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I think most people would in fact prefer an artisanal chair if not for the price, not just "especially" accounting for price. Not a good comparison here though, because most products are not cheaper to the consumer due to AI - only cheaper (in theory) to the provider.
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Bingo. They weren't paying for gmail before, and they still aren't paying for it now that it's more annoying than it used to be.

I suspect that, in many cases, AI features actually make a product more expensive for the operator. Imagine how much of doordash's money you could burn by telling its chatbot that the only way for you to figure out where the driver left your order is to create a todo app in React.

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Everything about that analogy is wrong.

Everyone would prefer a nicer handmade chair (if not by the price difference).

Chairs are not comparable to OPs cards; writing on a card costs nothing (but intent, which seems to be in low stock these days).

Finally, factoring in the real operating cost, ongoing capital costs, and environmental/social externalities, the AI chair in your example would cost something like 1000x a handmade chair.

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This is so true. My wife loves knitting and frequently gets comments about her items of people asking if they could have her knit something for them. When she tells them that if she tripled the prices of a similar store-bought one, she'd still be making sweatshop wages, they go back to the mass produced version they already have pretty quick.
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That one from IKEA was designed by actual people though. If I had a chair designed by robots it probably wouldn’t be as nice, comfortable and evidently, affordable.
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There is a distinct difference between a chair and a communication (birthday card, letter, email, whatever) about some personal life event
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I bet someone said the same thing about an email or an IM vs a handwritten letter at some point in the past but here we are.
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Those are not comparable.

One is the method of recording a message, the other is having something else completely draft a message for you.

The importance of a personal message is not just in the visual appearance or delivery, but that there has to be some emotional loading to even put the effort into drafting one.

With AI, it's a stupid prompt to get it to write trite poesy. It's meaningless and empty at its root. It's discourse with a nullity.

Nobody who values the human connections in their lives wants that. No matter what kind of marketing and fine print gets shoved and manipulated into their lives.

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Everyone prefers an artisanal chair over one from IKEA. The only reason they go for the latter is because that's what they can afford, not because they would get that option if all else were equal.
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