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Not everyone is using AI for everything

gabrielweinberg.com

441–450 of 565 posts

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#441
post #82
post #72

On the post-grad job hunt right now - I note that most employers will ask in a technical interview or whiteboard interview "how are you using LLMs?" It's tough to answer because you want to hedge for both an AI enthused employer and an AI hesitant employer with limited information about who they are and how they personally use these products. I've been responding with a sort of long winded answer about how 'there is…

> It's tough to answer because you want to hedge for both an AI enthused employer and an AI hesitant employer with limited information about who they are and how they personally use these products. Have you considered just answering truthfully? Would you even want to work somewhere where you need to play a role and where they flip out when you say the wrong word you should've correctly guessed through mind reading? T…

The two job interviews I had recently - the interviewers were clearly AI maximalists. My answer each time had been to the effect of "yeah I use it but I make sure to check it over thoroughly since it can make mistakes" and I'm guessing that wasn't the answer they were looking for.

It's a gamble of the dice as to whether the engineering manager is equally realistic about LLMs or has unrealistic expectations about what LLMs can or can't do.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#442
post #82
post #72

On the post-grad job hunt right now - I note that most employers will ask in a technical interview or whiteboard interview "how are you using LLMs?" It's tough to answer because you want to hedge for both an AI enthused employer and an AI hesitant employer with limited information about who they are and how they personally use these products. I've been responding with a sort of long winded answer about how 'there is…

> It's tough to answer because you want to hedge for both an AI enthused employer and an AI hesitant employer with limited information about who they are and how they personally use these products. Have you considered just answering truthfully? Would you even want to work somewhere where you need to play a role and where they flip out when you say the wrong word you should've correctly guessed through mind reading? T…

This isn’t an AI problem. You can’t ask anyone to “be truthful” on any subject because everyone sees through their own world perspective.

Two people might say “they love camping!!”

But does it mean…

- Going camping twice/year and partying by the river?

- Or going 20 times per year, sometimes on 4 week long trips?

Both types of people will, with complete honesty, tell you “they love camping” and only you, the asker of the question, can decode what that means. ayli can’t

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4 years into job hunting. Answering truthfully does not work. Nobody likes the truth, and every bit of advise i get from anyone is to lie (though, some of them use euphemisms to avoid saying "lie").

This might not describe you, but I've met quite a few people who made similar claims. The problem usually wasn't that their counterparty didn't want to hear the truth. More commonly, the problem was that these persons assumed (and were convinced) that they knew the truth. Truth is rarely absolute and someone claiming to know it is a red flag in my book. Double so if multiple persons indicated their disagreement. Agai…

Truth is easy when the question is about your own involvement in something. You just don't lie and don't intentionally deceive. This isn't about technical arguments, or moral quandary, or ambiguous situations, it's about marketing yourself in a world where you are expected to lie about your accomplishments to look better. Citing metrics you know are not accurate, but make you look good. Overselling your own involvement in a project. Up-selling the impact of a project by not disclosing the parts you know would undermine your perceived competence.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#444
post #28

I only use AI for software development. For writing, I don't use it at all except to translate source materials. So yes, AI is only for software development in my case. The real question is whether I have any value outside of software development. Sometimes I get the feeling that AI is replacing the value I have in society.

I don't think AI has any real value for software development, personally. The quality just isn't there, unless you invest so much effort that you may as well have written it yourself. But the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent, and even though I think the industry will get over the idiocy of having LLMs write software, there's no telling how long that will take. So it's a scary time to work i…

> So it's a scary time to work in tech even if I think the trend will ultimately reverse.

I honestly can't see things going back to what it was 5 years ago. We will probably not have the future that Anthropic hopes for, but I think every developer will be required to chat with AI as part of the planning process to reduce a companies "bus factor" risk.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#445
post #29
post #4

The numbers given in the article are actually consistent with what is usually meant by “everyone” in such statements. Sure, it’s not literally everyone. But it’s a very significant percentage, especially given how quick the adoption has been.

I think what people mean by everyone varies a lot, which is why I wanted to draw attention to more specific numbers. For example, in the Datos data cited[1], on desktop 86% were using traditional search engines >10 visits/month vs. only 21% for AI chat tools. That is indeed a very significant percentage, but more than 4x less than search and (at least I) wouldn't say that ~1/5 is "everyone." [1] https://sparktoro.com…

The numbers are interesting, I agree, as is the overall post.

And as a clickbait headline, "not everyone" makes sense.

But, realistically, the NYT obviously isn't talking about, say, the North Sentinelese islanders. Similarly, it's probably not really talking about people who don't do the kind of white collar work where AI is, so far, most prevalent.

In fact, the group the NYT is most likely referring to as "everyone" is really "readers of the NYT". It might be hard to come up with numbers for that, but I suspect they'd be a lot higher.

Anecdotally, at the company I'm at (late-stage venture-backed), everyone from software developers to people on the marketing, sales, and finance side are using AI. And we're not unique. This will make the statement ring true to many people, even if it's not globally true in an absolute sense.

This all makes more sense once you've truly internalized the Yogi Berra quote about a certain popular restaurant: "No one goes there anymore. It's too crowded."

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#446
post #82
post #72

On the post-grad job hunt right now - I note that most employers will ask in a technical interview or whiteboard interview "how are you using LLMs?" It's tough to answer because you want to hedge for both an AI enthused employer and an AI hesitant employer with limited information about who they are and how they personally use these products. I've been responding with a sort of long winded answer about how 'there is…

> It's tough to answer because you want to hedge for both an AI enthused employer and an AI hesitant employer with limited information about who they are and how they personally use these products. Have you considered just answering truthfully? Would you even want to work somewhere where you need to play a role and where they flip out when you say the wrong word you should've correctly guessed through mind reading? T…

At this point, why wouldn't you ask on the phone screen what attitude towards AI is?

I would hedge towards AI usage if you didn't probe before and then justify why.

Ymmv, can also gauge whether you want to work for the company based on this

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#447
post #295

It's important to factor in just how many US adults are basically illiterate nowadays. As of 2023, 27% of American working-age adults were at a PIAAC Literacy Level of 1 or below, out of a total of 5 levels. This has gotten drastically worse in the past 10 years as, in 2013, Level 1 and below was only 17%. Full scores for 2023 are: % Level 1 or below: 27% Level 2: 29% Level 3: 31% Level 4/5: 13% For reference, Level…

I lurk on the teachers subreddit and get shown videos by teachers on TikTok and the impression I get from that algorithmic bubble is that the kids can't read any more - reading comprehension in particular is terrible. Lots of anecdotes of kids who can't read a few paragraphs and then answer questions about what was in them.

My impression of that sub is that it's a lot of people who went through honors classes in a "good" school district, and are now teaching non-honors, potentially in a "bad" school district and are discovering how the other half lives.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny cause I just interviewed some people last month and I asked the same exact question. And the answer to your question is probably. The technology is so new that I expect people to have a variety of different opinions. From the 3 people I interviewed, all of the answers are very similar which is along the lines of: Kinda, but we need to be careful of using it, privacy, hallucination, etc. All very safe answe…

It sounds like you're an AI-happy employer though. What if their truthful answer was that they never tried to use LLMs and refuse to because they waste water or because of an overconfident view of their own skills, or they don't want to help a clanker steal their job? These are all popular beliefs that can easily come from following the right crowd rather than forming their own opinion. In fact, from what I usually h…

I guess that's the point though? If their opinion only comes from common popular opinions, then that signal is quite useless to me.

In this case though, I'll admit that it would be a negative signal if they never tried it even once and refuse to do so. You can't make a solid opinion on things you never try after all. It would be different if they at least gave it a shot and disliked it.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#449
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sci-fi novel A Fire in the Deep starts with describing a Software Archeologist, who digs through millennia of strata of layers of indirection and I think we could end up needing that one day.

Do they end up determining that every weird piece of code they find must have been used for religious or ritualistic purposes?

Ascension to AI plays a quasi-religious, soteriological role in the world of the book.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#450
post #227

> AI has gotten so good that despite any misgivings, “everyone is using A.I.” In my experience, it's a mixed bag. I wrote this comment[0], yesterday. It reflects my current work, and how I am integrating an LLM. I have used it for two parts of my project: 1) The backend (PHP), and 2) The frontend (Swift) It has been a huge help, in both, but #2 is a cautionary tale. It really needs adult supervision, in developing na…

My experience was different. I found it extremely good at fronting technology like react while I had to hand hold it for the backend tasks. Even with fable it was the same.

React is pretty mature (now), and has a lot of hardcore production sample code out there.

I suspect that the LLM training got much more from the react community, than Swift.

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