6 Comments
User's avatar
Bare-Faced Plague-Spreader's avatar

Finished it, and all your issues resonate with me.

I too got a printer recently, and I have not tried to use the scanner, but will try soon and see what happens.

Your top-down menu issue echoes mine.

More broadly, I think we are seeing here the effects of offloading or outsourcing information to AI or to engineers/coders. The very things meant to "idiot proof" our devices are actually making the devices less or unusable by normal people or even geniuses.

I love the convenience of autocorrect, until it "idiot corrects" differently. QR codes are all well and good, but what happens if the device cannot accept them? I have an iPhone X that I want to upgrade to a pre-owned, more recent version, but will the SD card simply be able to be transferred between the two devices?

I get tons of offers from Apple Music, but I really don't want to commit to a music service at all. At one point, I did have a ton of music saved in multiple locations and ripped from CD's. I even had some old cassette audio I was able to record using a cassette-to-digital piece of hardware which was worth it to preserve my dad's voice from a 1970's vacation recording.

But these advances, usually put forward by people who don't know the value of things from the past, are causing the unintended consequences of loss.

Kitsune, Maskless Crusader.'s avatar

I am no longer sure the that the consequential loss is unintended.

I am so mad at myself for not recording the Skype then Zoom calls with my parents. It was never a conscious decision not to, I just didn’t. Guess I figured that doing so was just for work.

Like with so many other things, I saw this coming. Fully automated systems need a human back up and real time supervision. No one can foresee every issue and AI does not think. A human must be present to solve the unexpected.

Bare-Faced Plague-Spreader's avatar

Before finishing your post, I just had to respond.

I had a similar issue with my air conditioner.

I recently purchased a well-known company's room air conditioner, and it works like a dream, but registering it was a nightmare. I went with online registration because it is more convenient. The problem is I couldn't register it because after entering the serial number and model number, as you enter in the number, it presents you with alternatives from a drop-down menu.

Instead, I got a dialog that there was "no valid model number;" the invalid model number that was listed on the side of the air conditioner, the label you send in the mail, and the user's manual say differently.

I tried entering in letters instead of numbers as the number contains a "0" which arguably could either be a letter or a number. I also re-entered the number multiple times. Still, no dice.

Finally, I had to "lie" in a model number to register it, but since I didn't want to stick with that, as it could possibly affect my warranty, I decided to go to support and report the issue. This involved me sending in pictures of the "label" and taking a picture of the information on the side near the bottom of the air conditioner, which in a wheelchair, is not easy to do.

Long story short...the person i was text chatting with (which may have been an ai bot) stated that the technical issue is with their website. File this under: "No Shit Sherlock." They advanced my support ticket to a higher authority.

What did the "higher authority do?" They gave me a 15% discount on another appliance in the future, and closed out the ticket. I was also told to "remove" the bogus model number I chose from the pull-down menu. I tried to do this, but found that the only way to do this was to enter in a new registered product, which of course, has no valid model number

Kitsune, Maskless Crusader.'s avatar

Not exact, but I have had so many similar experiences that I can’t count. No worries through, the ticket has been cleared so as far as the company is concerned, the issue has been resolved. Yeah.

Vince's avatar

My printer doesn't print anything unless I restart my pc. If I have to print something quick, the printer knows and will not do it, even if I restart my pc. Idk if the scanner feature works, I have never tried it. I have a separate scanner.

Kitsune, Maskless Crusader.'s avatar

I have had to go that route too; multiple devices that are supposed to be multifunctional but not.