I saw someone insisting that it was amazing AI could send letters to hundreds officials all across the state to advocate for removing Flock cameras, saving them the time of doing each one individually. You have never heard of form letters?

That’s what they’re impressed by? Fuckin’ mail merge?!

That was being touted as the “killer app” for home computers in 1990!

I’m aware of doing a mail merge but don’t think I’ve ever done one. I’m assuming I could find instructions if I ever needed to do one. They might’ve even taught us about it in school; I remember in eighth grade a class where they taught us some computer basics using Microsoft Works. That was almost 30 years ago, though, and what I’ve seen with my own kid is very little computer instruction, and the schools all just give them Chromebooks and Google Workspace accounts. It’s all much more basic, so between that and using phones it seems like they actually have less computer knowledge than prior generations. Maybe Gen X, Millennials, and some part of Gen Z will have a peak percentage of their population with computer literacy, more than the generations before or after. I’ll be curious to see what happens as Gen Z and Alpha enter the workforce. I’m starting to take time to teach my kid more about using software more advanced than what they’re exposed to in school.

Your comment reminded me a of this song.

I must have missed the part where they taught the art of private equity

https://youtu.be/I6vjaimSK4E

I’m thoroughly an adult (somehow?) but when I was at school, they mostly taught us the absolute basics over and over and anyone who hadn’t picked something up when they were five probably wouldn’t by the time they left school. It probably doesn’t help that the kind of people interested enough in computers to learn to use them properly and well enough to explain to children could also get a much more lucrative job doing something with computers than teaching children.