Tom Scott: I tried using AI. It scared me. [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: Tom Scott: I tried using AI. It scared me. [video]

#21

Post by ubj » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 6:19 PM UTC

guluarte wrote: post #13

mkaic wrote: post #9

I am an AI researcher, and I wholeheartedly agree with Tom here. I love AI, I love designing and training models and seeing all the amazing things they can do. But I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared. Like Tom, I have no idea where on the sigmoid curve we are, but I personally believe we're very near the beginning. I thought that becoming a practitioner in this field would make me less susceptible to making bi…

There's nothing intelligent in ChatGPT, it's just a text generator on steroids, web spammers have been using this sort of tools for years. It cannot generate new ideas, at the end it just regurgitates content

ChatGPT certainly lowers the bar to generating intelligible content that sounds convincing and authoritative to non-experts. In some cases it even generates correct and insightful information.

The danger of ChatGPT is that it requires little effort to generate massive amounts of content, but much more effort to debunk and fact check. It will become increasingly difficult to separate the signal from the noise as the internet and other places are flooded with auto-generated content.

Personally I'm not concerned about ChatGPT becoming some sort of "intelligent overlord". However I am concerned about how other humans will wield this increasingly powerful tool.

Re: Tom Scott: I tried using AI. It scared me. [video]

#22

Post by anuragvohraec » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 6:21 PM UTC

guluarte wrote: post #19

bsaul wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sound like someone who has either never tried chatgpt, or someone who’s so scared of the consequences that it prefers to put its head in the sand. «just a text generator on steroid » is meaningless unless you define what « on steroid» means. It might as well describe a novelist’s activity or a programmer. The ability to understand enough of the relationship between words and their associated concepts in chatgpt i…

has ChatGTP created anything new? something that's is just not rewriting text?

it hepled me write code using a C library , which otherwise is very poorly documented! Well if it quacks and it swims, it is a duck!

Re: Tom Scott: I tried using AI. It scared me. [video]

#23

Post by mkaic » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 6:26 PM UTC

guluarte wrote: post #20

mkaic wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It cannot generate new ideas. I don't find very much substance in this argument, given how impossible it is to consistently define "new" and "idea" in this context. At the end of the day, ChatGPT demonstrates that AI models are making real progress towards convincing mimicry of human behavior. How it does it is of no concern to me, what is concerning is the fact that it does it at all.

it doesn't generate new ideas, it just answers based on statistics, it will be more like a personal search assitant or a tool that helps people finding information

I'm not sure how "It just answers based on statistics" and "generating new ideas" are mutually exclusive. As a physicalist, I'd argue that the human brain "just answers based on statistics" too. It's all just semi-stochastic chains of activations in the end.

Babies learn language by being exposed to many many examples of it, why shouldn't the same work for artificial intelligences? The concept of "new ideas" is also flawed, as nothing is truly new—our actions, feelings, thoughts, desires, and ideas are all recombinations of our experiences. Even the ideas that seem to come out of nowhere must come from somewhere.

Re: Tom Scott: I tried using AI. It scared me. [video]

#24

Post by ubj » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 6:26 PM UTC

mikewarot wrote: post #14

So, fellow HN users... where are we on the S curve? I think we're right before the hockey stick, just like the days of Napster. To use another analogy - The Industrial Revolution didn't make it possible to make screws, it made it possible to make a box of screws that you could sell for a dollar. Previously it took a skilled craftsman and time. No two were alike, and they tended to be individually stamped with a numbe…

It's difficult to say. We're certainly making impressive advances now, but this is not the first time that AI has had a period of rapid improvement. The first and second AI winters were both preceded by periods of intense optimism [1].

I personally believe in the long-term vision of AI/ML/RL. Progress will continue to be made in the long run. However, we don't know what we don't know. We may hit a wall in a few years that takes decades to overcome. On the other hand, perhaps the current rate of innovation will continue for the forseeable future. Time will tell.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter

Re: Tom Scott: I tried using AI. It scared me. [video]

#25

Post by danenania » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 6:29 PM UTC

guluarte wrote: post #19

bsaul wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sound like someone who has either never tried chatgpt, or someone who’s so scared of the consequences that it prefers to put its head in the sand. «just a text generator on steroid » is meaningless unless you define what « on steroid» means. It might as well describe a novelist’s activity or a programmer. The ability to understand enough of the relationship between words and their associated concepts in chatgpt i…

has ChatGTP created anything new? something that's is just not rewriting text?

The tricky part is you can ask similar questions about the human brain. Are our thoughts, ideas, words, and actions really "new", or just deterministic transformations based on our genetics and sensory input? We don't know exactly how our brains do computation, but it's definitely possible that what looks and feels like creativity to us is really, under the hood, just as statistical and mechanistic as an LLM.

Re: Tom Scott: I tried using AI. It scared me. [video]

#26

Post by ajford » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 6:31 PM UTC

guluarte wrote: post #19

bsaul wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sound like someone who has either never tried chatgpt, or someone who’s so scared of the consequences that it prefers to put its head in the sand. «just a text generator on steroid » is meaningless unless you define what « on steroid» means. It might as well describe a novelist’s activity or a programmer. The ability to understand enough of the relationship between words and their associated concepts in chatgpt i…

has ChatGTP created anything new? something that's is just not rewriting text?

Why are you fixating on the "creating something new" argument? I can confidently say in 10yrs as a programmer, nothing I've worked on has "created something new" according to your argument.

Every web-app or scientific application I've written is merely "rewriting" and stitching together other techniques, libraries, and patterns. I haven't broken any new ground on data encoders/process handling/data analysis, but my work had value.

In this scenario, if ChatGPT provides enough value to reduce my workload and allow me to allocate my effort elsewhere, why is it not a valuable tool, regardless of whether it "creates anything new"?

This same argument can be made against the concept of an IDE. My IDE doesn't create anything new. I used to use Vim with a number of plugins, a terminal multiplexer, and an auto-completion engine.

Why would improve my workflow? It doesn't add anything new to my existing workflow. But after migrating to my current IDE, the convenience it brought me was significant, even if it didn't add anything new to my setup.

Re: Tom Scott: I tried using AI. It scared me. [video]

#27

Post by JCharante » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 6:44 PM UTC

CyberDildonics wrote: post #3

I would guess a lot of things scare this guy. He's a clickbait youtuber who does simple stuff and tries to make it sound profound.

I mean, this conversation that is talked about in the video is pretty interesting

https://www.tomscott.com/fix-gmail-labels-threads/conversati...

Re: Tom Scott: I tried using AI. It scared me. [video]

#28

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 6:53 PM UTC

guluarte wrote: post #20

mkaic wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It cannot generate new ideas. I don't find very much substance in this argument, given how impossible it is to consistently define "new" and "idea" in this context. At the end of the day, ChatGPT demonstrates that AI models are making real progress towards convincing mimicry of human behavior. How it does it is of no concern to me, what is concerning is the fact that it does it at all.

it doesn't generate new ideas, it just answers based on statistics, it will be more like a personal search assitant or a tool that helps people finding information

[deleted]

Re: Tom Scott: I tried using AI. It scared me. [video]

#29

Post by mensetmanusman » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 6:56 PM UTC

mikewarot wrote: post #14

So, fellow HN users... where are we on the S curve? I think we're right before the hockey stick, just like the days of Napster. To use another analogy - The Industrial Revolution didn't make it possible to make screws, it made it possible to make a box of screws that you could sell for a dollar. Previously it took a skilled craftsman and time. No two were alike, and they tended to be individually stamped with a numbe…

I think we are past the midpoint. AI research is a half a century old, the current models are trained on all of human language to date, moore’s law has ended, and the development costs for improvements might be like a needle in the haystack with each experiment costing tens of millions of dollars.

Re: Tom Scott: I tried using AI. It scared me. [video]

#30

Post by sharemywin » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 6:58 PM UTC

guluarte wrote: post #19

bsaul wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sound like someone who has either never tried chatgpt, or someone who’s so scared of the consequences that it prefers to put its head in the sand. «just a text generator on steroid » is meaningless unless you define what « on steroid» means. It might as well describe a novelist’s activity or a programmer. The ability to understand enough of the relationship between words and their associated concepts in chatgpt i…

has ChatGTP created anything new? something that's is just not rewriting text?

This seems more than just regurgitating stuff that's already out there.

could you make some that might be useful to aliens

Sure! Here are a few SaaS ideas that might be useful to extraterrestrial beings:

A intergalactic communication platform, allowing aliens from different planets to exchange messages and share information.

A virtual reality platform for exploring other planets and galaxies, providing a way for aliens to experience and study new environments from a safe distance.

A space weather forecasting software, providing up-to-date information on solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and other space weather events that could affect intergalactic travel and communication.

An artificial intelligence-powered resource management system, allowing aliens to optimize resource usage and minimize waste on their home planets.

A platform for remote monitoring and control of extraterrestrial mining operations, including real-time data analysis and reporting.

A language translation software that can translate between different extraterrestrial languages and dialects.

A virtual market place for intergalactic trade, facilitating commerce between different alien species.

These are just a few examples of SaaS ideas that could be of use to extraterrestrial beings. The key is to think about the unique needs and challenges that aliens might face in their everyday lives, and offer solutions that address those needs in innovative and effective ways.