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AI is about to change how you use computers

gatesnotes.com

21–30 of 91 posts

Re: AI is about to change how you use computers

#21
Is this motivated reasoning from the perspective of an OS vendor? It seems like intermediating the user's intent using AI has the same hazards as intermediating the internet through a single search provider... i.e. it'll happen, but will tend towards benefiting larger interests, leaving the experience a little less rich than before.

Re: AI is about to change how you use computers

#24
post #14

This is the Bill Gates who in May 2018 proclaimed that he would short Bitcoin if he could: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/07/bill-gates-i-would-short-bit... Bitcoin has quadrupled since then. One might want to take this into account when evaluating his ability to predict the future.

If you read beyond the headline (shocking, I know)

“As an asset class, you’re not producing anything and so you shouldn’t expect it to go up. It’s kind of a pure ‘greater fool theory’ type of investment,” Gates said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

“I agree I would short it if there was an easy way to do it,” he said.

Anyone who thinks the entire "value" of crypto isn't a giant pyramid scheme (or pump and dump) is deluding themselves

Re: AI is about to change how you use computers

#25
post #17

The writing is on the wall. It's not right now, but it will be in my lifetime. What are some AI-proof(ish) industries we can jump into after software engineering is drastically reduced?

I've heard that barista is AI proof. Because customers want a person to say "good morning".

In Fifth Element, the bartender is a robot. (Works of fiction may or may not reflect our future!)

Whether customers prefer that or not may or may not matter to the business decisions that are made (given that it's not a perfect customer-driven market.)

Have you been to McDonald's? They really want you to use a touch screen in-person, or an app even though you're in your car, talking to a person.

Perhaps an underground movement can maintain a grass roots database of "real human service" locations, after the revolution.

Re: AI is about to change how you use computers

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This type of sentiment is not valuable at all and overly pessimistic. Current AI tech is not very likely to replace work that requires a modicum of logical reasoning and the tech to do so has no known path forward as of now.

Replace? No. Highly reduce? Absolutely.

Highly reducing just means you can do far more with the same resources.

I don't know about you but my team's backlog is virtually endless. If AI/LLM/whatever can automate away a ton of dev work, that doesn't mean we're going to fire 90% of our team. It means we might have a glimpse of being able to actually make a dent in all the work that we want to do but can't.

Re: AI is about to change how you use computers

#27
I desperately need a personal assistant because it has become impossible to get anything done now that companies have automated everything and made mistakes and edge cases impossible to resolve. I hope this new wave of automation won't make things even more difficult to manage.

Re: AI is about to change how you use computers

#28

The writing is on the wall. It's not right now, but it will be in my lifetime. What are some AI-proof(ish) industries we can jump into after software engineering is drastically reduced?

Ditch digging should be safe for quite some time.

Mining has been mostly autonomous for years. Digging in the ground at a specific place is a pretty well solved problem.
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