The whole premise feels artificial. The opening doesn't make it clear, but it sounds like the teacher wanted the kid to use some introspection and come up with 3 bullet points about themself, yet mom is stepping in to do this? And thinks it nearly impossible to list 3 things about their own kid? AND gets 3 things that are incredibly common and not at all special??? AND is impressed with that?!?! True or not, I'd guess at least half the moms out there would call their 10 year old girl an "empathetic, creative, animal lover." Banal. Common. NOT special. Who falls for this?

"Things that didn't happen for $200, please"

This is so unbelievably contrived it must be an advertisement. I've never heard of Drizzle^[EDIT: Dazzle, apparently.] or whatever it is. It reeks of ad copy, like those Google AI commercials that have people composing AI-generated letters to mail to grandma. This article must have struck a nerve with me because here is my barf of a response.

And maybe what overextended professional women need is an A.I. wife, an emotional labor bot that can plan a birthday party and knows when it’s Crazy Socks Day or Crazy Hat Day at the kids’ school, because it has photos of the fliers that came home crumpled in a backpack^[Because you are too busy to look at the flyer, and yet mysteriously took a photo of it? :fry:].

[TV infomercial voice]: Are you tired of paying attention to your kids? Is planning their weird school days getting in the way of your Hustle? INTRODUCING DRIZZLE™^[EDIT: Dazzle. where did I get drizzle?]! (~sparkling~) The new AI assistant brought to you by the woman who couldn't unsink Yahoo!

Mayer is rolling out her A.I. product at a moment when high-profile women in Silicon Valley are worried A.I. has a gender problem. Even Anthropic’s own Daniela Amodei, the leading lab’s president and co-founder, has raised alarms about A.I. becoming “a tool that’s just for the guys.” Women don’t use it as much as men do. The models themselves have been forged by a male-dominated culture and, some studies have found, have ambient sexism baked in. ... All of that could be fertile ground for launching an A.I. assistant that promises to shoulder some of the domestic load, a product that might bring more women into the world of constant A.I. users.

I know a lot of women who use AI. These companies basically admit they don't know their users. Worse the only way these companies conceive to lure said women is to tread them like men and give them an Artificial Wife Assistant™. All the brains of the world at their whims and the rich can only conceive of Personal Assistants. The reality is women will now have even more workload put on them thanks to their AI "assistant" that lets them shoulder more! aReN't yOu eXcItEd fOr tHe fUtUrE?!?1?

“I’m very disappointed in what’s happening in tech and across the board,” said Sheryl Sandberg, the former chief operating officer of Meta, whose organization, Lean In, has been tracking the gender gap in A.I. “There is deep cultural stagnation for growth of women in leadership roles. It’s a very scary moment for women.”

Sandberg you are an Epstein-level perv who wanted to molest a pregnant woman. Sit down and Lean Back.

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.

Gosh, I'm so :surprised-pika-messed-up: she hasn't thought through the basic first-order effects of her technology.

Given Mayer’s history, it can be jarring when she says she doesn’t see gender inequality in tech as a pressing issue. She acknowledges that women are underrepresented “There could always be more and there should be more, I’ll leave it at that,” she told me. But she also maintains that being a woman isn’t a barrier to succeeding in Silicon Valley. It’s a position that seems to require some cognitive dissonance.

Ok, there is some author snark here. I must be thirsty if I'm praising this.

Still, she thinks Dazzle could help overburdened women who’ve been reluctant to use the technology, perhaps, in Mayer’s view, in part because of the technical expertise it requires.

For the love of :sicko-satan: kill the patriarch in your head!!

Let me give you another opposite tactic. I tell my Mom that most tech problems aren't her fault; most software is extraordinarily poor and user hostile both intentionally and accidentally. Once I got her to internalize that she stopped feeling stupid when her tech stuff broke. I've also showed her that my "tech support" is putting search terms into Google, so now she solves most of her problems herself. I've also recently got her on a password manager and she loves it!

:porky-happy: can only :projection: their incredible stupidity and helplessness on others.

When I say software is incredibly poor, just look at this!

A young mother who described herself as someone who took lots of photos and rarely used A.I. was there to test the app. The session revealed some potential flaws. Dazzle asked the woman if she wanted help finding a replacement for a screen; in fact, she’d taken the photo because there was a bee. Dazzle suggested the woman might like to go golfing. The woman is not a golfer. Mayer noted that her own Dazzle had recently suggested she go golfing. “I don’t know what’s happening with golf,” Mayer told her team after the meeting. “We should figure out why it suddenly thinks everyone’s a golfer.”

:chefs-kiss:

Sociopathy is an informal, non-clinical term for Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD), a mental health condition characterized by a persistent disregard for the rights of others, lack of empathy, and deceitful or manipulative behavior

This makes me want to throw up. I know they're really pushing this because they want to completely sever any human connection people have, but like, even parents and their children? "The AI can be the one that actually bothers to remember the little shit's birthdays and other bullshit, freeing up your time to use more AI to do your other thinking for you!"

Mayer is aiming to build an A.I. tool that can handle everyday hassles, like buying a pair of pants you took a photo of, or finding a birthday present for your picky spouse.

maybe the AI can fuck your spouse for you too

The rich are no longer even remotely human.

“I’m very disappointed in what’s happening in tech and across the board,” said Sheryl Sandberg, the former chief operating officer of Meta

mega "would you hide me" zionist and gleeful spreader of lies about beheaded babies. your boos mean nothing, because I've seen what makes you cheer

“The play dates are better, the travel is better,” she said of her be-Dazzled life. 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).

“He was like, ‘Mom, I don’t want to hit the theme that hard,’” she said. “I just can’t help myself.”

this is as creepy as it sounds, right? why are people acting like this shit is desirable instead of just outsourcing any creative impulse to the stealing machine? (rhetorical)

and... How would your fucking AI know what makes your daughter special? Freaks, all of them.

Truly a tough nut to crack, knowing what makes your child special to you. Thank goodness for Dazzle, the ~~artificial~~ super intelligence capable of “ answering your questions by looking through your camera roll”.

So, based on the fact that her mother was willing to admit this anecdote, I could see if the daughter needed to ask AI to make up a "why I love my nearest relative" list, but seriously

Someone should send this to Marielle when she turns 18

She could have just asked the nanny.

Loving your kids enough to be able to tell them what makes them special? BORING. Let's let grok do it!

Classic engineer brain

Absolutely not beating the soulless ghoul allegations

Oh geez, some googling indicates I should probably apologize to Marissa Mayer; For some reason I had it in my head that she was CEO of Lucent Technologes during the downfall that led to the decimation of my stock portfolio. That was another ghoul, and I would feel terrible to have gotten her mixed up with that asshole, if she wasn't also such a piece of shit excuse for a human being. Instead I just feel silly.