Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?

#511

Post by croes » Mon, Jul 03, 2023, 4:14 PM UTC

DebtDeflation wrote: post #206

sensanaty wrote: post #138

Definitely. The tech is impressive but anyone I've spoken to thinks of it as Cleverbot 2.0, and among the more technically minded I've found that people mostly are indifferent. Hell, IRL most people I know don't think much of it, though on HN and elsewhere online I see a lot of people praising it as the next coming of Christ (this thread included) which puts it in a similar tier as crypto and other Web3 hypetrains as…

>puts it in a similar tier as crypto Comparisons between AI and crypto are horribly misguided IMO. Is AI overhyped? Sure. However - AI/ML is creating utility everywhere in our lives - speech to text, language translation, recommendation engines, relevancy ranking in search, computer vision, etc. and seems to be getting embedded in more and more processes by the day. Crypto never amounted to anything beyond a currency…

>recommendation engines, relevancy ranking in search

Both don't seem to work.

Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?

#512

Post by wokwokwok » Mon, Jul 03, 2023, 4:15 PM UTC

The echo chamber is when you ask for anecdotal opinions instead of actual data.

…like what you’re doing right now.

Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?

#513

Post by MarkusQ » Mon, Jul 03, 2023, 4:15 PM UTC

gAI wrote: post #232

mensetmanusman wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certain personalities and communication styles are able to generate useful prompts. A 10% efficiency boost that some programmers are experiencing could translate into an extra 5 weeks off if you are smart about it, so it is quite life changing for some.

"Certain personalities and communication styles are able to generate useful prompts." Would you mind expanding on that a bit? I've largely had great experiences getting what I want out of ChatGPT. But I've been continually surprised by the number (and variety) of people who don't see the utility of it.

For the chat systems I've found acting like Columbo (from 1970's TV detective) works wonders: you want to be polite but persistent, open but not gullible. Don't fight it, but don't just let it drive.

For the non-chat interfaces, I imagine a whiteboarding session with a really competent intern at the board, rapid prototyping / wireframing that you can play with "live" and refine far further than you could IRL, but still ultimately prototyping.

> I've been continually surprised by the number (and variety) of people who don't see the utility of it.

If you _don't_ do it this way, you can easily fall into all sorts of time wasting anti-patterns; if you try to trick it, or allow yourself to be easily fooled by it, get stubborn & closed minded, pedantic and argumentative or whatever, well, there are lots of examples of how those sorts of interactions go in the training data too, and it will just as happily go down them as any other.

Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?

#514

Post by twic » Mon, Jul 03, 2023, 4:16 PM UTC

carlosjobim wrote: post #228

DebtDeflation wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>puts it in a similar tier as crypto Comparisons between AI and crypto are horribly misguided IMO. Is AI overhyped? Sure. However - AI/ML is creating utility everywhere in our lives - speech to text, language translation, recommendation engines, relevancy ranking in search, computer vision, etc. and seems to be getting embedded in more and more processes by the day. Crypto never amounted to anything beyond a currency…

> Crypto never amounted to anything beyond a currency for black market transaction Do you understand what a massive impact that has been? It has disrupted one of the largest industries on the planet, which is drug trafficking.

So what fraction of all drugs are now paid for with cryptocurrency at retail? Over 50%? 25%? Presumably you must know the figure, if you're asserting the industry has been disrupted.

Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?

#515

Post by squirtlebonflow » Mon, Jul 03, 2023, 4:16 PM UTC

DebtDeflation wrote: post #206

sensanaty wrote: post #138

Definitely. The tech is impressive but anyone I've spoken to thinks of it as Cleverbot 2.0, and among the more technically minded I've found that people mostly are indifferent. Hell, IRL most people I know don't think much of it, though on HN and elsewhere online I see a lot of people praising it as the next coming of Christ (this thread included) which puts it in a similar tier as crypto and other Web3 hypetrains as…

>puts it in a similar tier as crypto Comparisons between AI and crypto are horribly misguided IMO. Is AI overhyped? Sure. However - AI/ML is creating utility everywhere in our lives - speech to text, language translation, recommendation engines, relevancy ranking in search, computer vision, etc. and seems to be getting embedded in more and more processes by the day. Crypto never amounted to anything beyond a currency…

And a tool to resist inflation and protect assets against theft, bank closures or government raids in countries where people are just barely surviving. You have a pretty Anglocentric viewpoint.

Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?

#516

Post by dredmorbius » Mon, Jul 03, 2023, 4:17 PM UTC

The concern is not simply within tech.

Generative AI is a huge topic of discussion amongst virtually all creatives (painters, graphic artists, musicians, authors, journalists), in business (at all levels largely through business process management, finance, and business intelligence), amongst media (joualism and entertainment), amongst governments (regulation, electoral politics, international relations, military / strategic risks, intelligence, competitiveness, impacts on general employment and social stability), amongst the technological boomer and doomer communities (impacts on future technological development will likely be profound, though agreement on sign bits differs), and more.

It's true that the general person on the street likely has little sense of the potential and risks, but that is virtually always the case with new technological developments. Potential impacts are always hard to see, and the discussion about these almost always tends toward various elites (technological, business, government, academic, religious). And that's the case now.

But the conversation and concern is not limited to the information technology elite, by any measure.

Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?

#517

Post by joshstrange » Mon, Jul 03, 2023, 4:17 PM UTC

I hear more about ChatGPT/AI from people outside my tech circle than within. Heck some of the people in my tech circle won't even play with it or try it out.

I don't think AI is the second coming of Christ like some pretend (it is over-hyped outside of tech and somewhat under-hyped inside of tech IMHO) but it's impressive and extremely useful. I've used it many times to help point me in the right direction. I never take what it says as fact, I always "check it's work" but it often saves me considerable amounts of time by getting me on the right track and then I can refine what it gave me. I don't use it for writing "real" code (aside from maybe a few small algorithms) but I do use it to help with certain debugging tasks if I think it will be useful. Also for things like "spit me out a shell script that takes a CSV and does X, Y, Z" it's incredibly useful. These are normally 1-off tasks that I can do by hand or code if needed but ChatGPT makes it way easier.

When it comes to writing, I'm often faced with "Blank Screen Syndrome" or a similar type of feeling and so getting something on the screen that I can then edit/revise/improve/fix is a huge boon to my productivity.

Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?

#518

Post by parineum » Mon, Jul 03, 2023, 4:17 PM UTC

cantrevealname wrote: post #438

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like ChatGPT, but it is literally the autocomplete function from your favorite email interface. Give it a standalone prompt and a new name and everyone will embrace it? No, it's not that helpful and after some initial exploration they will disable it. My moment was when I realized if you ask ChatGPT a question about itself, like how ChatGPT works, you are not receiving an authoritative or 1st person kind of answer,…

> you are not receiving an authoritative or 1st person kind of answer That’s how most human beings work as well. Ask someone about what India or Thailand is like, and even if they’ve never been there, they’ll be happy to give you a rehash of stories, pictures, and videos they saw about India or Thailand. They might make up totally wrong facts as well, just like ChatGPT.

ChatGPT is sold as the highest common denominator and you're not even arguing that it's better than the lowest.

Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?

#519

Post by yodsanklai » Mon, Jul 03, 2023, 4:17 PM UTC

laurent123456 wrote: post #123

kmarc wrote: post #92

FWIW I have the exact opposite experience: people around me, who are _NOT_ in tech, keep talking about AI and lately especially ChatGPT, whereas serious (not only senior) IT professionals don't really. Besides the science behind it, currently it feels like the same hype as crypto a couple years before.

Hype, maybe, but it's obviously not a passing fad like crypto was. Back then many people were trying to figure out what to do with it and we still don't really know. A week after ChatGPT was out and plenty of people were already using it for writing code, emails, and plenty of other tasks. It would be weird to argue that AI is not going to have a massive impact at many levels.

> A week after ChatGPT was out and plenty of people were already using it for writing code, emails, and plenty of other tasks.

But soon after they realized it wasn't as useful for these tasks as initially thought. Interestingly, a lot people started to believe that the tool had been limited on purpose, where in fact they were just becoming a bit more objective.

That being said, it's better than crypto and there are applications (although maybe not life changing). The bar is low though.

Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?

#520

Post by xyzelement » Mon, Jul 03, 2023, 4:18 PM UTC

kmarc wrote: post #92

FWIW I have the exact opposite experience: people around me, who are _NOT_ in tech, keep talking about AI and lately especially ChatGPT, whereas serious (not only senior) IT professionals don't really. Besides the science behind it, currently it feels like the same hype as crypto a couple years before.

// currently it feels like the same hype as crypto

I keep seeing this take and it doesn't make any sense to me. Some tech has obvious utility and some doesn't.

For example, I knew internet (web, email) were valuable when I discovered them because accessing information and communicating with people were already things I did - the internet unequivocally made them faster and easier and often cheaper.

chatGPT / bard gave me a similar vibe - I use them to brain storm/shape ideas, and as mentioned elsewhere, they do a great job of tasks like drafting a job ad. These are things people already do and this tech just makes it better. So people will use it.

In contrast, I "get" why people were excited by crypto but I don't personally know anyone whose payment/banking experience is improved by it. As an American for example there was nothing tangible Bitcoin made easier vs my bank account and visa. So it was always less "obvious" that it was going to be a valuable thing beyond hype.