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The Sell ∀ ∃ as ∃ ∀ Scam

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Re: The Sell ∀ ∃ as ∃ ∀ Scam

#81

Post by pixl97 »

bombcar wrote: post #45
debaserab2 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Significantly economically impactful in some cases- obvious examples of call centers and first-line customer support. Is it that obvious? Yesterday I had a trivial but uncommon issue with my pharmacy. I reached out to them online - their chatbot was the only channel available. I tried, over the course of 20 minutes and 3 restarted sessions, to communicate an issue that a human would have been able to respond to in…

It is very easy to measure costs associated with a customer. It is nearly impossible to measure the customers lost. And you may never return, which they’ll never know.

Unless all pharmacies go to automation, in which you're screwed.

And don't think it can't happen. Consolidation in to just a few companies us happening in huge numbers of industries.

Re: The Sell ∀ ∃ as ∃ ∀ Scam

#82

Post by CapsAdmin »

Are general purpose tools scams?

An operating system does many things. A general purpose language when contrasted with a domain specific language. A human programmer thinking that they're a wizard that can solve all problems.

However I get the sentiment I think, it's a little bit like snake oil and alternative medicine. They promise to solve all your problems.

What's interesting to think about is who it is to "blame". The developers of the product, the sales people of the product, the wild imagination of the buyer thinking the product can solve everything, or maybe the wild imagination of the developers behind the buyer. However if the seller can set off a wild imagination in the buyer, maybe you've successfully scammed them.

Re: The Sell ∀ ∃ as ∃ ∀ Scam

#83

Post by tobyjsullivan »

civilized wrote: post #78
analog31 wrote: post #49

>>> Build a system that solves problems, but with an important user-facing control. ... >>> Convince the user that it is their job to find a instantiation or setting of this control to make the system work for their tasks. By golly, you just described playing the cello.

But the cello sounds good.

And if it doesn’t sound good, it must be the player’s fault, not the instrument’s. For the cello certainly sounded good on another piece.

Re: The Sell ∀ ∃ as ∃ ∀ Scam

#84

Post by scandox »

I think there has always been a great deal of Stone Soup in the software world. We are often promising solutions that will work as long as all the ingredients are supplied in the form of processes delivered by the customer.

Strangely though the very promise of the magic stone does allow solutions (soup) to emerge.

Re: The Sell ∀ ∃ as ∃ ∀ Scam

#85

Post by version_five »

ftxbro wrote: post #79

In my opinion it's a weak take that only got so upvoted and commented on hacker news because it has the existential and universal logical quantifier symbols in the title and also because it uses the chiasmus rhetoric device both in the title and at the end of the article. The argument is that several technologies don't work 'out of the box' and you have to tweak their settings for each problem that you face, and that…

I'm happy to have learned about the chiasmus thing, I hadn't seen that before. In general, better writing, including the use of rhetorical devices, is what gets attention. It's better than some clickbait. Personally I though the use of symbols was a distraction (spurred some useless comments) but maybe that did attract people.

My take is that the argument boils down to saying that overfitting is a thing in LLMs too, but it comes in at the prompting phase. That's almost obviously correct, but I hadn't seen it voiced explicitly before.

The addition of "scam" in the title was a bit of hyperbole, which is probably responsible for a lot of the views and responses.

Anyway, it seems to have triggered a lot of very reactive and defensive takes, which isn't surprising but also isn't really necessary.

Re: The Sell ∀ ∃ as ∃ ∀ Scam

#87

Post by tobyjsullivan »

badloginagain wrote: post #10

If I understand correctly, the meat of the argument is "that is a system for every (∀) task, there exists (∃) a setting that gives the correct answer for that one task." My understanding of this (correct me if I'm wrong) is that the scam is convincing users that GPT-X can do anything with say, the correct prompts. This argument misses the mark for me. It's not that it solves all the problems, it's that the problems i…

The argument is more nuanced. Importantly, the article is not making a judgement on the value of GPT, generally (at least not explicitly). It is arguing against one specific narrative.

That narrative goes like this:

Step 1: give me a specific task T from a class of tasks C.

Step 2: I’ll show you that I can formulate a prompt to solve task T.

Step 3: therefore, if you engineer prompts well enough, you can find a single prompt that will solve any task in class C.

The argument is that Step 3 is a non sequitur and that’s the scam.

The question isn’t “is GPT useful” so much as “can products be built on top of GPT?”

Re: The Sell ∀ ∃ as ∃ ∀ Scam

#88

Post by eternalban »

TZubiri wrote: post #29

Are compilers a scam as well? There exists a program every problem you have, you just have to find the code.

> There exists a program every problem you have, you just have to find the code.

That proposition is that of general programming languages.

The compiler's proposition is that it will take your programs and faithfully per the language specification produce object code suited for its intended deployment platform.

So

> Are [general purpose programming languages] a scam as well?

Well, kinda. Most languages come with a hype brigade and before you know it, darling of the day is "the only rational choice" for writing. Also, many b.s. about solving problem x whereas they only hand the problem over to something else, sometimes the programmer. So (mildly) yeah.

Re: The Sell ∀ ∃ as ∃ ∀ Scam

#89

Post by j-bos »

scandox wrote: post #84

I think there has always been a great deal of Stone Soup in the software world. We are often promising solutions that will work as long as all the ingredients are supplied in the form of processes delivered by the customer. Strangely though the very promise of the magic stone does allow solutions (soup) to emerge.

So great software is like great medicine? Half solved in product half solved in placebo

Re: The Sell ∀ ∃ as ∃ ∀ Scam

#90

Post by ChainOfFools »

analog31 wrote: post #49

>>> Build a system that solves problems, but with an important user-facing control. ... >>> Convince the user that it is their job to find a instantiation or setting of this control to make the system work for their tasks. By golly, you just described playing the cello.

but the cello isnt being spun by the musical instrument press (and cottage industry of self-appointed advisors to wealthy royal music patrons) as a self-playing enchanted wonder capable of performing any piece, real or imagined, with limitless creative and technical skill and requiring little more guidance than vague requests hummed out of tune by its handler.
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