Checking in with insane idiots

The New York Times thinks it’s time for a GIRL BOSS to get in on the AI grift. Who better to lead the charge than former Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer? This is, honest to god, the way the article starts:

Late last year, Marissa Mayer was struggling with what felt like an impossible task.

Her daughter Marielle was turning 10, and Marielle’s teacher wanted three bullet points summarizing what made her special. Mayer — the former chief executive of Yahoo and a pioneer at Google, where she was the first female engineer — likes cracking a hard problem. But she felt overwhelmed by the range and complexity of potential answers.

So Mayer asked her personal A.I. assistant, Dazzle. Within a few seconds, Dazzle delivered an answer.

“It came back and was like, your daughter is empathetic, creative and an animal lover,” Mayer said. She thought it was perfect.

Ah yes, the impossible task of identifying three of your own child’s character traits. The hard problem to crack of coming up with four total words that have all the insight and uniqueness of a fortune cookie. I guarantee you half the other kids in that class have at least one of those descriptions on their own entry. This is not using technology to surmount an obstacle, it’s abdicating any responsibility for it at all.

The whole article is chock-full of anecdotes of Mayer’s groundbreaking AI assistant doing previously unknown things like suggesting a theme for a child’s birthday party. I’m not knocking the observation that a lot of this stuff can be frustrating, especially with a kid who is prone to reject anything you suggest. What I’m saying is that nothing the AI agent is credited with doing is any more impressive than, say, a Google search. To wit:

She’s used it to find a family activity during a vacation in Venice (Dazzle proposed a Venetian mask-making workshop that the whole family loved); to plan a play date for one of her twin daughters (Dazzle knows Marielle is into magic, and suggested visiting a magic shop in San Francisco); and to choose a theme for her son Macallister’s 14th birthday party (Dazzle recommended a glow-in-the-dark pool party, and found glowing pool toys and corn hole).

Finally, a way to find out… something to do in Venice while you’re on vacation? This was a problem? A way to find a store that sells things your child is interested in? Truly we are through the looking glass here.

This article certainly has the stink of a PR agency all over it and more than anything its existence is about getting the interest of investors. I’m not really sure why it continues past this point, though.

When I asked Mayer if it’s somewhat depressing to imagine a frictionless future when birthday celebrations, holiday gifts and family vacations are planned by A.I., she seemed caught off guard.

“I haven’t really thought that through,” she said.

“I haven’t really thought that through.” The epitaph for the AI mania.

Ah well. She still seems like a better parent than Sam Altman.