AI, Only for I: When Shared Abundance Becomes Scarcity

A Generous Gesture Meets Reality

When I read earlier today that Uber had burnt through their AI budget for the year 2026 in just four months, I did wonder whether that burn rate had produced commensurate productivity gains to have made it worthwhile. According to the CTO, the headline figure suggests otherwise; else, it might have been less concerning. [Quartz: Uber's COO says the company's AI spending is getting harder to justify]

In the same vein, news has emerged that Microsoft is scaling back internal Claude Code licences, indicating that reliance on this toolset has burnt through budgets and forecasts to become an unsustainable revenue drain. [MSN: Microsoft retreats from Claude Code as AI costs soar]

My Poe Setup

I use Poe as my interface to a broad range of bots, grouped under official, budget-friendly, search, image, video, audio, and programming categories. My monthly subscription comes with 1,000,000 points and, despite my usage, I would consider myself a tad frugal. I barely use 75,000 points before the month is out.

For value, access to premium services across many platforms through one interface is, for me, the best deal you can get in AI access and provision. There might be better offers out there, but I am quite satisfied with what I have been using for over two years.

Sharing the Largesse

In demonstrating the features of Poe a few days ago, I discovered that I could share my points with up to 99 others: family, friends, or colleagues. I assumed such sharing would carry the kind of usage and frugality of one gentle owner of a vintage car, with little mileage on the clock, and much to enjoy if the pleasure of driving were shared with another.

How wrong I was. In the space of three days, an invitee had already burnt through more than half of the monthly allocation. At that rate, there would be no points left to do anything in another two days. I was in shock. People are doing things with AI bots that it seems I am yet to discover, even when I think my own use of this facility is quite involved.

A Cold Blast of Reality

What to do? I shared a graphic illustration of the spending activity with the invitee, along with a note about how the burn rate puts the idea of fair use into precarity. Beyond that, sharing this largesse based on my frugality cannot be representative of its usage in reality.

Poe only shows the daily usage of points of those with whom the points have been shared, and we all have full access to the pool. As the administrator, I have two options: to share or to remove. Whilst I have not opted for the nuclear option, my enthusiasm for generosity has met a cold blast of the actualité.

Weighing the Options

I could purchase add-on points that are usable for one year, and are not refundable, transferable, or redeemable for cash. However, I want to hope we are not at a crisis point, just a spot of bother and concern.

What is not helpful is the sudden realisation that what looked like abundance could easily become scarce, like a swarm of locusts swooping down on a field close to harvest season. That is devastation on a grand scale; it is the kind of mindset one can ill afford to have.

The thought that I must monitor the points I have left, out of concern that my modest subscription will not last the month, is not the prospect I planned for. Then again, I cannot even share this with Brian, my husband, because the service is not available in Zimbabwe. What luck!

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He's got a museum piece to give

Horses for courses

Jonah Falcon does conjure up the image of the whale and Jonah in the bible, only that there is something of the whale about Jonah rather than the whale swallowing him. Apparently, Jonah Falcon came to international attention with the claim that he has a 13.5-inch (34 centimetre) penis when fully erect.

Not that this has been independently verified, but the claim to fame stands that he has offered to donate his organ to the Icelandic Phallological Museum upon his death, and therein might we possibly ascertain whether the claim fits then myth.

A gift adrift

Obviously, my interest is completely nonchalant for there is only an extent to which being well-endowed might be a treasure until it becomes a burden. In the case of Mr Falcon, I am fully persuaded that his appendage does belong in a museum as the narrative suggests when it comes into its own the blood needed to keep it useful causes light-headedness that might make the person useless in that department, except where a second heart with a separate blood system exists to augment supply.

The legend goes that he once was a person of additional security scrutiny because of the bulge in his pants. Not that it proves anything and this is not a descent into penis envy, because its utility is of paramount importance, else we are just left with a mere curiosity and nothing more.

We must agree, that this material extension regardless of when it is excised does belong in a museum, or can be endowed to probably a few males in the quest for the gift of length in an area where other remedies tend to the snake oil variety.

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That’s begging to be human

In his own words, he says, “I don’t need a fancy car, I don’t need a gun… because I do not have to prove my masculinity to anyone else, I’ll wear all pink, dammit!” Au contraire, my friend, that is not proof of masculinity as we do not normally determine it by trouser snake yards, it is more equine or cetacean than hominid.

Finally, as if one cannot be twice afflicted by gift and name, no one has surmised whether as in falconry when the falcon lands on the gloved arm, the girth of you know what is anywhere close to where the excitement is the onset of a fainting spell. We are fascinated but not interested enough to want to see more than we have been told.

Courtesy, The Week 18/09/21 Issue 1349