Comment by weitendorf

I’m pretty sure if you asked my mom what problems AI could help solve for her, navigating website’s purchasing/account flows and directly answering questions about the contents of her email would be #1 and #2.

And my mom doesn’t use AI products like chatgpt because she’s not a student, nor agents because she doesn’t work in tech. To her AI, is no different from those chatbots websites pop up in the corner, the ones you never seek out or interact with intentionally, because you don’t need what they offer.

So I actually think this kind of marketing is quite helpful for regular people who mostly just use their phones to buy stuff, looking things up, navigate life, and entertainment. My mom doesn’t give a shit about APIs or sandboxing, or benchmarks and to her it literally is a hassle to manage a million one-off accounts and confirmation codes and receipts when she just wants to buy something on her phone. She would not assume AI is capable of that or know how to set it up locally.

that’s not even getting into the fact that the top 10% controls 50% of consumer spending in the US and primarily purchases convenience + health + experiences, whereas the other 90% primarily prefers to buy aspirational/identity based goods that evoke their mental model of a higher status lifestyle. It’s why the same bustling lifestyle archetype you criticize is literally used exclusively in car ads, housing marketing materials, consumer electronics, home goods, etc. Because normal people want to feel and/or look good not spawn subagents