“Everyone is trying to use a Magnifying Glass to do everything from change flathead screws to preparing food, from levering open crates to surgical incisions.”

In other words: The base algorithms and techniques are very interesting and have valid applications in a narrow range of fields, being useful for pattern recognition, generation, and analysis.

The problem is everything else. Everyone is trying to use that one tool for things it is neither effective nor practical nor appropriate to use it on, and then being shocked when this has widespread negative outcomes for both themselves and everyone around them. Separately but parallel, the drive to find useful applications of it (in areas where there aren’t) is causing companies and individuals to engage in grossly unethical behavior.

Even in the fields where it is most useful, you have to be cautious about not treating it as a “truth machine”. A speaker I heard put it simply: “AI cheats.” It will latch on to the most prominent patterns, not necessarily the ones you want it to analyze.

Damn, dude. I am envious of your travel arrangements. It’s especially incredible how hard it is to convince management that hours spent fiddling with receipts isn’t worth whatever small amounts of change they might save from not just paying a flat sum.

The commute was too far already (about 1h 10m driving each way), and they wanted me to transfer to another location which would require a full-on move, which I wasn’t up for.

In retrospect, after I left they got bought out, had a leadership changeover and rebranding, and closed several facilities. So I think I might’ve dodged something.

I’m aware of it. It suffers from the same issues as WWZ. Max Brooks makes a lot of assertions, some of which are factually wrong (about topics other than zombies, I mean), some of which require the zombies to share the same oddly specific immunities to be true, and some of which is even self-contradictory. (Offhand, the bit that sticks in my mind is he completely contradicts himself about whether zombies can even climb things.)

I mean, the Zombies in WWZ basically run on magic shields to be a threat. They’re utterly invulnerable to anything Max Brooks doesn’t want them to be killed by.

Like, if I remember correctly, they’re immune to shrapnel and bleeding wounds because “the dead don’t need blood”, and nerve toxins or shockwaves don’t harm them because “the dead don’t have a nervous system”. But somehow removing the head is a 100% infallible method of killing them. What is in the head if not blood and nerves, Max?

These are creatures which casually violate the second law of thermodynamics. If they’re playing by real-world physics, chemistry, and biology, they’re radically less dangerous.