Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mechanical Turk workers are using AI to automate being human

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 169 posts

Re: Mechanical Turk workers are using AI to automate being human

#91

Post by Our_Benefactors »

rollcat wrote: post #65
m3kw9 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you not root for AI? Its potential to improve humanity is huge even if there are potential bad sides. Some People bunching crypto with AI on the usefulness scale is quite ridiculous

I root for AGI. ML and LLMs in particular are just fancy maths/statistics. Yes they are immensely useful, but also 1. overhyped / overrated, 2. facing the problem of in-breeding. AGI will work nothing like today's LLMs. AGI will stare at your question, and instead of answering, ask you: "why do you want to know that?". You can't have intelligence without curiosity.

> AGI will stare at your question, and instead of answering, ask you: "why do you want to know that?"

AGI final form is giving non-answers a-la stack overflow.

Re: Mechanical Turk workers are using AI to automate being human

#92

Post by delusional »

m3kw9 wrote: post #79
pdntspa wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will root for AI a lot more readily when we have a good alternative (UBI?) for people whos jobs are being displaced faster than they can retrain Y'all cheerleaders are going to create an underclass the likes of which you've never seen before. I hope they take up torches and pitchforks

When AI can solve most problems we have, we will have UBI because most will not need to work, but pessimists will say we will all lost jobs.

Do you need to work now? When is the crossover where you won't need to work?

I live in a country where the government is actually calling for an INCREASE in work. When in history have we ever decreased the workload with the reason "well we don't need to produce any more"?

Re: Mechanical Turk workers are using AI to automate being human

#93

Post by ironmagma »

elvis10ten wrote: post #88
ironmagma wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think that. But when you think more about what value is, how it’s created and how we extract it to pay our insane salaries, it becomes less surprising and more sad.

Can you say more on this (value and how it’s extracted)?

If you are doing something that has inherent value — extracting gold from a mine, performing music, working a factory line — you are the top of funnel for value creation. Unfortunately for you, the only way for society to run is to have your would-be profits extracted to the maximum extent by other parties. Therefore the rich are the ones who actually don’t tend to produce as much and those who do are taken advantage of. The father away you are from value production, generally the better off you are.

Re: Mechanical Turk workers are using AI to automate being human

#94

Post by Aperocky »

kortex wrote: post #54
lacrimacida wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not “AI”, it’s just LLMs. When/if AI becomes a reality there will be no need for mechanical turks

It is AI; artificial intelligence has been around since the 60s. It's not AGI, and no one (credible) is claiming LLMs are AGI.

I like Apple in which they absolutely avoid potentially misleading terms and instead label all of this as Machine Learning (ML). Much more accurate imo.

You'll never hear AI from Apple announcements, this contrast sharply with the few other large tech companies..

Re: Mechanical Turk workers are using AI to automate being human

#95

Post by idontpost »

Loughla wrote: post #75
Turskarama wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "general" intelligence is one that can do tasks it wasn't explicitly trained to do. The first self driving cars (that already exist) are powered by an AI that can only drive cars, so it's not general. Also if self driving cars are everywhere then we won't have AGI, because real AGI largely does away with the need for cars.

I am also interested in the second statement there about how AGI does away with the need for cars. What's your logic with that?

[dead]

Re: Mechanical Turk workers are using AI to automate being human

#96

Post by pdntspa »

qeternity wrote: post #81
pdntspa wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will root for AI a lot more readily when we have a good alternative (UBI?) for people whos jobs are being displaced faster than they can retrain Y'all cheerleaders are going to create an underclass the likes of which you've never seen before. I hope they take up torches and pitchforks

> for people whos jobs are being displaced faster than they can retrain Where is this mass displacement of which you speak? Which companies are firing en masse and replacing with AI?

Content writing and concept artists come to mind, I've heard commercial art is getting decimated. The trucking industry is dumping tons of $$$ into automated AI trucking. Tech companies are experimenting with drone delivery instead of hiring drivers. Rideshares experimenting with self-driving taxis. The list goes on.

More locally, the local McDonalds recently remodeled, reducing the customer counter to something like 1/8th the size and installing terminals (not AI but automation), and I've seen images online of fast food testing AI for ordering, particularly over drive-through.

My friend got a marketing director job using a ChatGPT-generated marketing strategy (they gave her an impossible deadline and so I suggested she try it), and now she uses ChatGPT to generate marketing copy instead of hiring content writers. Someone else I know uses AI to SEOize very technical text to something search engines like at like 10x the rate he used to do by hand.

As a solo and formerly senior SWE, ChatGPT is like having a junior developer on call to do my research and get me preliminary results. Stuff I used to have to rely on my team or google-fu to answer, now I just ask ChatGPT.

You're sticking your head in your sand if you think it isn't coming. Just think about every one of those optimizations that AI offers, typically you had to have a human being do it before.

Re: Mechanical Turk workers are using AI to automate being human

#97

Post by delusional »

tivert wrote: post #87
m3kw9 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you not root for AI? Its potential to improve humanity is huge even if there are potential bad sides. Some People bunching crypto with AI on the usefulness scale is quite ridiculous

> Why would you not root for AI? Its potential to improve humanity is huge even if there are potential bad sides. That's just garbage propaganda from the hype men. I don't buy it and you shouldn't either. We don't live in a sci-fi fantasy novel. The real end game for "AI" is power for the few, with little need for the plebs (us), so no need to share any of that power. That's what our current social structure will giv…

It isn't even that. It's the appearance of not needing you. Make you take part of your own subjugation by making it clear that you're entirely replaceable.

If a hypothetical machine could do your job, well you better do it cheap enough that we don't start researching that. It's like UBER, the taxis will drive themselves soon enough, so you have to work for no pay for now, to usher in the future where you will make money. Nevermind that it never happened and people are still working slavery wages.

Re: Mechanical Turk workers are using AI to automate being human

#98

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

kaashif wrote: post #77
haxiomic wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coming from genuine curiosity, what jobs don’t compete with an AI that’s designed to mimic and surpass human capability?

It seems like it would be hard to automate being a plumber or electrician, AI isn't really being aimed at that problem. Jobs which are specifically about being a human seem like they can't be automated, like actors, waiters, athletes, sex workers. I sincerely doubt anyone would watch or care about fake AI generated sports.

> watch or care about fake AI generated sports

Well, people pay for fake sports, and pay for fiction (i.e. fake stories) in movies/TV/books.

Not much of a stretch that a competent AI could generate good enough content, given the sludge currently making money out there ...

Re: Mechanical Turk workers are using AI to automate being human

#99

Post by bufferoverflow »

JustBreath wrote: post #61
geraldwhen wrote: post #13

This is not novel. Mturk has always been automated since its very first release. I remember worker forums sharing scripts to query amazon for the expected results that would get you paid. Amazon put up a bunch of very lucrative test jobs, but you only got paid if your answer matched the majority. The majority were automating, so unless you used the sometimes incorrect answers, you got nothing.

It's surreal that even when it comes to AI we still fundamentally rely on underpaid labor.

It's not underpaid. The people are willing to work for that money.

Re: Mechanical Turk workers are using AI to automate being human

#100

Post by chii »

ironmagma wrote: post #93
elvis10ten wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you say more on this (value and how it’s extracted)?

If you are doing something that has inherent value — extracting gold from a mine, performing music, working a factory line — you are the top of funnel for value creation. Unfortunately for you, the only way for society to run is to have your would-be profits extracted to the maximum extent by other parties. Therefore the rich are the ones who actually don’t tend to produce as much and those who do are taken advantage…

> The father away you are from value production, generally the better off you are.

you are only counting the human labour involved in the creation of value.

what about the capital?

Would you, as a hired gold miner, be able to accept zero pay for your work, until the gold is sold (then you got the full price of the sold gold)? What if you starved between the time you mined it, and the time it takes to sell? And how would you have gotten the equipment to do the mining in the first place, let alone the ownership of the mine.

Post reply on HN