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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

#501

Post by IanCal »

jacquesm wrote: post #316
bottlepalm wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading and validating code is way easier than figuring out how to write it in the first place. A lot of programming is the same - functions, conditionals, loops, libraries, etc.. The hard part is mostly semantics across languages. Way easier for GPT to do the first pass, then go through it and read up on the parts you don't understand.

It isn't in my experience. Understanding code that you did not write for a problem that you do not fully grasp is a lot of work. It's hard enough when you did write the code and when you do fully grasp the problem, which you'd have to if you were to write it yourself. Typically that's what first draft code is for: to see if you actually understand the problem.

Do you find it takes more time to review a PR than it took for someone to figure out the solution and implement it?

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

#502

Post by [deleted] »

bionhoward wrote: post #275
nwienert wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean Google revolutionized search. Apple revolutionized personal computing. OpenAI revolutionized… rewriting things with slightly different wording? I’ve seen so many breathless people posting “this would have taken me so long to search” and then I type 3 keywords from their massive prompt they crafted and find it instantly on Google. We’re talking 1000x or more faster. I feel like the same is happening in your com…

It’s a hype bubble for hundreds of years and saying that doesn’t make chatgpt worth any less. I have definitely been surprised by this and gotta say I’m expecting AGI a lot faster now. Even if literally all it did was predict what the average internet user would write in a certain context, that’s huge, cuz when you integrate all the little advantages of all the weird things one person knows another doesn’t, the colle…

[deleted]

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

#503

Post by [deleted] »

bionhoward wrote: post #282
cgearhart wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm…no, I’m not doubting the value of the interface. I’m asking what’s the “killer app”. Maybe I should just ask ChatGPT to explain it to me…

It’s programming. The thing is really great at programming, and everything else is icing on the cake. They already got my $20 a month lol

[deleted]

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

#504

Post by rlt »

fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #12

I work on a research team in FAANG. What it really feels like is one company made everyone else obsolete. And we are going to work working on NLP models that underperform ChatGPT by a huge margin. Twiddling my thumbs and keeping quiet while no one wants to recognize the elephant in the room. Also, there is no "working in AI", a few thousand people are doing real AI at most. The rest of us are calling an API.

> Also, there is no "working in AI", a few thousand people are doing real AI at most. The rest of us are calling an API.

I would call that “applied AI” and there’s no shame in figuring out novel ways to apply a new technology.

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

#505

Post by rntz »

maxilevi wrote: post #130
sj8822 wrote: 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?

Corporations make profits if their products are worth it to people, true. But in a sufficiently unequal world, what's "worth it" to a rich person matters more in the market than what's "worth it" to a poor person - the rich command more money than the poor. If the money made by corporations accrues only to a few, we get a positive feedback cycle of inequality: corporations cater to the market; the market caters to rich people; and in a highly concentrated market, only a few people get rich off of this. The result is a poor underclass. Society as a whole gets richer, perhaps, but very unevenly. Besides causing political instability, this is also an inefficient allocation of resources - an additional $1000 improves a poor person's life more than it does a rich person's.

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

#506

Post by eitland »

nwienert wrote: post #493
eitland wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and then I type 3 keywords from their massive prompt they crafted and find it instantly on Google. Seems I and you have different Googles and you still have the one I had pre 2010. For over a decade now, Google has been including things I never asked about to the point where it would sometimes be easier to find it using Marginalia. Some say it is just because internet has changed and there is less ham and more spam…

I actually agree Google has gone downhill. Yet for the 8 or so examples I’ve tested where I saw hyped GPT results, every single one google answers, usually in the top snippet, always in the first result. For politics shopping and some other topics it can be terrible, but I don’t think GPT is good at those either. I’m actually happy to be proven wrong here. If you have some examples let’s test it out. If it’s a true s…

Haven't used Google in a while but let me try.

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

#507

Post by weatherlite »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #434
amrocha wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But wait, that means there 8 unemployed people without money to spend on our business... Oh I know! Get the government to give everyone money! Just not so much money that they can compete with us!

This but un-ironically! Politically it is hard ti support UBI. But print a $10k stipend for every person because the economy is tanking is obviously palatable. It is always seen as fine if you fix a problem in retrospect and without a tax rise. Money will eventually be like Robux.

> Politically it is hard ti support UBI.

Yeah? Maybe now. Let's see in 5-10 years. I don't think things will remain the same.

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

#508

Post by anjc »

The article mentions something important and doesn't elaborate, that is, to trust the scientific method.

I've seen a few times state of the art developments that appeared to upend everything in my field. Only then with the passage of time do we then see that, yes the development is great for x, but older approaches are still better for y. With 'better' running a gamut of considerations, such as speed, accuracy, complexity, practicality, and so on.

ChatGPT is dazzling but I wouldn't be surprised if in 10 years we find that traditional NLP techniques have better precision for, e.g., language detection or information extraction than GPT-x (I'm making this example up), that evaluations from 2023 weren't rigorous enough, research was misleading, researchers were biased etc.

Hopefully cooler heads can prevail via the scientific method.

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

#509

Post by rlt »

brookst wrote: post #186
fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont work at Google, I think other FAANGS underinvested in this area as they didnt think it was promising. But I will admit, I am suspicious that Google is incompetent. Probably they can come back given how much money they will be forced to throw at it. But Bard is clearly behind and I dont believe their "abundance of caution" arguments for why Bard cant even code.

Google was built by brilliant people whose mission was to make any information available to anyone, instantly. Google is run by smart people whose mission is to maximize clicks on ads. If a user finds what they’re looking for quickly, that’s lost revenue. Google’s profit motives are not aligned with useful AI. The better AI is, the less people need to click through to lots of web pages and ads, the less revenue for G…

Classic “innovators dilemma”.

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

#510

Post by weatherlite »

876978095789789 wrote: post #451
_hao wrote: post #86

I won't try to predict the future as far as such ML models will take our jobs or not. However, I'd like to point out to most people that working on and studying fundamentals won't be a time wasted. Even if programming disappears as an employable job, people will still need to understand and learn things. You'll still need to know the math/physics/philosophy/history/literature/art/music etc. It might turn out that it'…

> I think the end of the world is greatly exagarated. We actually have much bigger problems than "AI". Millions of people are going to have problems putting food on the table and providing a roof over their head, if the progress of these AIs doesn't halt immediately, or if some form of UBI isn't enacted.

If it keeps progressing in the current rate I think it's hundreds of millions world-wide, basically most of the middle class in the private sector in the developed world. Governments will HAVE to seriously retrain people (while giving them income) to become teachers, health care workers or wherever humans are still needed.
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