Are AI chatbots just a step along the way to real robot friends?
Let me flip things on their head for a moment.
I love AI sycophancy!
Why?
Because it’s so OBVIOUSLY not at all like us moody, unpredictable, up-and-down humans.
I use it and hear the WarGames WOPPR voice: “Shall we play a game?”
Of COURSE some people – for fun, or alas for weaker reasons – embrace the always-supportive unreality of an uber-friendly chatbot. There are risks, as there are in all things.
So others hate it from the get-go, for much the same reasons, and a fear of what negatives could arise.
But I do believe I represent many of us who can easily bring two-level thinking to the 100% complimentary chatbot.
Knowing at the back AND front of our minds that it’s not really human.
Who would ever be that nearly insufferably NICE all the time?
A work in progress, in Floot – see the Table of Contents on left side, comments on the left? A dream!
Perplexity sure knows a lot. So, too, do the folks who hang on Reddit.
Between those two sources, I have found tons of new rabbit holes. After all, how can I really know if The Now Edition will catch on if I’m unfamiliar with any of the tons of e-book creation tools that are already out there?
So I signed up for Designrr – if you have ever looked at any of these tools, it comes to you and sticks to your YouTube pre-roll ads like glue. It has many fans, but also has its critics for what Perplexity calls “aggressive upselling.”
While it feels robust, my seemingly “simple” idea of turning my Now Edition blog into a “first example” of a Now Edition e-book quickly ran into some very deep rabbit holes involving how one imports content, then can arrange it, polish it – things e-book publishers and self-publish tool outfits and users know all too well.
Designrr of course offers plenty of help and support, and is probably just what many folks need and want. But it also has limitations – it can import blog posts but not a whole blog at once. So much for creating your e-book “in five minutes” without a whole lot of prep and cleanup work.
I think I have to stop having Floot open in one tab and Base44 in the other, surely not late night, the lines blur and blecch, I can get stuck in the mud in two places at once!
I have a daily mandarin orange with my breakfast, and always try for one not too small, sweet and squirty/messy (thin skin can make a-peel harder!) and large mandarins, easy to peel but sorta … tasteless.
So that whole Goldilocks-style/porridge heat balancing act of tradeoffs is where I happily find myself.
I enjoy Reddit, even when you go to a subreddit about anything, such as Base44 (my first encounter with that is the last blog entry) and you inevitably find lots of complaints (who signs in/visits a sub to say only nice things?!) – and where a few folks said Floot was better. (Rhymes with Groot;-)
And Perplexity agreed – I tried a real head-to-head comparison, also including the new GPT-5 ability to create websites without codes, and the WordPress AI Web Builder.
So with kudos and a nod from Perplexity, I went off to try Floot – also at first for free but then when I hit the credit limit pretty fast- hey, give away the store and go broke! – and when I ran out of free credits, I bought a reasonable starter monthly price.
It works much the same as Base44 – a very friendly chatbot who tries to make the vision happen. I think I see why it has fans – in part because Base44 just got bought by Wix and in the transition, folks are not getting support ticket responses. Not good.
As you can see from this screen shot and the one on the Base44 blog post, each is attractive in its own way. But I’ve gotten farther with Floot, working on the reading and writing interfaces, the ability to import content and even how to sign up/log in, create a profile etc.
a division or contrast between two things that are or are represented as being opposed or entirely different.”a rigid dichotomy between science and mysticism”
OK, that’s pretty close.
I’ve never been blessed to be a parent, but I have to figure some get to the troubled teenage years and of course love the kid and what they represent about the future, more than where they actually are in life.(Moody, sullen, obstinate or … wherever they happen to be in their lives.)
And so it is with AI.
I love what it represents about the future, being better in so many ways – more cures, less painful chores, etc. – more than what it actually is.
I’ve been a tech geek, end user- (not coder!) style, for a long time.
I was a beta tester for America Online! With my late, great brother Pete.
What a gadget fan he was. We were both excited by the world of computers, and then came the Internet and online, and … I used all the services – CompuServe, GEnie, and IBM/Sears’ pioneering colorful service called Prodigy. The squeal of dial-up modems and … yeah, even early social media, before it took a turn toward troll-ism (which is why I love Reddit, where downvotes send them out of sight).
Back then, who really knew what was coming? No one, really. Not to the specifics.
But we didn’t care. It was such a fun ride into the future!
The AI buzz is, in my humble opinion, not just hype. It will be a roller-coaster, with a natural share of shysters and fast-buck “artists,” but also with truly visionary people in every field.
But in a world full of AI rabbit holes, hard to escape once you dive in, I love to think big-picture.
And I say, may a zillion AI “flowers” bloom – as long as we stay out of the weeds and don’t suffer from allergies.
When I say “Everything Reminds Me of a Song,” it’s true. And would love to see someone (picture the producers from The Producers) turn that into not just a song… but a musical! It could go anywhere.
But I digress. Boy… do I digress….
So amid My “Real Work” today, a familiar thought from the edges of my noggin finally presented itself, as a word-play kind of guy.
Ever watch one YouTube video around 8 p.m. – and the next thing you know, it’s midnight?
Where the heck did that time go?
You can blame Al. In the right or wrong typeface, AI and Al look soooo alike!)
In this case we’re talking the guy known as Al Go Rhythm. (Sure, algorithm, but bear with me.)
It’s been quite a year, and I only have to scratch the surface to explain why.
My job had a 180 or is it 360?;-)-degree change as KTVZ focuses on streaming video, a big piece of the future of local TV news.
Barney and his wife and fellow Pacific University alum Debbie, finally meeting the real Boxer in the spring of 2025.
And some 40 years after I wrote about the mystery of Pacific University’s long-missing mascot, the Boxer, for our alumni magazine, they brought the newly found original Boxer to Bend for a special alumni gathering.
Yep, PU in Frosty Grave… I mean Forest Grove is where I met my wonderful future wife Deb as freshmen over FIFTY years ago.
Confessions of an AI Fanboy: How artificial intelligence amazes and dazes, dazzles and frazzles 