Terrible parenting advice from a CEO

Bonus: Alex Hirsch is the creator of Gravity Falls

1.4k points · 75 comments · view on lemmy.world

75 Comments

stupe@lemmy.zip · 259 pts · 18d (19 replies)

Why is he so interested in having people upload schedules of what their kids are doing?

cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.works · 109 pts · 18d (2 replies)

Avoiding the obvious reference to fiddling, I think these tech companies need kids to be as reliant and addicted to their products as possible. TikTok and Youtube were the trailblazers in the electronic addiction economy.

Sir_Premiumhengst@lemmy.world · 36 pts · 18d

And also knowing your children's schedule is a good predictor for wealth.

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 9 pts · 17d

funny thing is the techbros own kids are shielded away fromthe brainrot, they made sure they go to montiserri private school away from tech. they need future customers, not thier own kids, which would have thier own agency.

Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca · 45 pts · 18d (6 replies)

Adults are stubborn and set in their ways. Kids are easier to mould to new ideas.

If they can get the kids hooked on AI tools, they'll run with it until they're old enough to be making the decisions and by then they'll want the tools they've grown up using: AI.

It's a marketing strategy, and an effective one at that.

That, and Altmans probably got a comfortable seat on the Epstein list.

sobchak@programming.dev · 4 pts · 17d (5 replies)

Sam allegedly raped his sister.

FavouriteShapes@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 17d (4 replies)

Source?

Does sound familiar.

iThinkDifferentThanU@lemmy.world · 42 pts · 18d
[ removed ]
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 18d

Because they want the next generations to be as completely addicted to and reliant on their product for everything as possible. And because he's rich, and has rich friends, so... you know. :/

Sibshops@lemmy.myserv.one · 15 pts · 18d

How else are they going to sell targeted advertising?

FavouriteShapes@sh.itjust.works · 14 pts · 17d

He's kind of the most evil business man ever, because:

  • he believes/knows climate change to be real
  • he understands that society reducing its energy consumption has the power to reduce or reverse climate change
  • nonetheless, Sam Altman sells a product that does almost nothing, (certainly doesn't do what it says on the tin very well)
  • and is relying on everyone massively increasing their energy consumption to power the roll-out of this.
Redditmodstouchgrass@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 18d

Toy Story 6: Bonnie gets abducted by Altman.

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 17d

his master, anti-christ thiel demands it thats why.

ricecake@sh.itjust.works · -16 pts · 18d (2 replies)

The actual, boring answer is because family calendars can get complicated quickly and then ore people are involved and updating them the easier it is to miss something. So the use case of "will help you keep track of what the fuck is going on" is a legitimate advertising angle.

In an absurd sense, it's similar to the "oops, we forgot to put the safeties on and our super clever bot totally autonomously did something insanely sophisticated. Don't worry, we fixed it though". Anything sophisticated enough to stalk and harass a journalist is more than capable of planning a meeting.

Anything capable of putting together a podcast about everything going on is more than capable of actually sending you a reliable reminder for a doctor's appointment for your second kid that you weren't told about, or letting you know that you're not free Wednesday at 1 when talking with the repair person.

julietOscarEcho@sh.itjust.works · 12 pts · 17d (1 reply)

I have two young kids, complicated health and a demanding international job. A simple calendar app is more than adequate. No "intelligence" required. And why is your bot listening in to your discussion with the repair person, did you ask their permission first? What else is it listening to, and who is profiting off that information?

I get that it's a fun toy, but you really have some big blind spots to paint this stuff as acceptable, let alone desirable.

ricecake@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 17d

Oh, I didn't say it was acceptable or desirable. I guess that's why the downvotes.

I think that's what they're advertising, as opposed to the people who think it's a deep plot to hook kids or something.

The free shared group calendar that comes with my stuff is all I use for a similar setup. Only thing I wish it had was a better ability to notify me if someone else added an event, since I regularly have conversations with contractors or whatever where I say anytime should be fine, and then immediately have to backpedal when checking the calendar.

But for clarification, I don't want what I described and I don't think they can actually do most if any of what they imply with these backhanded advertisments.
I just think "manage the schedules of a busy family" is one of the most tried "wholesome" advertising gambits.

ol_capt_joe@piefed.ee · 107 pts · 18d (4 replies)

Imagine sitting around all day thinking of every way to stop people from thinking for themselves 🤯

Dojan@pawb.social · 60 pts · 18d (3 replies)

When your goal is to control the masses that’s exactly what you want.

WhyIHateTheInternet@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 18d (2 replies)

Then imagine sitting around all day finding ways to control the masses

These people are fucking sick

osanna@lemmy.vg · 2 pts · 16d (1 reply)

this must be the reason you hate the internet

WhyIHateTheInternet@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 16d

A reason.

I got a list.

NENathaniel@lemmy.ca · 41 pts · 18d (2 replies)

When I first read this I didn't think anything of it cause I thought it was some rando

Now I'm realizing it's Sam Altman 😭

Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 16d (1 reply)

Same, I thought it was some linkedin lunatic 😨

Evotech@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 16d

It is

motruck@lemmy.zip · 39 pts · 17d

This is what psychopaths think parenting is.

schmorpel@slrpnk.net · 33 pts · 18d

Is this why there's a limited life expectancy for dynasties?

Redvenom@retrolemmy.com · 29 pts · 18d (4 replies)

chatgpt solving reptilian problems that nobody has

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 17d (3 replies)

peter thiel is anagram for reptile, and sam altman, satan's lamb.

luciferofastora@feddit.org · 5 pts · 17d (1 reply)

peterthiel
thereptile

samaltman
satanlamm

The first kinda checks out, but the second definitely doesn't. If you interpret it as German, Satan-Lamm kinda works if you ignore the fact that it should be Satanslamm in that composition.

FavouriteShapes@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 17d

Le Sam Altman = Me Mall Satan

Me Mall Santa similarly works

__Lost__@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 17d

Did chatgpt tell you those are anagrams?

nebulahhh@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 24 pts · 17d (1 reply)

Based alex hirsch moment

Duamerthrax@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 17d

Common W moment

TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com · 23 pts · 18d

"Ha! Jokes on you as my kids won't even talk to me!", he cried into his buckwheat pillow.

fizzle@quokk.au · 22 pts · 18d (6 replies)

I dont get it. What would th epodcat actually talk about?

Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 18d

Right? It's not like the kid's soccer game is part of the AI's programming, it won't know anything about it that you don't tell it. It can't go over who they're playing against, or give their record so far, or provide any other new information about it, so what exactly is it going to say?

Then the birthday will still be "coming up" every day until the day itself arrives, so what is there to say about that that would be interesting and new on a daily drive?

That just leaves "some news," at which point you might as well turn on the radio, or put on a real podcast.

LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 19 pts · 18d

Doesn't matter so long as Altman just got geographic time stamps of where you your spouse your children and what activities they like to participate in at all times.

terranoid@lemmy.cafe · 9 pts · 18d (1 reply)

Garbage in garbage out

Likely all anyone puts in the calendar is "Simon's basketball game" so it will at best reference basketball and Simon playing it and have some fake podcaster say, "And don't forget about that basketball game at 8pm!", and at worst invent/hallucinate tons of details it could never know.

One thing that worries me is even the c level executives offer the worst ideas when it comes to AI and their own AI products. Like, AI can manage to do a lot of useful stuff, but also a lot of terrible use cases... This being one. It takes 1 minute to glance at your week's schedule. An AI podcast invites the worst kind of hallucinations. Whenever you give it a tiny bit of information and expect more back than you gave it like upscaling, you invite the worst hallucinations and inaccuracies.

The fact that they're still struggling to make it sound relevant means they don't even believe in it as much as they're trying to sell it. Bubble is bound to pop soon with this sort of weird behavior... Seems like a year ago they were talking about the machine god being here by now, and now they're like "hey did you know this thing can make a fake podcast?" Yeah I fucking knew that, it was a stupid use case 2 years ago and it's a stupid use case now.

Malfeasant@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 18d

It's funny, my job has been pushing AI hard for a couple years now... So I've been using it on them. I had it write my year end review 2 years ago, because I absolutely hate that I have to do that rather than my manager, and it was all bullshit, but I got a good raise. Last year I tried to be honest, and ended up half assing it, but because I was doing well and everyone knew it (so arguably I shouldn't need a year end review in the first place) I got a promotion and another big raise. Now I'm using it to write my goals, another thing that I hate having to do myself, but the problem is, by now I don't want to put any effort into it, so it's half assing it, and what it put together sounds great, but there's no way to measure it, therefore no way to achieve the goals... By the time I put the effort into giving it the data it needs to make something useful, I could have just done it myself...

Gorillazrule@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 17d

That's what I was thinking about. In theory there could be a cool idea here. But using AI to do it would just give shitty results. But you could actually do a little research and find a few short articles or stories about things your kid is interested in, and then feed them into a decent TTS and edit it together like a podcast. Then where they would normally take a pause for an ad read have a little shout out wishing your kid a happy birthday or wishing them luck on their exams or competition or whatever. I think it could actually be pretty neat, and give you something to chat about while you listen, and having the little personalized messages would feel like magic to the kid, because it's kind of like getting a shout out on Radio/Television. It can be exciting and make you feel bigger than just your small social bubble. It's exciting to have a little 30 seconds of fame.

But obviously Altman is just grasping at straws to shill his product, and hasn't put this much thought into it.

BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 17d

Ever stumble across one of those totally AI YouTube video, with the professional sounding voice that pronounced words oddly, or emphasizes phrases in a weird way? They go on and on about some subject without really saying anything, making empty pronouncements with florid language?

Like that. The podcast equivalent of flavorless gummy bears.

ddplf@szmer.info · 21 pts · 17d

On the instant I knew this was a satire.

Then I looked who the OP was.

Fucking can't make this shit up.

ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com · 20 pts · 18d (1 reply)

Great way to conduct a new wave of unregulated psychological experimentation to determine whether or not you can induce narcissism in a developing mind...

Especially if they don't understand what's going on. Imagine growing up thinking that your birthday or school sports game is newsworthy on a stranger's podcast. Every day all they talk about is you on the radio.

Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 16d

-"Little benny sat on the bench again, because he's a little looser, now over to Annies catastrophic math results."

pelespirit@sh.itjust.works · 18 pts · 18d (2 replies)

I don't recognize your name and I'm going to be around, so I'm not going to instantly delete it. You need to provide an archived link for this, Rule 6. Anyone can help, you all have an hour. Next time I will delete automatically.

pirc_lover@feddit.uk · 53 pts · 18d (1 reply)
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works · 19 pts · 18d

Thank you for helping out.

Snapz@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 18d

"super cool life hack... If your kids are disappointing because you're in constant fear of being found out to be a fraud, with your kids being walking reminders of your failed life, just stop talking to your kids. Tell my lying machine that IT is your kid now, and it won't judge you!"

BigMacHole@thelemmy.club · 13 pts · 17d (2 replies)

NOT talking to Your Children is the EXACT Family Values JESUS teaches!

-Republicans!

osanna@lemmy.vg · 5 pts · 16d

Thank you for your Attention in this Matter.

Evotech@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 16d

Jesus didn’t even have kids. Based

forkDestroyer@infosec.pub · 12 pts · 17d (2 replies)

Wasn't this stuff supposed to cure cancer? Instead, it's making podcasts?

nieminen@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 16d

There are versions of these machine learning and statistical programs that are making headway in all sorts of medical research. That was, and is still happening.

I am starting to think that this whole ai push, along with making all these companies insane amounts of money at the cost of regular folks, is ultimately to further attack the human intelligence. The number of people I know personally and secondhand that let chatgpt make all their decisions, even the simplest ones. And they'll use it as a truth source, treat it like a person (it's not even anything close to approaching intelligence). It's going to go poorly for us as a whole.

jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 17d

is there even much money in curing cancer?

noodlejetski@piefed.social · 12 pts · 17d (1 reply)

did he hear it on the podcast that he'd generated

FavouriteShapes@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 17d

These people are using the hallucination generator to hallucinate hallucinations that help them hallucinate more hallucinations

vala@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 9 pts · 17d (1 reply)

These people really have no moat.

This is a totally shit feature but, but you could do this with Qwen3-tts.

mirshafie@europe.pub · 3 pts · 17d

Their moat was supposed to be overwhelming compute, which they said was a necessity to produce frontier models and that only an American monopoly could produce. Three years later it's not a monopoly but an oligopoly, the diminishing returns on compute are devastating, and China is humiliating them with models that aren't really even focused on the English language.

ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one · 6 pts · 18d (1 reply)

Why I would want to talk to my kids? /s

leavemealone@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 18d

Why would Sam Altman kids want to talk to him?

guitarfosec@infosec.pub · 6 pts · 16d

Anyone who would willingly listen to an AI-generated podcast is a person I have zero interest in ever interacting with. I feel like once you learn someone is actually doing that, a serious intervention is required.

Avicenna@programming.dev · 6 pts · 17d

I mean atleast show the effort to search actual podcasts that might interest your kid rather than having chatgpt produce made-up ones. But then searching doesn't burn as many tokens and it is Sam Altman who is suggesting this lol.

samus12345@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 16d (1 reply)

There was a Scary Door episode about this.

Magnum@infosec.pub · 2 pts · 16d

Calling something out to be the plot of a fictional television series inside of a fictional universe and television series is wild stuff.

PotatoLibre@feddit.it · 3 pts · 18d

I would see the face of the idiot that suggested that (which probably doesn't even exists)

HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club · 3 pts · 18d

But for am I supposed to display my dominance over my children by asking them for information?

caxap71322@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 16d

alkdfjlaskdj.com

DaleGribble88@programming.dev · 0 pts · 17d

I agree with the sentiment, I really do. However, do yall have kids? Remembering their friend's birthdays and knowing their bizarrely inconsistent schedule is not what they are talking about in the car. Fortnight, bike rides, complaints about tests? All of that - absolutely. The after school science fair? LoTR day at the library? Basketball Practice meets at 6:00 tonight instead of 7:30 because the coaches other kid has a karate exhibition? Exactly none of is coming up.

AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 17d

For a laugh, yes sure do that lol.

Theoretically LLMs could be great as digital life assistant. IF there wasn't a malicious corporation behind them. Like if you had an open source, locally run AI model that slowly gets to know you or your kids, remembers all the conversations, in it's own encrypted storage that only you (or your kid) can access using a password of voice footprint. As AI models become smarter they could increasingly help manage your life. Or offer tips and coaching about your issues. Even positive reinforcement from an AI could help people grow as people - theoretically.

Obviously you don't want a sycophantic LLM induce narcissism in your kids lol. But if I consider my confused childhood I can imagine some additional attention by an AI with broad knowledge could definitely have helped me.

Currently the attention of kids is largely influenced by algorithms and what is trending. The semi-intelligence of LLMs could provide a counterweight to that. There are studies that just altering the order of search results can change the outcome of political elections. The same is true for a million other things, just for maximizing ad revenue. Again local LLMs could help research and counteract such malicious influences. Instead of recommending a search result an AI agent could look up who owns the site, what history they have, how many falsehoods they published and what political messaging or harmful or deceptive propaganda they try to push when analyzing their talking points.

PS: Obviously you couldn't trust an AI corporation like OpenAI with this, but you could use a modified open weights model for this and a non-profit financed by individual donations.

morune13@lemmy.world · -16 pts · 17d (3 replies)
[ removed ]
VitoRobles@lemmy.today · 15 pts · 17d (2 replies)

This is the sort of weird, performative rage from the Left that helps no one and selfishly serves only themselves.

Quoting it because this is the most surreal take I ever heard.

"Hey y'all these leftists and their... Talking to the kids! Amirite?!"

potpotato@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 17d (1 reply)

Furthermore, nothing about the OP was political — unless being an attentive parent is divisive and left wing.

VitoRobles@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 17d

I knew it was going to be deleted. I just had to quote it because of how ridiculous it was.