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by rkomorn 174 days ago
I guess it depends on your definition of "intrusive".

I have no interest in any of the AI features that have been added to the UIs of Meta products (WhatsApp, and Messenger), yet still see prompts for them and modified UIs to try and get me to engage with Meta AI.

Same goes with Gemini poking its head into various spots in the UIs of the Google products I use.

There are now UI spots I can accidentally tap/click and get dropped into a chat with an AI in various things I use on a daily basis.

There are also more "calls to action" for AI features, more "hey do you wanna try AI here?" prompts, etc.

It's not just the addition of AI features, it's all the modern, transparent desperation-for-metrics-to-go-up UX bits that come with it.

And yes, some of these things were around before this wave of AI launches, but a- that doesn't make it better, and b- all the AI features are seemingly the same across apps, so now we have bunches of apps all pushing the same "feature" at us.

2 comments

I agree with you that the push towards them is annoying. (Google's "Your phone has new exciting features.")

In this case, Calibre does not seem to introduce any said annoyances (probably because it is FOSS, so no pressure for adoption), but people are upset anyways.

There are many features I don't use in various software, but it never made me complain that a new icon/menu entry appeared.

I think there are "classes" of features people have disliked. Eg: every social media app added "stories" at some point, using up screen real estate. Same goes with "shorts/reels/etc".

It's one thing when a feature gets added to an app.

It's another thing when it happens in a context where every app is doing it (or something similar), and you see it in every facet of your tech life.

WhatsApp has now told me twice about Lisa Blackpink.. I wanted to write my friend Lisa, and I talk to her on Instagram and I don't have her on WhatsApp. So searching for her on WhatsApp gives me 2 unrelated contacts, and then Meta Ducking AI suggestions, of which the top one is Lisa Blackpink. Then, further down the screen (hidden by the keyboard) I can see chats where I've mentioned her to mutual friends, but fucking nooo, it's more important that Fuckerberg shoves AI down our throats.

WhatsApp should release their most searched terms on AI, I bet it would correlate with most common names among WhatsApp users...