One perhaps unpopular opinion: Could it be that the current AI is beneficial for young people in the sense that it is making them stop looking at their phone for a bit, and realize that certain tech is not that important for human well beeing? The change is in their/our hands after all, we just need to become aware, believe and vote with our wallet and the whole society will change in the blink of an eye. The hard part is the awareness and believing.
Steve Wozniak cheered after telling students they have AI – actual intelligence
201–210 of 575 posts
Re: Steve Wozniak cheered after telling students they have AI – actual intelligence
#202Unsurprising he'd be cheered for saying what they wanted to hear. But perhaps whether or not his stance is correct, the students needed to hear this. They (we) have to believe human brains still have value and find a way out; for otherwise there'd be no point to try anymore.
> They (we) have to believe human brains still have value and find a way out; for otherwise there'd be no point to try anymore. Our value isn't predicated on our utility. The simple fact that we are sentient beings, capable of joy and suffering, gives us value. This is why we continue to support and care for the elderly and the disabled - we value them regardless of any practical utility we may derive from them. If y…
> The simple fact that we are sentient beings, capable of joy and suffering, gives us value.
People will understandably ask, what is the actual value of being capable of joy and suffering?
I frame it another way. There is value in affording all beings dignity, respect, and the opportunity to thrive. The question of our individual value as a being is undignified. People can be more or less valuable to a particular effort, but there should be no question about their worth as a person. It should not be a part of how we understand people and ourselves.
It is a healthy conclusion that your value doesn't depend on your practical utility, because that will come and go and is sometimes beyond your control. Your value isn't a question at all.
Re: Steve Wozniak cheered after telling students they have AI – actual intelligence
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They (we) have to believe human brains still have value and find a way out; for otherwise there'd be no point to try anymore. Our value isn't predicated on our utility. The simple fact that we are sentient beings, capable of joy and suffering, gives us value. This is why we continue to support and care for the elderly and the disabled - we value them regardless of any practical utility we may derive from them. If y…
The problem with public policy is that it allows other countries to get ahead of you. 'AI' isn't just a tool, it's also a race.
The bigger race is education, which some countries are really falling behind on.
Re: Steve Wozniak cheered after telling students they have AI – actual intelligence
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
How can you be sure Eric Schmidt is telling “the truth” and Wozniak is lying? What’s your rationale and on the basis for such a claim?
Economic, market and product results. Schmidt took Google to the moon financially, speareding projects like Chrome and Android that cemented Google as THE tech titan(couch monopoly cough), whereas Woz was a top HW engineer of his time, but Apple would have quickly failed if he was at the helm calling the shots, instead of Jobs. From which would you take advice, the successful entrepreneur/investor, or the nice hacker…
I want advice from the one questioning whether we should, not just whether we can.
Re: Steve Wozniak cheered after telling students they have AI – actual intelligence
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They (we) have to believe human brains still have value and find a way out; for otherwise there'd be no point to try anymore. Our value isn't predicated on our utility. The simple fact that we are sentient beings, capable of joy and suffering, gives us value. This is why we continue to support and care for the elderly and the disabled - we value them regardless of any practical utility we may derive from them. If y…
A view that is not shared always by LLM cheerleaders. Part of Sam Altman's defence of the environmental impact of AI is that it is less than that of a human life. "He said it was unreasonable to focus on "how much energy it takes to train an AI model, relative to how much it costs a human to do one inference query." "It takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart," he…
It took a 100 billion people and their knowledge,experience to generate the data to train an AI. So that cost also comes under the environmental costs to build his version of AI.
unless he plans to freeze the training data at this point and use that for another billion years, the cost of building AI will always be more than the cost of humanity.
Re: Steve Wozniak cheered after telling students they have AI – actual intelligence
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
I saw him give a graduation speech over twenty years ago, and to be honest, he was not a great public speaker then--he rambled and lost the plot. But twenty years is a long time, so he may be amazing now! I love the quote.
Anecdata, but of the clips I've seen going around from Woz's speech, there were quite a few comments from people who claimed to have been there for the whole ceremony, most of which said that he was rambling and all over the place lol. Not bad necessarily, just that they felt like he wasn't really all that engaging, they were bored out of their minds, and some barely even knew who he was. Again, internet comments, so…
I've only been to the low tens of graduations, but in my experience this is pretty common for a speaker. A couple highlights and otherwise a little boring :)
Now of course, there are exemplary speakers who keep you engaged the whole time, but they're rare.
Re: Steve Wozniak cheered after telling students they have AI – actual intelligence
#207This whole situation with students cheering and booing is kind of strange. Aren't students, at least anecdotally, outsourcing a lot of _their_ work to LLMs? And upon graduation when they're told that it's their future they don't like it?
I described a bit of this in reply to thinkingemote, but to:
> And upon graduation when they're told that it's their future they don't like it?
They aren't being told it's their future. They're being told they have no future because AI will remove the world's dependence on them (well, the professional side of it at least).
Re: Steve Wozniak cheered after telling students they have AI – actual intelligence
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah studies, those things nobody ever cares to reproduce. At least you provided a source! Er… wait, you didn’t even tell us your laptop model, describe the paper other than in terms of token size, or where these well rested graduate students (read: unicorns) hide from the rest of the world. Give it a bit more effort next time.
20k tokens is about 40 pages of text. Weekly i do about 1000x that. (I am very low lever user) I really do not think there is a point to argue here. Also why you have to be unicorn to comprehend 40 pages paper? I often do it with no sleep, while drunk. Hardly unicorn!
> I often do it with no sleep, while drunk. Hardly unicorn!
Yes, I can tell.
Re: Steve Wozniak cheered after telling students they have AI – actual intelligence
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
How can you be sure Eric Schmidt is telling “the truth” and Wozniak is lying? What’s your rationale and on the basis for such a claim?
Economic, market and product results. Schmidt took Google to the moon financially, speareding projects like Chrome and Android that cemented Google as THE tech titan(couch monopoly cough), whereas Woz was a top HW engineer of his time, but Apple would have quickly failed if he was at the helm calling the shots, instead of Jobs. From which would you take advice, the successful entrepreneur/investor, or the nice hacker…
Wozniak, every time. Gigantic financial success at the expense of everything Google has negatively impacted isn't something I would be proud of.
Everyone defines success differently, and Schmidt's "success" is, frankly, unappealing and gross to myself and, I'm sure, many others.
There's a lot more to life and the world than the economy and massive financial gains. Focusing on "economic, market and product results" yet mentioning nothing about the impact to people and customers is how Zuckerberg sleeps at night, and that's ugly to me.
Re: Steve Wozniak cheered after telling students they have AI – actual intelligence
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
Economic, market and product results. Schmidt took Google to the moon financially, speareding projects like Chrome and Android that cemented Google as THE tech titan(couch monopoly cough), whereas Woz was a top HW engineer of his time, but Apple would have quickly failed if he was at the helm calling the shots, instead of Jobs. From which would you take advice, the successful entrepreneur/investor, or the nice hacker…
I want advice from the one questioning whether we should, not just whether we can.
OK, and who's stopping you? Take your advice from whoever you want.
History tends to shows the pragmatists wiping out the luddites out of the gene pool/business market, but you are free to make your choice the way you see fit, nobody is forcing you to follow anyone.