iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Replies

Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Anyway the reason I'm bringing this up is because of a tech product you might have heard of called Adding AI To Fucking Everything. If you pay attention closely to how people (not just users but also developers) describe AI, you can quickly clock if the need for it is real or just Validated.

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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

By the way, one of the most common uses of AI in my industry is precisely "making up a guy who might like our feature." It's called "synthetic users" and there are multiple companies who will make them for you and many consultants who will train you how to use them. Just the dumbest shit imaginable

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dark @darkswordsman.com · 08/07/2025

ngl "making up a guy who might like our feature" existed way before AI. I just think AI is able to reinforce that flawed way of thinking even more.

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Saeed Khan @saeedwkhan.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

Startups will do almost everything except talking to live human beings to learn about problems, needs, opportunities etc. In the voice of HAL 9000: Dave, I think that's a really great idea for a new feature. Why don't you build it. I'm sure people will love it.

media.tenor.com

a close up of a robot 's eye with a red light inside of it .

ALT: a close up of a robot 's eye with a red light inside of it .

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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

You see, this is because in addition to art and writing, AI is also "democratizing" user research, and it's going about as well. What do you think you get when you have 50 separate teams running the same data through a non-deterministic word salad machine? 50 different realities.

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May Likes Product @productnerd.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

I once went to a product conference where this one guy on the panel wouldn't stop waxing poetic about synthetic users. The worst part about it is that the audience took it seriously and kept the questions on just that.

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Will Kaufman @specwill.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

I work in an industry where one of the biggest things users want is to get information from real people. Like, they don't even really want experts, they want to know what other "normal" people think before they convert. And into this funnel we are busily integrating AI?

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autogynephagia @cas.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

oh. oh no.

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Thomas Dietterich @tdietterich.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

I suppose synthetic users may be useful in some cases, but it seems to me that you would always need a user study to validate that in each case. And if you are doing a user study, you are better off not using AI at all

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