Disconnected Room 101: Killing AI Slop, Pointless Apps, and Fake Notifications with Jason Kapadia, Jag Sharma and Jen Campbell - E120
It’s time to reopen the doors to Disconnected’s Room 101, and this time, Jen Campbell is in the judge’s chair…
AI customer service chatbots, AI-slop social posts, compulsory apps, cookie walls, and Captcha tests all go on trial in this special episode of the podcast. While Jen makes the final call, Jag and Jason offer up their picks for the tech that promised to make life smoother but instead buried us in friction, fake empathy, and notification spam.
This episode of Disconnected covers:
AI Slop and the Death of Having a Unique Voice
Compulsory Digitisation and Unnecessary Apps
Privacy Fatigue from Cookie Pop-Ups and Faux Consent
Outdated Human-Proof Tests Like Captcha
Episode Highlights:
“We're approaching a world where I use AI to write my complaint, the company uses AI to summarise it, another AI generates the response, and absolutely nobody involved has actually read anything.” - 4:40 - Jag Sharma
“You know what I find so annoying about these AI bots is the fake empathy that they give… it's charged you 500 dirhams and the bot responds, ‘I'm so sorry to hear that, I understand how stressful financial situations can be.’ Just get to the point, solve the issue.” - 5:55 - Jason Kapadia
“I haven't got a problem with the em-dashes, and I haven't got a problem with the large language models… I've got a problem with the people using them.” - 19:40 - Jen Campbell
“If you're not going to spend the time to read what has been written for you, why would I spend my time reading what has been written?” - 20:35 - Jen Campbell
“Even my toothbrush has an app, and it keeps giving me notifications because I don't check the app for some reason.” - 25:35 - Jag Sharma
“If an app sends you a notification purely because you haven't opened it recently, whose interests is that serving, yours or theirs?” - 43:45 - Jag Sharma
“Captcha is dead, and it needs to go.” - 47:55 - Jason Kapadia
Links & references:
Jen Campbell:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-m-campbell/
Jason Kapadia:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonkapadia/
https://www.instagram.com/jasonkapadia/
Jag Sharma: