AI is so boring

I don't want to talk about AI any more. I had a post prepped for today inspired by recent furor over use of AI in the Blaugust community, but I pulled it. Why? Because it's such a boring topic. I hate talking about it. Too many people have turned the vagueness that is "AI" into a symbol representing things they already like or dislike. You can't even get people to agree on what falls into the category of "AI" so you can't have a coherent discussion about it. People are emotionally attached to their LLM agents, whom they feel genuinely help them. Other people got fired because of "AI" and now are suffering because of it. Some people find speech-to-text an incredible life-changing accessibility tool. Some people had psychosis triggered or exacerbated by using it and it destroyed their lives. The strong feelings people have about this category of technologies is preventing us from having a discussion of the actual issues of which the category of technologies commonly called "AI" is often…