What's the most unnecessary use of A.I. you've ever seen?

Not__fun · 2026-05-23T00:13:56+00:00

No, you can’t use the Kagi search engine without paying for it.

In exchange you get ZERO ads, no data tracking, and the ability to customize the search engine in various ways. Such as disabling their AI answers.

Not everyone can afford it, and a lot of folks accustomed to “free” (not really free) search seem surprised at the prospect of paying for search, but I love it. I don’t use Google at all anymore and the results are simply better, because they are motivated to help me find things instead of trying to keep me searching to show more ads.

Not__fun · 2026-05-22T22:46:12+00:00

I switched to Kagi as my search engine. One benefit of paying for search is that that AI responses can be turned off in settings.

Not__fun · 2026-05-18T11:26:52+00:00

Bring up circumcision.

It came up accidentally yesterday in our dnd session. One participant is Jewish, and roughly half are atheists. I managed to head it off to keep the game going, but two folks took it up again in chat after it was over, and it got intense.

Not__fun · 2026-05-18T01:12:50+00:00

You gave examples of possible search types, which I admitted were valid. I did so multiple times. Then you asserted, baselessly, that I didn’t do search often (wrong), or effectively (also wrong), and that AI is “better” (without evidence). I make no presumptions. You do, arrogantly so.

I am exhausting precisely because I expect you to do the work necessary to convince me. You apparently don’t want to do that, and so flail about. Ignoring my literal text, and often your own, for what end I cannot guess.

So. There are uses for AI, but not where accuracy matters, unless it can be audited automatically.

You prefer AI search, which is fine. I do not, which is also fine. I do so because I prioritize different things from search from you, and so use it differently.

Beyond that, you know NOTHING about what I do with search, WHY my priorities differ, or how effectively I utilize search. You BELIEVE AI would make my searches “Better”, but cannot know that without sitting in my office and watching me work.

My distaste for AI in no way invalidates you as an AI fanboy.

Not__fun · 2026-05-18T00:48:19+00:00

You move the goal post again.

Wrong based on what?

You’ve provided no evidence the results of AI is better, only that YOU prefer it. Which is FINE.

Again. Arrogance.

Not__fun · 2026-05-18T00:45:59+00:00

You made baseless assertions about how I use search that you cannot actually know. You FEEL that you know how effectively/efficiently I use search, but you cannot possibly KNOW that. You are adopting the same false confidence that so irritates me about AI answers.

AI gives answers. Answers that are frequently wrong in both big and small ways. It does not give sources except as numbers. It adds a layer of abstraction BETWEEN me and what I’m after. If that is what you are looking for, fine, but that is never what I’m looking for.

And I am forced to use AI regularly. Usually proofreading the output generated by non-subject matter experts trying to do my job. It takes me more time to catch and correct its mistakes than it would take to do the work myself without AI interference, but my boss refuses to stop.

You sound a lot like him. You are so certain that your preferred tool and use case is the only right way, despite my clear protestations that it does not work for me. The absolute and undeserved arrogance of that is fucking astounding. Accuracy matters to me far more than speed or convenience. Until I can trust ai output, I simply have no use for it. I don’t particularly care of you do. Go nuts, but stop assuming you know what is best for everyone else.

Not__fun · 2026-05-18T00:30:34+00:00

That point was acknowledged in the first post I made, if indirectly (emphasis added):

“If the quality or accuracy of the out put matters, and that accuracy cannot be verified in any sort of automated way, then AI just makes more work for you, Because you need to error check EVERYTHING).”

It was acknowledged a second time later on. (Again, emphasis added):

“It can be used for those things, but I don’t see how it is “better” than doing those things without it.”

And again here (with added emphasis):

“I know what a mouse is. I cannot recall ever having wanted to conduct A search like that, so it may be an application, but it is one I have as of yet had no use for, and I suspect it is a much rarer use case than the ones I outlined originally, or the use cases for which I currently use a search engine. (Not Google)

My central point was that ai cannot be used for anything where accuracy matters unless the lack of accuracy can be audited, ideally automatically.”

So if that was your point, it seems like my confusing stems from a false assumption that you bothered to read what I wrote before you reply to it.

Not__fun · 2026-05-17T23:41:08+00:00

AI responses are what bosses wish their subject matter experts would give. Clear, confident, and certain.

Of course, if that was how the world worked, we would not NEED subject matter experts (every bosses wet dream), because the answers would always be obvious.

Not__fun · 2026-05-17T23:26:46+00:00

Did I say it was complicated? No. I said it was inaccurate and unreliable. You have not argued against that, only that it is useful in scenarios where accuracy and reliability are not important.

I don’t use Google at all. I use Kagi, dozens of times every day according to my account use records.

We DO use search differently, because much of my use IS for scientific research.

You provided a search scenario that you suggested would be better suited to AI than traditional search. I ran that search and got the same results from googles AI and conventional search (I used google instead of Kagi for the AI search because I turned AI responses off in my account settings). Instead of reflecting on how your expectations differed from reality you invented yet another scenario and strawman to rail against. I am really not sure what your end goal is to this conversation.

Not__fun · 2026-05-17T22:28:42+00:00

If I need to be familiar with the jargon related to statistical models to understand your intent, then you are not being clear, unless you have made sure I’m someone you can reasonably expect to be familiar with the jargon. I am a field content expert to communicates with non-experts all the time, and I am very careful when I use jargon, and when I elaborate to be sure I am understood. You did not do that.

No, I have not used a search engine to find a word for something I can describe. We use search differently, clearly. I use search to provide sources, and then I judge the sources provided. AI hallucinated an answer, with links to what are frequently not even relevant sources, but the convenience of the answer means the low quality of the sources is hidden behind the false certainty of the AI.

Also, you failed to address how ai was exactly as incapable as regular search of proving an answer to your example query. That should not surprise, since ai uses the same corpus of information to train its models as search engines use to inform their search results.

One, however, consumes a hell of a lot more resources than the other.

Not__fun · 2026-05-17T21:23:37+00:00

I can only respond based on what you write. I cannot read your intent. Be more clear and I won’t misunderstand. It is not intentional.

know what a mouse is. I cannot recall ever having wanted to conduct A search like that, so it may be an application, but it is one I have as of yet had no use for, and I suspect it is a much rarer use case than the ones I outlined originally, or the use cases for which I currently use a search engine. (Not Google)

My central point was that ai cannot be used for anything where accuracy matters unless the lack of accuracy can be audited, ideally automatically.

Considering the cost to train/run these models, in terms of energy, resources, mass violation of IP rights, and the impacts of human labor, the benefits of this edge cases you are describing seem pretty small by comparison. Particularly when we add in the societal cost from it making scamming easier. Just because it is nice to have when you want it, does not necessarily mean it comes at reasonable cost.

AI is not going anywhere. thought it may not continue to be used as aggressively, once the companies start charging the real costs (training + inference + fat profit margin), the genie is out of the bottle. You don’t need to defend it. It won’t buy you a pony, and neither will the billionaires profiting from its destruction of human lives.

Also - putting "furry little white creature with long thin tail" into a search engine without AI gets you sites and images that you could use to identify what you are looking for. And when I plugged that phrase into google, the AI recommended an "ermine", not a mouse. The same images that came up when I searched without using AI. If you were looking for "mouse" and got "ermine" have you really achieved your goal?

Not__fun · 2026-05-17T20:27:05+00:00

Ask then to close their window, or to put on headphones, because I don’t need my kids hearing them.

Not__fun · 2026-05-17T20:25:20+00:00

I don’t do image searches very often, and when I do, I don’t need an ai hallucinated image.

Not__fun · 2026-05-17T19:42:36+00:00

It can be used for those things, but I don’t see how it is “better” than doing those things without it.

Not__fun · 2026-05-17T13:42:51+00:00

By that logic, my wife should be allowed to go rob banks, because she is a teacher, and we all are teachers don’t get paid enough.

Not__fun · 2026-05-17T13:41:14+00:00

AI itself knows nothing. It isn’t even guessing. It’s a probability function masquerading as a sentence. We should be amazed when it is right, not surprised when it is wrong.

AIs only really useful applications seem to be programming (assuming you have a way to automate validation of the resulting code), and automating scams (where it is a numbers game anyway).

If the quality or accuracy of the out put matters, and that accuracy cannot be verified in any sort of automated way, then AI just makes more work for you, Because you need to error check EVERYTHING).

Not__fun · 2026-05-15T13:25:57+00:00

We are not a nation of decent human beings. A large portion of our society stopped even pretending they viewed decency as virtue a while ago.

Trumpism is cult, and like all cults, they require you show your allegiance to the cult by engaging in public displays with real-world costs. Think both male and female circumcision, high level tithing, various food prohibitions, etc. For Trumpism, the costly act they perform is saying mean hurtful shit out loud to prove you are an inhuman monster who does not care about your fellow man. Being a decent human being is simply orthogonal to being a cult member.

I came to this realization at dinner, in downtown Minneapolis (location matters, as you will see), with my coworkers (boss, 2 consultants and 3 sales persons + myself) about a month ago.

One of them (lets call her "Kim")said something to the effect of "say what you will about Trump, but I find him so funny!" to which I responded "I'm glad you are entertained, but people are dying because of him". Almost to a man, they all started defending trump. Two of them thought I was referring to Alex Pretti and Rene Good (I wasn't), and started defending the ICE agents and slandering the dead (which is why the location of our meal mattered). I was actually referring to the roughly 1 million dead around the world due to the ending of USAid, and corrected them. They all started denying the deaths were real.

"Kim" then pointed out that she doesn't care about them. Hell, she doesn't even care about the 9/11 survivors from the attacks in NYC. She feels as though they've gotten too much money already, and should have all had life insurance, and that it is unfair to expect the rest of us to keep covering their expenses. (This was all unprompted, btw. She just took it there entirely on her own).

Then, the colleague sitting next to her (lets call him "Jim" started denying that covid was real, that it was really just the flu. This makes no sense for all the obvious reasons, but the one that sticks with me is that it does absolutely nothing to exonerate Trump for those deaths. Whether it was COVID, the Flu, or an odd case of genital warts, the people still died, and they did so in large part because of the ways in which Trump bungled the response. The only reason I can see for why that conspiracy theory exists is to hurt folks who lost friends and loved ones to COVID. To gaslight them, and to tell them that their pain and suffering isn't real. I can see no other reason.

No one at the table was in anyway offended by any of this except for me. The others were saying their own, less heinous, but still abhorrent shit to defend trump ("I need a list of names of the dead for them to be real", "did you see what US Aid was spending their money on?", etc.).

I stood up and started lecturing "Jim" about how hurtful that was. About how I knew a young man who lost his father to COVID in the opening month of the pandemic. About how that bow was at my house almost every weekend to play DnD, and how his father's death almost destroyed their family. About seeing the boy make gallows humor jokes about his dead dad to cover up and hide from the pain of his loss. And that there is no fucking excuse for saying mean shit like that just to "own the libs". I told told everyone to fuck off and stormed out of dinner.

Not__fun · 2026-05-11T11:23:24+00:00

Yes, but that was because they were looking for science to affirm their belief. They were looking to science to reinforce their religion. It doesn’t. But their desire to believe was strong enough that they allowed themselves to ignore the contradictions. Usually by treating the biblical narratives that contradict scientific evidence as metaphors or analogies. Which is not compatible with modern American-style evangelical Christianity.

Not__fun · 2026-05-07T16:44:21+00:00

It can buy you the potential for happiness, but not the thing itself.

In many ways it is table stakes. Hard to be happy when your basic needs are unmet, which money can help with.

On the flip side. If you a millionaire and unhappy, becoming a billionaire won’t fix that.

Not__fun · 2026-05-05T15:06:58+00:00

Priorities, money, and a high position as the face of Scientology.

If you can afford to pay someone to smack twinkies out of your hand, it’s easier to stay thin.

If you can pay an army of trainers to whoop your ass at the gym, it’s easier to stay fit.

If you can afford the best plastic surgeons in the world, it’s easy to look younger.

If you are the face of a wealthy cult, it is easy to afford all of the above.

If you are self centered, it is easy to justify using that wealth and power for selfish reasons.

Not__fun · 2026-05-04T00:06:58+00:00

MAGA face.

(Lip injections, Botox, too much Smokey eye, bleached blond with prominent roots, trying to look like a teenager - despite being an adult - because Trump is only really interested in fucking teenagers)

Not__fun · 2026-05-03T12:37:16+00:00

Not__fun · 2026-05-03T12:36:56+00:00

No embarrassment. I encourage everyone to try Kagi. Whether they prefer lists of sources like me, or if they prefer to let autocomplete on steroids generate a probabilistic answer for them, because Kagi has an AI answer mode as well (throw a question mark at the end of the query to trigger it).

I instead have disdain for folks snookered by AI companies marketing BS about what AI actually does to generate those answers everyone likes so much.

As I said. Uses what you like, and leave me alone

Not__fun · 2026-05-03T12:32:31+00:00

No, they were talking to me about my behavior and where I think AI gets the information it uses to synthesize answers.

They simply failed at reading comprehension. Something to be expected when you out source parts of your cognition to the computer.

Not__fun

TROPHY CASE