Dame Emma Thompson gives the 'AI revolution' both barrels

Dame Emma Thompson's expletive-laden takedown of AI writing assistants may strike a chord with frustrated users everywhere. When Stephen Colbert asked the Oscar-winning performer and writer how she felt about "the coming AI revolution," Thompson didn't hold back: "Intense irritation." optout Why is Big Tech hellbent on …

[Jim Willsher]

Yes, yes and yes. Copilot can Foxtrot Oscar and go the same way Clippy went. they're one and the same anyway.

[wolfetone]

Clippy would never read my medical data.

Clippy would never read my personal messages.

Clippy would never tell me a lie.

[Paul Herber]

Bring back Power Pup.

https://www.wussu.com/humour/images/tywych04.gif

[Jim Willsher]

Yes, yes, and more yes. Copilot can Foxtrot Oscar and join Clippy...they're one and the same anyway.

[elDog]

Sorry, Jim. You don't get two up-votes by posting duplicates.

Good try, though!

[Jim Willsher]

Re: Sorry, Jim. You don't get two up-votes by posting duplicates.

Yeah, the El Reg comments features is a bit 19th century, and can't handle logging in and commenting on the same submit - or so it told me. Hence the dup.

[Philo T Farnsworth]

Re: Sorry, Jim. You don't get two up-votes by posting duplicates.

"He's dead, Jim."

But, seriously, yea and verily regarding enabling "features."

Sadly, this isn't localized to only the offerings of the Redmond Robber Barons. I can think of numerous instances where something has popped up on my phone or web browser unbidden and unwanted and caused me to waste much time figuring out how to turn it off.

And, since I have one of those modern computers with an engine and wheels, I occasionally get "over the air" updates that introduce new features or fiddle with my settings in ways that can be not only annoying but downright dangerous.

I recently suffered (sic) an update where the "lane keeping" feature which warns you if you're drifting out of your lane on the hghtway got its setting changed from "vibrate the steering wheel gently" to "try to pull you back into your lane."

The first time It happened it scared the pants off of me, since I thought maybe something had gone wonky with the steering and it took me a couple of days to realize that the update had "done me a favor" by changing the setting without my knowledge.

This, in my opinion,is, as I said, not only annoying but downright dangerous since it interferes with the way I expect my vehicle to handle.

There are enough surprises with Tesla idiot drivers on the freeway and I don't need the software on my vehicle providing any new ones on its own.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Sorry, Jim. You don't get two up-votes by posting duplicates.

"I have one of those modern computers with an engine and wheels, I occasionally get "over the air" updates that introduce new features or fiddle with my settings in ways that can be not only annoying but downright dangerous."

My condolences.

I envisage a growing market for classic vehicles that predate these menaces. Could be a nice little earner for Arthur Daley.

There is a business in this state that does ICE to EV conversions without any of this lunacy. I imagine the battery management system is the most complex component which hopefully would rarely require updates.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Sorry, Jim. You don't get two up-votes by posting duplicates.

That must be a Volvo XC40 Recharge. I consider mine one of the biggest assaults on my safety I have ever experienced.

I would also like the balls of whoever mandated Lane Assist to be re-enabled every time.

[DoctorPaul]

Re: Sorry, Jim. You don't get two up-votes by posting duplicates.

You don't get a 5 star safety rating if lane assist doesn't re-enable every time you start the car.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Sorry, Jim. You don't get two up-votes by posting duplicates.

Yes, but given the many flaws this car has it doesn't deserve that rating anyway..

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Sorry, Jim. You don't get two up-votes by posting duplicates.

"modern computers with an engine and wheels"

What really f'ks me off is having all the switches you want to adjust while driving on the stupid screen. With old style knobs you could reach down and feel for them much safer not taking eyes off the road.

[spacecadet66]

Re: Sorry, Jim. You don't get two up-votes by posting duplicates.

The good news, or so I've heard, is that carmakers have finally tumbled to this and are starting to use physical, tactile controls again.

[collinsl]

Re: Sorry, Jim. You don't get two up-votes by posting duplicates.

It appears that Euro NCAP tests are from next year going to require physical "intuitive" controls to get a higher safety rating so hopefully the change is coming!

[chasil]

Wordstar

The author of the Game of Thrones series, George R.R. Martin, famously writes all of his novels with Wordstar 4 in DOS. This will never happen to him.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26695017

For anyone wanting a taste of this unchanging utility, try "Joe's Own Editor."

https://joe-editor.sourceforge.io/

(I actually have a floppy distribution of Wordstar 4 in the original binder.)

[MiguelC]

Re: George R.R. Martin, famously writes all of his novels with Wordstar 4 in DOS

Is that why he still hasn't finished A Song of Ice and Fire series? He's supposed to be writing the last two books since 2011....

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Wordstar

Luxury …

When I were a lad we only had runoff - not even fancy roff or troff as we were so poor we couldn’t afford to pay for extra vowels…

One of my first recollections of the new fangled letter writing technology, as not even an undergrad, was an ICL word processor (I forget which model but Shirley someone here knows - probably starts with a 7) a dedicated ‘workstation’ and printer at Manchester Crown Court.

We looked at the kit and the price and really wondered if this was the future and who could afford it …. and yet here we are.

Though to be fair I am sure the ICL machine was much more efficient as it did not have to battle with margins, paragraphs and other non-content formatting related issues that consume >75% of the effort when dealing with Word …. (other WYSIWYG-ish products are available and suffer from the similar issues)

SGML (troff++) was so much more productive.

[that one in the corner]

Re: Wordstar

Was excited to try out SGML (nerrrrr-errred), having read the book, but went back to TeX & Friends and stayed*

Although, as things like LuaTeX allow complex stuff to be added in, it would not be a total surprise if somebody has tied an LLM into their TeX toolchain "just to see if it was possible"!

* Although, to be 100% honest, the workflow in recent years has been to write short pieces in Wiki-style markup and/or Markdown and/or specialised little languages for diagrams (e.g. graphviz) then collate & convert into (La)TeX & thence to PDF. Rather than writing it directly in TeX. But then, I quite like writing Makefiles to wrangle all that for me, so...

[EricPodeOfCroydon]

Re: Wordstar

ICL 8801 perhaps? Early 1980s.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Wordstar

I can also highly recommend writer.ighugelabs.com not only does it process in green on black, with a proper cursor, it can also make typewriter noises!

[collinsl]

Re: Wordstar

Corrected URL: writer.bighugelabs.com

[David Hicklin]

Which is why still use my copy of Office 2010 - not of this AI crap or "sign into M$" in there

[DoctorPaul]

Pray you never have to reinstall it. I'd love to still be using my "perpetual" copy but they turned off the activation servers years ago.

[EricPodeOfCroydon]

Massgrave may be your friend there?

[breakfast]

Not saying it's a red flag but...

If I was a senior executive in a company and the whole audience cheered when a celebrity writer and performer expressed how increasingly infuriating our products were becoming, I hope I'd at least think hard about whether we were doing the right thing.

This is probably why I'm not a senior executive.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Not saying it's a red flag but...

I suppose if I had spent many billions of my company's money, gambling on a product that had no obvious use, I would also have a crowbar in my hand desperately jamming that product into every crevice. I'd also be enabling it by default and then praying to all known deities that people quickly found it essential (or at least too much trouble to replace like Windows). I'm betting that the reason for copilot's existence was meant to emerge within six months of giving OpenAI $20 billion. Now after two years things are getting desperate. Understanding is not forgiving though. **** those ****ers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Not saying it's a red flag but...

Senior executives don't think like that.

We had literally the whole company complaining about an internal tool change causing huge issues.

Senior execs immediately put out a video to tell us that it was actually an exemplar of a successful roll out and actually demonstrated how good they were at listening to concerns from us minions.

Nothing fixed since.

[that one in the corner]

Re: Not saying it's a red flag but...

Oldie but still a goodie:

In the beginning was the plan

And then came the assumptions And the assumptions were without form And the plan was completely without substance. And the darkness came upon the face of the workers, And they spoke amongst themselves, saying: "It is a crock of shit and it stinketh."

And the workers went unto their supervisors and sayeth: It is a pail of dung and none can abide the odor thereof."

And the supervisors went unto their managers, and sayeth unto them: "It is a container of excrement and it is very strong, Such that none can abide it."

And the managers went unto the directors and sayeth: "It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none can abide its strength."

And the directors spoke amongst themselves, saying one to another: "It contains that which aids plant growth, and is very strong."

And the directors went unto the vice presidents, and sayeth to them: "It promotes growth and is very powerful."

And the vice presidents went unto the president, and sayeth unto him: "This new plan will actively promote the growth and efficiency of this company, and certain areas in particular."

And the president looked upon the plan, and saw that it was good. And the plan became policy.

And this is how shit happens.

[Wincerind]

Re: Not saying it's a red flag but...

Brilliant

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Not saying it's a red flag but...

It's funny because it's true

[spacecadet66]

Re: Not saying it's a red flag but...

And also tragic because it's true.

[LessWileyCoyote]

Re: Not saying it's a red flag but...

Superb. Thank you for bringing that back into the spotlight. I remember it being old but good in the 1980s, and it seems we still haven't learned.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Not saying it's a red flag but...

The prose explains how rewriting can lead from one fact to ambiguous statements to the opposite of fact in not too many steps.

Besides making a dog's breakfast of a noted writer's work, these AI systems probably don't recognize how words are defined and used in different settings. Medical, legal, engineering, biological and all sorts of vocabularies can use the same words to mean different things and mean things precisely so rewriting could change meaning or change the degree of emphasis on something. All AI is going to do is apply a beige filter and output bland and vague word salads that others will immediately misinterpret.

[DS999]

People have been infuriated with Microsoft's products for decades

Doesn't seem to have their stock price (and resulting executive compensation levels) any harm. So why would a senior exec do anything than think "too bad you have no choice but to use whatever shit we shovel at you!" while leaping Scrooge McDuck style into the piles of cash he's made in bonuses over the past year's AI inflated stock price gains.

[MachDiamond]

Re: People have been infuriated with Microsoft's products for decades

"Doesn't seem to have their stock price (and resulting executive compensation levels) any harm. "

Stock price is only slightly to moderately a reflection of the value of a company. There's more faith and belief influences with many stocks and how they trade rather than reliance on an old fashioned Balance Sheet/P&L statement.

[kmorwath]

Re: Not saying it's a red flag but...

She is a woman. Nadella doesn't believe they matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

re: 'Would you like me to rewrite that for you?'"

Hell no, no way, never in a gazillion years.

I've just had my fourth novel published. The ONLY AI in it is two illustrations because I'm a lousy artist.

I will never use AI to write a word in my work. I have added a paragraph to the copyright page that says:-

This is a work of fiction and is 100% the brainchild of the author. NO AI tool was used in the generation of the text. If there are faults then it is the sole responsibility of the author and not some stupid AI tool. KEEP LITERATURE FREE OF AI crappy text.

Well said Emma. Your father would be proud (Time for Bed, said Zebedee)

[Peter Prof Fox]

Excellent. Plus...

Good call. I was just going with

This text MUST NOT be used in any LLM,AI or information system without pre-payment of £15,000 and permission in writing from the copyright holder.

but you've prompted me to expand.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Excellent. Plus...

£15,000 is pretty cheap considering they could plagiarise you in all sorts of contexts.

[Jedit]

"£15,000 is pretty cheap"

That's why you add "per use".

[spacecadet66]

Re: re: 'Would you like me to rewrite that for you?'"

In recently published books I've started seeing some text on the copyright page to the effect of "no part of this work may be used to train AI". Doesn't mean the mongers of slop will comply, but at least it's something to point to in court.

[MachDiamond]

Re: re: 'Would you like me to rewrite that for you?'"

"but at least it's something to point to in court."

The plaintiff would have to provide evidence showing that their work was used, which work, etc. The statement is meaningless.

I'm a big fan of reading and especially of Sci Fi. There's been many times I've started a book and thought to myself, "yet another corpsicle tale" and it was, but the storyline wound up with a kink that bent it in a new direction that was fun and interesting. Space Operas meander here and there, but if the author has well fleshed out characters and an interesting universe for them to play in, I'm up for a new adventure. Feed those things into an AI blender and resultant slop will be yet another Space Opera with feeble dialog, situations and a constantly contradictory universe. There won't be any way to tell what went into the soup the more things that are fed into the blender.

[spacecadet66]

Re: re: 'Would you like me to rewrite that for you?'"

> The plaintiff would have to provide evidence showing that their work was used, which work, etc.

Yes they would. I agree it would be pointless to make a case based on similarities between extruded text and the originals that allegedly went into it. You'd need to convince a judge and/or jury, based on evidence such as logs, email, whatever, that the works in question went into the sausage grinder. I don't think that's impossible: plenty of companies have data breaches or whistleblowers.

[wolfetone]

Didn't see her moaning about it in Flubber!

[collinsl]

Emma Thompson had nothing to do with Flubber...

[breakfast]

Obviously

Hence Wolfetone didn't see her complaining about it there. Do keep up.

Some might argue that commenting to observe that one hadn't seen her making a statement about technology that didn't exist when the film came out, in a film she wasn't in, is a tiny bit superfluous, but imagine if she had managed to manifest into a film that she wasn't in and talk about a future technology? Honestly, I have no idea what that would mean.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Use a typewriter

Or use software not connected to AI. Is it that hard (at the moment)?

[rmbles]

Re: Use a typewriter

Vim :-p

[Jonathan Richards 1]

Re: Use a typewriter

Tried it.

vim says E749: Empty buffer

[jake]

Re: Use a typewriter

$ Vim :-p

bash: Vim: command not found

$

[PRR]

Re: Use a typewriter

> Use a typewriter

That's how the resident author here works. She just upgraded to a 1970s Olympia electric SGE 45. Has motor but zero brains.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbvvCPm7eyE

"Olympia's products have lasted for decades and have come to be preferred over other modern means of writing by various famous authors and scriptwriters."

Coincidentally I am reading 1950 SciFi by a guy who day-jobbed at newspapers. It's all typewriters, re-ribboning, and Linotype machines (one IS sentient and evil).

[that one in the corner]

Re: Use a typewriter

> I am reading 1950 SciFi by a guy who day-jobbed at newspapers. It's all typewriters, re-ribboning, and Linotype machines (one IS sentient and evil).

By any chance, "Etaoin Shrdlu" by Fredric Brown?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Use a typewriter

"She just upgraded to a 1970s Olympia electric SGE 45. Has motor but zero brains."

Perversely the ambiguity in the subject of "has zero brains" brought the late Barbara Cartland to mind.

[martinusher]

It really is irritating

I was trying to type something the other day on an unfamiliar system -- Chrome on Windows, nothing special -- and the damn thing decided not to just autocomplete words but sentences. The suggestions were in light type, like faint pencil marks, but were still profoundly irritating.

My objects weren't just the distraction but the amount of processing cycles and internet traffic it was causing. I don't want my typing speed governed by the loading of my processor and the instantaneous latency of my network connection. I'm typing in English, not Chinese.

[Eclectic Man]

Re: It really is irritating - try LaTeX

AI and autocomplete can also be intensely irritating when learning to touch type.

I now use LaTeX, which admittedly has its own irritations, but intrusive AI is not one of them.

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

Re: It really is irritating - try LaTeX

Depends on the editor you use. No problems in emacs, but I use OverLeaf on-line for joint work, and it now also has added AI crap. I haven't yet found a way of getting that to shut up completely.

[Fara82Light]

Good

Good!

Something irritating this irritating celeb can only be a good thing.

Keep it up CoPilot :]

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Good

I think (hope) you may be mixing up Emma Thompson and Dame Emma Thompson, two very different actresses. One is a legend, who is also a renowned director, the other opens her mouth too often. Think Harry P vs Nanny McPhee

If I'm right, it's an easy mistake to make, and I utterly agree with you

[The Oncoming Scorn]

Re: Good

"I think (hope) you may be mixing up Emma Watson and Dame Emma Thompson"

FTFY

[Richard Tobin]

Self-inflicted problem

LaTeX has never offered to rewrite my papers.

[The man with a spanner]

Re: Self-inflicted problem

My LaTeX wife did the corrections

[Greybearded old scrote]

Re: Self-inflicted problem

Mate, a latex wife has much better functions.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Self-inflicted problem

Is your wife, she named Lucy, by any chance?

[The man with a spanner]

Re: Self-inflicted problem

She is deflated with all the work.

[Dave K]

Speaks for many of us

Well said Emma, many of us feel the same way.

I want to be clear, I have no problem with AI tools existing. They have some (limited) uses, certain people like to use them and that's fine.

What I do object to is having them rammed down my throat all the f**king time. I'm sick and tired of Copilot popups everywhere, Copilot icons appearing where they serve no purpose (ie, Notepad), Teams desperately and repeatedly nagging me to pin the Copilot icon to the toolbar, Adobe Reader displaying popups telling me I can "use the AI assistant to summarise this" when I'm just trying to view a boarding pass, AI icons and nags appearing in instant messaging apps (looking at you WhatsApp).

Heck, the other day I was in the market for a replacement vacuum cleaner and there's now a Samsung cordless vac range with AI and a connected app. For Pete's sake, why? Who on earth is asking for this? I told my wife (who likes and regularly uses ChatGPT), her response "That's just stupid!".

Vendors need to realise that they are in serious danger of alienating an increasing large volume of the population by nagging and pushing AI too incessantly and in too many stupid places. We're sick of it to the point that I now actively avoid anything marketed as AI, because it'll just be filled with irritating, annoying and pointless slop most the time.

[Philo T Farnsworth]

Re: Speaks for many of us

> I want to be clear, I have no problem with AI tools existing. They have some (limited) uses, certain people like to use them and that's fine.

My partner is very smart¹ (she has a masters degree) but she's also profoundly dyslexic -- her spelling is horrifying and her grammar and sentence construction can be exceedingly bizarre.

She'd been struggling with an important letter for several days and getting nowhere fast.

Then one morning she came downstairs with tears (of joy) in her eyes and said that she fed the draft of her letter to ChatGPT and it had produced exactly what she was trying to say. I read it and, yup, it was well written and contained no hallucinations.

So, score one for the machines, I guess.

_______________

¹ What she's doing living with me is anyone's guess -- it certainly isn't for the money or the good looks.

[mcswell]

Re: Speaks for many of us

My daughter uses ChatGPT to tailor her resume and cover letters, then goes in and does further edits to make sure (1) it's still truthful, and (2) to change a few words. She says the result is better than if she just tried to edit it by hand (although IMO she's a good writer).

I , otoh, installed a Linux distro on my former Win11 machine for the kinds of reasons you mention. There were a few glitches (some due to my own tweaks, like trying to run 'apt' through 'unbuffer' to retain the colors when I ran the output through 'less'...), but when these came up I went to forums to ask human beings. So far that's always worked. I'll probably do that to my laptop, too.

[Dave K]

Re: Speaks for many of us

Exactly. My wife sometimes struggles to structure letters, statements etc. in a way she's happy with. She now asks ChatGPT to draft something, sometimes asks it to re-write in a more concise manner, then reviews, tweaks and ultimately uses that. It saves her time and she finds it useful. That's great! It's a tool being used for a beneficial purpose.

Similarly, I have some colleagues at work that find Copilot useful for generating minutes/actions off the back of Teams calls. Again, no problem with this. If an AI tool is providing value, great!

It's the incessant nagging, the icons and popups all over the place, AI being shoved into stupid places where it provides no value, updates that turn AI icons/features back on after I've disabled them. Those are the problems.

[MrAptronym]

I am not as good an author as Dame Thompson but I still have my own style and don't want copilot interrupting me. The mere suggestion that I would desire a rewrite is insulting. Word suggestions interfere with what I am trying to say and throw off my rhythm.

It is good that people write differently. It keeps our language interesting and evolving, and that is true for 'bad' writing too. I can understand why someone might want to average out their writing to a bland nothing on a resume, but in most communications I think it is important that everyone keeps their own voice. There really is not a best way to communicate! Your voice should be your own.I hate seeing these suggestions, even the sight of them messes up my flow, but they keep being re-enabled on my phone's Outlook app. (mandated by business)

That is without even getting into how the suggestions are just bad if you are not engaging in the expected style of communication. They seem to want all of us to speak like business people, at which point I would rather just self-exile.

[collinsl]

Dame Thompson

Sorry to correct but it would be "Dame Emma" as Dame = Sir in the British system so you should use their first name (example Sir Patrick for Patrick Stewart or Dame Louise for Dame Louise Casey of government enquiry fame).

[MrAptronym]

Huh, you learn something new every day.

[DrewPH]

Linux for Luvvies

New distro idea. Guaranteed AI-free.

[jake]

Re: Linux for Luvvies

Nothing new about Slackware ... AI free since 1993.

[Greybearded old scrote]

Re: Linux for Luvvies

Oh, do be serious. Do you think somebody whose expertise is in drama should have a tinkerer's OS inflicted on them?

OTOH, I'd be all up for guiding them through a switch to one of the "beginner's" distributions. Done it before, with a decent outcome. Mint is my preferred one. But "other easy systems are available" as they say.

[Anonymous Coward]

We need a new App

The “Unenshittification” App.

One click does it all.

[Anonymous Coward]

Comforting to find ...

Nanny McPhee has such a fine command of the English language.

Emma Thompson is reasonably cluey so I would credit her with knowing there were fine alternatives to MS tat but was more a case of publicity and never letting the facts get in the way of a good story.

Personally I am still a pencil paper chap for writing (and non·trivial coding.) I can touch type so can quickly enter a manuscript into a plain text file.

I don't see the point of presentation markup at that stage—standard punctuation and blank lines between paragraphs is pretty much all the logical markup required in most cases.

The world is overflowing with truly shitty would be typesetters without adding my efforts.

[Anonymous Coward]

And that ..

.. is why I'll hang on to LibreOffice for dear life.

I refuse to sponsor Microsoft every month just to give them the opportunity to screw around with my work and life even more than they do where I am employed, so I switched to what is now LibreOffice when it was still called StarOffice and was not free (yes, I know that dates me).

I have also tried other things like using pure text mode, but that doesn't work for me (I admire people for whom this does work as they have a far better imagination than me, I need a degree of visualisation).

Don't get me wrong, I think AI does have its place, BUT IT MUST REMAIN A CHOICE and only engage on demand. If there is one thing that annoys that bejeezes out of me it's the habit of some software moguls to decide they know better what's good for people and change things around without cause and without any ability to roll back the misery they impose on people that way. Microsoft is about the most prominent example of that but they're not alone. If people could bill these companies and their shareholders for every unnecessary lost hour that idiocy would soon end, but alas.

[Greybearded old scrote]

As has been pointed out elsewhere

Nobody had to be forced to use the early spreadsheets.

[CAPS LOCK]

Emma Thompson...

... I doff my headgear to her. Two Oscars in different categories, very successful writer and actress, hilarious and iconic in Men In Black and tough in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande...

[Dwarf]

Logical

As AI only learns from what its ingested, then it follows that those who are articulate on a subject will improve its learning.

Offering to dumb down their work, based on its limited knowledge of things is just a race to the bottom.