I struggle to understand the pushback against AI features. As long as the feature isn't intrusive, it seems like a minor addition, and may even be useful to some people. LLMs are here to stay, there is no denying that at this point.
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.
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.
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 should release their most searched terms on AI, I bet it would correlate with most common names among WhatsApp users...
Any new feature should face a very simple cost/benefit analysis. The average user currently can’t do that with AI. I think AI in some form is inevitable. But what we see today (hey, here’s a completely free feature we added!) is unsustainable both economically and environmentally.
The choice is yours. If you want local models, you can do that.
To develop and sustain these "AI features", human intelligence - manifested as countless hours of work published online and elsewhere - was exigently preempted and used without permission to further increase the asymmetry of knowledge/power between those with political power and those without (mostly vulnerable, marginalized cohorts).
Most devs want to put AI on their CV so they have strong personal incentives to circumvent what is best for their users.
Would you like to have LLM connections to Google from your OSS torrent client?
We can see the painting on the wall, but still not like it.
Having it built-in allows Calibre to add context to the prompt automagically.
Perhaps to the detriment of some compatibility features that got sent to the back burner.
You make LLMs sound like a stalker, or your mom's abusive live-in boyfriend