My dentist said he uses it near constantly, and so do I.
Why is AI so slow to spread?
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Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#12My dentist said he uses it near constantly, and so do I.
Now I'm trying to visualize an agentic (and robotic) dentist
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#13From where I stand, AI seems to enjoy lightning fast adoption. Personal computers became a viable technology in the eighties, slowly penetrated workplace in the nineties, and supposedly registered in labor productivity in the early 2000s. The large language models became practical less then three years ago, and already plenty of businesses boast how they will integrate AI and cut their workforce, while everyone else feel behind and obsolete.
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#14I don't often use AI in my work because it is not sufficiently useful not sufficiently trustworthy. It is my ongoing experience that AI + My Oversight requires more time than not using AI. Sometimes AI can answer slightly complex things in a helpful way. But for most of the integration troubleshooting I do, AI guidance varies between no help at all and fully wasting my time. Conversely, I support folks who have the c…
I still haven’t found anyone who AI wouldn’t be helpful or that isn’t trustworthy enough. People make the /claim/ it’s not useful or they are better without it. When you sit down with them it often turns out they just don’t know how to use AI effectively.
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#15I don't often use AI in my work because it is not sufficiently useful not sufficiently trustworthy. It is my ongoing experience that AI + My Oversight requires more time than not using AI. Sometimes AI can answer slightly complex things in a helpful way. But for most of the integration troubleshooting I do, AI guidance varies between no help at all and fully wasting my time. Conversely, I support folks who have the c…
The variance in utility you're seeing is largely because AI performs best on problems with clear patterns and abundant training data, while struggling with novel edge cases and specialized domain knowledge that hasn't been well-represented in its training.
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#16reminds me of crypto a bit. most people i know are apathetic or dismissive. when i see normies use it - its to make selfies with celebrities. in 5-10 years AI will everywhere. a massive inequality creator. those who know how to use it and those who can afford the best tools. the biggest danger is dependency on AI. i really see people becoming dumber and dumber as they outsource more basic cognitive functions and deci…
> in 5-10 years AI will everywhere. a massive inequality creator.
That is possible, even likely. But AI can also decrease inequality. I'm thinking of how rich people and companies spend millions if not hundreds of millions on legal fees which keep them out of prison. But me, I can't afford a lawyer. Heck I can't even afford a doctor. I can't afford Stanford, Yale nor Harvard.
But now I can ask legal advice from AI, which levels that playing field. Everybody who has a computer or smartphone and internet-access can consult an AI lawyer or doctor. AI can be my Harvard. I can start a business and basically rely on AI for handling all the paperwork and basic business decisions, and also most recurring business tasks. At least that's the direction we are going I believe.
The "moat" in front of AI is not wide nor deep because AI by its very nature is designed to be easy to use. Just talk to it.
There is also lots of competition in AI, which should keep prices low.
The root-cause of inequality is corruption. AI could help reveal that and advise people how to fight it, making world a better more equal place.
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#17> such as datasets that are not properly integrated into the cloud I believe this is a core issue that needs to be addressed. I believe companies will need tools to make their data "AI ready" beyond things like RAG. I believe there needs to be a bridge between companies data-lakes and the LLM (or GenAI) systems. Instead of cutting people out of the loop (which a lot of systems seem to be attempting) I believe we need…
The Economist is filled with writers easily gulled by tech flim-flam.
They went big on Cryptocurrency back in the day as well.
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#18In contrast to the Economist blaming inefficient workers sabotaging the spread of this wonderful technology, make sure to check out https://pivot-to-ai.com/ where David Gerard has been questioning whether people are prompting it wrong or AI is just not that smart.
> David Gerard has been questioning whether people are prompting it wrong or AI is just not that smart.
If an AI can't understand well enunciated context, I'm not inclined to blame the person who is enunciating the context well.
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#19There was an article on HN a few days back on how it’s very hard to convey all the context in your head about a codebase to solve a problem, and that’s partly why it’s actually hard to use AI for non-trivial implementations. That’s not just limited to code.
I don’t use AI for most of my product work because it doesn’t know any of the nuances of our product, and just like doing code review for AI is boring and tedious, it’s also boring and tedious to exhaustively explain that stuff in a doc, if it can even be fully conveyed, because it’s a combination of strategy, hearsay from customers, long-standing convos with coworkers…
I’d rather just do the product work. Also, I’ve self-selected by survivorship bias to be someone who likes doing the product work too, which means I have even less desire to give it up.
Smarter LLMs could solve this maybe. But the difficulty of conveying information seems like a hard thing to solve.
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#20That's a whole lot of twisting to avoid admitting "it usually doesn't work, and even when it does work, it's usually not cost-effective even at the heavily-subsidized prices." Or maybe it's more about refusing to admit that executives are out of touch with concrete reality and are just blindly chasing trends instead.
Another issue, one that you alluded to, is imagine AI actually was reliable. And a company does lay off e.g. 30% of their employees to replace them with AI systems. How long before they get a letter from AI Inc 'Hi, we're increasing prices 500x in order to enhance our offerings and and improve customer satisfaction. Enjoy.'
The entire MO of big tech is trying to create a monopoly by the software equivalent of dumping (which is illegal in the US [1], but not for software, because reasons), marketshare domination, and then jacking effective pricing wayyyyy up. And in this case big tech companies are dumping absurdo amounts of money into LLMs, getting absurd funding, and then providing them for free or next to free. If a person has any foresight whatsoever it's akin to a rusting van outside an elementary, with blacked out windows, and with some paint scrawled on it, 'FREE ICECREAM.'
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)#Unite...