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ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

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101–110 of 166 posts

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#101

AI is gimmick, smartphones are gimmick, computers are gimmick, automation is gimmick, books are gimmick, only %MY_ENLIGHTMENT% is not. Seriously, I understand saying something lime this about crypto or whatever meme of the day, but even current LLMs are literal magic. Instead of reading 10 pages of empty water and wasting my time, ChatGPT can summarize this as > Malesic argues that AI hype—especially in education—is…

Turns out that AI is not good at summarising things: https://futurism.com/ai-chatbots-summarizing-research

Ok, I disagree.

Out of curiosity, I used ChatGPT to make a summary of “FreeBSD vs Linux comparison”, and if came out as extremely fair and to the point, in my opinion.

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#102
post #95
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but yesterday I was working on NFS server tuning on Linux, a typically quite difficult thing to find relevant info about through search engines. I asked Claude 3.5 to suggest some kernel settings or compile-time tweaks, and it provided me with entirely made up answers about kernel variables that don't exist, and makefile options that don't exist. So maybe another LLM would have fared better, but still, so far…

I mean you answered yourself why it didn't work, if there is no useful data in its training corpus, it would be a miracle if it could correctly guess unknown information.

How are you supposed to know in advance if it is going to be able to usefully answer your question or will just make up something?

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how that definition of a gimmick applies to what I wrote. Labeling AI tools as gimmicks would imply that they both save labor and inflate it and therefore offer no real fundamental improvements or value. In my own experience, that is absolute nonsense, and I have gotten immense amounts of value from it. Most of the critical arguments (like the link) are almost always from people that use them as basic chatbo…

Another commenter on here talked about AI's ability to "impress an idiot". I see lots of this. Your usage sounds decidedly unidiotic, and I'm not saying you are an idiot - but it sounds like your view of the criticism is based on the idea that everyone who isn't using it as cleverly as you essentially is an idiot who simply hasn't realised how to get to a "deeper understanding" in the "exploration" of these tools. Pl…

> When I see you put the idea forward, I think, oh, neat, but surely it'd be much more effective if you did a 30s sketch for each word, and improved your drawing as you went.

Or, you know, just imagine something. Which is what I have done for learning to speak 3 languages fluently other than my mother tongue.

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> value out of AI (specifically ChatGPT and Midjourney) The one area I would agree that AI and ML tools have been surprisingly good, art generation. But then, I see the flood of AI generated pictures and overall, feel it has made a already troublesome world, even more troublesome. I am starting to see the "the picture is AI made, or AI modified" excuses coming into mainstream. A picture now, has lost all meaning. > b…

The fact that most ai art is generic garbage just reflects the lack of imagination most people have when making it. Sad but true. The actual tools themselves are incredible. And I meant myself thinking and analyzing a piece of writing with the help of ChatGPT, not ChatGPT itself “thinking.” (Although I frankly think this is somewhat of an irrelevant point, if the machine is thinking.) Because I have absolutely gained…

> Because I have absolutely gained tons of new insights and knowledge by asking ChatGPT to analyze an idea and suggest similar concepts.

Are you going to test them by building something or using these concepts in conversation with specialists?

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another commenter on here talked about AI's ability to "impress an idiot". I see lots of this. Your usage sounds decidedly unidiotic, and I'm not saying you are an idiot - but it sounds like your view of the criticism is based on the idea that everyone who isn't using it as cleverly as you essentially is an idiot who simply hasn't realised how to get to a "deeper understanding" in the "exploration" of these tools. Pl…

> When I see you put the idea forward, I think, oh, neat, but surely it'd be much more effective if you did a 30s sketch for each word, and improved your drawing as you went. Or, you know, just imagine something. Which is what I have done for learning to speak 3 languages fluently other than my mother tongue.

I actually don't really imagine anything, I like the sounds and contours of words and find them easy to learn in the context of punchy sentences. But vividly imagining sounds fun too

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#106

One of the realisations I've had recently is that the AI hype feels like another level from what's come before because AI itself is creating the "hype" content fed to me (and my bosses and colleagues) all over social media. The FOMO tech people are having with AI is out of control - everyone assumes that everyone else is having way more success with it than they are.

A product that hypes itself. What a world. That does explain a lot of the cognitive dissonance going around.

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that most ai art is generic garbage just reflects the lack of imagination most people have when making it. Sad but true. The actual tools themselves are incredible. And I meant myself thinking and analyzing a piece of writing with the help of ChatGPT, not ChatGPT itself “thinking.” (Although I frankly think this is somewhat of an irrelevant point, if the machine is thinking.) Because I have absolutely gained…

> Because I have absolutely gained tons of new insights and knowledge by asking ChatGPT to analyze an idea and suggest similar concepts. Are you going to test them by building something or using these concepts in conversation with specialists?

Not sure what you mean by testing them. I specifically mean knowledge, historical facts, new books and philosophers to study, etc. I have discovered new writers that I didn’t know about because ChatGPT suggested them.

And likewise, using AI to critique a piece of writing is already “testing it,” as it definitely makes useful suggestions.

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#108

Slightly meta, this entire article is filled with quotes from other speakers to highlight a point the author is trying to make, in many cases too hard. It’s as if the author himself didn’t have his own thoughts, and borrowed some sentences others made to write this piece. I don’t know what kind of writing style this is. If you are writing an opinion, why not devote some effort to articulate your own thoughts, or at t…

He may have used an LLM. :D

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#109

AI is gimmick, smartphones are gimmick, computers are gimmick, automation is gimmick, books are gimmick, only %MY_ENLIGHTMENT% is not. Seriously, I understand saying something lime this about crypto or whatever meme of the day, but even current LLMs are literal magic. Instead of reading 10 pages of empty water and wasting my time, ChatGPT can summarize this as > Malesic argues that AI hype—especially in education—is…

> Instead of reading 10 pages of empty water and wasting my time, ChatGPT can summarize this as

Definitely worth investing billions and wasting insane amount of energy... idk how people merge the "this is a revolution!" and "it kinda summed up a 10 pages pdf that I couldn't bother to read in the first place" without noticing the insane amount of mental gymnastic you have to go through to reconcile these two ideas.

Not even mentioning the millions of new LLM generated pages that are now polluting the web

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a baby 4 year old leap in technology, why are people expecting it to be mature? Because its fans act as though it is, and this article is a response to that overly-enthusiastic outlook on what the tool can do.

I don't think people are "acting" like its mature. It's extremely useful to many (myself included). And it's nonsensical for people to claim it's not useful simply because they haven't found the use.

This pretty much sums it up. I have found it to be incredibly useful. Others might have not, but then again, you have to approach it the right way. Feed it context, be as specific as possible, and do not expect 100% accuracy. I once a fed a conversation to ChatGPT and it missed something that I had to point out. The fact that it missed something does not make me go: "AI sucks", it is just simply not perfect, and it still can be very useful. I had better experiences with Claude than ChatGPT anyways.
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