| to increase efficiency in their jobs, with varying degrees of
| success.
|
| I have a friend who works in logistics for GE and they're
| getting training on the basics of GenAI and then they have to
| go out and find ways to integrate it into their workflow. The
| problem is that management isn't doing the legwork to
| understand how to integrate the tooling, they're just handing
| that responsibility off to the actual users. Those people
| wind up complaining that taking time to integrate these tools
| winds up slowing them down and they struggle to find
| meaningful applications for the LLMs.
|
| It's like management is saying "here's a new hammer, we don't
| know how to use it but the guy who sold it to us convinced us
| you can figure out how to use it. So go out and do it and be
| better and faster at your job, good luck".
| silisili wrote:
| I'm running into this now. Boss is all but mandating
| everyone use Cursor.
|
| I'm not anti-AI. I don't mind asking an LLM to write me
| some boilerplate. But I don't want to change my tooling,
| nor have an integrated assistant. My output is fine.
|
| I'll hold out as long as I can, but it feels like this may
| one day just become the reality.
| jdietrich wrote:
| 78% of people aged 16-24 had used a GenAI tool in the last
| year. That's a remarkable adoption rate IMO. We're talking
| about this technology as if it's the future, but it has
| already transformed secondary and post-secondary education
| beyond all recognition.
|
| https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/rese.
| ..
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| > 78% of people aged 16-24 had used a GenAI tool in the
| last year. That's a remarkable adoption rate IMO. We're
| talking about this technology as if it's the future, but it
| has already transformed secondary and post-secondary
| education beyond all recognition.
|
| Your wording choice there is excellent as "transforming"
| can either be extremely positive, or negative, or just
| different. Given how many students now, judging by various
| outcries on social media by teaching staff are borderline
| illiterate in middle school, it does make one wonder what
| the long term effects of this will be.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Standardized test scores were marginally improving for
| decades, although they tanked during Covid
| tmnvix wrote:
| > 78% of people aged 16-24 had used a GenAI tool in the
| last year.
|
| More interesting would be the percentage of people that
| have used GenAI in the past year _with a purpose_.
|
| I suspect a significant number have just played with it.
| Likely many didn't make it a habit, let alone ever do
| anything useful with it. It would be a bit of a stretch to
| say anyone in this group has 'adopted' AI.
| bsder wrote:
| Google is so terrible that you either have to use AI to
| filter it or pay for a search engine that doesn't suck.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| > Forty-three percent had used one for work
|
| That's honestly pretty low considering the sheer _number_ of
| products that now have AI integration. I honestly think a lot
| of the hype around AI taking over jobs is because the people
| who are spreading it are more likely working in some pretty
| dull coding environments where copilot can shine, because you
| just plain don 't write a ton of interesting or otherwise
| off-the-beaten-path code, and that's what copilot excels at.
| And then those people have spare time at work to evangelize
| about this great technology.
|
| And before anybody starts with me, yes I have tried it. It's
| fine. A lot of what I work on isn't standardized or
| boilerplate enough to where copilot can really help me, and
| the situations where it can, I found the time I spent
| describing what I wanted, getting the answer back, copying it
| into my IDE and then customizing it as required was frankly
| just better spent writing it myself. Maybe it made me
| SLIGHTLY faster? But nothing approaching what I would suggest
| the term "coding AI" implies, and frankly, I enjoy writing
| the easier code on occasion because it's a nice break from
| the harder stuff that copilot can't touch.
|
| Like if you're a freelancer who jumps between gigs of
| refactoring ancient websites into something vaguely web 2.0,
| you would probably get a lot of mileage from copilot where
| you're just describing something as written (or hell, giving
| it the existing code) and asking for it to be rewritten. But
| if you're doing something novel, something that hasn't been
| posted on StackOverflow a thousand times, you will run into
| it's limitations quite quickly and, if you're like me anyway,
| resign it to the bin because fundamentally asking it to make
| something, finding out it can't, and then making it myself is
| FAR more annoying than just assuming it can't and moving on.
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| everyone who had to fill in pages of text for no particular
| reason they believe in, will use any means no matter how bad.
|
| this included teens doing homework, and everyone else filling
| job applications. same mindset.
|
| ai? sure. google search and adapting any template on the very
| first page? sure!
| unsnap_biceps wrote:
| > Ofcom measured X's adult reach
|
| I wonder if the same trend is happening for younger age groups as
| well. I was surprised at my two nephews scrolling X yesterday
| reading memes after dinner. They're 14 and 16 and I guess deeply
| in the "gamers" culture? They shared some of them with me and I
| wasn't into the edge-lord stuff, but they insist that it's just
| ironic usage.
|
| Much like every generation, I'm likely just not hip enough to
| understand the youth.
| moomin wrote:
| I'm reminded of "I was a teenage edgelord"
| https://medium.com/@srhbutts/i-m-sarah-nyberg-and-i-was-a-te...
| AlexandrB wrote:
| It's funny reading this nearly 10 year old post in 2024 and
| noticing that many of these tactics are now universal and
| some of the people mentioned (Ian Cheong) are still being
| called Nazis, but by people on the other side of the
| political divide.
| bitwize wrote:
| Turns out that the author of that article was/is a pedophile,
| was using "but I was just being an edgelord/muh right-wing
| harassment" as a smokescreen to divert attention from her bad
| behavior, and (wisely) vanished from online after about 2017
| when she couldn't whitewash her image anymore.
|
| https://medium.com/@srhbuttstruth/5-reasons-you-shouldn-t-
| st...
| ChocolateGod wrote:
| Despite being a Brit, X did nothing but keep my feed flooded with
| both left and right wing comment about the American election
| recently, with some extreme views on either side. For context I
| only follow tech accounts.
| philjohn wrote:
| Yes - it wasn't always like that, but it would be interesting
| to see the "algorithm" now, wasn't Elon all about opening that
| stuff up?
| nobodywillobsrv wrote:
| This seems like RICU propaganda
| retrac98 wrote:
| Pure opinion, but I feel like the UK has a strong cultural bias
| towards doing things the way they've always been done, which can
| make us a bit resistant to new technologies and ways of doing
| things.
| ben_w wrote:
| Based on my experience growing up in the UK, then having long
| visits to the US and moving to Germany... the UK overall is
| fairly open minded to new tech and social change.
|
| Well, so long as the monarchy and the castles remain.
| ethernot wrote:
| I don't think we're resistant, just hesitant pragmatists. When
| something new and shiny turns up, we don't necessarily accept
| the marketing saying it's going to improve our lives. Best to
| wait for someone else to get through the early adoption pain
| and work out all the kinks so we don't have to waste our time
| on it if it turns out to be a lemon.
|
| With this strategy I entirely missed blockchain, crypto and
| NFTs and am in the process of missing AI.
| antirez wrote:
| To think that AI is as irrelevant as blockchain, crypto and
| NFTs is a tragical error many are committing, sir. Those
| things were trivial and useless and it was clear since the
| start, and even if tons of money and marketing were put
| inside, nothing changed because of the blockchain, at least
| nothing useful.
|
| AI is a completely different story: you likely not even
| realize you are already a heavy user just as a side effect of
| everything technological you use, from voice dictation, to
| medical, to all the images you see around. Soon also: when
| you are going to watch a movie. Moreover LLMs are already
| transforming the way people work.
|
| These two entities, blockchian and AI, have very little in
| common if not the hype.
| ChocolateGod wrote:
| AI and Crypto both use extraordinary amounts of electricity
| but at least AI actually does something and has replaced
| Google for me in at least 50% of searches.
| ethernot wrote:
| So what you're saying is that blockchain, crypto, NFTs had
| no application up front. Correct. I agree there.
|
| What I am saying is that the applications of AI cannot be
| fulfilled to the level of the promises made. The promises
| were made to solicit hype to generate cash, not because the
| idea was viable or achievable on proof. When we reach
| maturity, we'll see what is left and I'll wait for that.
| That's fine. In the mean time I'll have to put up with cats
| appearing every time I search for dogs in Apple Photos and
| arguing with ChatGPT about its understanding of the
| relative magnitude of 9.9 and 9.11, while everyone tells me
| repeatedly with sweat on their brow that WhateverMODEL+1
| will make that problem go away, which it didn't on
| WhateverMODEL-3,-2,-1,0. Only another $2 billion of losses
| and we'll nail it then!!!
|
| The end game for all technology changes is not what we
| think it will be. Been in this game a long time and that is
| the only certainty.
| jajko wrote:
| Could be, but a bit of conservatism ain't gonna hurt, more
| conservative nations like Switzerland or nordics are doing more
| than fine long term, QOL is top notch globally for various
| reasons.
|
| Much better than having sheepish mentality and chasing what
| rest of the crowd is chasing too, shows some character and
| thinking for oneself and not being an easy subject to
| manipulation. X was almost pure toxicity even before musk's ego
| trip and I never understood why I should care about some random
| brainfarts of people 'I should be following', don't people have
| their own opinions formed by their own experience? Thats rather
| poor way of spending limited time we have here, on top of
| training oneself in quick cheap dopamine kicks which messes up
| people for rest of their lives.
|
| ChatGPT at least tries to be added value, but beyond a bit
| better search, hallucinating some questionable code and some
| random cute pics (of which novelty wears off extremely fast), I
| don't see it, I mean I see the potential, just not reality
| right now. Plus that code part - I want to keep training myself
| and my analytical mind, I don't want to be handed easy answers
| and become more passive and lazy. That's why I do git via
| command line tool and not just clicking around. That's why I
| don't mind at all doing some easier algorithms instead of
| having them served. My employer only wants good result, I am
| not working in sweat shop being paid by number of lines of code
| per day.
|
| Quality life is about completely different things anyway. IMHO
| UK is fine in this regard.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I think the Brits are pretty fast at adopting technology, their
| digital public service infrastructure for example is excellent
| as is their research and engineering sector but I think they
| have a pretty big distaste for hucksterism or fads and a very
| no-nonsense attitude. Sort of like us Germans but less
| digitally averse and with a better bureaucracy.
| twixfel wrote:
| I'm British but have lived in Germany for several years. I'd
| say the Germans are explicitly more conservative than Brits.
| Germany has several aspects in business and law which do, and
| admittedly I never lived in medieval times, literally feel
| like something out of some medieval guild system. "I must
| tithe to the Driver's Guild" is the long and the short of the
| entire learning to drive system here for example. And Germans
| just accept it, or even more pathetic, defend it. They just
| accept having these legally mandated wallet inspects / guild
| members ambushing them every now and then for cash. Baffling.
| ozim wrote:
| People living in techno bubble are always surprised how much
| ,,normal" people are behind and how much they don't care.
|
| I see people who are doing white collar jobs where most of it
| is doing stuff on computers being absolutely not interested in
| any of it.
|
| I work with generally people from all over Europe and it mostly
| is the same so I would not say Brits are like that but more
| generally people have bias towards doing things the way they've
| always been doing.
|
| Last month our company released new interface because old one
| is built on unsupported tech and with all the regulations we
| have to change it anyway - outrage lasted 2 weeks - people are
| getting used to new way and in 2 months no one will remember
| the old way.
| agumonkey wrote:
| There's many people like me who were born and pushed for more
| tech and are now back pedaling. You start to see through the
| trends, the marketing, the manias.. and nowadays the
| disconnect between joy, usefulness and actual results.
| moomin wrote:
| I'm honestly surprised at how small the drop is, because it feels
| like I no longer know anyone who's using it. Haven't heard a
| conversation with involving something someone read there in
| forever. Hear about reddit all the time.
| awinter-py wrote:
| feels like OSS early adopter folks have been trying to leave
| for years, legal + media people moved to bsky this month and
| are starting to close their twitter accounts, younger VC /
| founder type people are trying to stick it out
|
| some of the oss + scifi author crowd has been making it work on
| mastodon but may come to bsky. (think like charlie stross)
|
| celeb + sports accounts are joining bsky now post-election, and
| in theory a bunch of users that will jump with them;
| insta/threads may still win this slice though
|
| rn on bsky there's an early twitter dynamic of like mark
| hammill following tech journalists
| TheBlight wrote:
| >rn on bsky there's an early twitter dynamic of like mark
| hammill following tech journalists
|
| Lmao
| Havoc wrote:
| Because it's a dumpster fire of shrill partisan US politics.
|
| I'm following _only_ SF /hn flavoured tech crowd on there - the
| thinking being that it'll be about tech. An intentional attempt
| to buy into a bubble if you will. That used to work well.
|
| Since musk take-over and the current election cycle even that is
| intolerable. Tech gang no longer tweet about kubernetes etc,
| instead it's about immigrant, Joe Rogan and whatever has Marc
| Andreessen's knickers in a twist today.
| cgh wrote:
| Bluesky awaits your arrival. Unfortunately, there's a lot of
| the creepy anime avatar crowd there already but luckily the
| nuclear block exists on that platform.
| toenail wrote:
| You chose who you follow, and you can block any words you like.
| I see basically zero politics.
| grahamj wrote:
| Hopefully everyone is getting away from X
| ipaddr wrote:
| There is a bluesky doomscroll waiting for you in the new echo
| chamber.
| racl101 wrote:
| Twitter was cool about a couple of years. I haven't tweeted
| since like 2012. I'm not in a hurry to jump on Blue Sky.
| Jedd wrote:
| Sample size was ~7300 people, polling done in May / June 2024.
|
| Looks like various breakdowns of cohorts by age - in one section
| there's 7 groups.
|
| A thousand people per group is respectable, but OTOH each
| responder's answers are being extrapolated to assume the
| behaviour of ~10,000 people.
| piva00 wrote:
| If my rusty skills in sample calculation are correct, 7300
| surveys could be enough for a 98% confidence with 1,5% error
| margin.
|
| Someone please correct me if I'm wrong but I think the sample
| size of 7300 should be enough for UK's population.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| Depends where it's taken - online survey will be biased, ai
| meet-ups responders - extremely so etc.
| ada1981 wrote:
| They weren't that into democracy either. Didn't stop the Yanks
| from mopping the floor with them.
| markhahn wrote:
| only Brits?
|
| the set of people interested in AI seems to be quite specific:
| techno-optimists, fad-seeking "entrepreneurs", people who can get
| with low-quality outputs.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-11-29 23:00 UTC)