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AI for developers and Google Workspace

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241–249 of 249 posts

Re: AI for developers and Google Workspace

#241
post #48

If I'm following this all here... We're going to have AI help us generate long pieces of text from very small blurbs of information. Then the reader is going to have AI read the long pieces of text, and condense it down into just small blurbs of information. Will my self-driving car also take unneeded detours through pretty places, making it take longer to get where I'm going?

You won't necessarily want to compress what AI wrote. If it's a long interesting story, you will want to enjoy it.

It won't be.

Re: AI for developers and Google Workspace

#242

This video published just now is incredible — https://youtu.be/6DaJVZBXETE Not sure though if it's mostly stuff that's being beta tested as we speak, or stuff that's not even built at all as of yet.

We're so fucked. Everyone will be AI spambots. You'll never know if you're talking to a human again.

I'd like to be not so sure. I could see a mass-response of revulsion, and a cultural move towards concise, direct, non-bullshit communication.

I don't want to think too hard about the alternative, of large groups of people not even bothering to ever try to learn to write. Probably become better megacorp output consumers.

Re: AI for developers and Google Workspace

#243
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recommend trying out GPT3 and now the new released GPT4. Using them to collaboratly write correspondence is eye opening. You use ai as a tool, you prompt it, change its results and feed it back. A little work gives you impressive results way faster than if you wrote the whole thing yourself

But... you didn't write it yourself. And it's not anything you would write yourself. This is fine if you never want to ever write something yourself, ever again. I'd much rather retain that skill.

Consider the relationship between a writer and an editor in a newspaper setting. The writer creates the content, while the editor reviews and refines it to ensure it aligns with the publication's standards and style. The editor's input can help improve the overall quality of the piece without taking away the writer's original ideas and skills.

In a similar manner, using AI tools like GPT-3 or GPT-4 can be likened to having an AI editor that assists you in the writing process. By working together with the AI, you can maintain your writing skills while also benefiting from the AI's ability to generate content quickly and suggest new ideas.

Just as a writer doesn't lose their skill by working with a human editor, collaborating with an AI editor can enhance your writing without diminishing your abilities. The key is to find the right balance between using AI for assistance and retaining your personal writing skills, just as a writer and editor strike a balance in their collaboration at a newspaper.

This comment was written in collaboration with ChatGPT.

Re: AI for developers and Google Workspace

#244

What I find regrettable is how GCP's startup program seems to be entirely geared towards VC-fuelled startups for the higher tiers. Compare with Microsoft for Startups, which isn't seen as hip and edgy but can get you like $5k+$25k in Azure credits (and some OpenAI credits) without having to go the VC route. Seems more entrepreneurial to me. Venture-backed is just not the right path for everyone.

Just go with AWS or Azure. Google Clown Platform is okay until you need to have any form of support. I'm like you, bootstrapper. Went with GCP for 4 yrs until they shutdown my production servers last fri. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35133917

Thank you. Don't see why your comment got downvoted. Holding the Clown Platform accountable is surely in the interest of hackers.

Crazy story. Thanks for sharing and yes, suffice to say, this informs our tech stack choices, hah.

Re: AI for developers and Google Workspace

#245

This video published just now is incredible — https://youtu.be/6DaJVZBXETE Not sure though if it's mostly stuff that's being beta tested as we speak, or stuff that's not even built at all as of yet.

My view of the future has completely collapsed over the last 6mos-1year. I desperately don't want to live in a world where everything about everyone is fake and augmented. Where everything you look at and interact with is just AI generated or AI controlled. I can't see how AI isn't going to make the problem of falling social interaction 1000x worse.

Everyone is already fake without AI :/

Re: AI for developers and Google Workspace

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most (all?) self driving companies are electric. Cruise, Waymo, Tesla

And how is that electricity generated in most of the US/world?

And how those cars were built? Electric cars generate more tons of CO2 to make than conventional combustion ones. But it's expected to pay off as long as the electricity is generated cleanly.

Re: AI for developers and Google Workspace

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Piles of impersonal junk created by humans at work. People lope through life, especially work life, a lot. If you are doing repetitive welcome emails they are almost guaranteed to be impersonal, I don't think anyone could rinse and repeat personalized emails for hundreds of people without burning out.

Just because lots of people do it, doesn't mean it has to continue to be done. If you're growing so fast you're sending hundreds of emails in a short time span, then maybe you should replace a pseudo-personal ai-written "welcome email" for new hires with something that scales better and feels personal.

"Feels personal" is the problem that AI solves, isn't it? I mean there is a difference between "feels personal" and "is authentically personal". AI can definitely do the "feels".

Besides that, it's not about how rapid you need to send these emails out. It's about how often it's done. If you had to write birthday cards to people you barely know every day, maybe it's only one a day, it's going to get rinse and repeat very quickly. All the ways of saying "have a great day" are going to get exhausted and whoever is writing it is going to feel insincere in a short amount of time. So why not just have the AI write this sort of thing?

Slack bots welcome you to slack channels, when your email is set up there is a default welcome message. No one really cares, they just want to feel welcomed by something to break the ice. I don't think anyone really gives a stuff about how the message is written as long as it's honest. If I joined a company and the welcome email was signed off with "You friendly welcome bot", I'd be happier than some sort of boilerplate cut and paste message signed by a real person pretending they aren't writing the same thing for the 5th year in their job.

Re: AI for developers and Google Workspace

#248
post #128
post #48

If I'm following this all here... We're going to have AI help us generate long pieces of text from very small blurbs of information. Then the reader is going to have AI read the long pieces of text, and condense it down into just small blurbs of information. Will my self-driving car also take unneeded detours through pretty places, making it take longer to get where I'm going?

It looks like these AI features are going to add some padding to our messages, and the other end needs AI to undo it in order to save their sanity. Just look at the "I'm on it" example from their announcement video and what nonsense their AI makes out of it: https://youtu.be/6DaJVZBXETE?t=31

I laughed out loud at this.

It reminded me of an old article [1] about Howard Schultz where his reply of "On it." was praised by another CEO because it demonstrated that he was much more focused on getting shit done rather than overcommunicating or over-delegating.

I just dug it up:

> Friends and colleagues agree that he is as fanatical as ever about Starbucks. Millard Drexler, the chief executive of J. Crew, recently e-mailed Mr. Schultz to complain that the coffee lids at a Starbucks on Astor Place in Manhattan kept spilling coffee on his shirt. Mr. Schultz’s reply: “On it.”

> Mr. Drexler, who has a habit of e-mailing C.E.O.’s with complaints, says: “I can give you many more examples when they say, ‘I’ll send this to a research department or a gatekeeper.’ ” But, he says of Starbucks, “to have that kind of quality control they have around the world is pretty extraordinary.”

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/business/13coffee.html

Re: AI for developers and Google Workspace

#249

This video published just now is incredible — https://youtu.be/6DaJVZBXETE Not sure though if it's mostly stuff that's being beta tested as we speak, or stuff that's not even built at all as of yet.

My view of the future has completely collapsed over the last 6mos-1year. I desperately don't want to live in a world where everything about everyone is fake and augmented. Where everything you look at and interact with is just AI generated or AI controlled. I can't see how AI isn't going to make the problem of falling social interaction 1000x worse.

You know you can do real hobbies and sports outside? Not everything is on a screen.

AI is just another step in the arms race.

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