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They made computers behave like annoying salesmen | exotext (rakhim.exotext.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/programming@programming.dev
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The population (especially the younger generation, who never seen a different kind of technology at all) is being conditioned by the tech industry to accept that software should behave like an unreliable, manipulative human rather than a precise, predictable machine. They're learning that you can't simply tell a computer "I'm not interested" and expect it to respect that choice. Instead, you must engage in a perpetual dance of "not now, please" - only to face the same prompts again and again.

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[+] -7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I understand that it's not the "YouTube program" having its own agency and making this decision - it's the team behind it, driven by engagement metrics and growth targets. But does the average user understand this distinction?

Yes.

What a stupid question. Does the author think that people believe televisions want to sell them things too?

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    I think you vastly overestimate the technical proficiency of the average user. The average user does not understand technology and computers at all. The average user can barely send an email.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I get the "nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the general public" vibe - but do you really think that people believe that websites act with agency to sell them things?

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    People have a psychological bias to humanize anything that communicates with them and companies are trying to latch onto that mechanism because they benefit when people get an emotional attachment to websites. So I think Google and many others are trying to make people think of websites as things with agencies, rather than machines controlled by people. And yea I think they are partly successful.

    Not dissimilar to how LLM AI is marketed nowadays.

    My mom asked me the other day whether a virus warning was a scam or not. It was a webpage in her browser. She did not understand that it was not her computer system warning her, but just the website itself. People can't even tell the difference between their operating system and their apps.

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  • [–] -4 points 1 year ago

    People have a psychological bias to humanize anything that communicates with them and companies are trying to latch onto that mechanism because they benefit when people get an emotional attachment to websites. So I think Google and many others are trying to make people think of websites as things with agencies, rather than machines controlled by people. And yea I think they are partly successful.

    This is just stupid. I'm not going to sugar coat it. Nobody thinks their computer is a sentient creature save for some tiny percentage of people who may be mentally ill or otherwise disabled.

    People can’t even tell the difference between their operating system and their apps.

    There is an ENORMOUS difference between not understanding different layers of the technology stack and thinking your computer is a thinking creature.

    Like I said originally - do you think people believe their television wants to sell them "Tide"? Or do they realize that it's the advertising company. As you say - people love to "humanize anything that communicates with them" and they "do not understand technology".

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