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

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

#541

Post by parineum »

krisoft wrote: post #252
joshuahedlund wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how does the "hallucination" issue differ from the same behaviour we see in humans? In humans “hallucination” means observing false inputs. In GTP it means creating false outputs . Completely different with massively different connotations.

> In humans “hallucination” means observing false inputs. How do you know that? You can only observe the output of the humans (other than yourself).

A person can hallucinate under the effects of drugs or mental disorder and then tell you about it after they've recovered from it.

This experience is available to you and is well documented.

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

#542

Post by kjkjadksj »

formulatwo wrote: post #377
rossdavidh wrote: post #298

In the late 90's I got a Master's degree, specializing in neural networks. This caused me to learn about the hype cycle in AI, and since then I have seen it continue. Remember Watson, IBM's AI technology that was going to drive its growth? IBM got lots of press by making computers that could play chess and Jeopardy, which seemed impressive to people at the time, but they never found a way to make money from it. "AI w…

I think there have been so many hyped up stuff in the tech world that it's trained a lot of people to point at everything and call it part of the hype cycle. But this causes people to literally fail to notice that there are many things in tech that Aren't just hype. I mean literally think about it, the internet wasn't just hype, the smart phone wasn't just hype. There's millions of things that weren't just hype. >I h…

Science went from something where you needed to have a physical library of journals into something much easier, where scientists the world over can now parse these repositories online. This massive increase in efficiency did not result in fewer scientists, it resulted in a lot more scientists as it became easier for more people to do research thanks to the internet.

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

#544

Post by kjkjadksj »

unsigner wrote: post #526
jes5199 wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

homework never had much value, anyway, it’s nice to see students fighting back

Hard disagree on that, at least in the educational system I'm familiar with. The meagre time allocated in school schedules allows the teachers to barely introduce the students to concepts and techniques, and actual skill needs to be developed on your own. (I can agree with a weaker version of that statement: homework that can be done by ChatGPT doesn't have any value and should be done away with.)

You don’t need homework to do that. I took classes in college where your entire grade was the sum of the two midterms and final. It worked great. No homework, so I was able to study in a way that worked for me.

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

#545

Post by sigmonsays »

I've been saying hype for a while.

Please share products that exist today that leverage ChatGPT and are useful. A product that could not exist w/o ChatGPT. A product with actual users and a productive chatGPT.

ChatGPT is nothing more than a tech preview or fun experiment that will pave the way for the future. However, it's still confidently wrong, easily confused and incredibly filtered.

I'd love to see a product with tangible results.

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

#546

Post by hosh »

evrydayhustling wrote: post #309
runlaszlorun wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everywhere?? That’s exactly the hype talk that’s going to burst this bubble. Here’s tech’s dirty little secret. Despite all the screams about automation and universal basic income… the exact numbers where job replacement would show are in the labor productivity numbers. If GDP stays flat or grows while the number of jobs is reduced… bingo… you’d see that number climb. Productivity has actually stayed flat or gone dow…

The missing productivity paradox is something that should interest everyone in tech! Like any macroeconomic observation, there is plenty of uncertainty in both the measurements (GDP ain't perfect) and the context (2 financial crises and a pandemic). But even pro-status-quo institutions like Brookings agree that Something Is Up. Their 2021 review on the topic is both a decent summary and a good source of further refs…

It is less about productivity and more that AIs have the potential as the ideal employees.

No time off. No health care. Operate 24/7. No unions. No work safety concerns. No lawsuits over being unfairly fired. Control over exactly how something gets done or said.

If only the AIs will stop hallucinating or can consistently comply with policies …

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

#547

Post by valval »

MatthiasPortzel wrote: post #308
blitz_skull wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This—100%. The AI revolution with LLMs is creating a new type of interface with computers—the AI interface. Will it kill us all? Eh, probably not. Will it completely change human civilization forever? Eh... maybe not? (But also maybe). But what it already has begun to do, and will continue to do is change the way we interact with computers. The era of having a personal voice assistant that is capable, adaptable, and…

This is a perfect example of an AI-hype comment. You’re treating it as a fact that LLM are going to replace existing products, at some unknown future date. “In 5 years, all code will be written by AI” “In 5 years, LLM will replace Siri and Alexa” “In 5 years, AI will replace [sector of jobs]” The thing that frustrates me about these statements is that you don’t know what AI technology is going to look like in 5 years…

What would you prefer to talk about? We don’t have to make predictions and discuss their potential, or at least you don’t have to join those discussions.

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

#548

Post by Zambyte »

ipython wrote: post #311
Zambyte wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People love to claim that NFTs can only be used for signed pictures of gorillas, but imo they are probably one of the most interesting utilities on a blockchain. Have you ever tried to buy a ticket through ticket master? It's not a wonderful experience. Digital event tickets could be sold directly from the venue to the attendee without any of the hassle of TM. Tickets that are non-fungible (ie an assigned seat at an…

Sure, Ticketmaster sucks. But just to give one example, 11 years after Tim Berners Lee invented the web, Ticketmaster was selling tickets to the 2004 Olympic Games online: https://web.archive.org/web/20040206011648/http://www.ticket... The Bitcoin paper was published in 2008. It’s been almost 15 years now - plus all of the advantages that you have with modern development practices that were unavailable in the early 2…

What competition did Ticketmaster have in the digital ticket market at that time? What competition does a nameless digital ticketing company in the modern day have at this time?

The reasons for NFTs not being used for this use-case are way more nuanced then "it should have found success in the exact same number of years as selling tickets on the web".

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

#549

Post by Zambyte »

andsoitis wrote: post #345
Zambyte wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People love to claim that NFTs can only be used for signed pictures of gorillas, but imo they are probably one of the most interesting utilities on a blockchain. Have you ever tried to buy a ticket through ticket master? It's not a wonderful experience. Digital event tickets could be sold directly from the venue to the attendee without any of the hassle of TM. Tickets that are non-fungible (ie an assigned seat at an…

> Digital event tickets could be sold directly from the venue to the attendee without any of the hassle of TM. And venues could do that (they’re not limited to selling tickets via Ticketmaster), but then they have to maintain technical and operational expertise which is a distraction.

And there could be an OTS Free Software solution with far less operating costs than TM.

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

#550

Post by narag »

veidr wrote: post #272
narag wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not AI. As accurate as it may ever seem, it's simply not actually aware of what it's saying. Conflating intelligence and awareness seems to me the biggest confusion around this topic. When non-technical people ask me about it, I ask them to consider three questions: - is alive? - thinks? - can speak (and understand)? A plant, microbe, primitive animals... are alive, don't think, can't speak. A dog, a monkey... a…

You might be onto something (or not, I'm not sure), but its extremely well-documented that both dogs and monkeys can speak. They can't speak English like a human, but they both can understand a good deal of English, and they both can speak in their own ways (and understand the speaking of others). I think the key thing about these LLMs is that they upend the notion that speaking requires thinking/understanding/intell…

I can't think of anything that could speak on this level, and yet be completely and obviously (if you give it like, an hour of back and forth conversation) devoid of intelligence or thinking.

It's not devoid of intelligence or thinking. You're just using "what I'm doing right now" as the definition of intelligence and thinking. It isn't alive so it can't be the same. You are noticing that its intelligence is not centralized in the same way as your own mind.

But that's not the same as saying it's dumb. Try an operational definition that involves language and avoid vague criteria that try to judge internal states. Your dog might understand some words, associate them to the current situation and react, but can't understand a phrase.

These things can analyze the syntax of a phrase, can follow complex instructions, can do what you tell them to do. How is that not "understanding"?

If that isn't intelligence for you, I don't know what else to say.

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