That wasn’t quite the point I was making :)

The person in the original post didn’t mention combustion engines.

Feels like it is a little about me.

One could say the same about the TV, about the internet, about block cypher encryption, about the economy, about the local sewage system, about the local water and electricity systems, about all sorts of things that we rely on every day.

Oh then there’s the boiler, the cooker, the microwave, the fridge, the telecommunications network…

At what point do I go “huh – maybe I should leave this up to people who went to school to learn about it” rather than trying to learn even the basics about everything that could go wrong in my life when there are CLEARLY people who know more about it than I do and are paid to know more about it than I do?

Hold on a moment – I don’t go around with a sandwich board on my chest or emailing every person I know.

I brought it up here because I thought it relevant to the topic. But if we were talking about hockey or baseball or what makes different clouds form at different levels then I wouldn’t have mentioned it.

And pride? Again I just mentioned it because it’s something relevant to the topic. I could easily have said I have no clue how nuclear reactors work or how to perform open heart surgery on a human being.

Would that have been boasting about my lack of knowledge? Or does not knowing about how to perform open heart surgery seem relatively normal?

I was just making a point that a lot of people don’t bother with some knowledge because it is shit they don’t need to know. And right now using AI tools is in that category for quite a large percentage of the population.

All due respect, you started this.

You attacked me for writing a post. Clearly you care enough to do that.

There’s a difference between passively using something and actively using something.

I use electricity every day, but I have no idea how it’s generated. I (assume I) use RSA256, but if you ask me to explain block cypher encryption to you I’d just go “well you take a number and another number and… hope they have sex to produce a bigger number?”

I use a lot of stuff without having to know how it works and having to choose to use it.

To be honest? Yeah.

In my last job before this one I learned a lot of stuff about a topic I needed to know for that job.

But now I have a new job I don’t need to know any of that stuff. So I am slowly forgetting it because I don’t use it. And instead I am learning a lot of stuff about things I need for my new job.

And in the midst of all of this why would I take the time to learn something I am never going to use. At all. Ever. I have far too much stuff to learn and remember, and why I would need to learn how to plug the camshaft into the reverse socket twink-phlange?

I am not afraid of technology. It doesn’t scare me. I am not sitting in a cave railing against these kids with their short skirts and their long hair and their music and “they didn’t do these things in my day”

I just made what I consider to be a fairly educated judgement call that this is something I don’t need to care about.

Yeah, that’s just judgemental and presumptive.

I have quite a lot of shit in my life, and I have actively decided to pay no attention to AI. Not because “I can’t keep up with it” but because after some research into it I decided “it was bullshit and nonsense and not something I need to know about”

There’s a difference between not knowing something because of ignorance and not knowing something because you know you don’t need to know it.

I have no idea how to rebuild a combustion engine.

Is that something of which I should be ashamed? Or something I have actively chosen not to learn because when will I ever need to know it?

If you think I am threatened by technology, you are barking up the wrong tree.

And if you think I don’t understand what AI is and what the flaws in it are, you are also barking up the wrong tree.

If you think I am some 60 year old man shouting at clouds who just wants to live in a cave with a firepit then you are barking at an entire forest.

This entire argument is predicated on the assumption that it is a benefit to my life.

What if I believe that it’s not? That it is an active detriment? That I can live my life better without it?

And this is not contempt prior to investigation. I’ve tried it, and I honestly believe that I can do things better without it.

You know people who connect their fridge to the internet, and their front door locks to the internet, and their central heating system to the internet?

What benefit does that give me? All it does is allow – or potentially allow – someone to hack into my fridge, my central heating and my front door.

Why would I do that? I mean – that would be ridiculous. I have a front door lock that’s an actual lock because it is almost certainly going to be more secure.

I can write my answers, my emails, my letters better than AI can. I can write proposals at work better than AI can.

I can manage my life better than AI can because based on everything I have seen there is nothing it can do that is anywhere near as competent as I am.

Yeah, that’s just bollocks. (No offence) (okay a little offence).

Harry had already saved the world when he was eighteen months old. He was already a super special boy given THE ENTIRE MAGICAL WORLD KNEW HIS NAME before he did.

So the idea that making him a seeker was a way to make him special?

That’s just crap.

QUIDDITCH, THE BLOOD BOWL EDITION!!!

I’d watch that.

Well that just makes me like her a tiny little bit.

Or – you know – dislike her a little bit less.

Counter point :- (not to do with American sports – they are ridiculous)

imagine you’re watching a quidditch game where one side has an overwhelmingly good set of chasers. I mean unbelievably good. Far better than the other side. Within five minutes they are 50 points up, and another 30 minutes later they are 250 points up. There is literally no chance of the other side catching them.

Do you really want to sit and watch that? It’s like the Brazil - Germany game. After a while you would just be “Stop – you are hurting them too much. It’s getting embarrassing and we are all now going to leave because even the home team wants you to stop”

At least with the snitch it means there is a chance that it’ll be evened out.

Can’t remember the year, but my most beloved and I went to see it when Lee Mead was Fiyero.

At one point he swung in on a rope, land and looked around in such a “Aren’t I just the sexiest thing you’ve ever seen?” way the entire audience just burst into spontaneous applause – I am not sure he was expecting it because the cast just stared at us like we were mental. But the original look on his face (the “tadaaaaaaaaa!” expression) was the funniest thing you have ever seen.

Why?

You realise I am picturing Voldemort doing this with Harry and Hagrid staring at him in slight disbelief.

That would have made the Battle of Privet Drive a very different fight. And slightly more entertaining.

And now I am picturing this entire speech being done about Mad-Eye…

“This is an ex Auror!!”

Or put the “customers” at the start of the sentence.

So – “Customers, we are now approaching Leeds where this train terminates”

I mean you could literally arrange the words ANY other way and it would be better.

Just put a comma between the “terminates” and the “customers”