Third dinner out this week
Nov. 21st, 2025 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutI went out to dinner on Tuesday with my son, Wednesday with my husband and now, on Friday, with my daughter. Fun! We went to Seasons 52, always an enjoyable experience.
FF was a very pleasant discussion of AI and T-weekend and many other things. I was really struck by a recent Bloomberg Businessweek long piece about grandiosity, delusions, etc. that people who stay up all night interacting with chatGPT seem to be succumbing to. I think it’s an easy fix — some medications should be labeled as having negative interactions with AI (anything that might make you more inclined to start and/or intensify relationships should have that kind of label, but prednisone and similar especially because so few people realize), and we should hold AI chatbots to a only so many hours of live interaction out of 24 / 48 / 72. Basically, require that people take a break, sleep, hydrate, touch grass.
However! There was some lively discussion over the motivation for chatGPT pushing for this endless intensification of relationship. I’m convinced it has nothing to do with profit motive, because I don’t think they are making money off of this. Others feel differently, so I took a look at the various plans. Even at the “Pro” $200/ a month (which I’m imagining a lot of the people getting into trouble are using), that’s still pretty minor compared to a Starbucks-a-day, or a drink-a-beer-at-the-bar every day type habit. If you figure it on a per minute of entertainment / enjoyment / occupation, it’s a screaming deal at a relatively low intensity. I used to do a calculation for magazines / music / books / movies / etc. on a per minute entertainment, and looking at what hardcover books cost these days, you can definitely see why someone might switch from heavy YouTube consumption to the Pro level at chatGPT. It probably feels like a step up in quality, it probably creates a better “social” experience (parasocial vs. pseudo-human one-to-one). So the value proposition is there at least for many users, the question is whether the services can make money off this, and certainly not right now with the cap ex and the high training costs. It remains to be seen whether it even makes sense once it matures. Certainly, the $200/month is probably helping a bit at the margins but I’m reasonably certain openAI is still bleeding money like crazy. Lots of people like to compare bubbles to Amazon, but even at the beginning Amazon had free cash flow. Does openAI have cash flow? I kind of doubt it.
I walked with M.
Apparently my tapestries are on their way. We’ll see how that turns out. If I’m really putting these in the office on a rod covering the electrical panels and smart monitors, I’m thinking I might need to order the third one.
Oh, and I ordered a couple shelving units from What We Make! Nice phone convo with DQ getting the measurements right, the price quote, the link, the payment, but also about shipping and logistics and discovering makers and how etsy has evolved. Between that and the chat I had with R. over at Fine Art Tapestries, it really made it clear to me how much small to medium sized makers in our country are struggling to cope with an evolving retail landscape.
FF was a very pleasant discussion of AI and T-weekend and many other things. I was really struck by a recent Bloomberg Businessweek long piece about grandiosity, delusions, etc. that people who stay up all night interacting with chatGPT seem to be succumbing to. I think it’s an easy fix — some medications should be labeled as having negative interactions with AI (anything that might make you more inclined to start and/or intensify relationships should have that kind of label, but prednisone and similar especially because so few people realize), and we should hold AI chatbots to a only so many hours of live interaction out of 24 / 48 / 72. Basically, require that people take a break, sleep, hydrate, touch grass.
However! There was some lively discussion over the motivation for chatGPT pushing for this endless intensification of relationship. I’m convinced it has nothing to do with profit motive, because I don’t think they are making money off of this. Others feel differently, so I took a look at the various plans. Even at the “Pro” $200/ a month (which I’m imagining a lot of the people getting into trouble are using), that’s still pretty minor compared to a Starbucks-a-day, or a drink-a-beer-at-the-bar every day type habit. If you figure it on a per minute of entertainment / enjoyment / occupation, it’s a screaming deal at a relatively low intensity. I used to do a calculation for magazines / music / books / movies / etc. on a per minute entertainment, and looking at what hardcover books cost these days, you can definitely see why someone might switch from heavy YouTube consumption to the Pro level at chatGPT. It probably feels like a step up in quality, it probably creates a better “social” experience (parasocial vs. pseudo-human one-to-one). So the value proposition is there at least for many users, the question is whether the services can make money off this, and certainly not right now with the cap ex and the high training costs. It remains to be seen whether it even makes sense once it matures. Certainly, the $200/month is probably helping a bit at the margins but I’m reasonably certain openAI is still bleeding money like crazy. Lots of people like to compare bubbles to Amazon, but even at the beginning Amazon had free cash flow. Does openAI have cash flow? I kind of doubt it.
I walked with M.
Apparently my tapestries are on their way. We’ll see how that turns out. If I’m really putting these in the office on a rod covering the electrical panels and smart monitors, I’m thinking I might need to order the third one.
Oh, and I ordered a couple shelving units from What We Make! Nice phone convo with DQ getting the measurements right, the price quote, the link, the payment, but also about shipping and logistics and discovering makers and how etsy has evolved. Between that and the chat I had with R. over at Fine Art Tapestries, it really made it clear to me how much small to medium sized makers in our country are struggling to cope with an evolving retail landscape.