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I Received an AI Email

timharek.no

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Re: I Received an AI Email

#471

Post by mxkopy »

segmondy wrote: post #442
thrance wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember seeing a talk from Jonathan Blow where he made a comparison: in the 1960s top engineers worked for NASA and put a man on the moon in a decade, basically doing computations by hand. Today, we have super advanced computers and tech companies enjoy 100× times more of the top engineers than NASA ever had, and they are all working toward making you click on ads more.

Which do you think is more important? Putting man on the moon or ecommerce? I reckon you been able to get on a device, see a biscuit ads, order one from foo.com and have it shipped to you. Think of how much tech it takes for that to happen, that is more tech than NASA built to send many to the moon, the internet, packet switching, routing, fiber optic, distributed systems, web servers, web browsers, ads, cryptography…

In the grand scheme, what you’re talking about is very zero-sum, while stuff like making rockets is not. Uber vs Waymo is a good example of how adtech can only go so far in actually creating wealth.

Re: I Received an AI Email

#472

Post by jtbayly »

aswegs8 wrote: post #452
internet101010 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would liken it to cars. There is a difference between engineers, mechanics, and mechanics that know a certain car so well that they fabricate parts that improve upon the original design.

Good comparison. Engineers who build cars and understand their intricacies oftentimes just work on one small thing at a time, even in teams. Like a team just working on breaks. The mechanics can piece the stuff together and keep it working in a real world setting. But nowadays a self-declared "AI Expert" in that metaphor might be just some person who knows how to drive a car.

I used to work on breaks, but then I realized I was more productive when I actually stopped and walked around a bit.

Re: I Received an AI Email

#473

Post by lukan »

tiew9Vii wrote: post #275
taylorius wrote: post #161

The future - megawatts of electricity being used, 24/7 as armies of LLMs email and debate each other, and try to sell each other programs at a great discount. As for the humans, we went fishing instead.

The irony Everyone is playing lip service to global warming, energy efficiency, reducing emissions. At the same time data centers are being filled with power hungry graphic cards and hardware to predict if showing a customer an ad will get a clock, generating spam that “engages” users aka clicks. It’s like living in a episode of black mirror.

I see the bright side, the tech for large scale computing gets mass produced - so all the legit use cases, like scientific simulations, or LLM for productive work, also profit. And if one really bright day humanity evolves beyound the current statd of ad driven everything, we can put all of it to use for real.

Till then, I will probably avoid more and more communicating with strangers on the internet. It will get even more exhausting, when 99% of them are fake.

Re: I Received an AI Email

#474

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

jabroni_salad wrote: post #463
grugagag wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are pig butchering operations?

It's people that write you love letters until you western union them your entire retirement account.

It’s really quite sophisticated.

John Oliver actually did a great segment on it, but I won’t link it, because a lot of folks don’t like him.

Re: I Received an AI Email

#475

Post by commodoreboxer »

segmondy wrote: post #442
thrance wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember seeing a talk from Jonathan Blow where he made a comparison: in the 1960s top engineers worked for NASA and put a man on the moon in a decade, basically doing computations by hand. Today, we have super advanced computers and tech companies enjoy 100× times more of the top engineers than NASA ever had, and they are all working toward making you click on ads more.

Which do you think is more important? Putting man on the moon or ecommerce? I reckon you been able to get on a device, see a biscuit ads, order one from foo.com and have it shipped to you. Think of how much tech it takes for that to happen, that is more tech than NASA built to send many to the moon, the internet, packet switching, routing, fiber optic, distributed systems, web servers, web browsers, ads, cryptography…

I keep hearing the phrase "generate wealth" in regards to advertisement and from the mouths of startup founders, but in almost no other context. I'm not familiar with the economic concept of "wealth generation" or its cousin "creating value".

Is the idea that any and all movement of money is virtuous? That all economic activity is good, and therefore anything that leads to more economic activity is also good? Or is it what it sounds like, and it just means "making some specific people very wealthy"? Wouldn't the more accurate wording be that it "concentrates wealth"? I don't see a huge difference in the economic output of advertisement from most other scams. A ponzi scheme also uses psychological tricks to move money from a large amount of people to a small amount of people. Something getting people to spend money isn't inherently a good thing.

Re: I Received an AI Email

#476

Post by Tainnor »

b112 wrote: post #278
throwaway0665 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin has one application where as there are multiple applications of LLMs. There might be mountains of noxious AI spam but it's hard to claim that Bitcoin as a technology is more useful.

So far, I haven't seen a useful application of LLMs. So far. I've seen things that are wildly hobbled, and wildly inaccurate. I've seen endless companies running around, trying to improve on things. I've seen people looking in wonder at LLMs making mistakes 2 year olds don't. Most LLM usage seems to be in two categories. Replace people's jobs with wildly inaccurate and massively broken output, or trick people into do…

I'm as skeptical about LLMs as anyone, especially when people use them for actual precision tasks (like coding), but what they actually IMHO are good at are language tasks. That is, summarising content, text generation for sufficiently formulaic tasks, even translation to an extent, and similar things.

Re: I Received an AI Email

#477

Post by thedevilslawyer »

Jgrubb wrote: post #454
segmondy wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which do you think is more important? Putting man on the moon or ecommerce? I reckon you been able to get on a device, see a biscuit ads, order one from foo.com and have it shipped to you. Think of how much tech it takes for that to happen, that is more tech than NASA built to send many to the moon, the internet, packet switching, routing, fiber optic, distributed systems, web servers, web browsers, ads, cryptography…

That last line kind of makes the point. Is any of that actually inspiring to a young child?

It sure as heck is inspiring to a critical thinking adult. There's been enormous value added to all world's citizens.

Re: I Received an AI Email

#478

Post by SergeAx »

> Does this mean that I should private my GitHub-mirror to my personal blog, because this can become a common thing?

You definitely should mark this email as spam so this cannot become a common thing.

Re: I Received an AI Email

#479

Post by commodoreboxer »

k8sagic wrote: post #364
croes wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is video producing co2? yes. But you know what creates a lot more co2? Driving around for entertainment What's more likely, watching a movie online, drive to watch a movie in a cinema? You know what creates a lot less CO2? Staying at home reading a book vor playing a board game. >Datacenters save a lot more energy than they make I think you mean CO2. And I doubt that they actually save anything because datacenters a…

Have you checked how much co2 a normal car drive creates vs. watching a movie online? We need to be realistic here. We know what modern entertainment looks like and its not realistic at all to just 'read books' and play board games.

It is 100% realistic to read books and play board games. Both markets are massive, and board games in particular are having what I would consider a renaissance. Maybe it depends on your crowd, but everybody I know plays tabletop games and reads books.

Re: I Received an AI Email

#480

Post by pseudalopex »

mooreds wrote: post #446
saturn8601 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology ruins everything it touches doesn't it? I was recently thinking about this Ozempic fad and how it will lead to no one being overweight but just be dependant on Ozempic...until food producers that made everyone fat in the first place with their processed junk will produce Ozempic resistant foods...and then we are really in a world of hurt.

Here's an Odd Lots podcast on that exact topic: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-is-how-the-food-i... Title: "This Is How the Food Industry Is Preparing For a Post-Ozempic World"

Is there a summary?
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