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Princeton ‘AI Snake Oil’ authors say GenAI hype has ‘spiraled out of control’

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101–110 of 112 posts

Re: Princeton ‘AI Snake Oil’ authors say GenAI hype has ‘spiraled out of control’

#101

The authors' substack is great. They're sort of like investigative journalists who pick a topic that's got a lot of hype and then dissect it to (often very quickly) find that the hyped up topic was just hot air. Some examples: The claims of "liberal bias" being just a completely bunk study: https://www.aisnakeoil.com/p/does-chatgpt-have-a-liberal-bia... No evidence of GPT-4 getting worse over time: https://www.aisnak…

>No evidence of GPT-4 getting worse over time I read the the article you linked to, and either you're putting words in their mouth and/or making claims that go way beyond the conclusions presented in the article. The authors choose to distinguish between "capability degradation" and "drastic behavior change." Now, almost no one I've witnessed complaining about past and present results of ChatGPT care one bit about ma…

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Re: Princeton ‘AI Snake Oil’ authors say GenAI hype has ‘spiraled out of control’

#103

The authors' substack is great. They're sort of like investigative journalists who pick a topic that's got a lot of hype and then dissect it to (often very quickly) find that the hyped up topic was just hot air. Some examples: The claims of "liberal bias" being just a completely bunk study: https://www.aisnakeoil.com/p/does-chatgpt-have-a-liberal-bia... No evidence of GPT-4 getting worse over time: https://www.aisnak…

>No evidence of GPT-4 getting worse over time I read the the article you linked to, and either you're putting words in their mouth and/or making claims that go way beyond the conclusions presented in the article. The authors choose to distinguish between "capability degradation" and "drastic behavior change." Now, almost no one I've witnessed complaining about past and present results of ChatGPT care one bit about ma…

Thanks for this. I agree they do nothing to support the idea that GPT4 isn’t getting worse. They simply criticize a paper that makes the affirmative claim, and explains why it’s difficult to test.

Re: Princeton ‘AI Snake Oil’ authors say GenAI hype has ‘spiraled out of control’

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If blockchain did fulfill the claims of it revolutionizing the world of finance, it's still unlikely your kids would have become obsessed and regular users of it. If room temperature and pressure superconducting or nuclear fusion became viable, your kids might also be unlikely to play around with them on their own. Kids apparently love Roblox and most adults think the metaverse is dead. What kids like seems pretty or…

> Kids apparently love Roblox and most adults think the metaverse is dead. Can you define what a metaverse is in this case and how is it different from what we used to call an MMORPG? Roblox involves no block chain and no VR, so what exactly is "metaverse-y" about it?

Anyone can create and monetize their content in a world where a user's character can access all of the content. MMORPGs generally seem to be built by a single developer who controls the whole experience. They're also generally a single game instead of thousands of mini games.

Re: Princeton ‘AI Snake Oil’ authors say GenAI hype has ‘spiraled out of control’

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If blockchain did fulfill the claims of it revolutionizing the world of finance, it's still unlikely your kids would have become obsessed and regular users of it. If room temperature and pressure superconducting or nuclear fusion became viable, your kids might also be unlikely to play around with them on their own. Kids apparently love Roblox and most adults think the metaverse is dead. What kids like seems pretty or…

Point taken, but how about these: - My mom cant figure out Blockchain either - My sister (doctor) and brother (3 degrees) cant figure out Blockchain either, because they are too afraid of scanning the wrong QR code and having their balance drained My mom, sister, and brother all use ChatGPT. My brother uses it actively for work.

Sure. I'm not saying Blockchain fulfilled it's promise. I'm just not convinced that every major new thing will be immediately adopted by kids. It seems like it's an orthogonal thing.

Re: Princeton ‘AI Snake Oil’ authors say GenAI hype has ‘spiraled out of control’

#106
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what does it say about copyright? Genuinely curious.

internet articles say something about copyright protection, but more important part is that AI has two promote core values of socialism and avoid statement criticizing Chinese government.

Interesting that the CCP rules for AI are the same as the rules for any meatI under their control. At least they are consistent.

Re: Princeton ‘AI Snake Oil’ authors say GenAI hype has ‘spiraled out of control’

#107

My washing machine says "Optimized by AI". My clothes washing machine. Hell yes it's gotten out of control.

When TVs switched from standard def, suddenly all sorts of products from makeup to paint to sunglasses were advertising themselves as “HD.” After the iMac became a surprise hit for Apple, every piece of tech junk imaginable was immediately renamed to add a lowercase “i.” Blockchain had a similar, albeit briefer, hypecycle. Marketers love to jump on the latest trend by co-opting buzzwords.

There's quite a few results in google for "iBlockchain", plus some "Blockchain and AI" articles. Unfortunately I don't see any that mixes all three, or any of them with "HD".

Re: Princeton ‘AI Snake Oil’ authors say GenAI hype has ‘spiraled out of control’

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If blockchain did fulfill the claims of it revolutionizing the world of finance, it's still unlikely your kids would have become obsessed and regular users of it. If room temperature and pressure superconducting or nuclear fusion became viable, your kids might also be unlikely to play around with them on their own. Kids apparently love Roblox and most adults think the metaverse is dead. What kids like seems pretty or…

Point taken, but how about these: - My mom cant figure out Blockchain either - My sister (doctor) and brother (3 degrees) cant figure out Blockchain either, because they are too afraid of scanning the wrong QR code and having their balance drained My mom, sister, and brother all use ChatGPT. My brother uses it actively for work.

> it without being forced to

I think this is an important detail. A lot of "forced into it" numbers will get presented as "happy users" in various unfair metrics comparisons.

Re: Princeton ‘AI Snake Oil’ authors say GenAI hype has ‘spiraled out of control’

#109
post #44

My hypothesis is that a lot of high-status intellectuals are reflexively dismissing AI out of fear that it threatens their status, as AI poses to turn intellectual labor into a cheap commodity rather than the premium bespoke product they offer it as via their professorships, speaking fees and book sales. Most criticism of AI has all the hallmarks of coping mechanisms. They seem to shift quickly between declaring it a…

Really? You think people who write for a living might be biased towards confirming that the thing already replacing many people who write for a living is a fad that's going to blow over soon? My favorite part with crap predicting doom is the sheer unawareness of the rate of change of the rate of change. If you had asked me 18 months ago how long after GPT-3 until something existed with the capabilities of GPT-4, I'd…

> I'm reminded of the Louis C.K. routine about everything being amazing and no one is happy.

If AI meant the human was now free, I'd be happy, but ATM AI seems to mean the human will be jobless and soon homeless and starving.

Re: Princeton ‘AI Snake Oil’ authors say GenAI hype has ‘spiraled out of control’

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NFTs as domain names is novel, interesting, and non-financial. https://ens.donains

My belief is that blockchain-based solutions are typically inferior to centralized ones except when the goal is to evade regulation. (Crypto is good for dealing in contraband, dodging currency controls, and collecting ransomware; but it's always less efficient than centralized solutions with a trusted authority. And the only time you can't find a trusted authority is when you're trying to dodge regulation.) In this i…

"Evading regulations" is a phrase that holds a different weight when you don't live in a free society. "Evading regulations" could be using a gay dating app in Iran. Or organizing to fight against a repressive government in Russia. Even in so-called civilized Western nations, there are increasing tendencies toward autocratic rhetoric and encroachments into personal liberties. See: abortion access in the United States.

Not too long ago the US government put pressure on all financial institutions to stop processing payments for Wikileaks without them ever having been convicted of committing any crimes. That's just a single example plucked out of the sky, regardless of your feelings about that organization.

The great advantage that we get from a decentralized, opt-in trust infrastructure is that we have an avenue around these unjust and extralegal encroachments.

Having said all that, even if you don't care about politics, there are countless examples of centralized entities changing ownership, or changing strategies, and their users pay the price. See: Twitter taking people's usernames.

You might be fine with dealing with living at the whims of billionaires but I want my digital life to be more durable than that.

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