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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

#471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In particular, it's odd that the greatest software developer in the world (ChatGPT) hasn't made progress with LLM swarm computation.

How is "LLM swarm computation" different that single bigger LLM?

It's easy to distribute across many computers which communicate with high latency

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

#472

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…

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

#473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amen. It outrages me that someone would waste my time making me listen to a regurgitated, averaged-out, speech written without any emotional fire or depth at an occasion that is profoundly meaningful. A speech as a best man should be personal, heartfelt, it should be funny and a little cringy maybe, and it should mean something. Same with eulogies; this is a moment to celebrate someone's life, to state what that pers…

Some people are just bad at this kind of thing, and sometimes saying nothing is not an option if there is a social expectation that you say something. Which can create a lot of anxiety.

I don't care how bad it is, I just want something from your heart.

And I'm sure you can still make something heartfelt with the help of a chatbot, but I'm afraid that people won't.

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

#474
post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English speakers tend to miss a huge use case: Translation.

A 'use-case' done worse with LLMs especially with reliability. Translation is already done without a hallucinating LLM and can be done offline. Summarization of existing text is the *only* safe and serious use-case for LLMs.

How is summarization "safe"? The summary might be wrong just as well.

The use-case is anything where occasional bullshit output is an acceptable downside to speeding up. More reliable outputs will enable more use-cases.

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

#475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need a full-blown LLM to find answers to questions on StackOverflow. You can do that today with any search engine. > "I’ve even gotten it to walk me through things like installing WSL 2 without using the Microsoft Store after I nuked all Appx packages." That's a search engine query you can issue already today, without involving any LLMs. It will cost a fraction of the cost of running this with an LLM, and i…

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Sure, you can keep throwing those hyped VC/MBA-style retorts all around, or you can acknowledge the simple reality that when it comes to the task of finding answers to questions on SO, traditional search technology outperforms LLMs on every parameter:

1. Cost: it's much easier to build and serve a traditional search index for questions/answers at scale

2. Speed

3. Quality: with search engines you don't just get one answer (you get a spectrum of answers). You have access to the "source" of those answers, which often include additional data that can help you choose the most appropriate solution to a problem.

In this specific case, the "horse" is the LLM - and the "car" is the traditional search engine with modern indexing technologies. But please, don't let simple textbook facts about technology take you off your trip.

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

#476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very cool, and right now it's a good idea, but I strongly suspect GPT only looks clever and does a good job in isolation . If everyone starts using it product announcements will start looking very similar, and they'll lose a lot of their impact. This is definitely the case with cover letters for jib applications. The ones written by GPT appear to be pretty obvious - my guesses could be wrong, but after seeing…

I find it interesting it’s very hard to make it do typos. The type of errors humans make. It can do typos but even those seem weird. If I push it to make errors it either over- or undershoots. The “correctness” of it is a definite give away IMO.

It can imitate styles of little kids with their phonetic spelling. (Though this is so common in English, French etc but not Italian or Turkish where the spelling is very regular)

I am sure it can at least do very common mistakes like it's vs its or "would of" if prompted right since there's a huge body of that kind of work. Or maybe a human needs to add the finishing touches to make it look more human. :)

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

#477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For translations, I use Google translate. Should I switch?

Yo, check this out! DeepL is like way better than Google Translate, so you should totally use it. But, GPT-4 is like a game-changer, dude! It's obvi way better than DeepL, and it can do all sorts of stuff like rewording, explaining in detail, and changing up the style. This text was translated from Japanese to gamer-style English by ChatGPT-4, no joke!

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

#478

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…

Text redaction - if any part of job is about writing, you can now just brain dump everything, structure it more or less, throw into chatgpt, and make it produce a clear and readable article. In my case, the output is better than anything I would ever write. Ditto all the redacting work in newspapers, intranet etc. The whole field of proofreaders was virtually extinguished overnight. Marketing agencies - and I spoke t…

I hope you discussed data sharing confidential patient health information with third parties, openai etc.

Nevertheless offline models should alleviate some of this.

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

#479

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…

I don't have the same experience as you at all. Most of my non-tech friends or family members asked me about chatGPT. You don't find it useful to write emails maybe because you're a native speaker, but it is extremely useful for non-fluent english speakers.

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

#480

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…

Most of the people asking the question "to do _what_, exactly" seem to have not much of a "knowledge worker" experience. Every non-tech person I showed GPT4 to was after a few tests immediately using it to speed up parts of their daily work.

Most impactful is how it destroys the blank page/getting started barrier, second how easy it is to substantially change/adapt/refocus produced work.

It is like having an incredibly efficient, patient and encyclopedic junior collaborator 24/7 at your disposal. It can't be trusted to fully automate without knowledgeable supervision, but it saves a boatload of time and effort.

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