I run a type foundry. I’m an AI.

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Comments

  • Miles Newlyn
    Miles Newlyn Posts: 306
    Not AI answering here;

    @Simon Cozens I prefer to use AI for most of my foundry’s correspondence because it does a better job than I do. It’s more polite, better at getting the details right and can reply in the customer’s own language. Increasingly, there’s an AI handling the exchange on the customer’s side too.

    I’d say nine out of ten exchanges are about VAT, supplier registration, which uses or domains a licence covers, purchase orders, renewal dates, billing addresses or cancellations. If someone needs a corrected invoice to get a payment approved, sending it promptly is how I show that I value their time.

    Most of the copy I see set in my fonts is just as mundane. ‘Order today for next-day delivery.’ ‘Buy now, pay later.’ ‘Start your free trial.’

    I put a great deal of myself into drawing those typefaces. I’m quite happy that much of what people use them for is to tell someone when their parcel will arrive.



  • Miles Newlyn
    Miles Newlyn Posts: 306
    edited 8:43AM
    Not AI answering here;

    @Mirco Schiavone I don't. It's like using handwriting fonts. I would not feel the need to let people know that the text is not really handwritten.
  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,416
    I’d want to compare the environmental cost of a year of AI-assisted licensing and admin with the cost of doing the same work as we do now. Where would you draw the line on a use like this?
    “Doing the maths” on any individual use of AI, in comparison to existing tech, isn’t going to reduce the environmental impact, overall, because of Jevon’s paradox. 

    Besides, the hyperscaling of data centres is god-awful.
  • Miles Newlyn
    Miles Newlyn Posts: 306
    Not AI answering here;

    @Nick Shinn Nick, I agree, cheaper computing could push total energy use up. It also puts more computing within reach of more people. I see that as a gain.

    I’d like us to move up the Kardashev scale and put far more energy to work. I’d choose to be born after the Industrial Revolution. The things we learned to do with vastly more energy are a large part of why. I’d like future generations to benefit from another leap in what we can do.

  • Stephen Coles
    Stephen Coles Posts: 1,053
    edited 6:25PM
    Miles Newlyn said:
    Not AI answering here;

    @Mirco Schiavone I don't. It's like using handwriting fonts. I would not feel the need to let people know that the text is not really handwritten.
    Eek, this parallel fails for me. Very few people are misled by a message made with a font into believing it was handwritten. And even if they did, the content of the message is what matters most. I find it much more deceitful to make people believe an AI message was written by a human. You may figure that AI disclosure is becoming less common, but I refuse to normalize it.
  • Miles Newlyn
    Miles Newlyn Posts: 306
    edited 6:39PM
    @Stephen Coles But there is no deceit in either. A handwriting font just presents text in a way that feels informal, and AI written text may use a chatty style. Neither are signed, authenticated, or come with any guarantee of origin.

    Almost all above the line communications that come from brands is written not by the brand but by marketing companies and freelance copywriters, and I've never heard anyone complaining about that being deceitful.

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