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AI teaches itself to use an API

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Re: AI teaches itself to use an API

#41

Post by dragonwriter »

spencerchubb wrote: post #33
triyambakam wrote: post #24

A little off topic but I do wish we had some more precise language for machine learning applications. When we say it "knows" something it seems to anthropomorphize it, as if it's conscious. As a start to replace "knows" maybe "infers" or "calculates"

I feel "infers" and "calculates" are still anthropomorphizing. I don't think anthropromorphizing is a bad thing. If something appears to do an action, then it's a useful shorthand to say that it is doing the action. Even if it is doing something else under the surface

Anthropomorphizing is just (a very specific case of) metaphor; it can be useful in some cases and obstruct understanding badly in others.

Re: AI teaches itself to use an API

#42

Post by pciexpgpu »

triyambakam wrote: post #24

A little off topic but I do wish we had some more precise language for machine learning applications. When we say it "knows" something it seems to anthropomorphize it, as if it's conscious. As a start to replace "knows" maybe "infers" or "calculates"

Or better yet call a spade a spade: It was programmed to infer…

‘It’ doesn’t need anthropomorphizing in the slightest. It’s a computer program that can slurp up data.

Re: AI teaches itself to use an API

#43

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

triyambakam wrote: post #24

A little off topic but I do wish we had some more precise language for machine learning applications. When we say it "knows" something it seems to anthropomorphize it, as if it's conscious. As a start to replace "knows" maybe "infers" or "calculates"

We have found that when faced with the task of interacting with other complex systems whose consciousness/"knowing" status we are not really sure of, taking what Dennett calls "the intentional stance" turns out to be rather useful. That is, we act and talk about them as if they have intention.

Dog owners across the world can confirm this for you.

Re: AI teaches itself to use an API

#44

Post by afpx »

bko wrote: post #32
vasco wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's hope in reality it isn't available only to the billionnaire owners of software companies. In those movies everyone else wasn't designing cool suites by talking to voice assistants.

The marginal cost of technology is pretty close to zero (albeit slightly higher for large LLM model inference) so it would make sense that the technology gets distributed widely. Kind of like how everyone has essentially the best smart phone. And it's laughable when someone tries to create a luxury smartphone for $10k and its just a sub-par Android with leather accents. If you have a technology with practically zero…

The problem won't be the cost. It will be access. Someone's going to say it's too powerful and restrict it.

Re: AI teaches itself to use an API

#45

Post by slg »

bko wrote: post #32
vasco wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's hope in reality it isn't available only to the billionnaire owners of software companies. In those movies everyone else wasn't designing cool suites by talking to voice assistants.

The marginal cost of technology is pretty close to zero (albeit slightly higher for large LLM model inference) so it would make sense that the technology gets distributed widely. Kind of like how everyone has essentially the best smart phone. And it's laughable when someone tries to create a luxury smartphone for $10k and its just a sub-par Android with leather accents. If you have a technology with practically zero…

>If you have a technology with practically zero marginal cost, pricing it very low and distributing it widely would maximize your profit.

This is just fundamentally not true or else all software would be sold for next to nothing. If a company is choosing between selling a billion copies of its software for $1 each or two copies of its software for $1b dollars each, it will choose to set the price at $1b.

The sky-high potential of AGI means that a few very rich people/companies will be willing to pay an enormous amount of money to have a monopoly on the technology. That means the profit maximizing approach might be to put a huge price tag on the product.

Re: AI teaches itself to use an API

#46

Post by NZ_Matt »

paxys wrote: post #36

So the AI can learn to use APIs that follow perfect RESTful semantics, are fully documented and intuitively behave exactly like one would expect. Our jobs are safe.

I wouldn't say so. The 'Learning by mistakes' step in the demo shows that the AI can work through these issues, presumably this can be done more efficiently than a human.

Re: AI teaches itself to use an API

#47

Post by DrewADesign »

raldi wrote: post #30
IIAOPSW wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may not be anyone's favorite part, but it seems to be the part that gets you paid.

I don't know; in the 1970's, writing assembly code was "the part that gets you paid", and then when programs took over that aspect of programming, I'm pretty sure salaries didn't go down.

I'm not so confident. Places that industrialized during the industrial revolution saw explosive growth as automation yielded unprecedented productivity. Factory jobs paid very well and were readily available because demand was generally high for like a century... but automation and labor passed a tipping point and now we have very few manufacturing jobs and the days of guaranteed high salaries and growth are gone. Rust belt cities are a living proof that industries get to a point where they pursue cheaper ways of making a stable income rather than endlessly innovating and leveraging a skilled workforce. For a lot of people, that situation just plain-old doesn't work out in the end.

Re: AI teaches itself to use an API

#48

Post by jrumbut »

valine wrote: post #27
jrumbut wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works for Tony Stark because he gets the economic benefit of that AI's output. I hope that we get there, but it won't happen by default.

Can you think of any category of software that doesn't eventually have an open source alternative? There are many open source projects orders of magnitude more complicated than a LLM. The linux kernel, Blender, Firefox, etc. These LLMs aren't inherently complicated to implement, just expensive to train. And if the LLaMA release/leak is anything to go by we are extremely close to ChatGPT running on consumer hardware.

Straining this metaphor beyond all recognition, it seems like Tony Stark's AI allows him to be the entire military industrial complex with a tiny headcount, since it's hooked up to a highly automated factory. He is able to use the AI the way he uses it because he inherited an arms company.

So maybe everyone can have their own Jarvis, but theirs won't be hooked up to a factory. I guess it can help them forage for food and remind them that their rent is past due. But that's not an appealing future.

Re: AI teaches itself to use an API

#50

Post by defrost »

DrewADesign wrote: post #47
raldi wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know; in the 1970's, writing assembly code was "the part that gets you paid", and then when programs took over that aspect of programming, I'm pretty sure salaries didn't go down.

I'm not so confident. Places that industrialized during the industrial revolution saw explosive growth as automation yielded unprecedented productivity. Factory jobs paid very well and were readily available because demand was generally high for like a century... but automation and labor passed a tipping point and now we have very few manufacturing jobs and the days of guaranteed high salaries and growth are gone. Ru…

> during the industrial revolution saw explosive growth as automation yielded unprecedented productivity. Factory jobs paid very well

It's almost like you've never actually read any history at all.

https://www.historycrunch.com/working-conditions-in-the-indu...

https://firstindustrialrevolution.weebly.com/working-and-liv...

https://industrialrevolutiontwo.weebly.com/common-workers.ht...

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