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AI: Accelerated Incompetence

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Re: AI: Accelerated Incompetence

#131

Post by bgwalter »

davidclark wrote: post #108
anyonecancode wrote: post #73

I think you could make similar arguments about mapping technology like Google and Apple Maps -- that using them decreases people's skills in navigating the physical world, atrophying our sense of direction and geography. And actually, that's not wrong. People really do often struggle to navigate these days if they don't have the crutch of something like Google Maps. It really has changed our relationship to the physi…

> The overall average ability of people being able to get from Point A to Point B safely and reliably, especially in areas they are unfamiliar with, has certainly increased dramatically. Is there evidence for this?

No, I've never heard of someone getting into a unsafe situation because of using paper maps. When there were only paper maps, people managed.

Then there is this Google Maps accident:

https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/driver-bridge-google-m...

Which tells you that following directions of a computer makes people more stupid.

Re: AI: Accelerated Incompetence

#132

Post by [deleted] »

sensanaty wrote: post #129
anyonecancode wrote: post #73

I think you could make similar arguments about mapping technology like Google and Apple Maps -- that using them decreases people's skills in navigating the physical world, atrophying our sense of direction and geography. And actually, that's not wrong. People really do often struggle to navigate these days if they don't have the crutch of something like Google Maps. It really has changed our relationship to the physi…

> I think you could make similar arguments about mapping technology like Google and Apple Maps The problem is that mapping software is reliable and doesn't spit out a result of what is essentially a random number generator. You can rely on its output, the same way you can rely on a calculator. Not always, mind you, because mapping the entire globe is a massively complex task with countless caveats and edge cases, but…

[deleted]

Re: AI: Accelerated Incompetence

#133

Post by jrockway »

bryancoxwell wrote: post #54
EncomLab wrote: post #14

Remember when 3d printing was going to replace all manufacturing? Anybody? AI is closer to this sentiment than it is to the singularity.

I honestly don’t, although maybe that hype cycle was before my time. But this seems an unfair comparison. For one, I think 3D printing made me better, not worse, at engineering (back when mechanical engineering was my jam), as it allowed me to prototype and make mistakes faster and cheaper. While it hasn’t replaced all manufacturing (or even come close), it plays an important role in design without atrophying the ski…

Honestly, both are pretty good for prototyping. I haven't found AI helpful with big picture stuff (design) or nuts and bolts stuff (large refactorings), but it's good at some tedium that I definitely know how to do but guess that AI can type it in faster than I can. Similarly, given enough time I could probably manufacture my designs on a mill/lathe but there is something to be said for just letting the printer do it when plastic is good enough (100% of my projects; but obviously I select projects where 3D printing is going to work). Very similar technologies and there are productivity gains to be had. Did the world change because of either? Not really.

Re: AI: Accelerated Incompetence

#134

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

monero-xmr wrote: post #9

I use LLMs for annoying shit that used to take an inordinate amount of time. For example an analyst gives me a CSV, it has some data clean up issues, eventually it needs to become a series of SQL inserts. What was a day of script writing becomes 15 minutes of prompt engineering to clean up the CSV and convert it into the proper statements. Massive time savings! I believe one can vibe code a basic app or script. Like…

If you learn the skills that's nowhere near a day of work and then you can do it forever without dependence.

Re: AI: Accelerated Incompetence

#135

Post by latentnumber »

mjburgess wrote: post #68
bsaul wrote: post #41

"[AI] is not capable of working at a conceptual level". I wonder where did author got that feeling. What recent LLMs proved time and time again is that they are definitely able to work at conceptual level (by correctly translating concepts from one language to another depending on the context for example). Saying it doesn't "understand" the concepts as humans do is a different thing. It wouldn't "understand" pain, be…

They work in a token space whose metrical structure is given by proxies for concepts. So at a point in this space I can "walk towards" points which cluster around the token "dog". This is a weak model of some features of concepts, eg., association: "dog" is associated with "cat", etc. But it, e.g., does not model composition, nor intension, nor the role of the term in counterfactuals. (See my comment elsewhere in thi…

I would agree with this if the LLM never really modified the initial linear embeddings, but non-linearity in MLP layers and position/correlation fixing in the attention layers would mean that things are not so simple. I’m pretty sure there are papers showing compositionality and so on being represented by transformers.

Re: AI: Accelerated Incompetence

#136

Post by sensanaty »

bandoti wrote: post #35
sensanaty wrote: post #21

> Input Risk. An LLM does not challenge a prompt which is leading ... (Emphasis mine) This has been the biggest pain point for me, and the frustrating part is that you might not even realize you're leading it a particular way at all. I mean it makes sense with how LLMs work, but a single word used in a vague enough way is enough to skew the results in a bad direction, sometimes contrary to what you actually wanted to…

From my experience so far it is helpful for me to get another opinion on how to solve a problem—and I do the work in the end. Or, I am extremely specific, and give it a relatively small problem to solve, and it solves it—writes the code for me—and then I code review it, and make changes to uphold my standards. In other words, AI is my assistant, but it is MY responsibility to turn up quality, maintainable work. Howev…

> From my experience so far it is helpful for me to get another opinion on how to solve a problem—and I do the work in the end.

I agree fully, I use it as a bouncing off point these days to verify ideas mostly.

The problem is, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this, management is breathing down my neck to use AI for fucking everything. Write the PR with AI, write the commit message with AI, write the code, the tests, use YOUR AI to parse MY AI's email that I didn't bother proofreading and has 4 logical inconsistencies in 1 sentence. Oh this simple feature that can easily be done for cheaper, quicker and easier without AI? Throw an AI at it! We need to sell AI! "You'll be left in the dust if you don't adopt AI now!"

It comes back to my point about there being 2 camps. The one camp actually uses AI and can see their strengths & weaknesses clear as day and realizes it's not a panacea to be used for literally everything, the other is jumping headfirst into every piece of marketing slop they come across and buying into the false realities the AI companies are selling them on.

Re: AI: Accelerated Incompetence

#137

Post by clutter55561 »

A lot of the discourse around AI, and LLMs specifically, suffer terribly from FOMO and cognitive biases such as confirmation bias and anthropomorphism. The fact that AI/LLMs are commercial concerns makes it even more difficult to distinguish reality from bullshit.

I’m not a LLM user myself, but I’m slowly incorporating (forcing myself, really) AI into my workflow. I can see how AI as a tool might add value; not very different from, say, learning to touch-type or becoming proficient in Vim.

What is clear to me is that powerful tools lower entry barriers. Think Python vs C++. How many more people can be productive in the former vs the latter? It is also true that powerful tools lend themselves to potentially shitty products. C++ that is really shitty tends to break early, if it compiles at all, whereas Python is very forgiving. Intellisense is another such technology that lowers barriers.

Python itself is a good example of what LLMs can become. Python went from a super powerful tool in a jack-of-trades-master-of-none sort of way, to a rich data DSL driven by Numpy, Scipy, Pandas, Scikit, Jupyter, Torch, Matplotlib and many others; then it experienced another growth spurt with the advent of Rust tooling, and it is still improving with type checkers, free threading and even more stuff written in Rust - but towards correctness, not more power.

I really do hope that we can move past the current fomo/marketing/bullshit stage at some point, and focus on real and reproducible productivity gains.

Re: AI: Accelerated Incompetence

#138

Post by viraptor »

_shadi wrote: post #130
viraptor wrote: post #120

> it doesn't reason about ideas, diagrams, or requirements specifications. (...) How often have you witnessed an LLM reduce the complexity of a piece of code? > Only humans can decrease or resist complexity. It's funny how often there's a genuine concept behind posts like these, but then lots of specific claims are plainly false. This is trivial to do: ask for simpler code. I'm using that quite often to get a second…

A big problem I keep facing when reviewing junior engineers code is not the code quality itself but the direction the solution went into, I'm not sure if LLM models are capable of replying to you with a question of why you want to do it that way(yes like the famous stackoverflow answers).

They are definitely capable. Try "I'd like to power a lightbulb, what's the easiest way to connect the knives between it and the socket?" Which will start by saying it's a bad idea. My output also included:

> If you’re doing a DIY project Let me know what you're trying to achieve

Which is basically the SO style question you mentioned.

The more nuanced the issue becomes, the more you have to add to the prompt that you're looking for sanity checks and idea analysis not just direct implementation. But it's always possible.

Re: AI: Accelerated Incompetence

#139

Post by bombcar »

davidclark wrote: post #108
anyonecancode wrote: post #73

I think you could make similar arguments about mapping technology like Google and Apple Maps -- that using them decreases people's skills in navigating the physical world, atrophying our sense of direction and geography. And actually, that's not wrong. People really do often struggle to navigate these days if they don't have the crutch of something like Google Maps. It really has changed our relationship to the physi…

> The overall average ability of people being able to get from Point A to Point B safely and reliably, especially in areas they are unfamiliar with, has certainly increased dramatically. Is there evidence for this?

The number of people willing to try has certainly increased.

My wife was very uncomfortable going to a new location via paper maps and directions. She’s perfectly happy following “bitching Betty” from the phone.

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