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Google’s ATLAS is a look at how people are using AI

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Re: Google’s ATLAS is a look at how people are using AI

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no chance I would trust a human to correctly tell me which wire was the high-voltage one, nor would I trust the documentation. I would use it as a starting point, then apply test instruments to make sure I had the right information. Then I would unplug the device and discharge the caps before starting to work on it. We need to start training people that AI answers are just as fallible as answers you get from…

AI psychosis. No, LLM generated answers are not the same as those from a qualified expert. Of course you should trust a human if that is their job and you should never trust a word generator to give you accurate answers to an important question.

Like the term "slop", misuse of a pop psychology term like "AI psychosis" is another block to critical thinking and a casual dismissal of a conversation.

You're right, LLM-generated answers are not the same as those from a qualified expert. Sometimes they're better.

Case in point. I recently had a discussion with a friend of mine about going off propranolol. He wanted to stop it because he didn't like the side effects and only wanted to take it as needed for anxiety-related problems in public situations. His primary care said to just stop taking the drug. Gemini told him that you need to have a tapering protocol, and you need to work it out with your doctor.

In this case, his primary care, theoretically a "qualified expert," was wrong, and Gemini was right. His course of action at that point was to get a new primary care that had better knowledge that matched the vetted medical sites I pointed him to.

fwiw, he trusted my advice and validation of his plan to get a new primary care doctor. The reason he trusted me is that he's seen the prescription drug disasters I've gone through, and knows how deeply I've had to educate myself as a form of self-defense.

Re: Google’s ATLAS is a look at how people are using AI

#122

In other words - "We don't like the reporting around how bad the economics of AI are, so we're cherry picking our own data, presenting it out of context, and asking you to look at it through rose tinted spectacles."

My startup is using AI every day. My company (not my startup, my normal day to day work) spends millions on ai token every month. I use AI every day for different things. AI/GenAI disrupted already a lot of peoples jobs in real life. And Google states very early "However within jobs, people are using AI selectively: in a typical job AI is used for only ~21% of tasks." Did you read the article? Can you point out speci…

Have you ever done research? It's very difficult to construct your measurements in such a way that they measure what you want them to. So in just your quoted statement there are many sources of uncertainty.

* what's a typical job? How did Google resample their data to make it representative of the typical job?

* is this all jobs, or just work-related Gemini conversations that they've classified as such?

* what's the denominator here? How do they know how many tasks there are that weren't subject to conversation with Gemini?

* how reliable is their classification of conversations as work related or not?

Accurately measuring this is so complex that to present the conclusion in such a confident way is bordering on farcical.

Re: Google’s ATLAS is a look at how people are using AI

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how AI or any kind of assistance is to be used. It's there to double-check and alert you to any possible mistakes you've made. You still have to use your own judgement. Have you never asked a person to take a look at some of your work? Did that mean that you have to follow and obey all of their advice?

Sounds a lot like "You're holding it wrong."

No, that what it means to be an adult. Blaming others for your mistakes is something we have to grow out of to become adults. Sadly, at least half of people never grow to be adults during their entire lifetime.

Re: Google’s ATLAS is a look at how people are using AI

#124
I'm very interested in their anonymization and classification processes. Traditionally, conversational writing is too complex to anonymize automatically without false negatives, and remaining PII might be very personal in nature.

> Observation Clustering and Taxonomy Organisation (OCTO), a tool for transforming massive unstructured text data, like LLM conversations, and distilling them into organized entities.

This also sounds interesting. Hand crafted ontologies that I've seen used were always too hard to maintain and make useful, but potentially they have something automated?

Re: Google’s ATLAS is a look at how people are using AI

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI psychosis. No, LLM generated answers are not the same as those from a qualified expert. Of course you should trust a human if that is their job and you should never trust a word generator to give you accurate answers to an important question.

Like the term "slop", misuse of a pop psychology term like "AI psychosis" is another block to critical thinking and a casual dismissal of a conversation. You're right, LLM-generated answers are not the same as those from a qualified expert. Sometimes they're better. Case in point. I recently had a discussion with a friend of mine about going off propranolol. He wanted to stop it because he didn't like the side effect…

Great example, but not for the reasons you think. You have zero qualifications to make that judgement call. You don’t know if the standard protocol was right in this instance or inappropriate (depends on dose side effects etc etc) and I certainly wouldn’t go anywhere near Gemini to try to verify that.

Please stop relying on word generators for medical advice, period.

Re: Google’s ATLAS is a look at how people are using AI

#126
post #107

These AI threads seem to attract the same kind of repetitive, low-effort dismissals that crypto threads used to.

Low-effort dismissals that crypto threads turned out to be correct. Is that what you meant to imply?

No, I didn't mean anything beyond what I wrote.

Re: Google’s ATLAS is a look at how people are using AI

#127

One possible interpretation of this article is that it’s very much in support of the idea that the AI bubble is going to burst. > AI use at work is broad but shallow: Workplace adoption spans all industry sectors and also 68% of all occupations that collectively represent 90% of total U.S. employment. However within jobs, people are using AI selectively: in a typical job AI is used for only ~21% of tasks. Translation…

Yeah, there has to be a bubble for it to burst. There doesn't seem to be one yet.

I guess I’d be pretty confused on how to not classify it as a bubble.

The level of investment and operating costs of AI firms is just so high that the question of where the customer spend comes from to make it profitable eventually comes into play.

The other obvious question is how AI firms maintain their bookings and overall value when the upper middle class responsible for the majority of consumption dollars is getting laid off left and right by AI.

E.g., OpenAI finally ships AGI and realizes their investment value and goes from unprofitable to profitable. They can charge companies thousands per month for their best models/tooling because they replace employees entirely.

All the big corporate customers of the world are happy: truck drivers are replaced by self-driving, big high-income employee bases like Meta, JPMorgan, law firms slash employee counts by huge amounts like 50% or maybe even more.

…and as soon as that happens all those same companies face massive customer attrition since all those high-earners were just laid off and aren’t buying PlayStations and KitchenAid stand mixers anymore.

Re: Google’s ATLAS is a look at how people are using AI

#128
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My startup is using AI every day. My company (not my startup, my normal day to day work) spends millions on ai token every month. I use AI every day for different things. AI/GenAI disrupted already a lot of peoples jobs in real life. And Google states very early "However within jobs, people are using AI selectively: in a typical job AI is used for only ~21% of tasks." Did you read the article? Can you point out speci…

Have you ever done research? It's very difficult to construct your measurements in such a way that they measure what you want them to. So in just your quoted statement there are many sources of uncertainty. * what's a typical job? How did Google resample their data to make it representative of the typical job? * is this all jobs, or just work-related Gemini conversations that they've classified as such? * what's the…

I really don't see any conclusions which would be such a game changer and critical, that this information has to be perfect.

And its Version 1 and an ongoing project.

"In the workplace, we show that while AI adoption spans occupations covering just above 88% of US employment, penetration remains shallow and overwhelmingly collaborative in nature, with end-to-end task automation limited in scope. Outside of work, AI spans activities making up about 98% of Americans’ non-sleep time, with disproportionately high use in high-friction tasks such as engaging with government and professional service providers, likely delivering economic value that standard national accounts may miss. Globally, adoption scales with national wealth and has broad linguistic distribution, with English queries representing only around a third of volume."

It sounds reasonable enough and it contains nothing off.

For me its interesting to read that english is less dominant and thats def something i was very atuned when GPT-3 came out: I started to write english and my native language and mixing up words etc. The quality of understanding in my native language is sledomly good when a new product comes out but it was very good already when using GPT-3.

In comparision to this, i'm also aware of a research paper stating that programming in certain languages like spanish is worse.

Re: Google’s ATLAS is a look at how people are using AI

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the term "slop", misuse of a pop psychology term like "AI psychosis" is another block to critical thinking and a casual dismissal of a conversation. You're right, LLM-generated answers are not the same as those from a qualified expert. Sometimes they're better. Case in point. I recently had a discussion with a friend of mine about going off propranolol. He wanted to stop it because he didn't like the side effect…

Great example, but not for the reasons you think. You have zero qualifications to make that judgement call. You don’t know if the standard protocol was right in this instance or inappropriate (depends on dose side effects etc etc) and I certainly wouldn’t go anywhere near Gemini to try to verify that. Please stop relying on word generators for medical advice, period.

Yes, you don't rely on an LLM solely for medical advice. You use it to get orientation to look at other sources. In my friend's case, I was relaying to him what I learned when taking a similar drug, my doctor's cautions on stopping the drug, what the manufacturer says about stopping the drug, and the published dosing schedule.

I guess you're right about me having zero qualifications. I only have a lifetime of experience with treatments for the various conditions I live with and the dozens of drugs that have failed to treat these conditions. I've been forced into self-education (learning how to read the research papers and the manufacturer info sheets) just like any patient with a complex medical situation needs to do for self-advocacy. This knowledge has helped me catch doctors' prescribing mistakes. I wish I'd had the skill before one such mistake toasted my kidneys.

Re: Google’s ATLAS is a look at how people are using AI

#130
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying drugs, using prediction markets, sending Palestinians money without The Man finding out.

So it pivoted from sending money to sending money...?

Again, it isn't money if it isn't generally accepted. Crypto was forced to pivot into an exotic investment thing that works great if you already have "regular money" to convert and spend. It is not money.
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