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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   2027 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 7, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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So I know a lot of posters here are doing some really advanced stuff with AI, but I have a quick little anecdote from my own luddite life that might help explain why most normies don't really see AI as something particularly useful.

I just asked Google's free AI what the current value of 0.035 ounces of gold is and it completely face-planted, ignoring the decimal and the zero and giving me the value for 35 ounces. This isn't a case of overactive guardrails or confusing syntax or hallucinating plausible details into a news story; it's the most basic of transcription errors, the kind that dumb, pre-LLM systems have solved for decades. Old google never would have made such an error.

This is the technology that's going to completely upend the world order? It makes sense for normies to be skeptical. Regardless of what the frontier labs have cooking, the AI most people actually interact with is worse than useless half the time.

Anybody else have one of these "the fuck are we even doing here?" moments with AI recently?

I'm amazed at how many people don't cough up even the $20 required for the full-fat experience. At least OpenAI has recently announced that they're making unlimited usage of a newer model, 5.6 Luna, available to the masses for free. It is still several steps down from Sol, which continues to genuinely impress me.

Google's "free AI" is an incredibly imprecise term. It can mean Gemini 3.5 (Flash? Lite?) when used through the Gemini app. It can be the search-specific Gemini 1.5, IIRC, used if you just "Google" something. As you can imagine, not even Google can afford to use the best of the best when serving so many people at such scale, with the majority being trivial queries.

I would pay a great deal more than $20 for an AI plan, but luckily, I don't have to. I've got tons of Claude Max, because I decided to accept payment in that form instead of figuring out intercontinental financial transfers after my participation in Unslop.

I remember when a Dutch junior of mine was consulting another senior for advice when working on a meta-analysis meant for a big name journal. I could have clapped like a seal when the latter mentioned Claude, in addition to ChatGPT, for help with the stats scutwork. Then I asked, and confirmed, that she only had a free plan. I was so dismayed that I immediately offered to share my Max, and walk her through things. It didn't hurt that she's a pretty girl, and it would have provided an opportunity to go out with her (that ended up happening anyway), but I am beyond annoyed when other doctors use free-tier LLMs for clinical work. They still function adequately, but anyone who can afford better should use better. $20 is really not an onerous ask for a significant amount of intelligence on tap.

Why would anyone pay the $20/month? To be impressed? It wasn't long ago that someone asked what they're supposed to use AI for, and the response was a list of about a dozen completely frivolous things that can only be described as glorified low-grade entertainment. I'm sure some people find it useful for niche things. But for most people it's nothing more than a glorified search engine, and expecting people to spend money for it is like asking them to pay for a subscription to Google.

I am genuinely taken aback by this take. I know you're being sincere, but I can't understand where you're coming from. It's easier to say what LLMs can't do for me. And I very clearly benefit from the additional intelligence the paid models provide. They're not eating white collar work for no reason, they can do a surprising proportion of the work that a regular human can do on a computer.

Ignoring code (and writing/smut), non-exclusive, I've used Grok for :

  • car repair
  • air conditioner repair
  • repairing a three-phase fluid pump (fried IGBT, and entire chip line was out of production)
  • hobbyist drone assembly work
  • 3d printing model production
  • transcribing (public info) work documents
  • reviewing (public info) work document output for clarity and precision
  • translation.
  • designing a small youth-oriented faux-stained glass project.
  • testing internal policies against a compliance requirement for completeness before (outside, very expensive) human review

Some of these might have been solvable with google (air conditioner motor is pretty much a process of elimination thing, although even there Grok was a lot better at finding a local seller than Google is). Some of them not: the plain language search for a crankshaft position sensor error was universally 'bring it to a shop', and I'm very bad at 3d modeling. I'm skeptical that they're all frivolous.

I've gotten a few more uses from Claude, though I'll admit it tends to be something I burn more code-facing or writing-facing.

If LLMs cost 20 $/mo for "low-grade entertainment", they're in the same league as Netflix (without advertisements, 20 $/mo) and YouTube (without advertisements, 16 $/mo paid monthly or 13 $/mo paid annually). It's my understanding that lots of people buy temporary subscriptions to streaming services, in order to test them out or to watch a specific platform-exclusive show.

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