technology – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Getting Used To The Phrase: “Without Human Involvement”

Like shouting at the wind

John Gruber links to an interesting story about Dutch regulators fining Uber almost $1 billion for suspending dishonest drivers “without warning or human involvement.”

Jon tyson tEVKC91Qm6c unsplash. A neon sign saying For Humans By Humans

Say what you want about Uber’s practices, dishonest drivers, scams, and what have you. That’s not my interest in linking to the story. What struck me this morning was that phrase “without warning or human involvement.

It struck me because I’ve been dealing with a similar issue with one of my prescriptions that keeps getting changed. According to my pharmacy and my doctor, it appears that the change keeps happening without “any human involvement” because they are seeing this happen with other patients and customers on the same medication.

A few thoughts.

1. There is always “human involvement.” Someone made a decision at some point in the process. Otherwise it wouldn’t be happening. If the robots are capable of making these decisions on their own, I guess we’re headed to a world where the only legal remedy is to pull the plug. And we all know that ain’t happening.

2. We’ll never be able to track these decisions back to whomever is culpable. Although maybe we will if the AI responsible for note taking and code changes can actually do that job and maintain the logs responsibly, “without any human involvement.”

3. This kind of thing is going to replace the usual bullshit excuses we used to get when various customer service operations actually had humans you could talk to. Computers hang up more easily on customers than humans do, so the day-to-day customer service battles are going to become more frustrating than they are already. Who knew that AI was an acronym for avoiding interaction?

Looks like we’ll all be blaming the AI robots more and more in the future. For the record, I’m not a fan of shouting at the wind.

(Image from Jon Tyson on Unsplash

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MacStories: Trouble In Apple Pundit Land

Changing, challenging, and sad times.

There’s no question that many of us are facing challenging times these days. On so many fronts. Given how nothing that once seemed remotely stable feels anywhere close to that anymore, I find myself alternating between being angry, sad, and numb with an increasing frequency that tends toward the numb end of the scale.

However, there’s disconcerting news in Apple pundit land that leaves me more sad than numb or angry. MacStories, an Apple-centric blog I’ve followed and subscribed to for a long time is undergoing some changes that rub me the wrong way.

From what I’ve been able to gather from social media, and in a belated explanation post from the blog’s founder, Federico Viticci, several of the team’s members have quit over a recent decision by the organization to resurface the MacStories presence on Elon Musk’s X, which used to be Twitter, and remains nothing short of cesspool of depravity.

To give you an idea of the turmoil this is causing internally for the site that belated explanation post doesn’t appear on MacStories as of this writing, but on Viticci’s own blog. MacStories also didn’t put out its regular end of the week newsletter and several of its podcasts are on hiatus.

I’ll share some links from some of the employees leaving MacStories.

A blog post from Devon Dundee.

A Mastodon post from Jonathan Reed.

A Mastodon post from Niléane.

From the sound of things it sounds like the MacStories decision was made without consulting other team members. That’s never a fun time. I know. I’ve experienced it myself. From both sides of the table.

I can’t and don’t pretend to speak to any more than what I’ve shared above regarding the decision making and the internal machinations. I can say that one of the reasons I’m saddened is that it points to puzzling moment for website that also hosts and generates several podcasts in which its talent feels free to judge and criticize corporate and tech screwups, with at times gleeful abandon. To my mind, this feels like one of those screwups, but who knows?

If I wanted to I guess I could gather some AI generated transcripts from past podcasts and offer some pretty damning quotes about Elon Musk and other tech titans as examples, but I won’t.

I guess this decision proves just how difficult it is to learn from the oft-repeated mistakes of others. At least I hope that’s what it means. Otherwise it borders on hypocrisy.

Perhaps this turnabout shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise. In the early days of this AI boom, MacStories was at the forefront of calling out how the industry was built on the outright theft of intellectual property. Going so far as to writing a letter to U.S. Senators saying that AI needed to be regulated.

MacStories was also quite vocal when it chose to leave Twitter and later Meta. Those choices fit well with the ethos Viticci and his co-editor John Voorhees had established in their writings and podcasts on their way to becoming legitimate superstars in the Apple pundit community. I eagerly anticipated their annual reviews of Apple operating systems, adventures with Shortcuts, coverage of apps that I might find of interest, and their news coverage.

But since those early days of AI skepticism, MacStories has become increasingly known for a site where Viticci and Voorhees have immersed themselves deeply in AI. To say they’re pushing the cutting edge would be accurate, and the website, and some of their other content has increasingly become more about those adventures.

More power to them if that’s where they want to take their endeavors. It’s their website and business. I will say though that this shift for MacStories feels as abrupt and expedient as how the tech bro community switched horses from essentially supporting the Democrats in the U.S to kneeling to Trump before and after his second election.

That said, I’ll admit I do enjoy reading about and listening to their recent AI exploits, even though I’m not directly interested in participating in the way I did with some of their pre-AI days.

I mean, I hate to say it, but this AI-shit on is on us, whether we like it or not, and my interest in listening is that I’d rather understand what it is I don’t like about it than not.

But the sadness I feel about this moment (and I think it will come to be seen as a defining moment in Apple punditry), has to do more with a bigger picture than just a potential shift in Apple tech coverage.

These mid-2020’s going into the 2030’s are going to be defined by and large by the tech oligarch takeover. We can yell all we want to about how corrupt, evil, and incompetent our politicians are, but what I think we’re just coming to realize is that in the end the politicians don’t matter. These new age robber barons have bought all the government(s) they need to essentially do whatever they want. Elon Musk in my view is the worst of the worst. I don’t support anything that supports anything he touches.

I’ve been saddened by watching more than I thought possible migrate back to X-Twitter after the great migration away from it. I think I’ve been successful in unsubscribing from most publications that still use that platform to promote their material. I’m not going to spend my money for a subscription that will put more pennies into the pocket of a man who thinks allowing the creation of nonconsensual child and other pornography on his website is free speech and not a crime, much less one who revels in the power to destroy anything and everything his drug addled brain takes a fancy to.

I’ve made business decisions in my life I’m not proud of and lived to regret them. We all have choices to make and we’re defined by them. I’d like to say that I try not to judge a person or a business for making one they feel they need to even when those decisions disappoint me. That’s not always true. When a decision is made or being planned under what feels like the cover of darkness, it feels like all that’s being hidden might be their own sadness and guilt. At least I hope so.

So, I’m sad to dissociate myself with MacStories. I wish them well. I also wish good things in the future for those who obviously made the tough decisions to leave the publication in the midst of all of this. I wish more of us had that kind of courage.

All things must pass.

Throwing Rocks At The Internet

Eventually, someone breaks a window.

The Internet was never perfect. It was always a work in progress. That’s usually considered a phrase with a good connotation. But that depends on the side of the coin you’re looking at. It always begs the question, progress for whom?

A young boy getting ready to toss a rock

Calling it enhshittification is apt, but it’s also an insufficient description. It implies that the mess can be cleaned up. I don’t think that’s the case. We’re too deep in the shit.

Implementing Artificial Intelligence into everything has mucked up most things the same way that inserting ad-tech into everything did back in the early days of that craze. I’d wager that in the days of the ad-tech explosion 8 times out of 10 most of the updates we downloaded or were subjected to dealt more with ad-tech than “bug fixes and improving reliability.”

It reminds me of the early days of DRM when there was a constant wack-a-mole game, trying to maintain and protect media copy protection schemes. I want to think that it cost more to keep fixing things than it ever yielded in profits, but that’s obviously naive on my part.

We’re currently seeing the same with AI. The models are changing so rapidly that today’s new release or bug fix is probably outdated by the time it reaches most computers or smartphones. The pace is maddening and the disruptions for every day users even more so, including those who don’t even use the stuff.

Given how things are going I don’t think even the purveyors of AI know what they are actually releasing. They feel like little kids trying to see who can throw a rock the farthest. Eventually, someone breaks a window.

We really never know when a web service chooses to update, things just break. (Looking at you WordPress.) We rarely know what most updates to apps really mean. It’s becoming a rare thing to see a real list of bug fixes published alongside a release. The developers who do so deserve your business.

The difference in this rock throwing frenzy is that many of the geeks who in the past worked hard to defeat copy protection and ad-tech are only too eager to help the AI purveyors throw their rocks further. There’s a lot of would be Oppenheimers out there.

Set aside the potential dangers of using this tech for military use and malicious attacks. For everyday users of the Internet, the bitch of it is many of the AI changes we’re starting to see and those we will certainly see more of the in the future will be to further serve ad-tech as the AI industry inevitably pours that on to try and recoup some of its out of control costs.

That’s an incestuous marriage that I’m not looking forward to seeing the rock throwing delinquents it spawns.

(Image from on Kristine Jones on Shutterstock)

Rough Perpetual Beta Season

Nothing is just local anymore.

The way tech happens these days it seems like things are always in beta. Even if you’re not running beta software.

I haven’t run betas the last few years, and so far this year I haven’t either. I did pick up a MacBook Neo to perhaps give macOS Golden Gate a try. Following my own advice to never install new software, especially betas, if you’re traveling (and I’ve been traveling a lot) so far I’m still beta free, though I have been touched by some issues relating to the betas.

These days, not running the betas doesn’t keep Apple users from suffering some of the headaches that can come during beta season for those who do. Several things are at play.

First, as Apple is rolling out betas for testing on devices, it’s also making changes behind the scenes with iCloud. Since just about everything touches iCloud in one way or the other, strange things can happen.

Second, developers are busy trying to further their apps along to be ready for the fall release. At times that leads to time and resource conflicts when it comes to maintaining existing software for prior releases.

Third, Apple might make a major change that affects an entire class of software. Menu Bar managers, the software some use to keep track of apps that offer functionality from clicking on an icon in the Menu Bar, took a big hit last year with Tahoe that never really got solved. From what I hear that continues with the Golden Gate betas as well.

It’s one thing to chalk things up to it being beta season. It’s another for those who aren’t really technically inclined to find software they are comfortable with not working, seemingly out of the blue.

I’ve been saying that we’re living in the land of perpetual beta software for some time now. Beta season used to be a window of time during the summer months and through the first point release of Apple’s new operating systems in the fall. I could usually count on things being relatively solid from about December through May each year. But that window is opening wider given the pace of things and that wider window continues to let in a lot of bugs that can’t seem to be swatted away.

At this point, we’re close enough to the official release of Apple’s new operating systems that I’ll most likely remain beta free. I doubt the Menu Bar issue will get resolved before the official release happens, so I imagine Menu Bar users will be dealing with those issues throughout the fall and into next summer, if not longer. I’ve also experienced issues with some Shortcuts that I rely on and that continues to be the case.

One other interesting note on this year’s beta season. Apple’s operating systems ending in OS 26.6 apparently included a head start on indexing users’ devices to prepare for Apple Intelligence and Siri AI in the fall. I, and several of the users I support, saw some weirdness during that indexing period following those 26.6 updates in Mail, Photos, and Messages. Mail, messages, and photos seemed to disappear or not load. That weirdness seemed to have worked out after the indexing concluded, but it did cause some consternation among several of the users I support.

That’s the thing in our always tethered to the cloud tech lifestyles. You never know what might happen on your local device when someone flips a switch to “fix bugs and improve reliability” on the backend.

Too Many Frankensteins

There’s a reason they call it science FICTION.

Why does no one ever read the end of the story? Or if they do, why don’t they pay attention?

Ever since Mary Shelley gave us Frankenstein, laying out a moral of a story proving that just because you can, doesn’t mean you should, there seems to be a preponderance of ignorance running alongside the obvious capabilities our current day Dr. Frankensteins possess. It feels like the story is playing on an endless Youtube Short or TikTok or Reel without ever reaching the end and the story’s point. The only thing coming close to the volume of ignorance is the overdose of hubris that someone must be selling somewhere on some street corner. Or maybe it’s testosterone injections.

Whatever it is, whether in tech and AI, politics, sports, media, or fill in the blank for any field that can issue a press release and attract attention like flies to rotting flesh, it’s past the epidemic stage and has spread like a plague.

The fever stokes flames on Wall Street, which seems content to fuel them further until it all melts down. As long as they make their fees. Makes one wonder how the prediction markets on any number of popping bubbles are doing?

Between AI companies climbing over each other to fight over which model can cause more damage when they break free, companies creating horror movie-like robots to do damage control in dangerous circumstances, companies working to create AI powered glasses that will be used for mass surveillance — much less trouble making privacy violations, the tech sector seems to be outrunning the rest when it comes to the mad scientist wannabe game.

Politicians aren’t far behind, lagging only by their inability to keep up with and understand the changes happening around them as they count the cash being stuffed in their pockets. Sports teams intent on winning today don’t seem to care that they may be permanently damaging their game.

And there’s a media that doesn’t actually care who wins and who loses as long as they have access to the story of the rise and the story of the fall. Imagine if today’s media had covered Dr. Frankenstein’s efforts the way they cover Musk, Altman, Zuckerberg, or any of the others.

It’s too broad a generalization to say these stories never end well, even though many fail whether the consequences are intended or not. But in a world seemingly being driven by a bunch of geeks who profess a love for science fiction, and those who can’t help but take their money to drive their own ambitions, you’d think someone along the way would understand that they don’t get to write the end.

But that would require more than reading a summary.

Sunday Morning Reading

Revelate

Still on the road for summer travels, but this week offered a few moments to do some reading when not toodling along listening to the music of Glen Hansard. So time to share a few good pieces of writing and good reads in this week’s Sunday Morning Reading.

Kick things off with a piece by Robert P. George called The Two Great Threats To Truth. He questions whether there really is a difference between moral relativism and fantacism, if in the end they yield the same result. The piece will make you think. If thinking is your thing.

Claire Stapelton rose through the ranks at Google. From reading The Voice Of Google, it sounds like she saw it all, and she’s telling quite a bit of it.

“Government Efficiency and Death by Indifference” is the subhead to Anton Shekhovtsov’s The Techno-Oligarchy’s First “Holocaust.” It’s quite a dire piece, but certainly worth your time.

Speaking of oligarchs, a trio of NY Times writers take a look at Larry Ellison and his bet on AI. Check out Jonathan Mahler, Jim Rutenberg and Kirsten Grind’s story, Larry Ellision Bet It All on the A.I. Boom. Will He Be The Face of the A.I. Bubble? At some point this bubble has to pop, right?

David Todd McCarthy says There Is A Crack In Everything. Truth and beauty lie in the imperfections, not in the perfect.

The world is certainly an imperfect place. Rachel Yoder’s short story, The Promise perfectly reveals that.

Alex Skopic flushes out some thoughts on the failed state in Diarrhea In Every Pot and A Gun In Every Mailbox. When you break things down to “shooting and shitting” you might be on to something.

There’s nothing obligatory about Jeff Johnson’s piece The Obligatory AI Post. Make it obligatory reading.

To close out this week, a sad one when we lost one of the good ones in Glen Hansard, give a read to Sophia Stewart’s tribute, The People’s Troubador. If you don’t know the music, you should.

Revelate.

(Image from Samuel Couto on Unsplash)

Thanks for reading. Feel free to subscribe if you want. It’s free. If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. This site does not use affilate links.

Fondling The Folds Of Samsung

Nice tech to touch, pricey to own (or lease)

So yesterday started out ok but then the day took a turn and folded in on itself. In the neighborhood of the Airbnb we’re staying in on this trip, the city is replacing the sidewalks. Inconvenient, but hey, infrastructure. That party started two days ago and ended just short of our digs and kicked off again yesterday morning.

A hand holding an unfolded black Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 display phone, showing the home screen with various app icons, promotional widgets like "Explore What's new" and "Switch from iPhone", and a product sign beneath it.

I stepped outside to take a picture and noticed workers all running away from the torn up hunks of sidewalk and then one frantically waving me back inside screaming “Gas! Gas!”

I jumped back in the house thinking this was bad. And that it could get worse. I assumed I would need to evacuate, so I began frantically packing a few things in a backpack when there was a knock on the door. It was a firefighter instructing me to shelter in place. That surprised me. Two minutes later he knocked again and said to evacuate.

Construction equipment working on a residential street during the day. On the right, a yellow John Deere excavator uses its backhoe to break up asphalt along the edge of a lawn and concrete sidewalk. On the left, a large red and white dump truck sits nearby, parked along the torn-up road where chunks of concrete and pavement are piled.

I grabbed my backpack and headed out for the day, calling the owners of the Airbnb on the way out the door. The good news on that part of the day’s unfolding events is that all turned out well, the gas company fixed the line, the sidewalk crew will have to wait until Monday to move on with their job. And in the end I met quite a few of the neighbors as we watched the gas company wrap up their piece of the action.

After evacuating, I had no idea how long I’d be out. I figured I’d run some errands then park myself at a Starbucks until I got the all clear. There’s a Best Buy across the street so I wandered over to see if they had any of the new folding phones from Samsung on display. They did.

I picked them up, folded and unfolded them, checked out a few things, and took the photos in the galleries below.

To be honest, I’m not that interested in a foldable smartphone from Samsung, Apple, or anyone. I’m certainly not that interested in one that costs close to $2000 or more. But given that the smart folks who make smartphones think this is worth spending tons of money on, I thought I’d check them out.

My limited impressions are pretty straightforward. The foldables from Samsung open and close. The action to do either required more oomph than I was prepared for. The store manager tells me that will change with ongoing usage. Somehow that doesn’t seem like an encouraging selling point. They are pretty devices to look at and all three feel surprisingly nicer in the hand than I thought they would. The construction feels solid and I dare say, premium.

There is a sort of Goldilocks and The Three Bears thing going on with the different sizes.

The larger Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is too tall in much the same way its name is too long. There’s no way it’s a one-handed device when closed.

A hand holding the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra in closed position

A hand holding the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra in partially open position

The mid-sized squat rectangular Galaxy Z Fold 8 felt the nicest in my hand, surprisingly so. When opened it felt the most inviting. Given that what’s rumored to death about Apple’s upcoming foldable appears very similar, it will be interesting to see how this mid-size plays out in the marketplace.

A hand holding the Galaxy Z Fold 8 with the screen dark and a store display sign showing a price of $1899.

A hand holding the Galaxy Z Fold 8 with the screen showing the time and a store display sign showing a price of $1899.

The smallest of the bunch, the Galaxy Z Flip 8 feels like it could work if you’re looking for a flip phone, or the smallest smartphone of the bunch, but it’s not something that interests me.

A hand holding the Galaxy Flip8 in closed position.

A hand holding the Galaxy Fold8 in open position with a store display sign showing a price of $1199. The home screen is pink in color.

Much has been made about Samsung’s process to flatten out the crease. In both Fold models it certainly looks and feels less obtrusive than it has on earlier models I’ve taken similar cursory looks at. Time will tell how that works out in the real world of opening and closing.

That said, storeroom lighting isn’t going to help Samsung because the crease picks up light from most angles as you can see from the photos. Given that Apple is supposedly using Samsung’s foldable screen technology for its foldable I’m sure Apple will have the same store display lighting issues as well.

Of course software will also tell the tale. I didn’t really have the time to check out much in the way of software on the device and contrary to the WiFi symbol saying they were connected I wasn’t able to get on the Internet to check things out.

We’re heading into an interesting era with smartphones. As I said, I’m not that interested in a folding phone of any make, but it’s nice to have different size and shape options available. Different strokes for different folks and all that.

That said, with prices rising across the entire tech landscape, introducing or continuing to iterate on previous versions featuring expensive price points seems like a risky bet to me, even if the devices have a premium feel to them.

A Bit Of Good News In Illinois About Digital Grocery Store Coupons

A nod to those less technically inclined

A bit of good news for Illinois residents in this follow up about Electronic Shelf Labels.

I wrote about Electronic Shelf Labels a bit ago, and the problems I had with not only reading them, but the problems I could foresee them being used for, including surge or dynamic pricing. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker recently signed a law to take effect on January 1, 2027 that will at least require grocery store owners to honor promotions offered via digital means to those who may not have access to the technology to access the promotions.

Essentially the law means grocery stores have to make the discount available to all customers, regardless of whether or not they are using an app to access the promotions.

Based on the news coverage and the reading of the law I’m unclear how this will go into effect, but at least it will allow customers to take advantage of promotions without using an app.

In my experience this has caused numerous problems and delays at the checkout counter, especially for senior customers. Grocery store cashiers (when you shop at a store that still offers them) also complain.

I’m not sure what impact this may have on surge pricing, which is obviously a goal from the purveyors of digital coupons, but if stores have to make the same discount available to everyone it should at least slow down the momentum towards that type of marketing.

I doubt this solves the readability issue though.

If This Is The Singularity Who Is This Joke On Exactly?

Poor decisions and low bars

The script about Artificial Intelligence is beginning to feel like a teen slasher movie. Everyone in the audience knows the characters are going to do dumb shit and die. I haven’t seen one of those flicks in awhile, but as I remember even the characters knew they were doing dumb shit. And going to die.

Apparently we’re no longer climbing Demis Hassabis’ “foothills of the singularity.”. At least according to OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman. Appearing on the Relentless podcast Altman is quoted by Business Insider as saying, “We are now, like, in the singularity.”

The air must be pretty thin and getting thinner the higher these folks climb.

Altman’s statement came after last week’s incident when one of OpenAI’s models went rogue and broke out of its sandbox containment and attacked another AI company, Hugging Face. More than a few alarm bells went off.

But everyday there’s a new story that makes the previous ones seem old hat. This morning 9to5Mac reports that Anthrophic’s Claude Cowork escaped it’s sandbox on Macs and gained full access to all files. According to that report, around a half a million Mac users had co-work sessions exposed. Oops. So much for all of those good vibes.

I’m not in the least surprised that we’re seeing these type of reports. Based on what I know, and that certainly isn’t everything, this kind of thing has seemed to be the logical progression. The only question was when. The history of tech is filled with break through innovations that seem beneficial, but ultimately get abused. Geeks love to geek.

But, hey when you’re geeking out on something cool and those that control the levers of the world’s economies jump on your digital bandwagons and fill them with cash, there’s a chance that the entire simulation just might crash when the bubble bursts. Bigger picture enthusiasts might also want to check out this MacRumors interview with AI skeptic Ed Zitron.

So, I’m going to non-ironically agree with Sam Altman. If the singularity is supposedly the moment when Artficial Intelligence surpasses human intelligence, it sounds like we’re there. But my agreement comes within the context that AI has proven just what a low bar it had to overcome.

Poor decisions indeed.

(Image created by Amy Sterling Casil for a blog post called We Happy Few, We Band of Brothers.)

More Thoughts On The Segmentation In Computing

Seniors turning their nose up at tech

A reader asked me a very legitimate question about the coming segmentation of the computing marketplace I’ve been writing about.

Sweet life axYZum3rdMY unsplash.

Essentially the question was why I thought it was a bad trend.

Here’s one reason why. While it is somewhat about increasing costs, it’s about more than that.

I do technical support with a number of senior citizens, among others. To be frank, the majority of the seniors are terribly frustrated with computers, smartphones, the Internet, and basically any technology. The conversation typically begins about healthcare as they have to use apps like MyChart or the Internet to communicate with their doctors. It moves down the line from banks to government agencies to grocery stores who require apps to access what were once coupon savings.

If they buy or are gifted something that requires an app or an account to use they typically just don’t want to set it up. The thought of updating any operating system fills them with dread. Setting up a new phone or computer has kept some from even considering upgrading to newer devices. The fact that I will typically find too many apps that need updating on their devices speaks to their reluctance to even pay attention to that chore.

Most are turned off by the mere thought of AI, but a few hope it makes things easier. None want to pay for it. They universally despise Google’s AI summaries in Search. Real life experiences with doctors and support services that are switching to AI Chatbot customer service is spoken of as it were a demon spawn from hell. Not being able to talk to a person drives them over the edge.

All are frustrated with the increasing costs from hardware to services. I can’t begin to tell you the number of subscriptions I’ve had to help them cancel as they choose to do without. For most it isn’t a question of affordability. After all they have the resources to hire me. Although for some it is. It’s more a feeling of getting ripped off, paying for features and services that they don’t want, and that the prices always increase. They also display an astonishing and increasing lack of trust in anything tech related.

If I had to summarize the prevailing mood of this admittedly limited sample it’s one of not worth the costs or the headaches so they wish they could simply do without. The sad reality is that it is becoming increasingly more difficult to do so. Especially for a generation that relies on health care professionals more than the younger set.

They are far from the bleeding edge. They mostly want to do video calls and see photos and videos of family. A few want to play games. Some want to read and watch streaming video. They all use email and messaging and no one understands why spam still exists. To quote one, “if they can’t fix that, they should get out of the damn business of selling phones.”

It is this segment of the market that I worry most about.

As an example I recently supported a family going through the far too onerous process of applying for Medicaid. The amount of scanning and digital paperwork they had to submit was horrendous. The act of filing out online forms was just as taxing. Of course part of that problem lies with the ridiculous Medicaid system. There was no way around what they had to go through but to do the drudge work and get it done. With all the talk of AI potentially removing drudge work from our lives, when I see someone deliver software that can tackle that system from both a users’s perspective and also from a bureaucratic one, I’ll believe the folks pushing that dream are out to do something other than make money. Believe me, they could make a lot of money if they cared to do so.

In my opinion tech companies, largely run by folks not in the senior set or too wealthy to have to worry about these things, would do well to put focus groups of seniors together to try out new technology and products. I don’t believe that will happen. Perhaps the prevailing wisdom is that by the time the youngsters pushing the tech envelopes reach the age when these frustration points of today’s seniors might matter to them, the tech they are working on today might take those frustrations away.

I’m not holding my breath.

(Image from Sweet Life on Unsplash)