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What it feels like to work in AI right now

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Re: What it feels like to work in AI right now

#171
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until we see otherwise, don't we have to assume there's some secret sauce? Bard doesn't match GPT4 and it isn't for a lack of trying. (though perhaps that will change, so far that's the case)

Google is going slow. They might be behind, but we haven't seen their best effort yet. Google has a 540 billion parameter model.

Google also has Sundar and Ruth who’d rather focus on how to get another ad on the SERP than kill the golden goose. They’re not going slow, they just don’t have the leadership for the moment.

Re: What it feels like to work in AI right now

#172
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is going slow. They might be behind, but we haven't seen their best effort yet. Google has a 540 billion parameter model.

So they say, and I agree this seems likely. But until they release it that's all talk, and they have plenty of incentive to release it.

And plenty of reason not to: search ads.

Re: What it feels like to work in AI right now

#173
post #158

From my perspective it’s just _confusing_ to work in AI right now. We have some massive models that are doing some really neat stuff, and apparently hundreds of millions of people are using them—but I keep wondering: to do _what_, exactly? I’m not asking what the models can do, I’m asking what people want the models to do every day, all the time. I’ve been shown some neat pictures people made that they thought were c…

Natural language is now a fully functional user interface out of the box. This is bigger than the mouse.

I think the problem is that people working in the field have a much different definition of what "fully-functional" means than users who believe that they're communicating with an intelligent, all-knowing or otherwise infallible being.

Re: What it feels like to work in AI right now

#174
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point, I became disenchanted with tech and working as a software engineer when I realized that tech doesn't ethically fit into our primitive economic organization right now. It's made me feel bad about myself and the career path I've chosen. Basically, with tech, you can build a product with a very limited amount of people and resources with a potentially infinite customer base. And this means that this produ…

I think ultimately tech will result in humans being like the rest of animals - completely unable to participate in the economy. This will only start to happen once AGI is reached though which might only be a decade away or less.

I suspect there will be essentially three different economies - Digital Human-experiences, and hybrid.

AGI will focus primarily on problems that can be mostly solved within digital worlds where it can cycle incredibly fast. Building software, finance, paperwork, etc, etc It will eventually evolve to design, control, and operate physical systems, but will need humans to intervene and fix systems (hybrid).

The human economy will built on experiences that are explicitly, and intentionally void of computers. Restaurants, guided tours, exploration, etc, etc.

Re: What it feels like to work in AI right now

#175

Go to CHATGpT and ask for a link to some examples and half of them are 404. There is certainly a drawback to having scraped the web to build the model

Try bing instead.

ChatGPT is good at a lot of things, but searching the web is not one of them. That's why bing uses it for the natural language and contextual conversation aspects, supplementing it with traditional web search.

Re: What it feels like to work in AI right now

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it is just time to train and also good training data for prompts which openai has gathered for so long already? E.g. there is a bottleneck on how fast you can train and also gather good data.

Possibly, but wouldn't Google and Meta have access to way more compute resources and data than OpenAI? Google has been touting their TPUs for several years now.

Without Nadella footing the compute bills, nobody would be taking about OpenAI. He’s brilliant, he let the start up take on huge risk to quietly claim the gains for m$.

Re: What it feels like to work in AI right now

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine Walmart launching a ChatGPT interfaced bot for shopping that customers take a liking to. I can't imagine that, because it doesn't seem to fit the use case. Especially not to the point of bankruptcy of Amazon, maybe as a small novelty? Can you list some killer features that the chat would bring that would make the existing shopping experience irrelevant? Maybe not everything is a nail to the hammer?

"I'm looking for X. Can you give me a few options with the benefits and drawbacks of each" or "I'm looking for X. Can you ask me a few questions and give me a choice of products based on that" or "I'm looking for a product that does X, Y, Z. Can you find such a product for me" or "Does this product do Y/is compatible with Z/is an appropriate give for person P" I'm not saying this will happen. I'm saying it's a risk t…

sure, this is basically a fancy version of the current FAQ's, customer's QnA and current recommendations (similar products, recommended products). Would it be just so much better in experience that it kills Amazon? i kind of doubt it. Also, we're currently talking model that was trained on pre-2021 data and here we have an inventory in the millions that changes daily, so the tech has to catch up, too.

Re: What it feels like to work in AI right now

#178
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Natural language is now a fully functional user interface out of the box. This is bigger than the mouse.

I think the problem is that people working in the field have a much different definition of what "fully-functional" means than users who believe that they're communicating with an intelligent, all-knowing or otherwise infallible being.

For my use case I use it for input processing, it’s just amazing that way. Hallucination is a huge problem, but you can avoid it.

Re: What it feels like to work in AI right now

#179
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point, I became disenchanted with tech and working as a software engineer when I realized that tech doesn't ethically fit into our primitive economic organization right now. It's made me feel bad about myself and the career path I've chosen. Basically, with tech, you can build a product with a very limited amount of people and resources with a potentially infinite customer base. And this means that this produ…

But if people are paying for the product then they value it more than the money right? Tech might bring more inequality, but what is the problem with it if it substantially increases everyones standard of living?

I do not believe that standard of living should be compared in a vacuum. Since I assume that this is what you are referring to, I am firmly convinced that happiness is relative.

What this means is that improving the standard of living of the average person by 5% while improving it by 50% for a smaller population will hurt more than it helps.

Re: What it feels like to work in AI right now

#180

From my perspective it’s just _confusing_ to work in AI right now. We have some massive models that are doing some really neat stuff, and apparently hundreds of millions of people are using them—but I keep wondering: to do _what_, exactly? I’m not asking what the models can do, I’m asking what people want the models to do every day, all the time. I’ve been shown some neat pictures people made that they thought were c…

You’re asking “what’s so big about GUIs? Literally nobody has asked to move a pointer around a screen”.

It’s the use cases these thing enable that are important.

Today, I wrote a draft product announcement. Only after I was done did I realize I had written it in a really impersonal third person (“users will be able to”). No big deal, but maybe 10-20 minutes of work to make it energetic and second person (“now you can…”).

30 seconds with chatgpt. “Rewrite with more energy, in the second person, using best practices for announcements”).

Six months ago I would never have asked for that. Today it was glorious and let me move on to focus on more important things.

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