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Do AI companies work?

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Re: Do AI companies work?

#381

Post by Hoasi »

shafyy wrote: post #355
LASR wrote: post #147

I lead an applied AI research team where I work - which is a mid-sized public enterprise products company. I've been saying this in my professional circles quite often. We talk about scaling laws, superintelligence, AGI etc. But there is another threshold - the ability for humans to leverage super-intelligence. It's just incredibly hard to innovate on products that fully leverage superintelligence. At some point, AI…

> Anyone using a chatbot already has felt the frustration of "it doesn't get what I want". And also "I have to explain so much that I might as well just do it myself Ehm yes. That's because it actually doesn't work as well as the hype suggests, not because it's too "high bandwidth".

It works for some annoyances in life, though. For example, you can get it to write a complaint to an administration. It's good enough unless you'd rather be witty and write it yourself.

Re: Do AI companies work?

#382

Post by jefozabuss »

ManlyBread wrote: post #354

I am wondering where exactly are the AI products. I am not talking about boring, nerd stuff but rather about products that are well-known (to the point where non-technical users have heard of them) and are used on a daily basis by a significant amount of people. Currently only ChatGPT fits this bill despite the fact that the "AI revolution" is nearly two years old at this point.

It is used for a while in a lot of places that does not market itself as "AI". Tiktok, instagram, faceapp, facebook, netflix, google ads, youtube, etc... where you can see any complex image/video filters or targeted suggestions there is likely some AI in the background.

Re: Do AI companies work?

#384

Post by namaria »

framapotari wrote: post #356
winwang wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Computer" in (simplified) Chinese is still "电脑" -- literally "electric/electronic brain".

In Icelandic, computer is "tölva" which is a combination of "tala" meaning "number" and "völva" meaning "oracle".

And oracle means 'short announcement' (oraculum) meaning Icelanders call computers 'number announcers'. Interesting!

But more seriously, I wonder what the etymology of 'völva' is...

Re: Do AI companies work?

#385

Post by namaria »

Terr_ wrote: post #286
winwang wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Computer" in (simplified) Chinese is still "电脑" -- literally "electric/electronic brain".

If you trace the etymology of computer in English, it means something like "small chalk/limestone pebbles used for counting do-er." (See Latin "calx".)

And digital means 'fingerish'. Etymology can be fun but not always illuminating.

Re: Do AI companies work?

#386

Post by mumblemumble »

shafyy wrote: post #355
LASR wrote: post #147

I lead an applied AI research team where I work - which is a mid-sized public enterprise products company. I've been saying this in my professional circles quite often. We talk about scaling laws, superintelligence, AGI etc. But there is another threshold - the ability for humans to leverage super-intelligence. It's just incredibly hard to innovate on products that fully leverage superintelligence. At some point, AI…

> Anyone using a chatbot already has felt the frustration of "it doesn't get what I want". And also "I have to explain so much that I might as well just do it myself Ehm yes. That's because it actually doesn't work as well as the hype suggests, not because it's too "high bandwidth".

Moreover, this is exactly the frustration I've experienced when working with outsourced developers.

Which tells me the problem may be fundamental, not a technical one. It's not just a matter of needing "more intelligence". I don't question the intelligence or skill of the people on the outsourced team I was working with. The problem was simple communication. They didn't really know or understand our business and its goals well enough to anticipate all sorts of little things, and the lack of constant social interaction of the type you typically get when everybody's a direct coworker meant we couldn't build that mind-meld over time, either. So we had to pick up the slack with massive over-specification.

Re: Do AI companies work?

#387

Post by mumblemumble »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #379

The biggest problem that I have with AI is how people extrapolate out of thin air, going from "LLMs can craft responses that sound exactly like a human" to "LLMs can solve climate change and world hunger". Those are two orthogonal skills and nothing we've seen so far indicates that LLMs would be able to make that jump, any more than I expect someone with a PhD in linguistics to solve problems faced by someone with a…

Clarke's Third Law is, has always been, and always will be the best explanation for how futurists think about these kinds of things.

Re: Do AI companies work?

#388

Post by mumblemumble »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #372

Apple might emerge as one of the winners here, despite being one of the last to come out with an LLM, because it already has the infrastructure, or delivery system, for hundreds of millions of users to interact with an LLM. Google has a similar foothold worldwide, but its major weakness that it's cannibilizing its Search cash cow (how do you make $ from ads with LLMs?), whereas in Apple's case it enhances its product…

But do I even want an actually smart Siri?

Microsoft's been trying to ram essentially that down my throat for the better part of a year now, and it's mostly convinced me that the answer is "no". I don't want to have arbitrary conversations with my computer.

I still just want the same thing I've been wanting from my digital assistant for 30 years now: fewer "eat up Martha" moments, and handling more intents so that I can ask "When does the next east-bound bus come?" and it stops answering questions like "Will it rain today?" as if I had asked "Is it raining right now?". None of those are particularly appropriate problems for a GPT-style model.

Re: Do AI companies work?

#389

Post by mavhc »

mumblemumble wrote: post #386
shafyy wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyone using a chatbot already has felt the frustration of "it doesn't get what I want". And also "I have to explain so much that I might as well just do it myself Ehm yes. That's because it actually doesn't work as well as the hype suggests, not because it's too "high bandwidth".

Moreover, this is exactly the frustration I've experienced when working with outsourced developers. Which tells me the problem may be fundamental, not a technical one. It's not just a matter of needing "more intelligence". I don't question the intelligence or skill of the people on the outsourced team I was working with. The problem was simple communication. They didn't really know or understand our business and its…

if you can write a specification with no ambiguities you can just execute it, because it's code

Re: Do AI companies work?

#390

Post by mavhc »

indigoabstract wrote: post #334
LASR wrote: post #147

I lead an applied AI research team where I work - which is a mid-sized public enterprise products company. I've been saying this in my professional circles quite often. We talk about scaling laws, superintelligence, AGI etc. But there is another threshold - the ability for humans to leverage super-intelligence. It's just incredibly hard to innovate on products that fully leverage superintelligence. At some point, AI…

I will be glad to see the day when LLMs will be able to play Minecraft, so I won't have to. Then I can just relax and watch someone else do everything for me without lifting a single finger. Won't that be fun.

Watching people play Minecraft is the main hobby of children these days
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