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Beliefs that are true for regular software but false when applied to AI

boydkane.com

281–290 of 461 posts

Re: Beliefs that are true for regular software but false when applied to AI

#281

For a real world example of the challenges of harnessing LLMs, look at Apple. Over a year ago they had a big product launch focused on "Apple Intelligence" that was supposed to make heavy use of LLMs for agentic workflows. But all we've really gotten since then are a couple of minor tools for making emojis, summarizing notifications, and proof reading. And they even had to roll back the notification summaries for a w…

Maybe they used their AI to design Liquid Glass. Impressive at first sight, but unusable in practice.

All form and no function, or in other words, slop.

Re: Beliefs that are true for regular software but false when applied to AI

#282
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sometimes need to want to quickly learn what's in an email that was written by someone less helpful. Eg sometimes the writer is outright antagonistic, because they have some obligation to tell you something, but don't actually want you to know.

This is a pretty damning example of backwards product thinking. How often, truly, does this happen?

Never heard of terms of service?

Re: Beliefs that are true for regular software but false when applied to AI

#283
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> minor tools for making emojis, summarizing notifications, and proof reading. The notification / email summaries are so unbelievably useless too: it’s hardly more work to skim the notification / email that I do anyway.

The Ring app notification summaries still scare me. > "A bunch of people right outside your house!!!" because it aggregates multiple single person walking by notifications that way...

Unrelated, but am I the only person who finds the concept of “getting notifications for somebody walking by a house” to be really creepy?

Re: Beliefs that are true for regular software but false when applied to AI

#284
post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody knows (full scope and on every level) how human brains work. Still bosses rely on their employees' brains all the time.

> Nobody knows (full scope and on every level) how human brains work. That is what the parent meant.

And my point is, that it does not matter. That we still rely on all kinds of things we do not fully grasp.

Re: Beliefs that are true for regular software but false when applied to AI

#285

For a real world example of the challenges of harnessing LLMs, look at Apple. Over a year ago they had a big product launch focused on "Apple Intelligence" that was supposed to make heavy use of LLMs for agentic workflows. But all we've really gotten since then are a couple of minor tools for making emojis, summarizing notifications, and proof reading. And they even had to roll back the notification summaries for a w…

My wife was in China recently and was sending back pictures of interesting things - one came in while I was driving and my iPhone read out a description of the picture that had been sent - "How cool is that!" I thought. However, when I stopped driving and looked at the picture the AI generated description was pretty poor - it wasn't completely wrong but it really wasn't what I was expecting given the description.

is this a complaint about the wife or the ai?

Re: Beliefs that are true for regular software but false when applied to AI

#286

For a real world example of the challenges of harnessing LLMs, look at Apple. Over a year ago they had a big product launch focused on "Apple Intelligence" that was supposed to make heavy use of LLMs for agentic workflows. But all we've really gotten since then are a couple of minor tools for making emojis, summarizing notifications, and proof reading. And they even had to roll back the notification summaries for a w…

> to perform up to Apple's typical standards of polish and control.

i no longer believe they have kept on to the standards in general. the ux/ui used to be a top priority, but the quality control has certainly gone down over the years [1]. the company is now driven by supply chain and business-minded optimizations than what to give to the end user.

at the same time, what one can do using AI has large correlation with what one does with their devices in the first place. a windows recall like feature for ipad os might have been interesting (if not equally controversial), but not that useful because even till this day it remains quite restrictive for most atypical tasks.

[1] https://www.macobserver.com/news/macos-tahoe-upside-down-ui-...

Re: Beliefs that are true for regular software but false when applied to AI

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife was in China recently and was sending back pictures of interesting things - one came in while I was driving and my iPhone read out a description of the picture that had been sent - "How cool is that!" I thought. However, when I stopped driving and looked at the picture the AI generated description was pretty poor - it wasn't completely wrong but it really wasn't what I was expecting given the description.

is this a complaint about the wife or the ai?

The Apple AI

Re: Beliefs that are true for regular software but false when applied to AI

#288
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Ring app notification summaries still scare me. > "A bunch of people right outside your house!!!" because it aggregates multiple single person walking by notifications that way...

That makes... That makes just enough sense to become nonsense, rather than mere noise. I mean, I could imagine a person with no common sense almost making the same mistake: "I have a list of 5 notifications of a person standing on the porch, and no notifications about leaving, so there must be a 5 person group still standing outside right now. Whadya mean, 'look at the times'?"

> A biologist, a physicist and a mathematician were sitting in a street cafe watching the crowd. Across the street they saw a man and a woman entering a building. Ten minutes they reappeared together with a third person.

> - They have multiplied, said the biologist.

> - Oh no, an error in measurement, the physicist sighed.

> - If exactly one person enters the building now, it will be empty again, the mathematician concluded.

https://www.math.utah.edu/~cherk/mathjokes.html

Re: Beliefs that are true for regular software but false when applied to AI

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about multiple notational variations? 1, 2, 3 1,2,3 [1,2,3] 1 2 3 etc.

What about them? It's possible for the question to unambiguously specify the required notational convention.

Is it? You have three wishes, which the maliciously compliant genie will grant you. Let’s hear your unambiguous request which definitely can’t be misinterpreted.

Re: Beliefs that are true for regular software but false when applied to AI

#290
post #194

For a real world example of the challenges of harnessing LLMs, look at Apple. Over a year ago they had a big product launch focused on "Apple Intelligence" that was supposed to make heavy use of LLMs for agentic workflows. But all we've really gotten since then are a couple of minor tools for making emojis, summarizing notifications, and proof reading. And they even had to roll back the notification summaries for a w…

> minor tools for making emojis, summarizing notifications, and proof reading. The notification / email summaries are so unbelievably useless too: it’s hardly more work to skim the notification / email that I do anyway.

It's not even that they are useless, they are actively wrong. I could post pages upon pages of screenshots of the summaries being literally wrong about the content of the messages it summarised.
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