I’m not some tech genius who could spot a fake product a hundred miles away. I’m just not a gullible dumbass
I don’t think anyone deserves to be scammed. Here’s a good Cory doctrow section on the topic: https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/05/cyber-dunning-kruger/#swiss-cheese-security
Everyone is vulnerable to different things at different times, the wrongdoers are the ones at fault. We should aspire to a society where being trusting is a good thing that is rewarded.
It’s actually insane that we let people get up on stages and tell blatant lies beamed right into the ears of millions of people. Doubly so when we reward them with unfathomable riches.
For a second i thought you linked the article of the woman who handed $50k to “the FBI”
If we’re talking about essential items like food, helmets, medicine, safety goggles, etc, absolutely, they don’t deserve to be scammed. But this isn’t an essential item. It’s a tech gizmo that no one needs that promises to do everything that can already be done with a device you already own. Only idiots with a lot of spare money will buy this shit. Even your example isn’t equivalent because someone pretending to be working for your bank’s fraud prevention is a more important issue than some guy pretending to be a AI guru.
Idk, my mate who’s mind was shredded by failed psych treatments almost got one till I talked him down. He was optimistic about an interface that could be easier to use with shot working memory and maybe help him remember all the stuff he forgets.
I don’t know why you have to be so contemptuous of people. What’s the gain? how does anyone’s life get better by being scornful of people who believed lies for the few moments it took to impulse purchase something? What’s the point of that ideology?
My dad and my grandfather on my mother’s side are both poor as dirt but they can’t stop buying these tech pieces of garbage. They are both over 70 and are not tech bros.
They are both naive but you’re being a jagoff if you believe they deserve it.
From the CD section:
If you think you can’t get scammed, that makes you especially vulnerable
This right here is why “dumb people deserve to get scammed” is an idiotic sentiment. One day, all guardrails may fail and in spite of all caution and consideration, you too may slip up and fall for a scam. Would you like us to point and sneer, because you were dumb and should have been more cautious?
I’m with you: We should fix trust issues, not make them worse by laughing at those who trusted.
I actually think “it could happen to me” is probably the worst reason to care about something? or at least the most base. But yeah, when those voice gen scams started claiming to be panicked ransom demands from kidnapped relatives it was like… Jesus Christ who wouldn’t fall for that on a bad day?
I actually think “it could happen to me” is probably the worst reason to care about something? or at least the most base.
For sure. It is a very egoistic, but also universal and logical reason. “Bad things shouldn’t happen” would be a moral reason to care, but even if that’s not enough, “This might affect me” should make you wary.
To think “This won’t affect me, hence I don’t give a damn” is both an egoistic mindset and an idiotic assumption.
But yeah, when those voice gen scams started claiming to be panicked ransom demands from kidnapped relatives it was like… Jesus Christ who wouldn’t fall for that on a bad day?
I hate everything about this. Voice Gen could be useful enough, but even if the idea of something imitating your voice wasn’t so universally creepy as to be a part of plenty of horror stories, a small percentage of humans being such massive assholes that turn every new tech into a new avenue of exploiting people ruin it.
small percentage of humans being such massive assholes that turn every new tech into a new avenue of exploiting people ruin it.
It’s one of the deep ironies of interconnectedness. We can multiply the impact of positive people but awful people can reach massive audiences too and that’s easier as good is often personalised.
Previously you had a few jerks in your local community but now one scammer can robotically interfere with millions of lives. I think this strengthens the awful tendency to assume we live in fallen times or that humanity is fundamentally bad.
No victim blaming.
I’m out of the loop what tech gizmo startups? Are people buying unitasking devices that a smartphone can do?
The device pictured is the Rabbit R1, an alleged “AI assistant” that’s supposed to do all the shit that the original pitches for Siri and OK Google were supposed to do; “Order me an uber”, “Find me a restaurant nearby”, etc. Turns out it’s just chatGPT with a few autoclick scripts bolted on. Not only does it work worse than a smartphone for any given task, it also works worse than existing non-AI voice assistants.
The things were recently released but idk if anyone has actually bought them l.
Pretty sure quite a few people got in on the R1 because it was cheap ($200) and designed by Teenage Engineering which people fucking love for some reason.
yep. I don’t get it, like at all. Sure if it was a cute design and actually was a useful concept I could see it, but a cute design for a worthless product just makes me angrier, it doesn’t mitigate the functionality issues at all
I unapologetically despise TE. Their synths are underpowered, overpriced bleep bloop squonk boxes with intentionally obscure UI because “aesthetics”, but their cult following just eats that shit up when there are a bazillion other, cheaper, more capable devices out there. It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that they had a hand in this disaster of a device and I hope their reputation suffers for it.
ah damn
I know nothing about synths, I don’t immediately hate their style in general at least judging by like the rabbit and the boombox and stuff (soooooooooo overpriced though), but the concept of selling a bare PCB as a “product” for $100+ and a shitty looking silicone case as a “pro” add on for another $30 is pretty shitty. They’re cashing in for sure. I guess that’s not a crime but its not for me
Exactly. And people fucking loved those things back when I was more active in the music scene. Having one was like a talking point. People would pull them out in the middle of conversations at gigs. Never mind that you can get a used Volca for not much more, that does more with a better UI, and most of them do actual MIDI, not just sync. But you don’t see people walking around with those in their pockets because Korg don’t have a fucking cult.
Pocket operators were cool. OP-1 is cool if it weren’t so overpriced.
unitasking devices that do stuff a smartphone can do are cool actually, this is a device that claims and fails to do what a smartphone can do, or provide its own compelling feature-set at all. a scam considering how underbaked it is.
I mean the main transgression here is that it’s literally just a slighly altered android ROM that hides the fact that it runs Android. It could literally have been a free app on your smartphone.
A unitasking device is fine, as long as it’s doing something that could not be done by the multitasking device we already hurt the environment to create. Or it does so more power efficiently, or even offload a task that is burdensome for your phone to another device. This does none of those things, it just sends your voice request to chatgpt.
It also has dog shit battery life, so that’s another knock.
too bitter and full of hate
just use your phone ffs. I have no need to carry around a second device that doesn’t do half of what a phone can.
to be fair when I had an iphone about 10 years ago (a mistake I’ll never make again) I was incredibly frustrated with needing to use itunes to dump my pirated MP3 files into the phone. Just let the phone work like a USB device dammit so I can load all my media onto it. Don’t make me use proprietary software and I won’t consider a second device.
Also having a tiny thumbnail sized MP3 player that like clips to my belt or whatever is much more convenient in a gym setting than sweating all over my brick sized phone as it clunks around in my gym shorts
I’ve tried to look up an itty bitty mp3 player over the years and the ones that actually exist are all hundreds of dollars. Fucking weird.
Really? I got like a really crappy clip one for 5 bucks once. I forget where. They held like 3 gigs of music and the interface was annoying but it was very easy to add and remove music/audiobooks between gym sessions. I wish I remember where. It wasn’t on amazon. I think I might have walked into some kind of tech brick and mortar place before it closed down forever during Covid. It was very convenient for running
I have one and it’s great and it works I think you’re just jealous
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I’m lying i didn’t buy that piece of shit
even if you think that, its also creating e-waste
I don’t need to be a tech genius to recognize a scam, but when even the most tech-optimist reviewers who get paid to do this stuff say it’s not a good gadget, I listen to them.
I can’t afford it anyways, but even if I could I wouldn’t get it.
I mean, everyone is responsible for their own choices. I don’t think they deserve to be scammed, that sounds a bit predatory.
They do need to learn their lesson and suffer consequences, however minor, but they don’t deserve to be scammed.
The scammer should be punished. Harshly.
Else we wind up in a world where a scam is the only, or at least most prominent, way. As seen with The Cloud, subscription based streaming and “buying”, “smart” devices and so on.
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I love that “the price is right” for “best features are MIA”. Also, the wikipedia article is funny.
Do the uninformed people that just see the design and promise deserve to be scammed? Even if the only reason might be to not further enable the scammer, the scammed people don’t deserve their fate.
I say all this but I still cannot comprehend how someone would buy this.
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call me a sucker but i love the aesthetics of that thing. but the “”“”“AI”“”“” shit is stupid and it’s a glorified android phone.
I mean teenage engineering just did the visual design and ui. I guess you could also question their judgement on who to partner with too.
Their audio stuff they make actually does what it says on the tin most of the time.
I thought this was a broken link but no I’m really supposed to recognize this junk on sight
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Teenage Engineering fell off so fuckin hard after the OP-1. I still have my pocket operators and they’re really fun
