Trust

In their rush to cram in “AI” “features”, it seems to me that many companies don’t actually understand why people use their products.

Google is acting as though its greatest asset is its search engine. Same with Bing.

Mozilla Developer Network is acting as though its greatest asset is its documentation. Same with Stack Overflow.

But their greatest asset is actually trust.

If I use a search engine I need to be able to trust that the filtering is good. If I look up documentation I need to trust that the information is good. I don’t expect perfection, but I also don’t expect to have to constantly be thinking “was this generated by a large language model, and if so, how can I know it’s not hallucinating?”

“But”, the apologists will respond, “the results are mostly correct! The documentation is mostly true!”

Sure, but as Terence puts it:

The intern who files most things perfectly but has, more than once, tipped an entire cup of coffee into the filing cabinet is going to be remembered as “that klutzy intern we had to fire.”

Trust is a precious commodity. It takes a long time to build trust. It takes a short time to destroy it.

I am honestly astonished that so many companies don’t seem to realise what they’re destroying.

Responses

Steven Garrity

@adactio Also, generative AI undermines trust not just in your own system/product, but for all systems/products.

I’ve been reviewing job applications (they’re mostly great) - but even knowing that many of the cover letters are or could be generated by LLMs has eroded my trust in *all* submissions as I can’t know you used AI tools and who didn’t.

The pool has been pee’d in.

Baldur Bjarnason

Seen in this light, the only remarkable thing is that people didn’t get angry at Manton much much earlier, since he’s been extremely enthusiastic about both “AI” and OpenAI for a long while now.

(Personally, my issue is that micro.blog keeps adding new features, new apps, new stuff while leaving core issues unfixed and the core UX extremely unpolished for years. The “AI” stuff is just the latest in a cavalcade of distractions.)

Baldur Bjarnason

(And, by “decent-sized” I mean that the people who are angered by this are a subset of micro.blog’s user base that’s large enough to be noticed. I doubt it’s a large enough group to have anything more than a minimal effect on the service’s bottom line, though.)

David LaFontaine

@baldur I can understand the push to shove AI into every aspect of our lives on the part of publicly traded companies, because investors reward everyone who even whispers AI with increased stock valuations. But this?

Baldur Bjarnason

@dave Yeah, it’s a bit odd. But in Manton’s defence, he’s both a genuine enthusiast of the tech (of the “it’s the greatest thing since the invention of the web” kind) and he’s been respectful enough to add a single settings checkbox that lets you turn off “AI” features site-wide

It is a bit weird that somebody so dedicated to the “small”, open, and indie web is also so all-in on something so heavy and opaque as generative models and OpenAI, but I guess people are complex that way

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Previously on this day

9 years ago I wrote 100 words 067

Day sixty seven.

9 years ago I wrote Web! What is it good for?

Not absolutely nothing, but not absolutely everything either.

10 years ago I wrote The more the merrier at Responsive Day Out 2

Did you miss out on getting a ticket? It’s not too late!

21 years ago I wrote Blogging at the BBQ

I’m in a garden in Lewes. The sun has gone down and I’ve just finished eating some barbequed meat surrounded by fellow geeks from the Brighton New Media list. The perfect end to a beautiful sunny day.

21 years ago I wrote Brighton's going wireless

It looks like Brighton is about to get networked, just in time for Summer.

21 years ago I wrote iTunes update

Apple have released an update to iTunes but you might not want to download it just yet.

22 years ago I wrote Glad to be back

Finland was… quiet. I almost wished I had a more stressful lifestyle so that I could appreciate the peace and quiet more. As it was, I was looking at my watch by the end of the weekend.