Lyons in beta

Timer (not) set for twenty minutes

I have a manual sprinkler that needs to be turned on and off at the spigot. I do not have a brain capable of remembering when exactly twenty minutes has passed, but I do have a pocket computer made by one of the richest and most powerful companies on Earth; a company absolutely synonymous with technology. My pocket computer has a timer function built into the clock app that can count down from twenty minutes with insanely high accuracy, precision, and reliability, and because my pocket computer goes with me everywhere, I'll hear the friendly chime letting me know twenty minutes are up and I should go turn off the sprinkler instead of going to bed with it still running (which is definitely not something I have ever done.)

Setting a timer is such a chore though! First I have to open the clock app, then switch to the timer function, then enter the amount of time and press start. "There has to be a better way!" Conveniently, my revolutionary pocket computer can be operated by voice! By just saying a few keywords like "Set", "a", "twenty", "minute", and "timer" the pocket computer will set and start a twenty minute timer! Amazing!

Not too long ago, my pocket computer made by a company staffed with some of the best minds of my generation was ✨upgraded✨ from a digital assistant that could only do a few things (but do them reliably) to spicy auto-complete an AI assistant. Setting timers is probably the main thing anyone uses voice-activation to direct their pocket computer to do so surely the upgraded AI assistant can still perform this incredibly common function that is featured in every. single. tech demo.

haha, nope! It can't set timers anymore. But good news! The giant pile of burning money AI assistant used to recognize what I was trying to do and gave some weak explanation for it's failure to complete the task, but occasionally still worked. Now it fails almost 100% of the time, and just lies about it!

Screenshot of Google Gemini lying about having set a twenty minute timer.

Look at that response! Great! It works now! But it didn't. It didn't set a timer for twenty minutes. It said that it did but it didn't actually do it. And this wasn't a one off. It happened twice in a row, and then a third time so I could capture this screenshot.

There are a lot better reasons than this to hate AI, but this is so pathetic I can't get over it.