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ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving

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Re: ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving

#341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The secret here is that for the majority of companies, the goal is not to support you as a customer effectively, but to rather minimize the amount of time spent organization wide supporting ALL customers. So to that end the automated systems are about frustrating customers to the point that they'll just "Go away" and the voice based systems are more frustrating than the button based ones, and infinitely more frustrat…

I've wondered why companies don't auction top places in line. If they're going to have people queuing, why not attempt to extract some money from them? Implementing such a system and selling it seems like a possible business idea for someone who believes this is a nicely utilitarian solution.

I agree, I like it but a lot of customers will feel nickel and dimed even if they never pay for it.

Re: ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society was awash in music for centuries before recording and radio.

If by "awash" you mean "significantly less present in regular people's life by orders of magnitude", then yes. Not to mention the degree of control over what music is actually being played.

I was thinking more along the lines of the rich traditions of folk music. I'm peripherally involved in the fiddle music scene, so I have some contact with this. The sheer quantity and variety of folk tunes, songs, and styles, is huge, and is probably the tip of the iceberg. This is why I think that people were rich with music, even if they weren't necessarily immersed in it 24/7. But cost wasn't a barrier to the enjoyment of music.

Sure, people with more disposable income could enjoy more formal, and perhaps more professional, musical performances. The growing middle class created demand for music and other forms of entertainment.

Music was taught in the schools. Even small towns had a bandstand in the park. Music was used in public ceremonies, including church. Any tavern was likely to have a musician, paid or not. Sometimes the pay consisted of food and lodging.

Re: ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving

#343
I'm thinking Centaurs.

Well, the chess kind [0] at least. Basically, you combine an AI and a human to get really amazing chess playing.

Same thing, but with all the image and chat AIs.

Example: You're a film student and are trying to work on costume design. You got no budget, but a lot of time and friends with some sewing machines and leftover Burning Man parts. You take a look at something like Jodorowsky’s Tron [1] and say 'Holy crap, that head gear is super wild and I know how to make something like that!' So you pay $10 for MidJourney, get Jodorowsky’s Tron going, put in the supplies you got, and you get some stuff you can actually make. Not only can you get the outlines of the hats and head gear, but you also get an idea of the lighting, the lenses, the farming, etc. You get the cool aesthetic you're looking for and how to actually film it too. You get the A, natch.

Sure, you can work it out with pencils and felt beforehand, just like they were doing in 2010. But now? You've shortened the time, you can play with the lighting and lenses and framing, you can change the actors out, etc. You'd have gotten there by yourself eventually, but with the AI you've shortened the time and exhaustion.

I'm super pumped for the creativity that AIs will unleash. Let's use the tools and FLY!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_chess

[1] https://kottke.org/22/12/jodorowskys-tron

Re: ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trading quality for price has been happening everywhere for long enough that it is easy to see how unfortunately it will now play out in the arts as well. I mean, not that long ago all clothes you wore were custom made by a tailor, all the music you listened to was played live by musicians, all stories were brought to life in front of you by theatre actors: now all of those while still available are significantly mor…

> all the music you listened to was played live by musicians, all stories were brought to life in front of you by theatre actors well, no, you probably didn't listen to much music or see many stories at all because the average person couldn't afford to experience such things more than a few times in their life. shocking that Luddites are still a thing in the 21st century, especially here.

> more than a few times in their life

Whereas now we have the complete opposite problem, we're inundated by (much) lesser variants of these things to the point of saturation, addiction, and emotional depletion. I'm not sure either one of the extremes is particularly desirable, nor how acknowledging issues that mass-market consumerist societies currently visibly suffer from makes one a Luddite.

Re: ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > not that long ago all clothes you wore were custom made by a tailor > If you could afford a tailor; otherwise you had to make do with homemade rags that constantly needed mending and looked terrible. Or you bought clothes infrequently and maintained them, and they lasted longer because the quality was much better. People are so used to fast fashion these days that they assume that the poor in previous eras suffer…

People still have high quality clothing available, but when given the option they choose to buy cheaper clothing more frequently rather than mend high quality ones. This is a preference that has been demonstrated time and again throughout the world as it became an option. So no, I don't believe it is clear at all how this is to the detriment of the average person.

No one in the world ever bought a wardrobe at Walmart because they could afford to drop $20k at a tailor but chose not to cause Walmart is good enough.

They made econmic trade offs depending on their level of poverty.

Re: ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving

#346
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is so frustrating to me is how they could simply offer email/ticket based support so much easier and cheaper for most issues. And yet so many companies do not even have the option. I've been dealing with a home warranty company and they have an online portal where you can see the status of a claim. But if you click that you need help or to resolve an issue, it just gives you a popup to call their 800 number. The…

> email/ticket based support This would provide the customer with a written record which could be used against the corporation. Phone is generally favorable to the corporations because the corporation can decide whether/how to retain/destroy records, but the customer will almost never have a transcript or recording to use for their own evidence. Many corporations have moved to a system where you can either call an au…

Time for legislation around this. Email support must be an option, and ticket confirmation record must be provided.

Re: ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving

#347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It exists to hide the fact that companies took a page out of Google's book and forewent customer service altogether.

This is more befuddling - they are replacing one automated system (button driven) with a worse automated system (voice driven). No one wins unless you still have a rotary phone.

[deleted]

Re: ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI/LLMs cannot "do work that is worth doing" in this context because the work that is worth doing involves human learning/education, not simply the production of content. If you meant, "when can AI perform all writing tasks such that it would be a waste of time for human beings to develop the ability to express themselves in writing", well, fine question, likely answered far too soon.

It's already clear that existing LLM have the ability to do things that were previously only accessible to people with "human learning/education." "Production of content" can probably go a lot further than you think, for a model that has internet/API access. Would love to see more warrants on the claims you are making - feel like you haven't fleshed it out enough in this comment.

The claim I made was that “work worth doing” was worth doing because of its effect on human beings. This is not the same thing as “work worth producing”.

Ex: practicing scales on my guitar is work worth doing, because of its effect on me, not because it produces anything of value in itself or of interest to anyone. It is meaningless that my computer can do scales vastly better than I can, because the production of scales is not what makes the work worth doing.

Re: ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH, I'm wondering if we need to start using yahoo style curated content directories again. Content aggregators like reddit, hacker news and lobsters already help filter out a lot of noise, but they focus on recent articles. It would be nice to have a searchable/browsable source for interesting content. It wouldn't contain the full internet, but at least it would have better relevancy.

That's a good idea for a side project, thx!

Cheers! When I was thinking about this originally I thought you could build it as a social network. Rather than curate the internet for yourself, you could work with others to aggregate different curated views. By following only some people and having the ability to unfollow them, you would be able to keep away from spammers. Furthermore, you might be able to fork other people's curations so that people who "sell out" and include spammers can be cut out of the loop. Wasn't sure if this was too crazy though.

Re: ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's already clear that existing LLM have the ability to do things that were previously only accessible to people with "human learning/education." "Production of content" can probably go a lot further than you think, for a model that has internet/API access. Would love to see more warrants on the claims you are making - feel like you haven't fleshed it out enough in this comment.

The claim I made was that “work worth doing” was worth doing because of its effect on human beings. This is not the same thing as “work worth producing”. Ex: practicing scales on my guitar is work worth doing, because of its effect on me, not because it produces anything of value in itself or of interest to anyone. It is meaningless that my computer can do scales vastly better than I can, because the production of sc…

I disagree.

If the work leads to the production of something worthwhile net of any other losses from the work, the work is "worth doing."

So "work worth producing" is, at minimum, a subset of "work worth doing"

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