Censored the brandname, no exposure for you today.
A clunky tool that people see as a fun novelty once and then put it in a drawer never to be touched again? Sounds about right.
But the 4 color variety is fire.
Also, a clunky tool only children like.
They have a point. AI belongs in the same place as those pens.
The bin.
Nobody at the company probably ever used one of those pens. They broke or got stuck way more easily than just a regular pen. Which… Is honestly a pretty apt comparison for AI.
the sheer girth of that pen alone is enough to make it unpleasant to use, great analogy for having AI coworkers
Someone should inform them that they can only use one of those inks at a time…so they’re not getting any more done than “alone”.
It’s a perfect analogy because it seems like an improvement because it seems like an improvement and on paper it is. But as I got a bit older I realized that:
- I primarily used one color, meaning that it would run out of ink before the others
- The colors that didn’t get used would be gummed up by the time I did switch to them because it didn’t have a proper cap
- The barrel of the pen was wider to accommodate those extra cartridges inside making it more uncomfortable to use.
- The pen was more expensive than a box of cheap pens, so I only had one; since I’d lose pens all the time this meant that I’d have to use a cheap pen anyway, if I even had any.
Like AI, it’s a novelty that is worse in almost every way while appearing to convey an illusory benefit!
I did end up finding a multi pen/pencil I really like. I typically have blue and red ink in it along with a pencil lead tip:
That looks like a nice pen to use! It has some class and functionality.
Not to mention the glorious stimulation of clicking them all while not writing anything in class. Fun but not conducive to productivity at all. A perfect analogy, really.
Yes, capitalism treats people as objects to be used (aka employed).
We are just pens to them. We are to be used and then thrown away when used up.
Those pens had about one working head, one that half worked and the rest dry from the beginning, you spent most of the time just playing with the springs. This seems like a good analogy for current AI usage.
Not to mention the way it fits in the hand. I have to alter my grip to accommodate the super-pen and it will affect my penmanship, not to mention cause fatigue in my writing hand sooner than normal.
It’s the thing that sounds more useful until you actually get to use it
After one try you realize it’s not useful for writing but a great distraction from the actual things you need to do.
Also, 20x the price of the original item.
So it feels unnecessary, complicated and expensive? Facts.
and only feels cool and useful when you’re learning to write
accurate, spend 30 minutes fucking around with different colors making doodles for every 10 minute thing you’re supposed to do
This is censorship I can get behind, well done!
Wait, so with AI my company will be fat…less agile but really really gay…err…gender diverse!?
Wait, I’ll have to discuss this with my wife. She said no. Sorry techbro but I’m already taken. Perhaps on a different life? One where I didn’t marry and we could all have imaginary computer based sexual encounters with fictitious gay coworkers? Maybe.
I’m not the only one that feels the perspective on the pens are off? Not just between them but like each pen has two perspectives in different places.
They are! They’re slanted differently, one is seen from the top, the other from the tip.
Wow, that seems like the sort of problem that might have been avoided if they’d used a human artist instead of genAI.
For SOME reason this reminds me of this short:
non-sharts link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu_dj8ai0k0
Maybe I’m misunderstanding and I bet ADHD people agree with his assessment, but don’t we all have multiple thoughts at the same time. The list he had for the ADHD brain is some kind of list I can imagine having in my brain at one time. I think the difference between the two brains is the ability to prioritise. The thoughts all nag, but you have to choose one to deal with first. If you can’t prioritise e.g when stressed or perhaps if you have ADHD overwhelm going on you procrastinate and then the task list sits unchanged and gets more and more daunting as time goes on and it becomes a loop. So in short, I think the difference is the threshold for procrastination because we all really fall into procrastination, but I’m neurotypical (AFAIK) so I can only speak to my own experience of how my brain works and contrast with this analogy.
It’s not just prioritization, it’s just picking one task from the list and going with it. The longer my list gets, the worse it gets, because holy shit that’s a long list. Each item makes it more and more difficult to focus on just one.
It’s like a crowd of people yelling at you all at once. Someone at a press conference or outside a courtroom can point to a reporter and everyone shuts up to let that one ask a question, answer it, and then point to the next one. The person doing the pointing is the executive function in the brain directing the flow of questions from the crowd, forcing everybody to quiet down while each question gets answered.
It’s not that the questions or reporters are prioritized… they may not even get an even distribution of questions because the person may be choosing favorites, or looking at the loudest or most obnoxious person trying to get their attention. Just the act of picking a person and quieting everyone else long enough to focus on them, to be able to hear and answer their question, before moving on to the next, that’s what makes the difference.
Someone who is well organized may have a press conference that is regimented. Questions have to be put into a list and someone is sorting that list and ensuring that every person gets their turn. There’s no shouting or jostling to get that person’s attention, it’s just a smooth process of moving from question to question. Like a debate.
My brain has no pointer… everyone is shouting questions and me and I may look at a person and try to understand them and shout back at them, but more than anything I just want to run home and do something that I want to do rather than be yelled at. Eventually I feel burned out and run away to do exactly that - the defendant who comes out of the courtroom, has a bunch of reporters yelling at them, and is just trying to get to his car to get away.
I had the same reaction. Either I have undiagnosed ADHD and just… somehow don’t freeze up, or the analogy isn’t great.
If he extended the analogy just a little I think it might make more sense to you?
The “freeze up” is when all those thoughts are competing for attention and you can’t focus on just one, so you either choose your favorite color (your current hyperfixation for example), or literally just sit there, not doing anything of value. The dysfunction literally is the inability to choose one of those thoughts and run with it, at least not without expending significant amounts of energy to do so (meaning we get tired out while doing less) or coming up with some system to trick our brain into choosing and focusing on something.
Neurotypical brains have many of the same traits that ADHD and autistic people have… just not as many, and they’re not as crippling. It’s like pain in that regard - everyone experiences pain, but someone with chronic pain may have difficulty doing normal tasks, or if the pain is bad enough, unable to do those tasks at all.
In the case of ADHD I can take some medication and sometimes my brain acts like a normal person. Without trying, I realize a couple hours later that I accomplished a bunch of stuff without doing or thinking any differently. I just… suddenly can do stuff. First time I tried medication it really was magical; I didn’t feel or think any differently, I just… did stuff. It was weird.
Thank you for the explainer
Ultimately kind of yes kind of no. Individual experiences are obviously unique and different but generally it is as you say, thoughts do not occur concurrently and the breakdown is actually in the executive functioning systems that surround management of these thoughts.
Like his example - the neurotypical person isn’t magical. They don’t think a task, address it, then move on to the next thing. At least, not in the sense that is implied in the video. They have all those thoughts jumbling around their head too - I need to clean, return items, drink, etc. but they can address them more quickly and thoroughly with solid executive functioning system. This includes planning and prioritization as you’ve said (“I need to address drinking water now bc that will take a moment and is the most important”) but also things like working memory (“I can’t address returning the item right now but I am confident that even though I can’t address it in this moment the task won’t disappear from my brain for 6 months if I put it off”), organization, etc.
The question is always how much of ADHD is behavioral, how much is genetic, how much is cultural, neurobiological, etc. there are clear differences that indicate an adhd brain that are congenital, sure, but how it’s expressed is less clear and may be deeply influenced by environment and behavior.
The issue with this overly simplified pop psychology bullshit is that it inherently becomes a crutch for many. I see it often in professional practice. People who are unwilling to work on developing executive functioning skills because they see this kind of media (especially when presented in short form content that just says “here’s the problem with… and nothing at all about treatment options??) and then assume that this means they are literally unable to change, that it is a characteristic of ADHD, or autism, bipolar, or whatever
Fantastic analogy
I didn’t know about this short, but the thought of working at work on a specific/specified set of tasks with those two pens in comparison I also thought for a sec it an ADHD post.
Thought it said “AI Pen”
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